Semi-Daily Scribbles

Carving out a corner to post random crap.

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  • Stream


    StreamNellie didn't want to stay with the picnickers. The potato salad sat heavy in her gut, and she couldn't keep still on the grass-stained quilt to watch Sheena flash her engagement ring to her sorority sisters. Nellie was the first person to whom her cousin had shown the pear-shaped pink diamond. It was ugly. Sheena's fiancé was fake. Nellie thought of him as a plastic man, and figured someone else's plastic was what Bruce used to pay for the hideous ring. Feeling bloated and anxious, Nellie struggled to get to her feet. She felt Sheena's disappointment before turning around and seeing the pout on her cousin's face.

    "Just need to stretch my legs, sweetie. Won't be long." Sheena spoke right over Nellie's words, telling the woman seated next to her about how she thought peas made a nice addition to potato salad. Nellie suppressed a belch and walked off toward the sound of a trickling stream hidden in a stand of poplars. She was nauseas as she approached the trees. Nellie wanted to hang from the highest silvery limb, or dip her head in a sparkling ribbon of water. It was a day made for just such activities, and Nellie sighed as she entered the thicket's cool, diffused light. She soon forgot about her stomach ache as she tried to keep count of the tadpoles darting in front of her nose.

  • Barefoot


    BarefootThe way we came into the world: barefoot and wailing. Screaming is useful for relieving stress. Shoelessness, our natural state. Oh, but how I miss my young, supple feet! Squeezed and jacked-up over a span of years, each foot conformed to a code which ended up cracking skin and the occasional man-made heel. It was all for show, and part of the deal. My distinguished service awards now come in the form of calluses and bunions. I should be enjoying more satisfying rewards had I the courage to step away from those perilous stilettos and pointy toes; instruments intended to carry me all the way to the top.

  • Tree


    TreeThe best ideas come to you when resting in the shade of an apple tree. The future is on hold as you look up to count the reds, and yellows, and greens hanging off heavy limbs. A cloud of sweetness lures the birds and worms to your tiny corner of the orchard. The future is nothing to those who dive headlong into the moment, capturing the ripeness that lasts all of one second. They do tick by, however. Seconds. They have their own way of burrowing into your sacred space and changing your mind from opened to closed. An internal censor senses a wastefulness in the way your brain has been connecting the fish in the sea, and the stars in the sky, to the windfall moldering all around you. Life, in its abundance, meets its season of decline in silence, and unawares.

  • Perspective

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  • Self


    SelfLynn looked high and low for her identity. She remembered having it when she talked to the nice man at the bank. Lynn stayed up late the night before polishing the persona she knew would snag her a loan. The money would set her up with a truck and tools so she could pull other people's weeds. Lynn needed dirt and sky. Desks never did fit. Too much muscle being robbed of a job. Lynn needed motion, but she wasn't going anywhere if her made-to-order Self didn't come out of hiding. Lynn believed money would make all the difference, but the woman she had become didn't like having all her needs filled. The wild had been tamed, the challenge was gone, and dandelions dug in deep to stand their ground. The wind changed course, too, and the bank went looking for the nice lady to whom they had given a loan.

  • Family

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  • Memories


    MemoriesMemories made in the month of August are filed away for a winter's day. Heat pricking the backs of my legs will be sorely missed when the chill wind attempts to carve its mark in my flesh. Animals will have gone to ground, or curled up next to a fireplace blaze. All of them dreaming of easy abundance. If provisions have not been squirreled away by the time darkness owns the hours, worshippers of the sun will wither and return to the soil, never again to build up a store of August memories.

  • Laughter

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  • embrace

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  • Home Away From Home


    Home Away From HomeIt was Ted's dream to buy an island. It didn't have to be big, and he didn't need a public market on the corner to survive, but potable water and a few trees were essential. Ted was an avid angler, so the thought of fish on the menu most days didn't faze him in the least. He wanted seclusion, but didn't want to travel to the ends of the earth to reach his home away from home. After all, he had to have a few friends drop in, from time to time, to tell him how relaxed he looked. It was hard relaxing at the office. His volatile boss made sure Ted never had a clear understanding of his function in the machine. Money needed to be made, and it was definitely being made, but where was it going? Ted didn't know, and no one could answer the question on the few occasions he dared to ask. Ted liked to think every time he moved columns around on his spreadsheet, he was helping someone achieve his dream. Ted tried not to think about how many spreadsheets he'd need to populate before his own dream materialized from out of the roiling blue depths.