twinkle, twinkle, little snarl.

Sometimes, I'll be showering, or making the bed, or doing the bottomless pile of laundry and dishes, and I'll be thinking about some post that one of the bloggers I enjoy reading wrote "the other day" (as I am wont to refer to happenings from any point in the past six months), and I'm musing over its brilliance, and adding my own thoughts to it as I hum something to amuse my son as he bangs kitchen utensils together near my feet, but when I reach the laptop when evening has arrived and I'm free to be me for a spare hour, I can't remember what post/blogger I was musing over.  And I scroll through my blogroll, and I think, shit!  Which - who -- shit!

And, yes, I am aware that I could be, instead of posting this whinendium of my bloggy difficulties, adding blogs to my bloglines account, that sits lonely and alone, day after day, with nary a tumbleweed to amuse its pages, but when?  And besides, gah.  I'd rather be reading blogs, or posting.  Mostly, though, reading.  Never mind commenting.  I just don't seem to have anything fabulous to add to the conversation, lately, which is not to say I'm looking for tea and sympathy (unless there's cake or little, divine sandwiches with the crusts cut off served with the tea, in which case, bring that shite ON), I'm not.  I just want everyone who bothers to come around to this place and deliver the occasional heart-warming thought-bubble to me to be aware of the Mt. Everest-sized mound of gratitude I possess for each of you.  Every last spanking one of you.

*beams, with fingers threaded over heart*

This is also to say that I will, at some point, remember to post about things like my parents, who purchased a lifetime supply of crazy from Amway in the seventies and now they're always trying to get me to buy a relative amount (get it? relative?  sorry.), and I just don't wanna.  But they keep on pushin', 'cause they're pushers for the lord.  (Should that be capitalized?  Well, I'm not gonna.  Mehhh, I say.  Mehhh.)  And I'll also tell you all about my glorious, star-studded list of various fields of employment in which I have tra-la-la'd, and loitered and picked daisies and sometimes just spat a loogie onto before skipping off to find greener pastures, with fewer smelly cow pies.

Doesn't all of that sound divine?  And seductive?  Oh, yes.  To be sure. 

Until then, I'll leave you with a story I wrote a few years ago, and I'll try really hard to comment on the conversation it brings about, if it does (I'm still surprised when my words elicit a reaction of any kind).  I need to say something about commenting on comments RIGHT THIS MINUTE, before I forget *again*.  I know it's sort of a good-etiquette thing to comment on comments, but I kind of hate doing it.  I always feel like I'm just going to sound really stupid, responding to responses to my thoughts, and I get all nervous and shit, and can't bring myself to get the comment-on-the-comments written.  I love everything you all say, and I always *want* to respond, but - oh.  Shit.  This, THIS is why I don't.  Because my tongue runs around in circles until it's all spittle-y and tired and the result makes no sense.  I shall shut up about it, forthwith.

Here's the story.  It's kinda dumb, if you ask me, but I still kind of like it.  So you probably just shouldn't ask me, since I'm more than a little Sybil-ish about the whole thing.

Shut!  Up!  Debbie!

Okay.  Have a nice evening, everyone, and a Monday that doesn't bring on a case of the Mondays.

xo

p.s. I hope that somehow, typepad is having a forgetful day, and fails to realize that it usually sends in the anti-formatting gestapo, and, in anomalous fashion, somehow allows the Word format to work perfectly after I cut/paste the piece, even though I know that I'm asking for the moon.  May I have it, typepad, please? 

***********

Vegas.

She fingered the chips on the table and glanced over at him.  His shirt, so crisply white a few hours ago, now looked dingy under the garish lights of the cavernous room.  A cocktail waitress over her shoulder leaned in and mouthed, "Drink?"  She shook her head, a small gesture.  He nodded and muttered when his turn came.  She watched his body as it rotated back to focus on the game.  It was taut and squared, despite the exhaustion that seeped from his pores in wispy trails.  She swung around and stood up, walking away before he could catch her eye.

The kaleidoscopic swirls of color in the carpet were mimicking confetti being constantly tossed and littered everywhere.  The party that all the other people in the room were on must have deemed the carnival atmosphere necessary.  She trailed across the floor and imagined tossing pieces of carpet confetti in the air, watching as it came down on people's heads.  She wondered whether they would notice that it was rougher than normal paper confetti, that it was actually pieces of carpet, with the scratchy underside still attached to the loops of fibers, or if the revelers were all too drunk to care.  She pictured them each waking up the next day with carpet burns on various portions of their bodies - but no, carpet burns are from when you're playing with your brother and you're seven and he wrestles you to the ground and puts you in a headlock and pulls your hair and you're downstairs in the rumpus room on the shag rug and you twist and struggle to get free but as you do you scrape your elbow heavily on the rug and sustain the itchy sore that is the true definition of a carpet burn.  Ahhh yes.  That's right, she realized, and scrapped the thought of carpet confetti.

She moved past row after row of machines that bleeped and woozled and tweeted at her to come, to feed them with her silver pieces, and she began to notice the ones that had clown faces scattered amongst the cartoons in the jackpot games.  Clowns.  Whoever thought that clowns are remotely amusing, she wondered, bitter.  She let the primary colors spread themselves across her brain; red, blue, yellow, green.  Drifting in a room filled with primary colors.  Spinning around with red balls and green flags and blue curtains and yellow snakes and cobwebs cobwebs cobwebs red green blue black spinning ensnaring her in their ever-tightening shawl spun for her sake.  She tried to run but the colors were bleeding bleeding from the walls green blue yellow orange brown and falling and she was suddenly very dizzy and then someone was placing something moist on her forehead and shaking her shoulders and saying faintly recognizable phrases what?  What do you want?  Do you -- have you got him?  Is he here?  Because if you don't, please don't bother with this shaking business.  Just leave me be, here in this web of rainbow blood just go away, as she batted at them with her useless, fluttering fingers and empty mouth.  And then he was there, picking her up, so gently, so very gently, and she was resisting, she struggled, like a little moth caught by the cat, her screams thin as he carried her away from the room where the confetti made all the others smile and the colors bleed and the machines continued with their sing-song bleeps of invitation while, with her face pale, she held her fists to her ears, as he carried her away.

Comments

[Izzy]

I know you must be a writer in real life. If not, I only ask "Why the hell not?" Your attention to detail is remarkable... Brava brava!

[Mommy off the Record]

This was worth staying up until 1am to read. I second Izzy's comment. You MUST be a writer in real life. Now fess up and tell us who you write for. Come on!

Really, beautiful writing. Loved it so much. Have you published any of your short stories before? If not, you should submit them somewhere.

[Sunshine Scribe]

Seriously, Izzy and MOTR are on too something ... you have some confessing to do!

I loved this piece. It was delicious and so perfectly crafted. Thanks for sharing!

[Jenny]

Wow. I want more.

I feel this story...so much it scares me.

I could smell it, hear it...your imagery is amazing.

[bubandpie]

I have to comment on the commenting-on-comments thing. (It may be worth a post, at some point, but how much more suitable to deal with it in the comments section!)

I often comment on my comments, but I always do so with a feeling of embarrassment that (a) I am simply inflating my comments number to look like I'm more popular than I am, and (b) I'm creating the absurd impression that I expect people to keep checking back at my blog just to re-read the comments in case I respond. And then there's the issue of how to go about it: Do I scrupulously reply specifically to every single comment I receive? Do I reply only when I have something specific to say (and in that case does it look like I am bored by/ungrateful for the rest of the comments)?

Maybe it's better to reply only by email (or with a return comment at the commenter's blog). I kind of make up my policy as I go along. If it's a participation-oriented post, I respond frequently, and if it's a "look-how-cute-my-kids-are" post, I'm not going to fill up space by thanking everybody individually for acknowledging the cuteness.

[Marcie]

"(Should that be capitalized? Well, I'm not gonna. Mehhh, I say. Mehhh.)" That had me laughing this morning. Even when you have nothing to say it's still entertaining as hell! As for your story. Hmmm. Is there more? I want to know where he carried her away to.

[something blue]

Damn fine writing. "The kaleidoscopic swirls of color..." and "carpet confetti." Love IT! So vivid.

I need to get to Vegas.

[Her Bad Mother]

Just, beautiful.

(On the commenting on commenting - if it's good etiquette, then I am one rude mother. I rarely do it. Usually because I don't expect people to come back, so it feels like I'm just talking to myself. If a comment really provokes me, I return comment or e-mail.)

[lildb]

okay. my love of breaking rules I make for myself is on display in this comment. I decide to own up to not liking to write hot comment-on-comment action (bow-chicka-bow-bow), and I find myself irresistibly drawn to commenting. on this, the very post that references it. and no one who wrote a comment will read it, b/c they all think I don't do comment-on-comment blogging.

I am the biggest dork alive.

so, to the meat of my comment - because that first part was just an appetizer. ya'll hungry for more? or were my verbal spring rolls too greasy?

a) Vegas, baby. VEGAS!!! Something Blue, I've been working on Jenny to meet me in Vegas sometime. I'd love to get a mad crew together to hit that town, hard, for a voracious, 36-48 tour of insanity. doesn't that sound fabulous, and frightening, all at once? Mommy off the Record, I KNOW you're in. Once you've weaned the boy, and can power a few non-cyber margaritas sans guilt, that is. And BubandPie, don't you think a trip to the original sin city would be excellent fodder for some great professorial lectures, and/or writing, and or blogging? Marcie, I KNOW you're with me, right? Vegas, for just a day and a half! Sunshine Scribe, if I could wrestle you away from your sweet Sunshine boy, you'd have such fun, you old Sagittarius blackguard, you. IZZY - matey, you, I believe firmly, would be forcing me to drink more scotch-and-waters (my Vegas drink of choice; well, that and Heiney) than I could possibly hold. And HBM - if we put the trip off for long enough, maybe you could go, once wonderbaby is consuming more solids than breastmilk?

and, of course, this goes without saying, but anyone else who would want to meet up in Vegas - dude. yes. let's go.

b) psyche! there's no b). I got nothin'. well, except, VEGAS!!! (ahhh, Jonny Favreau, your best celluloid moment, in my mind.)

xo

[Andrea]

Girl, you seriously crack me up. And you called little old me funny the other day. Wha? Not compared to you.

And I just loved the story. More! *banging on the table with my fists and a petulant look on my face* More! More!

[Emily]

This story effectively conjures a hideous and nauseating feeling that I've felt many times. What it is, I'm not sure. If you put up some *new* stuff--I'd consider doing that too. This was written a bit ago, yes? Posting fiction scares the crap outta me.
I'm in on the Vegas thing. Gotta get the baby off the tit to a certain extent, though.

[Lily]

Ok. Yeah. What IS the rule for commenting and commenting on commenting or commenting on comments in comments or via email?

Sometimes I respond, sometimes I don't. I just like to respond with more than "Yeah. I know, huh."

[Ruth Dynamite]

Ah, shouldn't whatever happens in Vegas stay in Vegas - precisely because things tend to get kind of swirly?

Loved it. More please.

[Catherine]

*sigh* You make me smile, Debbie. Damn, but you're good. And thanks for the lovely hangover. :)

[Dawn]

I am afraid I could not be lured by Vegas right now. My Montreal is toooooo alllurrrriiiinnnngggggg. But you could come here. They do have Club Super Sex

[Mommy off the Record]

"or were my verbal spring rolls too greasy?"

Even your comments crack me up AND awe me with their descriptive imagery!

I am soooo totally up for meeting in Vegas. You name the date!

P.S. And you thought no one would come back and read your comment....tsk tsk.

[Jenny]

Hee. I always come back and reread the comments on my fave sites...and thank God because I was so blown away by the fiction that I totally forgot about answering the prelude. I'm an idiot.

I sometimes answer comments (inside the comments through the beauty of moveable type) but my pseudo-editor tells me that it's not really a good idea to do it very often because it crosses the line from "blog" to "forum". But whatever. That's the beauty of having your own blog, right? You get to do whatever the fuck you want. (Except in my case you can't actually write the word "fuck" since it's edited by fascists...I mean...edited for the good of the reader.)

Vegas is sounding better and better each day. When are we planning this vacay? Next summer?

[Marcie]

I'm up for Vegas

[motherbumper]

me likey and me want more

I also want (need?) to go to Vegas.

[Mrs. Chicky]

Great story, very powerful images. I'm not sure if I want to know how you came up with that but I know one thing... More please!

[MelanieinOrygun]

Have I mentioned lately that you should be courting publishers?
Because you should.
Anyhow - do you know, I've never been to Vegas? I am such a weenie stay-at-home homebody that it doesn't even sound fun.
Well. The buffet sounds fun...
See? Dork dorka dork dork...

[mamatulip]

Now that I have comments that enable me to email commenters back, I'm more apt to do that than comment in my comments section. But like you, I find that I get all stupid when I comment and I think it's best if I try not to reply to comments, however tempting it may be. I still do though, sometimes.

The story? Dude. The imagery, the words, the way you wove them both together...fabulous.

[joy]

gorgeous, lady! very evokative (i should say something more than that, but brain is dead. but you done good).

commenting on comments--i don't either. i don't think it's required or anything:) if it was, there would be a "someone had commented on your comment.." feed or summat;-)

[Rock the Cradle]

whinendium

Love this word. Can I use it?

As to posting...follow your muse. You've got a good one. Forget about what you "should" post. Just focus on the stuff you "want" to post.

[Kevin Charnas]

I didn't think that it was dumb at all. I actually really enjoyed it.

[Nancy]

Gah, I love your writing. So descriptive and lovely and evocative of a memory or mood or both. The machine noises, the confetti-carpet, the images of clowns (eww)...

I have trouble sometimes remembering a post I mean to go back and comment on. I do sometimes keep it new in Bloglines, or add it to my clippings folder so I can remember to post about it someday (I have a clippings folder sub-folder called "post ideas" full of fodder.)

[Jak]

You’ve got your brain in gear today.