dandelion
The fountain looks like a dandelion in a fuzzy state. Instead of sending seeds into the wind, it releases soft white droplets.
embassy
From around the corner of the block, through a lobby, to a cramped waiting room, which doesn't have enough chairs, down a roped-off corridor, into an elevator, and finally up to the sanctum, a broad, gleaming chamber with plenty of cushy chairs and bureaucrats forcing smiles from behind the counter.
eye-rolling
Low-key, humorous grumbling from people well-acquainted with bureaucratic inefficiencies.
over
She writes about the end of a friendship but gets frustrated when the words make the relationship and its dissolution sound trivial. She wants whoever is reading it to understand how much it hurt her.
rictus
It's supposed to be a discussion group but it has a cultish infomercial feel to it where everyone is relentlessly bright and empty-eyed.
spiritedly
Her resting face gives the impression of boredom, but her thoughts are energetic, and if you talk to her about an interesting topic, she becomes animated, her eyes brighter and a smile ready to flicker to life.
variable
Just when I'm thinking the street is bland, full of the dull mirrors of office building glass, I spot an enormous church with a dome.
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2019
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Week in Seven Words #167
derelict
She drinks from a dirty glass and eats tongue between slices of old brown bread.
disagreeable
Music from the IRS hotline tinkles in my ear, as I try to write while on hold.
gambits
The blankets are rumpled and strewn with pie dishes and tin trays. People stand around talking and sizing each other up. Every conversation I'm a part of seems to involve a game that I don't want to play.
needs
The sky growls thunder and hisses a promise of rain. Still, we must stop for frozen yogurt.
two-sided
Depending on who you ask in the room, the dog is an adorable treasure or, at best, a nuisance.
whoop
Discovering that I need to fill out a five-page tax form that comes with at least 50 pages of instructions.
whoopee
Along with the five-page form, there's another form. And another. There are always more forms.
She drinks from a dirty glass and eats tongue between slices of old brown bread.
disagreeable
Music from the IRS hotline tinkles in my ear, as I try to write while on hold.
gambits
The blankets are rumpled and strewn with pie dishes and tin trays. People stand around talking and sizing each other up. Every conversation I'm a part of seems to involve a game that I don't want to play.
needs
The sky growls thunder and hisses a promise of rain. Still, we must stop for frozen yogurt.
two-sided
Depending on who you ask in the room, the dog is an adorable treasure or, at best, a nuisance.
whoop
Discovering that I need to fill out a five-page tax form that comes with at least 50 pages of instructions.
whoopee
Along with the five-page form, there's another form. And another. There are always more forms.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Week in Seven Words #112
dramatic
A small group of tourists stands at the curbside and shouts at a squirrel to get off the road. "Watch out! Cars are coming!" It reminds me of people who yell at the screen during a horror movie ("Run, run! No, not upstairs!"). At last the squirrel does turn around and head back onto the grass instead of trying to cross the street. The tourists cheer. I don't know how much credit they give themselves for the squirrel's self-preserving choice.
grating
Sitting on a sunlit patio while waiting for the bus, I hear an eardrum-busting excuse for music coming from a loud speaker by a restaurant. It sounds as if someone had roared and slobbered into a microphone and recorded it for posterity.
grinding
The subway scrapes along the tracks, setting people's teeth on edge.
inked
Digital fingerprinting doesn't work for me for the most part, so I have to get it done the old inky way, as part of a background check for a potential job. When I'm done I'm tempted to finger paint on the yellow-gray walls.
kinetosis
When the bus is out on the freeway I can read. But when it hits traffic or starts to lurch through the city I have to close my eyes to stave off motion sickness.
radiate
As she talks about her troubles over the phone I stare at a patch of sunlight by the lake. I want to bring us both into that light, so we can stand together in it and be warm.
stealthy
As the geese sun themselves obliviously on the rock, the ducks sneak past them and go for the breadcrumbs.
A small group of tourists stands at the curbside and shouts at a squirrel to get off the road. "Watch out! Cars are coming!" It reminds me of people who yell at the screen during a horror movie ("Run, run! No, not upstairs!"). At last the squirrel does turn around and head back onto the grass instead of trying to cross the street. The tourists cheer. I don't know how much credit they give themselves for the squirrel's self-preserving choice.
grating
Sitting on a sunlit patio while waiting for the bus, I hear an eardrum-busting excuse for music coming from a loud speaker by a restaurant. It sounds as if someone had roared and slobbered into a microphone and recorded it for posterity.
grinding
The subway scrapes along the tracks, setting people's teeth on edge.
inked
Digital fingerprinting doesn't work for me for the most part, so I have to get it done the old inky way, as part of a background check for a potential job. When I'm done I'm tempted to finger paint on the yellow-gray walls.
kinetosis
When the bus is out on the freeway I can read. But when it hits traffic or starts to lurch through the city I have to close my eyes to stave off motion sickness.
radiate
As she talks about her troubles over the phone I stare at a patch of sunlight by the lake. I want to bring us both into that light, so we can stand together in it and be warm.
stealthy
As the geese sun themselves obliviously on the rock, the ducks sneak past them and go for the breadcrumbs.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Week in Seven Words #72
edulcoration
After it's rained, the clean smell of trees, earth, and evergreen shrubs.
moppet
Two smudgy handprints on the door at knee level. A child has pressed up against the glass to look out and to try to push the door open; the handle is still out of reach.
nitty-gritty
Over an hour's worth of conversations with an insurance rep, a bank rep, and a customer service rep for a huge labyrinthine company. Not the best way to start the morning, but to my joy each person I speak to seems lucid and willing to help, and it could have dragged on longer.
pealing
Laughter is a kind of escape, a beautiful cloud of noise to sink into several seconds here and there while forgetting dignity, worries, and mostly everything else.
readjustment
No epiphanies; instead a painstaking process of discovery that could very well lead to failure. At least I'm learning; nothing's wasted, not time or brain cells, if I've learned something.
tormented
A bumblebee dying just inside the doors of a grocery store, only several feet away from the flowers in cellophane and the crates of fruit.
vertiginous
In the library the shelves are long, the aisles between them are narrow, and the books come in so many different colors and sizes, that I have trouble focusing my eyes. If I don't look mostly at the floor I get dizzy.
After it's rained, the clean smell of trees, earth, and evergreen shrubs.
moppet
Two smudgy handprints on the door at knee level. A child has pressed up against the glass to look out and to try to push the door open; the handle is still out of reach.
nitty-gritty
Over an hour's worth of conversations with an insurance rep, a bank rep, and a customer service rep for a huge labyrinthine company. Not the best way to start the morning, but to my joy each person I speak to seems lucid and willing to help, and it could have dragged on longer.
pealing
Laughter is a kind of escape, a beautiful cloud of noise to sink into several seconds here and there while forgetting dignity, worries, and mostly everything else.
readjustment
No epiphanies; instead a painstaking process of discovery that could very well lead to failure. At least I'm learning; nothing's wasted, not time or brain cells, if I've learned something.
tormented
A bumblebee dying just inside the doors of a grocery store, only several feet away from the flowers in cellophane and the crates of fruit.
vertiginous
In the library the shelves are long, the aisles between them are narrow, and the books come in so many different colors and sizes, that I have trouble focusing my eyes. If I don't look mostly at the floor I get dizzy.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Week in Seven Words #35
administrators
The administrators who help me out are kindly, good-humored and tolerant of my anxious queries; I'm grateful they don't resemble stereotypical bureaucrats, the ones who idly bat you from paw to paw like bored cats.
covalence
I tense up in situations like these, stepping into a crowded space where I can't spot a familiar face and everyone seems to be clumped together already with their cups of sangria and their little plates of veggies and cookies. I guess their behavior reassures me to some extent as well, the fact that they're already in bunches and pairs, because it shows that I'm not the only one who feels awkward about being a lone floating atom. At last I find my way to one small group, which broadens slightly to admit me, and we stand in a little sangria-clutching circle, making introductions, searching for things we can all talk about and briefly bond over.
dance
Some of the dancing is dignified, as when we make slow turns, our palms pressed together and our skirts flaring out and then subsiding against our legs. Other times it's happily undignified, like when I'm turning in circles with a young child who is convinced that he can dance without his feet touching the ground at all.
forecasting
Leaves, gold brown and orange, whip around and batter the window like snowflakes.
goodies
She brings me a lovely new skirt the color of honeycombs and evergreens, and along with it a package of snickerdoodle animal crackers.
matches
They're strewn among the tea lights - charred and scarred canoes floundering in a calm flickering sea.
wadded
When I have a cold, the world feels like it's coming to me through a layer of cotton balls. My mouth is limp with cherry-flavored cough drop numbness.
The administrators who help me out are kindly, good-humored and tolerant of my anxious queries; I'm grateful they don't resemble stereotypical bureaucrats, the ones who idly bat you from paw to paw like bored cats.
covalence
I tense up in situations like these, stepping into a crowded space where I can't spot a familiar face and everyone seems to be clumped together already with their cups of sangria and their little plates of veggies and cookies. I guess their behavior reassures me to some extent as well, the fact that they're already in bunches and pairs, because it shows that I'm not the only one who feels awkward about being a lone floating atom. At last I find my way to one small group, which broadens slightly to admit me, and we stand in a little sangria-clutching circle, making introductions, searching for things we can all talk about and briefly bond over.
dance
Some of the dancing is dignified, as when we make slow turns, our palms pressed together and our skirts flaring out and then subsiding against our legs. Other times it's happily undignified, like when I'm turning in circles with a young child who is convinced that he can dance without his feet touching the ground at all.
forecasting
Leaves, gold brown and orange, whip around and batter the window like snowflakes.
goodies
She brings me a lovely new skirt the color of honeycombs and evergreens, and along with it a package of snickerdoodle animal crackers.
matches
They're strewn among the tea lights - charred and scarred canoes floundering in a calm flickering sea.
wadded
When I have a cold, the world feels like it's coming to me through a layer of cotton balls. My mouth is limp with cherry-flavored cough drop numbness.
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