Week in Seven Words #553

This covers the week of 8/23/20 - 8/29/20.

derange

The man moves like a jumping electric wire. He's tormented to the roots of himself. Staggering up and down the street, he raves about how the industry used to want differences but now wants sameness. Homogeneity in opinions, looks, and creative ideas. I don't know which industry he's talking about. His description fits more than one. In his creased suit, and with his briefcase swinging and shuddering, he belongs to no workplace now.

layers

I've walked down this street a bunch of times without knowing that its name alludes to three activists from the Civil Rights Movement who were killed while helping register black voters in the South.

resting

I stay in bed later than usual, grateful for several hours of uninterrupted sleep.

solidarity

An old man whispers to the young man working at the pharmacy, "You're at this job to land rich widows." When the young man splutters, the old one says, "No shame in that."

splashing

Sparrows in an ecstasy of puddles.

sprinkle

Rain nips at us at the end of our walk, a drizzle after all the breathless warnings about a major storm.

trapped

She chides me for eating too much chocolate. Then she offers me chocolate.

Week in Seven Words #523

This covers the week of 1/26/20 - 2/1/20.

apart

Who does he talk to when he needs to confide in someone? Who do I talk to?

groaning

I hear what sounds like a ghost moaning, but it's just a bus easing up to the curb late at night.

marcescence

What is the phenomenon of trees holding onto their brown, shriveled leaves in the winter?

plumpness

A narrow metal shelf bulging with cartons of chocolate milk. 

self-protective

Refusing to stay in the bitter overflow of another person's emotions.

stalled

They present us with a packet of forms and with a platter of purple grapes and potato chips that aren't really potato chips but are supposedly something healthier. The meeting is much like the one months ago. Similar concerns raised, the same pairs of hands tied, but at least we're venting a little.

vaguely

They remind me that they still know I exist. Now and then, I flicker into their awareness.

Week in Seven Words #512

This covers the week of 11/10/19 - 11/16/19.

advice
"Just try to be a good person," he says to the group. "Don't compare yourself to others."

background
As we watch a movie that's hollow and pointless, the night hums around us.

berries
The berries are enticing. They grow in tight, glistening bunches on the deep green leaves. "Don't eat any," one mother tells her kid. "Only the ones we give you. The ones we give you are safe."

popcorn
We share a bag of popcorn in a courtyard enclosed by bricks.

relaxing
The trees part, and I find a bench streaked with sunlight.

restart
Many resolutions amount to futile gestures and relapses. (Oh, well. Try again.)

unexpectedly
A delightful surprise left in my bag: a bar of 88 percent dark chocolate.

Week in Seven Words #498

astronomy
We find Jupiter with its banded surface, and a tiny, pale Saturn. Strangely, it's our moon that's foggiest and most unclear.

engorged
The meal before the fast is full of water-rich foods, like cucumbers, turnips, green beans, and watermelon.

fascination
When the fountain leaps to life, one boy steps back in startled wonder. The other climbs on the rim to peer closely at the shifting configurations of water.

generational
I prefer the reading voices of the older men, their raspy, trembling dignity. The younger men recite without feeling in a nasally intonation.

glades
In a park installed on old elevated rail tracks, there's an atmosphere of forest enchantment. Some people paddle their feet in a dark stream. Others are tucked on wooden lounge chairs screened by leaves. A handful of children listen to gentle music while painting tiles in the foggy light. We turn a corner and discover a dark, massive sculpture of a human head.

licked
They order marble cheese cake, strawberry shortcake, and a dense chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate pudding. Without even planning it, I grab one of the extra forks and shave off some of the frosting. It's almost too much in sweetness and richness, and it undermines the resolve I had formed to avoid chocolate for the week.

sunless
A thunderstorm brings dusk to mid-afternoon. Lightning dips into the river like a bony finger.

Week in Seven Words #464

appeasing
The small box of chocolates is a gift of appeasement, and I'm pleased to be appeased at this moment.

bite-sized
It's important to trust in small tasks. To fight the tendency of trying to catch up by doing too much all at once, failing, and feeling discouraged.

crinkle
The surface of the lake looks like crinkly photographic film, black and white.

denouement
The day is fading, leaving a last gentle imprint of light on windows and bricks. We walk in silence.

lazily
For a minute, he embodies laziness. He lies on the floor. Pretends to need other people to tug him to his feet and into motion.

loft
We enjoy a discussion that makes us feel cozy and connected, in a room many stories up with a view of steel and blue shadows.

refreshments
None of the foods are appetizing. Not the sticky muffins, not the pretzels crackling like dry grass. But we appreciate that they've been laid out for us; we weren't expecting refreshments.

Week in Seven Words #462

answered
On the train, a toddler keeps asking why the doors aren't closing yet. His mom rephrases her answer several times, providing explanations that he doesn't seem to understand or accept. Or maybe he just enjoys the series of answers, each one tweaked to be slightly different while remaining reassuringly repetitive at the same time.

cozily
For part of the year, they live in a motor home. It's a little over 24 feet long, with a bed tucked in back, a seating area like a small diner booth, and a shelf full of books above the opening to the cab area.

cravings
She doesn't know what to do with herself without her phone. She craves the infinite scroll, the fresh supply of images.

moderators
Two wolf-like dogs oversee the debate from the sofa. They look mildly interested, and a bit intimidating. Maybe they could be moderators, growling at anyone who goes off-topic.

quest
There needs to be a game in the style of Oregon Trail, only the characters are trying to navigate the phone system of a major corporation with the ultimate goal of speaking to a human being who can provide accurate and complete answers. Along the way, your characters suffer from: disconnected lines, misinformation, long stretches of obnoxious music, rising blood pressure, automated voices that request and fail to process your input, a dozen paths or more and only one leading to competence.

treated
The Ghirardelli squares left on each seat are a lovely touch. Chocolates on chairs, a fantastic way to welcome people to the event.

uncoordinated
The toddler has a helmet with spikes on it. In between bursts of smooth gliding, he trips and topples over his scooter. Picks himself up, looks over his shoulder, and glides and trips and topples again. He's like a baby dinosaur learning to walk.

Week in Seven Words #416

blurting
Speak hastily, regret deeply.

feebleness
Her goals are made of sand. She shapes the beginnings of a castle, and a gentle wave sloshes over it and smoothes it down until it looks like a decayed tooth. She doesn't attempt to rebuild it.

pablum
They ask me to sit with them and watch the first several minutes of a reality TV show I last saw years ago. Nothing about it has changed. It's as if the participants are all scooped out of some tub of homogeneous 20-somethings.

pristinely
As a cleanup crew feeds branches into a woodchipper, a young boy watches avidly. I wonder what fresh impressions are forming in his mind, in the mind of anyone really who has never watched Fargo.

protested
The truck, with its rear tire stuck, growls against the curb and coughs up exhaust.

reveling
She applies her forehead and cheeks, as much as her mouth, to a gigantic chocolate bar. Smeared in chocolate, she smiles for the camera.

thickening
Cotton swabs of fog over the river.

Week in Seven Words #412

amusements
This time, the game we play is one where I try to tickle her belly, and she tries to block me. When she grows bored with it, she stands under the dining table for a while, her hand on her mom's knee.

apportion
Her younger siblings agree that she should distribute the chocolates. She slices open the box and displays the possibilities. She reads the chocolatey description of each truffle and its contents. As they crowd around, she cuts the truffles into halves and thirds for sampling.

pooled
The candles melt into a pond of rose, purple, and sea green.

reawaken
Good books reinvigorate the conversation you have with yourself and the world.

release
She's abandoning her social media accounts, one by one, to unclutter her mind and free her time.

scales
The soprano warms up her voice in the ringing acoustics of a church.

scorning
It's a grubby work of art. It shows a meanness of character, a cynicism that denies beauty.

Week in Seven Words #373

appeased
She deals with the fussy kid by pouring chocolate candies into his hands. His parents won't find out until later.

begging
At the lake's edge, she pleads with her friend on the other end of the line. Her friend has slipped into an inexorable state of mind, and no pleas will move her.

companionable
Sharing a window seat and sipping apple cider with rum on a chilly day.

elephants
Elephants are so weirdly awesome. The configuration of their anatomy, their perceptiveness and intelligence, their size, their apparent emotion. They're fascinating.

gingerly
We're not close; there's no strong love between us. Our hug feels like a tentative touch to a wound.

misanthropically
I swing between having hope in humanity and thinking we're just complete wallowing morons.

trifling
He thinks his words are gold coins; he's pouring them out for us beggars, and we should be grateful. But all he's doing is tossing us some pocket change and bits of lint to go with it.

Week in Seven Words #372

dust
Cleaning out shelves, coming across movies I used to like and books I've forgotten about.

eluding
Chasing an almost-chocolate flavor in a supposedly healthier variant of ice cream.

murine
The dog looks mouse-like with her new haircut, especially when she wiggles between our feet in search of crumbs.

propped
The woman sitting next to me is pregnant and uses her belly as a shelf for the book so we can both read from it.

shape
In the dark, it's the neon shorts, t-shirts, and crop tops that are the most visible parts of the joggers, who advance in a 3x3 squad. They look like a collection of colorful squares and rectangles that rise and fall piston-like against a gray screen.

unconvincing
He sings about "sticking it to the man" (or something to that effect), and it sounds tired and lame. The sentiments of rebellion have been commercialized.

viridian
By the streetlights, the trees have an icy green-blue tint, as if they've been flavored with mint.

Week in Seven Words #347

fanfare
She arrives late to the concert and trills apologies, her arms flung wide for balance, as she walks crabwise down half a row to her seat.

pastry
The chocolate rugelach they bring out isn't dry and flaky. The chocolate is seeping deliciously into the dough.

realized
She transformed a secondary character from a stock figure to a person.

residence
She makes a Lego version of me, a princess with glasses and a crown, and installs me in a two-story, two-room house with a rooftop observatory and the necessities - a tree, a book, a bar of gold, a hairbrush, and a cape.

unblinking
In the back of the pickup truck, he keeps a stuffed animal basset hound that stands guard over his gear.

upbeat
A day of feeling down ends on a bright note, as if a curtain's been brushed aside, thanks to a good dinner with some good people.

waggle
He's a few decades older than they are, so he flirts with them in a paternal way, one leg propped on the seat next to theirs, his elbow on his knee as he leans forward to explain the world to them and give them little compliments. They smile at him politely until his wife reappears.

Week in Seven Words #344

felicity
A German couple who have just gotten married in NYC have an impromptu first dance by the lake in Central Park. A performance artist who has been playing guitar all afternoon sings "Can't Help Falling in Love," and a small crowd of passersby from the city and around the world join in as the couple slow-dances.

flavorful
A square of bitter dark chocolate dissolving.

gobble
Turtles bob towards the shelf of rock where people have scattered crumbs and chunks of fruit.

meliorate
A book, a bench, clean air among trees.

overthrow
The statue of a sword-wielding king on horseback has been toppled. This could be taken as a sign of political upheaval, but really the monarch is undergoing restoration and will soon be righted.

redefine
He portrays her volatile behavior as normal. This is one way he copes with it and accepts it as part of his life.

undisclosed
It's been months since I've heard from her, and I'm both worried and relieved.

Week in Seven Words #263

absented
Historic plaques in grotty subway stations. The subway system is teeming with stories no one knows, because people don't like to look around when they're waiting on a platform. They pretend they're elsewhere, maybe already at their destination, and not underground in the stale air and filth.

hindsight
When I walk along the dead lawns, I imagine meeting my younger self, taking her by the shoulders, and telling her a thing or two.

linked
I hear them chanting, and their voices are like chains of silver.

obscure
You find it in the folds of her robes: an owl. Few people would spot it or think to look for it. It will never venture out of its sheltered spot.

projected
I know I have a craving for chocolate when every large brown boulder reminds me of fudge.

pronounced
Heliotrope lipstick and hair a traffic cone shade of orange. She's lit up like a flare in the gray neighborhood.

somnolence
The interior of the historic church is made of dust, marble and roses. A man in the pews bows his head - praying, or coaxed to sleep by incense and warmth.

Week in Seven Words #204 & 205

204
aseptic
Pearls of dark chocolate and mint, spilled onto Purelled hands.

echoes
Haven't we had this conversation before? In our respective chairs, one of us talking more than the other?

hometown
I take a dialect quiz (focusing on pronunciation, and certain vocab and expressions), and the results are supposed to tell you what region of the US you're from. As it turns out, the way I speak fits closest to these three cities: San Jose, Fremont, and Honolulu. Also, I'm generally a very strong fit with Long Island, NY. Given that I was born in California and spent close to six years of my life in southern California, then the rest of my childhood on Long Island, these are pretty accurate results.

keratinous
The days are slight, as thin as fingernails.

revival
Embers in me that I want to coax back to life.

sorted
The animals have one corner of the floor; the plants have the other. In his world, at this time, they can't mingle.

tonedeaf
"Are you with someone?" he asks, his eyes scanning the room, fishing for additional prospects. "Yes," I say. "If it doesn't work out," he immediately says, in a business-like tone, "could I be the first one to know? Let me know, right after." Yep. That's exactly what I'm going to do. The first thing I'll think of in the aftermath of a break-up is you. And I do in fact get his business card, with two phone numbers. His customer service skills are impeccable.

205
abrade
This is the kind of cold that scrubs away at your cheeks like steel wool.

arctic
I don't know how they do it - plunge into the cold water without their hearts stopping.

cellar
The space beneath my desk is very cold. I could chill wine in there, where the heat hasn't made its way.

earthy
Deft fingers on the mandolin and a rough and honest voice. Magnificent.

satiny
A sky like gray silk.

sisal
They're a married couple with no apparent chemistry. No shared looks, no laughter in their eyes, just a tiredness in the way they move and talk to each other. As if they'd always rather be in different rooms. There's no sense of what's holding them together except for social acceptableness.

versifying
Hours of poetry, some earnestly awful and some of it beautiful. It's been a while since I had the pleasure of listening to poetry read out loud. Even the bad poetry sounds better read out loud.

Week in Seven Words #197

beam
For the first couple of minutes we're on Skype, we just smile at each other. There's really nothing to say that can't be better said with a smile.

clawed
I read a book that rips open old scars.

dipterous
Already the F-sharp has a sour buzz. It will never be fully in tune, but will instead hover over the landscape of the Moonlight Sonata like a mosquito.

disquietude
I spend too much time worrying that something will go wrong. It's exhausting.

enticing
Bags of dark chocolate in a green barrel. A faint chocolatey smell tickling my nose as I stand in line.

eraser
They look smaller. Time has rubbed away at them.

organic
The inside of the piano is magnificent: faded gold, stained wood, an eagle bearing a flag in the dark. Strings, knobs, and hammers, a soundboard that's cracked. It's a piano with character, stubbornly and majestically out-of-tune.

Week in Seven Words #171

album
Dozens of photos drying on the living room floor.

bargaining
He has too much chocolate cake on his plate, so she takes some of it from him. Instantly, his mouth quivers and his eyes get moist. She puts it back and gives him an endearing smile. "Do you want to share it with me?" she says. "Can I have some of it?" He considers for a moment, then breaks off the tiniest crumb and places it on her outstretched palm.

brat
My suspicion is that I'm not going to run into her again - at least, not any time soon. I'm glad we part ways bickering, because anything else would be too sentimental for us.

edifice
Keeping to myself, sharing only general information, is a form of self-protection. No amount of shouting or guilt-tripping is going to bring the walls down.

exposed
Kids have a great sense of timing. This one gets out of bed to get a cup of water just as the most violent scene in the movie (with nudity thrown in for good measure) is underway.

hyped
It isn't an honest movie. It starts off with some interesting characters, flawed and suffering from psychological problems. Were it a better movie, it would have stayed true to them throughout. Instead, the tone about halfway through shifts to a generic romantic comedy, with little actual comedy. These characters could have gotten a hopeful or happy ending, but one that was still true to them. Instead, the filmmakers ignored their complexities and buried them in cliches.

off-the-cuff
Her wit is maturing, and it's wonderful to witness.

Week in Seven Words #149 and #150

Here's another batch of two weeks of words.

And exciting news: The e-book I co-authored with my brother is now available on Amazon.

Week in Seven Words #100

chocolatier
Tempting chocolate truffles in a golden box.

coordination
Group photo: fitting thirteen people on and in front of a sofa, then programming the camera's self-timer. The first couple of times nothing happens, and we sit there smiling at the camera as it stares back at us with its glossy black eye. On the third try the person adjusting the camera gets it to work but doesn't arrive back at the sofa on time, so the photo shows her from behind as she tries to dive back in next to her husband. Finally it works. After a moment's hush we cheer, and the sudden noise makes the baby startle and burst into tears.

glee
He's beaming as he rocks back and forth on the large green plastic rocking horse; it's a hand-me-down from older siblings who now sit beside him clapping and singing "Yankee Doodle Went to Town" to make him go more quickly.

invitation
Settled on a cluster of rocks by the lake, an elderly woman scatters crumbs around her and calmly greets the wheeling gulls.

perpetuity
A display at the train station shows an old-fashioned village where lights glow from little homes, happy figurines have snowball fights or glide among the evergreens on sleds, and a train travels round and round it all on a looping track. The display draws people who smile and pause to lean over it. They tip themselves for a moment into the village where everything is repeating, moving without going anywhere; no progress and no end, and for a few seconds, peace.

unplanned
There are joys planned out for them: food brought from the outside and musicians who do their best to sing beloved old songs. There are also moments of spontaneous joy that feel more real and lasting even though they're over quickly - as the party winds down they bat a balloon around; it glances off their fingers and stays airborne for a few happy minutes.

unseasonal
It's winter but feels like autumn. Turtle Pond looks like a sheet soaked in deep blue ink, and beyond it the Great Lawn is green and gold. The shadows of trees stretch out on the grass as if they're taking a leisurely nap.

Week in Seven Words #75

ataraxy
We find a rose garden and a magnolia garden facing each other across a quiet street. Both are past their season. Both are mostly empty. A breeze shimmers through them.

coda
Fireworks rumbling at the day's end.

disclosure
I share as much of the truth as I can bring myself to without distressing them unduly.

loll
It's a happy lazy day, when the sun pounds through my head; I play Scrabble, fight off sleepiness, and read out loud from a chapter book about a pig in search of hot buttered toast.

municipal
They take me on a tour through their slowly growing Lego town. In the pizza parlor a Lego lady is firing up some pies.

sheen
Chocolates wrapped in slick foil of different colors: orange, ocean blue, silver, gold, and fir green.

trammeled
We glimpse The Thinker through a sprawl of planks and chain-link fencing. He's hemmed in.

Week in Seven Words #69

circumstances
The same sentence can mean a number of different things depending on the context in which it's uttered, the way it's uttered, who utters it, and who's listening. And from a very young age we grapple with all these sources of information - the words themselves, the words in a web of context. Day-to-day, without thinking about it, we perform these mental feats.

inattention
When the brain is a pool float, bobbing gently on light blue chlorinated waters.

knotted
At the wedding, two guests tie a bunch of cloth napkins into a makeshift rope and start twirling it round and round as a jumprope for the bride. She holds onto the skirt of her gown and jumps, smiling and laughing. Just as she starts to get tired her mother-in-law and then one of her sisters-in-law bounce in, and they hold out for a little while to cheers and shouts of encouragement.

motoring
The drive, late on a Sunday afternoon, is a surprising treat. Quiet suburban neighborhoods with deep green lawns give way to gas stations and highways.

proprietary
To help them prepare for their upcoming visit I send them information about what sites to visit, which neighborhoods to walk through (and which to avoid), and how they can best get around. I'm happy about their visit and also have a proprietary feeling towards the city where I live. I don't always think of this city as home, but in moments like these I feel it's mine.

smores
At the dessert reception a table with marshmallows, melting chocolate, and graham crackers. Guests in formal attire lick their fingers.

zest
Orange creamsicles at the end of a long hot day.