Week in Seven Words #463

aquatics
They've booked a room next to an indoor swimming pool. During each pause in the lecture, we hear splashing and giggles.

bizarro
He murders time with an online game in which something that looks like a decapitated bunny head rolls around in tunnels.

congeniality
Mandarin cinnamon tea, a small high table, a conversation that flows for an hour.

learning
It hits me again how much isn't taught at school. Even basic academic knowledge. So much gets picked up at home or in other places, like an after school activity or visits to a library, a museum, or a park.

receiving
I try without success to show a gratifying level of excitement about a gift I have no use for. I wish I could have prepared for the moment somehow.

sparkle
We walk through cold streets where glowing, cheerful lights are strung. I carry a sparkling blue bag full of chocolates.

stash
The dog tries to investigate the inside of my mouth. A couple of hours earlier I ate beef, and she's wondering if there's more to my mouth than the scent. Maybe I'm holding back on her, hoarding meat in my cheek pouches.

Week in Seven Words #457

differentiation
The advice you give someone may have worked for you, but won't work for them. They don't have to live your choices.

expressive
Some trees look like they have eyes, mouths, and, at times, whole faces imprinted on the bark. On one tree, what looks like multiple faces are emerging, their expressions stunned.

guarding
One motif that stands out in our walk: aggressive yellow jackets who are territorial about public garbage cans.

gullet
He eats out of a tub of ice cream while watching his favorite basketball team lose.

ocular
Walking along with two heavy grocery bags and one eye scrunched shut, after something has lodged against my eyeball on a windy day.

precarious
Holding the wine glass over my head as the kids kick a soccer ball around the room.

sensory
She prepares a strange tangerine tea. It smells good but tastes like a bitter oil.

Week in Seven Words #415

absorbs
She's developed the habit of slipping behind her phone and not looking up. There's always something new to see, an infinite scroll.

cacophony
From the other room, we hear the eruptions of a horror movie: wild squealing growls and a rumble of strings and drums.

defective
She tells me that one of my cheeks is puffier than the other. I give her what must be a blank or bewildered look, so she repeats herself and peers at me with a semblance of concern. She's so convincing that I actually check in the mirror, but I see nothing out of the ordinary.

diverting
We hold a practice interview that fails to simulate the conditions of a real-life interview, unless the real-life interview will be filled with laughter and digressions about books and vacation ideas.

potion
The drink they order is a giant goblet of neon blue liquid.

tendresse
He displays a flat affect at work. Nothing moves him. He's there for the paycheck. But get him talking about Gary Cooper, and his eyes sparkle. His mouth trembles into a smile.

tweets
People conspiring to make each other more blockheaded.

Week in Seven Words #405

calming
It's a gentle room. Blonde wood floors, small folding chairs, purple, pink, and light blue yoga mats rolled up in the corner. A diaphanous, dark curtain has been drawn across the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

celebrating
For his son's birthday, he asks other family members to send in warm greetings and anecdotes that collectively create a picture of the young man's character and all the good he's done for the people close to him.

concert
At the subway station, there's a heavy, happy woman belting out James Brown's "I Feel Good," and her performance is full of real joy. A few hours later, on my return trip, I see that she's gone, and in her place are a small group of men that seem to be combining a bagpipe with jazz, an effort more creative than successful.

disposition
I'm settled awkwardly at a table, sipping spiked cider and not sure I'll find anyone to talk to. Two people find me though. They're lovely, and the afternoon swims by on laughter and food.

grimly
A few hours spent looking up health insurance rates and coverage.

stuffing
Our afternoon is hurrying to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for greasy food, eating it too quickly at a small park, and running to catch a movie. Bloated but satisfied, we arrive late enough to miss the previews.

vibes
Is this guy flirting with me? He's in my personal space, but he's from a culture where personal space is minimal, so I don't know. He's also touching my arm a lot and talking at length about James Bond. It's one of those times I wish I could read social cues more easily. In any case, I learn a lot about James Bond.

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 #340

askew
Playing basketball while wearing glasses.

colorant
In a sunset after a thunderstorm, the clouds have a tangerine underbelly.

creamy
His dessert is a cookie drowning in half-melted ice cream. It doesn't matter that he won't finish it. Part of the pleasure comes from chasing chunks of cookie around with his fork in the sweet puddle.

forewarned
Someone who checked out the book before me penciled a warning over one of the short stories: "If after 5 pages you think this is going to change it isn't. It's like swimming in molasses and takes more from you than it gives back."

glimmer
To find the speech moving, I have to forget most of what I know about the speaker. I just take in the cadence and listen to the phrases promising hope and progress. For a short while, I can believe the speech is real. The world doesn't yet intrude on its promises.

ignited
When we step outside, there's a mix of rain and blinding sunlight. The sun has set fire to the rain.

teatime
She lays out a tea service for a woman with white woolly hair and a girl with blue ribbons in her braids.

Week in Seven Words #337

admiring
"Look at this beautiful sand castle!" the boy's mother says, moments before he kicks it apart.

desquamated
The professor's voice is undercut by a steady 'scrape scrape scrape' like wood getting planed by hand. It comes from three seats in front of me. A woman is scratching her arm, showering large flakes of skin.

firewater
Alcohol isn't allowed on the beach, but who would look twice at their coffee thermos, even if they pour its contents into plastic shot glasses.

fluctuate
The skin cooks, and the wind cools it.

intertidal
A dog on the beach frisking away from the incoming water, then leaping after it as it retreats.

pinwheel
The girl takes off her flip-flops, holds one in each hand, and twirls on the sand.

unsurprised
I ask her why she rarely says anything kind to me. I don't get the answer I want to hear, though I do get the one I expect.

Week in Seven Words #303

discounted
I don't think her sense of humor gets appreciated enough. She isn't the designated "fun one," so in the typical all-or-nothing fashion, her loved ones dismiss her as no fun at all.

disintegrate
The ceiling comes apart in flakes like dandruff across the bathtub and sink.

riveting
By the end of dinner, I'm not sure what color his eyes are, as they were focused mostly on his phone. I should have sent him a text asking.

sets
The tennis ball dimples the net. As the kids practice, their sneakers scritch against the leaves littering the court.

synthetically
The bottle of soda bubbles and glugs as he tips it into his mouth. It looks like he's pouring gasoline into himself, to refuel mid-hike.

visualizing
Confronted by the large rock with the plaque embedded in it, we try to recreate a historic moment in our imagination.

warming
The hike takes us up a steep, leafy incline, on paths baked gold by the late afternoon light. Cloud shadows drift over the cliffs across the river.

Week in Seven Words #294

conferring
To his great pleasure, he gets to roam around with kids a year or two older. They accept him without condescension and pay attention to his opinions.

goofy
I put on oversized orange glasses, hold an inflatable guitar, and pose for snapshots. It's fun. I like these photos much more than the formal ones.

inebriant
He drinks his way to greater warmth and friendliness. His smile is relaxed, his voice cheerful. For a few moments, I imagine we're close.

liquescent
With slow, savoring bites, they suck up the gooey center of a fried Oreo cookie.

pad
The speeches are more or less what I expect. The room is mostly silent, and people continue to eat.

territorial
Once they've filled their plates at the buffet table, they don't move. They stand at the table, eating and talking, their elbows bristling as they defend their ill-gotten space.

youngling
I don't know who the kid is, but he's out on the fringes of a parking lot, playing on an embankment dotted in dandelions. No one else is around.

Week in Seven Words #269

abeyance
Winter is still on the gardens. The paths are empty, the domes and crenellated walls deserted. Everywhere there's a cold, fuzzy silence.

claimed
Geese have claimed the soccer fields, the gazebo by the river. Branches have fallen across the path that feeds into the deep woods. By a gap in the fence, a hole has opened up in the earth and filled with gray water.

confined
Restless people pace inside the mansion, their fingers tracing walnut furniture. Before each window they stop to study the river. They wish they could leap out of their skin and race to the water. Maybe one day. They turn from each window and take up pacing.

crammed
PowerPoint slides frustrate him. They're too small for what he needs to say. His words and numbers run on, in ever tinier fonts, as he fills the available space.

edible
Homes with cream trimming, cherry-colored shutters.

gutted
Even when she talks about a triumph, her voice wavers with pain. She can't believe in her own success. She's convinced that she succeeded only by chance.

percolating
The coffee pours warmth into chilled wet feet and fingers nipped with cold.

Week in Seven Words #266

diligence
She shows me how she's patiently worked her way towards a difficult yoga pose, adjusting her legs in increments over weeks. Now she sits with serenity, as if the arrangement of her lower body doesn't register in her conscious mind.

employed
Her job duties include ignoring the phone and investigating vacation spots on Google Maps.

hushed
The sun turns to ashes behind an aluminum fence.

mildly
A mug of tea warming my hands. A conversation that passes with no bitter words.

pulse
The dog, calming on my lap, is a pounding heartbeat wrapped in hair.

stale
The store smells of sawdust and wheaty things. Breathy acoustic versions of pop songs make background noise.

venipuncture
She sinks the needle into one arm, then the other. Gives me a bewildered look, as if to ask, "Are you human?" and leaves to search for a second phlebotomist: the one I call "The Vein Whisperer," who trails her fingers along my forearms, taps the skin, holds the needle poised above the surfacing vessel.

Week in Seven Words #253

covert
She's hidden things behind her books - keys to cabinets, necklace pendants, folded letters. She says it's extra protection against casual burglars; they won't rifle through her shelves. But I also suspect it's her romantic streak. She's always wanted the kind of bookcase that would hide a secret, like a door that springs open when you pull out a volume of Donne's poetry.

demolishing
The book I use as a sledgehammer, to smash obstructions in my mind.

ducking
He has always crouched behind a shield. Currently, it's his wife. As long as he's with her, he's protected. No one looks too closely at him.

filling
Strange how the book leaves us both satisfied and empty.

olio
He has in his speech flavors of other countries. He's brimful of anecdotes about bodyguards and bugged hotel rooms, spicy cuisine and off-the-road ruins.

redolence
A begonia in a copper-colored pot, and a cup of orange spice tea.

reversals
Two months earlier, she was fine. Now she has health problems and a career in tailspin through no fault of her own. She speaks in disbelief about her life.

Week in Seven Words #249

bruised
Even when discussing happier memories, her eyes have a wounded look. Much of what she's seen, she can't explain and doesn't want to think about.

busied
Pouring tea is her escape from uncomfortable conversation.

grotto
The cobwebbed elegance of the small café. Bats soar among ruby-red plants. A prim little cheesecake bathes in golden light.

land mine
It's startling when during a conversation with a mild-mannered person you stumble on the one topic that brings a savage light to their eyes.

lettered
Confounded by 'which' - is it 'which' or 'wich'?

measured
A slow swirl of his spoon in the coffee, the way planets revolve around the sun.

scapegoat
He screams at the supermarket cashier because the store closed two minutes ago, and now he can't get his groceries. He hollers into the night. The cashier could be a parent, a boss, a lover who's just walked out on him. He stalks away, after promising a harsh review on Yelp.

Week in Seven Words #191

bioluminescence
In the dark, the bracelets look like glowworms wriggling over each other.

ewes
Their singing sounds like gentle pleading.

liqueur
Orange liqueur burns my throat and settles with bittersweet warmth in my head.

predicted
Beside a windy leaf-strewn path in the park, he talks about his break-up. We nod in sympathy. We don't let on that we could see it coming months ago.

raucous
Staid men, pillars of the community, holler like frat boys. It's supposed to be a display of joyful exuberance, but it frequently comes across as forced.

ribbony
Chairs in disarray, people nibbling on chicken as others pray. The afternoon festivities wind on in unfocused joy.

tempo
A man in medieval garb hums under his breath as he cuts past the bicyclists in the park.

Week in Seven Words #161 - Grand Cayman edition

botanic
Sore with sunburn, we seek the shade of the color garden with its wall of trees and shrubs, its tiny darting lizards and tropical flowers.

cock-a-doodle-doo
The free parking lot in Georgetown, by the harbor, is a grassy lot where roosters strut around, pecking at the dirt, dodging the occasional car, and crowing their hearts out.

cocktails
At the poolside, everyone is pleasantly soused.

cruising
The public bus is a van, but there's room for everyone who wants to get on. There are some bus stops along the route, but the driver will stop anywhere if you flag him down. He listens to the same rapid, unending, unchanging music that plays everywhere else on the island and that sounds better when you've had a drink. When people pay him, he keeps the cash clutched in his fist, even as he drives.

cyclurids
After trundling along for some time with its head bobbing aggressively, the large blue iguana settles right in the middle of the path, in a patch of shadow cast by an overhanging tree. It stares at us dispassionately, not realizing that it's blocking our way. We could step over it, or maybe try to slip around it. Blue iguanas are herbivores, and they rarely bite people. But why take a chance? So after several minutes spent staring at it as it stares at us, we turn around and head back. Humans, with all the force of our intelligence, foiled by a lizard seeking a little shade.

immersed
For the first time in years, I swim in the ocean. The water feels like silk. When I look down at my hands, they're green and white. Waves spill over my back.

respire
The labored breaths of sea turtles coming up for air.

Week in Seven Words #143

camaraderie
It's great to be able to laugh with the people you work with.

encounters
I don't know what I'll see by the wine store each time I pass it. Sometimes it's a family with kids who've gotten their faces painted. Other times it might be a man on a cigarette break, or a woman screaming at the back window of a car, where she sees her own reflection.

hazy
A bottle of wine, some boardgames, and some bad television make for a lazy evening.

opacity
Many problems come from mental blocks. When you're convinced from the start that you'll do badly you generate a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can't think about anything else aside from how badly you'll do. Why is it so much easier for me to see this tendency in other people than it is to catch it in myself?

ostensibly
People can't admit they've shown up just for the booze and food, so what they do is throw in some lofty speeches that they can pretend to pay attention to while getting liquored up.

sorrowed
Calling up a friend I haven't spoken to in a while to find out he's in the hospital on his birthday.

year-round
At the Shakespeare Garden, poetry and stinging insects are perennial.

Good Short Fiction: 5 Tales from 44 Irish Short Stories

Collection: 44 Irish Short Stories
Editor: Devin A. Garrity

It was difficult to get into 44 Irish Short Stories, and I put it aside for a while, but eventually I came across the following five stories, which I thought were all good. I love their wry humor - it doesn't matter how dark the subject matter is, you can see the authors writing about it with a hint of a smile. Reminds me of Jewish humor - can't escape life's misfortunes so you might as well laugh.

Ten questions

Over at the bookworm blog there are ten questions posed to any reader who wants to answer them.

1. What's your favorite book to film adaptation?
These days, the 1995 version of Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, adapted from the Jane Austen novel. (In my thinking here, I'm not including movies that have overshadowed the books they're based on.)

2. What's the last book you read?
Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott. I recommend it, especially if you're struggling, stuck or starting out in writing (come to think of it, when do writers not struggle?). Or read it if you want to laugh; it's both funny and painful. In fact there are many good lessons in it even for people who aren't writers.

3. Describe yourself using just one word.
Wondering.

4. Juice or Soda?
Juice.

5. Do you have any pets?
Not recently. I used to have pet frogs, newts, and fish as a kid. But some people dear to me have just brought a puppy into their home, so I expect I'll be seeing her often and she'll be sort of like a pet to me too. Except I'm not the one paper-training her right now, thankfully.

6. Who is your hero?
At the moment it's Marie Curie: brilliant scientist, innovator, humanitarian, and teacher, and also a wife and mother. She broke ground in many ways, both for humanity as a whole and for women. She was the first scientist to win two Nobel prizes in different disciplines.

7. Give me some blogging advice.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any suggestions; I like your blog as it is. Maybe for people in general - have fun with your blog, instead of seeing it as a ball-and-chain that's dragging you down. If it is, rethink things and change it, or give yourself a break from blogging. It shouldn't bring you misery.

8. When was the last time you laughed out loud?
This morning.

9. If you could travel to any place in the world, where would it be?
I'd like to travel around the US for a few months, do a cross-country trip.

10. If you could meet any author, dead or living, who would it be?
What would you ask them?
George Eliot. I'd want to discuss her books with her, mostly Middlemarch, and hear her thoughts on them.

Edit: Just changed the blog title to reflect the fact that there are ten questions, and that I can in fact count.

Good Short Fiction: The Cask of Amontillado (E.A. Poe)

Title: The Cask of Amontillado
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Where I read it: Great American Short Stories: from Hawthorne to Hemingway (edited by Corinne Demas)

Synopsis
Cruelty, catacombs, and revenge for unspecified slights. No amontillado in sight.

Some reasons to read it

• Poe is terrific at writing psychotic narrators. The one in this story is basically going to trap and kill a man while in effect inviting the reader to watch. The question isn't whether or not he'll do it; the story reads like an elaborate revenge fantasy where the outcome is assured. The question is how he'll do it. The narrator is dramatic and depraved, with a mix of elegant manners and some moments of howling insanity.
  

  It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

  
  
• The story is all the more disturbing for the fact that the narrator seems to have a few stirrings of unease at what he's doing. He carries on regardless...
  
  
• Poe's use of details. Everything from the victim's name (Fortunato) to the description of the catacombs with the damp air and the niches in the stone walls. Such a crisp, cold and chilling atmosphere. The jingling of the bells in the last paragraph is a shivery moment. There's some dark humor as well.
  
  
• The delicious language: palazzo, roquelaire, flambeaux.
  

  We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs.

  
  

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Other stories in this volume include The Birthmark (by Nathaniel Hawthorne), The Flight of Betsey Lane (by Sarah Orne Jewett), and Paul's Case (by Willa Cather).

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"The Cask of Amontillado" also appears in this anthology.

Week in Seven Words #52

ambuscade
I feel a little unwell at the beginning of the week, but it passes, and I let down my guard. As it turns out, the microscopic fiends that made a scouting mission through my innards have retreated only to regroup, bring in reinforcements, and launch a surprise attack.

bracing
The outside world is crunchy. The streets crackle with ice, the snow on the curb crumbles to a fine powder on the sidewalk. The air has a clean healthy bite to it.

moment
When I get to the room, no one is there. I'm glad I decide to stay. Had I chosen to leave right then and there, instead of bobbing around by the door in a state of indetermination, I would have missed out on an interesting hour of learning.

pomaceous
Apple juice, plain and sweet, waiting in a glass bottle at the bottom of the grocery bag.

stilts
I'm running a fever and need to walk across the room. My head is somewhere near the ceiling, and I'm not sure if my feet are touching the ground.

stupor
T.V. is suddenly interesting. My patience for commercials seems limitless. Look at that shiny clean pan, that washer and dryer set, that lovely meteorologist swooping around in front of a map with low frozen numbers on it. As long as I don't have to peel myself off the couch and fall back into bed I'm good. Just let me stay here for a while.

sustaining
I'm so thankful she's here. She makes a weak tea that I can keep down. She goes out into the slippery unplowed world to get some necessities from the convenience store. She tells me I'm certifiably insane for thinking that I can go to class in my condition. She makes excellent plain white rice and chicken broth. When I'm at my lowest point she's there.