Week in Seven Words #474

coincide
Bumping into someone with the same last name, whose first name is different from mine by just one letter, and whose dad's name is the same as my grandfather's name.

ebullient
At the board game cafe, we're packed with our puffy coats and bags on benches around long, narrow tables. Beer bottles are placed at easy elbowing distance. One guy, red from drink and heat, roars with laughter at every suggestion that comes up in Cards Against Humanity.

importune
Panhandlers press through the crowds outside of bars and nightclubs.

indoors
Rain in white slashes on the window. It's cozy indoors, just us, speaking little and sharing food.

inscrutable
She's a poet, her business card tells me. She says little about herself, and in that way becomes imbued with poetic mystery.

physiognomy
After dinner, they pass the time with Snapchat filters, forming images of elves, goblin aliens, and victims of demonic possession.

smoothen
The restaurant is clean and unostentatiously elegant. It has dark wood paneling and surfaces that glow with intimate lighting. The food is arranged in neat, stiff patterns on spotless plates.

Week in Seven Words #264

blanching
The fluorescent lights wash the life out of her face. She stares at me with smudged eyes.

channeled
It occurs to me that I'm only really learning at this point in life what to do with anger. Before, my conscious attitude towards it was, "Don't have it" and "Feel guilty about having it." I hadn't really thought of it as a healthy emotion, although - when confronted, understood and directed in mature ways - it definitely can be. Denying it is self-destructive.

erudition
Books with gilt-edged pages bursting out of mahogany shelves.

mean-spirited
It's not ignorance that bothers me so much as people acting triumphant about what they don't know. They're proud to not make an effort to learn or think about something, even while sharing their opinion or making decisions about it. They smirk at my frustration, like they've beaten me at a game I never agreed to play. At this point, I try not to engage with them, or I don't show much of an emotional response when I do. Easier to do when there's no personal connection between us; but also manageable when there is, though that involves giving up on a part of the relationship.

regressing
When someone tries to take their problems out on me, one thing I do is picture them the way they looked as young children. This makes their adult-sized tantrum less stressful. Though they want me to parent them and deal with their problems for them, I don't want to be a stand-in for their mother.

sweetened
Pink stickers, Hershey's kisses - little things that brighten a run-of-the-mill evening of homework and TV.

undeterred
He stares at the orange, pink and white floral sofa. Then shrugs and arranges himself elegantly on it.

Week in Seven Words #248

conniption
The wind, fierce and fretful, throws a tantrum among the trees.

expose
The trail overlooks people's backyards. What do they think about the strange hikers who can peer into their windows at any time of day?

glinting
There is sweat on her upper lip, and her smile is blinding. She would prefer if you look at her smile and not at her eyes.

gold-leaf
Leaves and loose rock underfoot. Gold spreading gloriously overhead.

osseous
All that's left of a home: two stone walls, roof tiles littering the ground, a chimney decaying like a tooth.

splashed
The river throws the sunlight off its back and into our eyes.

thoroughfare
Learning the contours of a river from a train, a forest ridge, and two bridges.

Week in Seven Words #193

counterpoints
Most of their conversation consists of the same complaints getting aired, followed by the same bits of reassurance and advice. The advice-giver's voice remains steady, a series of low round notes. The complainer alternates between an agitated but soft melodic line and the occasional crescendo to keep us all on the edge of our seats.

flagging
The buses can't travel a block without wheezing. The newspapers twist in pain beside the curb.

hijinks
What they've tuned into reminds me of some of the T.V. shows I used to watch as a kid. The ones with multi-talented teens who seem to do everything at their high school except study and go to classes.

prisoner
Traces of a plaster face on the wall, the white mouth shaped into a tiny 'O' and the eyes blank.

soupy
Steam seems to come off of everyone at the restaurant. All the diners are dumplings.

tact
She listens with all outwards signs of compassion. Inwardly she's wondering how much time has passed and how best to interrupt without seeming to interrupt.

torrent
The wind rushes across the river in the dark, flooding the street and making the leaf-shadows dance.