jagged
This time, the flare-up is over a jar of expired sauce. He slams the jar into the garbage bag; she fishes it out and nearly slices open her hand.
overlook
He likes the kids who act out. They're more honest, he says. But what about the kids who stuff their pain so deep it eats them alive, even as they smile and get good grades?
pinpricks
At a few points during the film, the panelists pause it to take questions. Some of them respond with substantive answers. Others devote their time to protracted thanks, reeling off names. The lights over the screen sear our eyes.
riff
A panhandler wearing a Trump mask props up a sign in front of him that says "Mexican Wall Fund."
thumbing
At a meal of rituals, songs, and prayers, he keeps an eye on hockey scores, checking his phone with an exaggerated sneakiness that's meant to fool no one.
warmed
They hug, for once, in a small room saturated with cooking smells - meat sizzling, herbed potatoes softening.
yarn
We toss ideas back and forth and build a story, with joy and energy.
Showing posts with label questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label questions. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2017
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Week in Seven Words #290
guffawing
The three of us on an old couch, laughing until our eyes sting and our stomachs cramp.
maritime
As the bathtub fills, it becomes a sea of rising toys: capsized boats, smiley animals, figurines peering into the soapy deep.
nest
The room doesn't get much direct sunlight. The light that fills it is soft, and partly filtered through branches. On powder-white shelves there are books, seashells, perfumes and lotions, homemade art, flowers, and small gadgets.
nibble
I like the buffet-style meal, where at least ten dishes are spread out on the kitchen counter, and I take a tiny bit of almost everything.
partiality
I read to him for hours, and he gets teased about it. They tell him he's choosing boring books that no one who's older than him could like. For a moment, he looks uncertain. "My books are interesting!" he insists. And I back him up. He shouldn't feel bad about the books he loves. And some of them are interesting, even for adults. Even when they're read more than once.
querying
I like seeing how their understanding of life develops. How they think about their own experiences, make sense of the world, question ideas that don't seem quite right.
zoology
He won't be satisfied if you tell him you saw a shark. He needs to know the kind of shark. Blue shark, lemon shark, whale shark. He even has a reference book that he can't read yet, but that he's had others read to him so many times that he can point you to the right page and have you educate yourself about the proper shark. I learn about animals I didn't even know existed.
The three of us on an old couch, laughing until our eyes sting and our stomachs cramp.
maritime
As the bathtub fills, it becomes a sea of rising toys: capsized boats, smiley animals, figurines peering into the soapy deep.
nest
The room doesn't get much direct sunlight. The light that fills it is soft, and partly filtered through branches. On powder-white shelves there are books, seashells, perfumes and lotions, homemade art, flowers, and small gadgets.
nibble
I like the buffet-style meal, where at least ten dishes are spread out on the kitchen counter, and I take a tiny bit of almost everything.
partiality
I read to him for hours, and he gets teased about it. They tell him he's choosing boring books that no one who's older than him could like. For a moment, he looks uncertain. "My books are interesting!" he insists. And I back him up. He shouldn't feel bad about the books he loves. And some of them are interesting, even for adults. Even when they're read more than once.
querying
I like seeing how their understanding of life develops. How they think about their own experiences, make sense of the world, question ideas that don't seem quite right.
zoology
He won't be satisfied if you tell him you saw a shark. He needs to know the kind of shark. Blue shark, lemon shark, whale shark. He even has a reference book that he can't read yet, but that he's had others read to him so many times that he can point you to the right page and have you educate yourself about the proper shark. I learn about animals I didn't even know existed.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
The Short Story Initiative (Getting to Know You Post)
Nancy Cudis, at Simple Clockwork, had been hosting Short Stories on Wednesdays (which she had taken over from Risa at Breadcrumb Reads). Now Short Stories on Wednesdays has morphed into the Short Story Initiative. At the end of every month Nancy will put up a post where bloggers can add links to their own posts on short stories from the past month; she even has suggestions for monthly short story themes, but those are optional, and to participate you can write about any short stories.
To start off the Short Story Initiative Nancy has suggested a getting to know each other post with the following questions:
1. Why do you want to join The Short Story Initiative?
I love reading short stories, and I'd like to connect with other bloggers who have a similar interest.
2. What kind of short stories do you read? Is there a specific genre or culture or nationality you would like to explore through short stories?
Looking through the growing list of short fiction recommendations (at the Reading Lists tab above) I wasn't able to find a type of short story I've liked best. It just has to be a good story and memorable in some way (I haven't yet come across a story with zombies that I like, so maybe 'zombie fiction' is out for me). I read a variety of styles and genres, and I'm branching out to different nationalities and cultures as well. One of my goals is to read as many of the Oxford series of short story anthologies as possible, when they're available at the local library; they offer collections of short stories from cultures around the world (e.g. The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories).
3. Who is your favorite short story writer? Why?
I don't have a single favorite author. Most of the anthologies I read present a mix of different authors, either from a certain culture or writing about a certain theme (e.g. love, crime, cats).
4. What is the most memorable short story you have read?
Tough one... Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" for the dementedness of the narrator, Isak Dinesen's "The Immortal Story," Graham Greene's "The Destructors," Alejo Carpentier's "Journey Back to the Source," Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's stories (surprisingly so, because they aren't full of magnificent dramatic events, but they linger in the mind for a long time after).
5. What is your experience with short stories in the past? Is it a good or bad experience?
I don't remember having bad experiences with short fiction. I used to read short stories in high school and liked them well enough, but then hardly read them at all for close to ten years. But last year I dove into them again. I don't remember what suddenly rekindled my interest.
6. Share one book confession when it comes to short stories?
It's harder for me to read short stories online because I get fidgety reading multi-paged works off of a computer screen. I prefer reading out of a book (I haven't tried e-readers yet). Not much of a confession, but there you go.
7. Share something about yourself that has nothing to do with short stories.
I'm mildly addicted to Khan Academy videos.
To start off the Short Story Initiative Nancy has suggested a getting to know each other post with the following questions:
1. Why do you want to join The Short Story Initiative?
I love reading short stories, and I'd like to connect with other bloggers who have a similar interest.
2. What kind of short stories do you read? Is there a specific genre or culture or nationality you would like to explore through short stories?
Looking through the growing list of short fiction recommendations (at the Reading Lists tab above) I wasn't able to find a type of short story I've liked best. It just has to be a good story and memorable in some way (I haven't yet come across a story with zombies that I like, so maybe 'zombie fiction' is out for me). I read a variety of styles and genres, and I'm branching out to different nationalities and cultures as well. One of my goals is to read as many of the Oxford series of short story anthologies as possible, when they're available at the local library; they offer collections of short stories from cultures around the world (e.g. The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories).
3. Who is your favorite short story writer? Why?
I don't have a single favorite author. Most of the anthologies I read present a mix of different authors, either from a certain culture or writing about a certain theme (e.g. love, crime, cats).
4. What is the most memorable short story you have read?
Tough one... Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" for the dementedness of the narrator, Isak Dinesen's "The Immortal Story," Graham Greene's "The Destructors," Alejo Carpentier's "Journey Back to the Source," Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's stories (surprisingly so, because they aren't full of magnificent dramatic events, but they linger in the mind for a long time after).
5. What is your experience with short stories in the past? Is it a good or bad experience?
I don't remember having bad experiences with short fiction. I used to read short stories in high school and liked them well enough, but then hardly read them at all for close to ten years. But last year I dove into them again. I don't remember what suddenly rekindled my interest.
6. Share one book confession when it comes to short stories?
It's harder for me to read short stories online because I get fidgety reading multi-paged works off of a computer screen. I prefer reading out of a book (I haven't tried e-readers yet). Not much of a confession, but there you go.
7. Share something about yourself that has nothing to do with short stories.
I'm mildly addicted to Khan Academy videos.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Week in Seven Words #134
autopilot
The mind tends to make decisions based on familiarity and comfort. But this time I stop myself and ask, "Why?" - Why are we going for this problematic option that will cost more and give us a poorer return on our efforts?
aversion
When reading at the park on Saturday afternoons I'm used to seeing squirrels dart across the small paths by the lake. What I'm not prepared for are rats. Rats don't belong here. The first rat is a large one with a long tail dragging behind it. The second rat, which darts out a minute later, is smaller and might have been cute had it been in a cage at the pet store. Rats aren't 'park animals.' They're pests or pets (or lab specimens). Then I remember meeting with someone once in an old building in west Philly where our conversation kept getting interrupted by loud thumps from inside the walls. "The squirrels are lively today," she told me, and I guess any animal can be a pest if it violates the boundaries people have placed around it.
gears
After playing piano for half an hour I sit down again in front of the computer and forget how to type. For ten seconds or so my fingers can't settle on the keyboard and every movement I make with them feels alien. It's as if my brain is still in piano mode, wanting me to play chords and trills instead of typing (this is what a trill looks like on the keyboard: jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkj). It takes a mental shift just to get started again.
intermixture
She plays hopscotch on a basketball court where her brother and his friend shoot hoops with a soccer ball.
oddballs
We're a pair of misfit Jews.
plenitude
More bookshelves!
yolky
We talk over runny eggs. At the table next to us a baby shrieks.
The mind tends to make decisions based on familiarity and comfort. But this time I stop myself and ask, "Why?" - Why are we going for this problematic option that will cost more and give us a poorer return on our efforts?
aversion
When reading at the park on Saturday afternoons I'm used to seeing squirrels dart across the small paths by the lake. What I'm not prepared for are rats. Rats don't belong here. The first rat is a large one with a long tail dragging behind it. The second rat, which darts out a minute later, is smaller and might have been cute had it been in a cage at the pet store. Rats aren't 'park animals.' They're pests or pets (or lab specimens). Then I remember meeting with someone once in an old building in west Philly where our conversation kept getting interrupted by loud thumps from inside the walls. "The squirrels are lively today," she told me, and I guess any animal can be a pest if it violates the boundaries people have placed around it.
gears
After playing piano for half an hour I sit down again in front of the computer and forget how to type. For ten seconds or so my fingers can't settle on the keyboard and every movement I make with them feels alien. It's as if my brain is still in piano mode, wanting me to play chords and trills instead of typing (this is what a trill looks like on the keyboard: jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkj). It takes a mental shift just to get started again.
intermixture
She plays hopscotch on a basketball court where her brother and his friend shoot hoops with a soccer ball.
oddballs
We're a pair of misfit Jews.
plenitude
More bookshelves!
yolky
We talk over runny eggs. At the table next to us a baby shrieks.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Week in Seven Words #55
anterograde
He was a man with anterograde amnesia - he could encode no new episodic memories. He had some past memories to anchor him a little, give him a sense of identity. Otherwise he was adrift. He inhabited narrow parcels of time, probably no more than half a minute long (and often less), whatever his short term memory could hold. He did not remember people he had just met, or what he had just been saying or doing, or what others said and did to him. Every morning when he woke up he felt as if he was awakening after a long sleep, years-long. He would lean over to a diary at his bedside and write that he was finally awake. Then he would discover a previous entry documenting the same thing (that he had finally woken up!) and with a feeling of uneasy dismissal he would cross out that previous entry, thinking it impossible that he could have written such a thing. Most of his life felt like that - the recent seconds slipping, and then a sensation of waking up fresh to the world, not remembering why he was sitting on the couch (his couch?) or why there was a dinner plate in front of him.
floe
Less than two weeks ago the field was caked from end to end in snow and ice, brilliant in the sunshine, with a couple of benches bobbing around like rowboats on an arctic sea. This week the snow has crept away, uncovering dry brown grass. Boys and girls in sweatshirts, tee-shirts, and shorts rush out to play frisbee. Nearby some guys play volleyball barefoot on a sandy court; their big golden dog dashes around their bare legs.
halting
The words come with difficulty, over the phone or face-to-face, but once I find them and say them some relief comes to me; things haven't turned out badly or as awkwardly as I feared. I can even laugh.
observer
Several times this week I watch myself from a somewhat detached vantage point within my mind, like a master observing the workings of an automaton that she ostensibly controls. There I am speaking to one group of people, then to another, and there I am walking, one foot before the other, and listening patiently, and being in turn observed by others. And in response to a lot of what I see I think, "why"?
penmanship
Bad hand-writing makes for a sort of malleable identity. What's meant to be a 'G' looks like an 'S'; a lowercase i is more like a lowercase o. One person no longer exists on the roster, and several have wriggled out of order, out to explore new alphabetical territory.
venture
Diagrams on a board; illustrations dotted out on yellow notepad paper. We map out another attempt at overcoming a difficult problem.
zephyr
For the first time in months I sit outside on a bench and read. I don't get much reading done; the breeze tempts me to distraction.
He was a man with anterograde amnesia - he could encode no new episodic memories. He had some past memories to anchor him a little, give him a sense of identity. Otherwise he was adrift. He inhabited narrow parcels of time, probably no more than half a minute long (and often less), whatever his short term memory could hold. He did not remember people he had just met, or what he had just been saying or doing, or what others said and did to him. Every morning when he woke up he felt as if he was awakening after a long sleep, years-long. He would lean over to a diary at his bedside and write that he was finally awake. Then he would discover a previous entry documenting the same thing (that he had finally woken up!) and with a feeling of uneasy dismissal he would cross out that previous entry, thinking it impossible that he could have written such a thing. Most of his life felt like that - the recent seconds slipping, and then a sensation of waking up fresh to the world, not remembering why he was sitting on the couch (his couch?) or why there was a dinner plate in front of him.
floe
Less than two weeks ago the field was caked from end to end in snow and ice, brilliant in the sunshine, with a couple of benches bobbing around like rowboats on an arctic sea. This week the snow has crept away, uncovering dry brown grass. Boys and girls in sweatshirts, tee-shirts, and shorts rush out to play frisbee. Nearby some guys play volleyball barefoot on a sandy court; their big golden dog dashes around their bare legs.
halting
The words come with difficulty, over the phone or face-to-face, but once I find them and say them some relief comes to me; things haven't turned out badly or as awkwardly as I feared. I can even laugh.
observer
Several times this week I watch myself from a somewhat detached vantage point within my mind, like a master observing the workings of an automaton that she ostensibly controls. There I am speaking to one group of people, then to another, and there I am walking, one foot before the other, and listening patiently, and being in turn observed by others. And in response to a lot of what I see I think, "why"?
penmanship
Bad hand-writing makes for a sort of malleable identity. What's meant to be a 'G' looks like an 'S'; a lowercase i is more like a lowercase o. One person no longer exists on the roster, and several have wriggled out of order, out to explore new alphabetical territory.
venture
Diagrams on a board; illustrations dotted out on yellow notepad paper. We map out another attempt at overcoming a difficult problem.
zephyr
For the first time in months I sit outside on a bench and read. I don't get much reading done; the breeze tempts me to distraction.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Week in Seven Words #24
consistency
I can count on this restaurant to provide the right kind of avocado - not too mushy or too hard, and embedded in the chewy seaweed and sticky white rice of a delectable sushi roll.
cubes
A plate of juicy pineapple - fat glistening cubes of pineapple - by the window fan in the warm room.
dangling
I don't focus enough on my words and the implications of my work; I attend too closely to the expressions of the people in the audience. Their faces are often inscrutable; from time to time they nod, quirk an eyebrow, smile just a little. Though it's important to keep one's audience in mind during a talk I think I take it just a little too far, searching their faces for the most miniscule glimpse of their true thoughts.
mellow
Leaning against the train window, eyes half-closed, with the sun setting at my left ear.
procrastination
It stems in large part from a fear of failure.
puzzlement
A camp counselor asks a reasonable question: "Why did you touch the waffle-maker? You know it's hot!"
tickled
She picks a few fuzzy feathery pink flowers from a tree and instructs me to tuck them into my pocket so that my hands will be free when we play catch.
I can count on this restaurant to provide the right kind of avocado - not too mushy or too hard, and embedded in the chewy seaweed and sticky white rice of a delectable sushi roll.
cubes
A plate of juicy pineapple - fat glistening cubes of pineapple - by the window fan in the warm room.
dangling
I don't focus enough on my words and the implications of my work; I attend too closely to the expressions of the people in the audience. Their faces are often inscrutable; from time to time they nod, quirk an eyebrow, smile just a little. Though it's important to keep one's audience in mind during a talk I think I take it just a little too far, searching their faces for the most miniscule glimpse of their true thoughts.
mellow
Leaning against the train window, eyes half-closed, with the sun setting at my left ear.
procrastination
It stems in large part from a fear of failure.
puzzlement
A camp counselor asks a reasonable question: "Why did you touch the waffle-maker? You know it's hot!"
tickled
She picks a few fuzzy feathery pink flowers from a tree and instructs me to tuck them into my pocket so that my hands will be free when we play catch.
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