Week in Seven Words #552

This covers the week of 8/16/20 - 8/22/20.

adviser

Two young men are having a conversation on a stoop. "To be honest," one of them says, when an old man walking past them interrupts by shouting, "Don't be honest. Deny everything!" He shakes his cane and cackles.

angst

The Scrabble game is like a scene from a French film full of existential dread. ("Mes mots sont horribles. Je veux une cigarette.")

canary

We walk past shells of restaurants and "Coming Soon" signs that have failed in their promise. The city is showing its ribs. In Times Square, it's easy to keep a quick pace. There are no crowds to push through. We do see one sign of liveliness, though: The Naked Cowboy, in all his cowboy-hatted, tighty-whitie-wearing magnificence. As long as he's there, things can't be too bad. Like a canary in a coal mine – if he isn't singing, it may be an alarming sign of the city's decline.

intensify

On the green surface of the lake, small rapidly vanishing white circles show that it's raining. The rain steadily thickens, until I'm squishing around in my shoes.

leniency

It's pointed out to me that I'm judging someone with leniency, which is true. I don't have all the facts, and why assume the worst? 

lulling

In a dim, piney place, there are no children on the swing sets, only a couple of adults enjoying the gentle back-and-forth, the toes kicked up to the sky.

sentimentally

On a cool gray evening, beside a fountain crowned by the statue of an angel, a man sings "Lean on Me." Close by, a middle-aged couple dance slowly with goofy, self-conscious smiles. 

Week in Seven Words #500

catch-all
She uses "heavy" to describe anything big or adult-like.

decoding
Even though he's more experienced with JavaScript than I am, he can still find it perplexing. Like why 2019 gets interpreted as a number even though it was typed as a string.

drenching
Right after we step into the store, the wind picks up, and the storm rushes through the streets like an overflowing river.

impatience
I'm caught up in a flurry of impatience with myself. But impatience is preferable to feeling undeserving and inadequate.

salesmanship
The salesman, crimped and white-toothed, hovers too much, but he does point me to something worth buying.

self-sufficient
An old woman walking with her spine perpendicular to her hips refuses help with her bags. She's holding one in each hand, and they seem to balance her.

warily
The doctor's office is tucked below street level. It looks grubby and shabby, and the air is thick with the tang of disinfectant.

Week in Seven Words #496

environmental
By the salty, polluted river, the grass is long and glossy. Purple flowers and soda cans nestle in it.

forum
Worries are better dealt with outdoors. Not in the confines of a familiar room but in a wider space with water, trees, and people.

fuzzily
A caterpillar, small as a piece of macaroni, squiggles on my neck.

multitasking
A woman is simultaneously playing the violin and hula hooping. Packing her talents together in the hopes of collecting more money in her violin case.

noise
She keeps lowering her book with a sigh. The whoosh of the passing cars distracts her. I've written it off as background noise, like the wind. After she calls attention to it, I pause to listen, and I realize how much noise I accept as a given, just a part of life.

seaworthy
Toy sailboats find their balance on a sheet of dark water.

thickly
Rain comes down in thick continuous clots and spatters like white paint on the street.

Week in Seven Words #493

adjourned
For their meeting, they settle in a circle on the grass. When the sprinklers go off, they spring up laughing and scamper away with their notebooks and jackets.

defenders
The geese hiss at passing dogs and at two teenaged boys who are trying to see how close they can get to the fuzzy juveniles.

drowsing
The town is asleep in the noon sunshine. I'm not used to places where almost nothing is open on a national holiday, and where a business owner can stick a piece of cardboard on a window to announce a nine-day vacation. One kind restaurant owner, who hasn't yet opened for lunch, lets us use his bathroom. Our own lunch we eat on a bench opposite a sleepy library. (Libraries are never open enough hours.)

landscape
The gardens slope down to the cliff's edge, the land patterned with trees, lawns, and flowers that look like brushstrokes. Some of the trees are almost neon green in the sunlight. Others remain dark and subdued. A motorboat cuts a bold white line on the river.

persona
On a path by the river, I spot a TV celebrity and his son. The celebrity is wearing a cap and glasses, but his features are still distinctive enough for recognition. What's different is his voice. He speaks to his child in calm tones, completely different from his frenetic screen persona.

polished
They're seated on the terrace with club sandwiches and country club smiles. Silver and dentures.

redolent
The heavy rain shower hits us in a spasm. It's soon over, leaving us with cooler air that feels creamy. The air is scented with everything green.

Week in Seven Words #486

concierge
The concierge could have undergone Marine Corp boot camp training and would still not have been prepared for this particular guest and her battery of demands.

flooding
Rain gushing like the sky is full of faulty plumbing.

overlaid
The cloying scent of flowers and dog feces in a narrow park.

possibility
Dressed in gym shorts and gray tees, they've plonked themselves down on a couple of pink armchairs and are now discussing whether Noah's ark could have been built.

role-playing
They get sucked into a game set in another world, where there are portals opening to demonic realms and taverns where you can quaff an ale by a roaring fire.

sufficiently
We're eating at the bar, conversation minimal, eyes mostly on the food. We're seated shoulder-to-shoulder in quiet companionship.

trailing
They know which part of the store their child has run off to, because he's left a trail of crumbled crackers for them to follow.

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 #465

agreeable
We watch a movie and wonder why it was made. But we don't wonder why we're watching it to the end. The couch is comfortable. The company is undemanding and pleasant.

entertained
They pass some time with songs, a dance routine she made up with her friends, and random odd dribbles of entertainment on YouTube.

jackpot
The dog strains on his leash towards the cat hospital.

parquet
The herbal smell of floor wipes, the wood floor glistening.

pop-up
Each pretty house is like a storybook. Open one, and the rooms and the people would pop out in colorful illustrations.

shivery
Walking through a chill spill of rain to an overcrowded restaurant.

surmounting
On her scooter she attempts to go over a speed bump slowly, as if it's a hill she's scaling.

Week in Seven Words #442

adorning
The table is crowned with a vase of lilacs and gladioli.

blades
They're cheerful and polished, but their smiles seem carved out of their flesh. Their brightness has the potential to become hard and repellent.

downpour
Heavy rain, so thick it seems to come down in clots. Afterwards, the air is cool and fresh.

limping
It's an odd, disjointed dinner. The conversation drifts frequently to weather disasters. During the silences, people peer at each other uncertainly. One guest is silent and remote, with a pinched look, as if he had been running from exhaustion for a while before it finally overtook him.

sluggishly
The 2 train crawls like an old fat snake that has eaten too much.

throwback
The office suite reminds me of a student center on a college campus. There's a coffee bar, vending machines, puffy sofas sitting low on the ground, and several tables tucked into booths.

verbalizing
A man is jogging with his dog by the lake. "How are you doing, boy?" the man asks. The dog pants. "You doing good?" The dog continues to pant. "Good boy!"

Week in Seven Words #388

barnyard
Baby goats press against the legs of the man who feeds them; they peer out from the folds of his trousers. Chickens walk around in their strange, obsessive way, making discontented noises.

drafts
The artists have set up studios in derelict homes. Most of the rooms are empty; some are papered in sketches. Here and there, a dash of paint disturbs a long stretch of dust.

meditation
With their bodies, they seem to form letters of the alphabet. Their spines curve, and their arms rise and bend. Their instructor walks among them and gently edits the poses.

petrichor
A walk between downpours. Everything is soaked in the smell of after-rain.

snarling
The music growls and punches holes in the quiet.

spasms
The worm, freshly plucked, flops around in the bird's beak.

unsophisticated
The fountain looks like it's juggling balls of foam. People sigh as they watch it; some record it on their phones. I like seeing this lack of jadedness. People taking pleasure in a simple, beautiful sight.

Week in Seven Words #354

apply
He's bored reading about U.S. labor laws from the early 20th century. Then he comes across a YouTube video about the labor conditions for smartphone manufacturing. He starts to pay more attention, make connections.

captivating
The fountain has three statues of women spinning in dance, hand-in-hand. It's ringed by flowers, and as the flowers draw bees, the fountain draws people to take photos, and to kneel by its side and run their fingers through the dark water.

driving
The storm whips up dirt and litter. In the stinging rain, discarded cups whirl around. With clothes soaked, I wait under an awning with several others. The wind steers the rain to us.

gift
A handful of hours made for a walk on wooded paths along pools and streams.

pocket
The park is a handful of benches and a bit of greenery in an alley. The bricks catch at the sunlight, and flies swarm in the moist shade.

pup
A woman relaxes on a blanket with a dog tucked against the curve of her waist.

sharp
An insect bite crackling with pain.

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 #280

blender
Rain spatters the window. The backyard looks like green liquid, a parsley shake.

cloy
The candies are a brightly colored glue of sugar and preservatives.

principle
He doesn't like the cake, but he eats it, because it's cake.

silencing
A spider threads its web across the mouth of a stone lion.

sloshing
His aquarium is a blue tub. The fish are plastic toys, and bob as if they're dead. He pokes at them to make them look lively. They lurch and sway in the water.

underestimate
Throughout the game of Clue he glances at his phone, gets up to eat, and forgets what he asked the other players. He still wins. He's like a fictional private eye who looks unprofessional and gets dismissed as an idiot, only to solve the murder way ahead of the police.

unfruitful
A plot of dirt bakes in the sun. Nothing, not even a weed, grows in it.

Week in Seven Words #245

found
Sometimes I'll walk somewhere without any particular purpose, and I'll find something I didn't know I needed. In this case, it's a book, and its contents are so relevant to me I spend most of the day carrying it around and peeking into it when I get the chance.

lashed
In a moment of childish temper, a middle-aged woman strikes another older woman on the back. People gasp. She pretends not to notice their dismay, but hurries out soon after, her face tight with the knowledge that no one will ever see her the same way again.

leaping
Light-headed elation as sunset draws the day down.

muffle
Bundled up on the sofa while the clock ticks and traffic murmurs.

patchouli
They're back - the spindly, perfumed twins who dress like they've stepped out of a steampunk novel. The backs of their hands betray their age, but in other ways they're young; they share a seat and adjust each other's hair.

pervade
Feet clad in cold damp tights. A chill seeps through the door.

trickle
Cold rain snaking into the sleeves of my poncho.

Week in Seven Words #244

arresting
There are some sounds to which I fall silent and still.

present
The key is to appear clearly to yourself and think, "Here I am. Here's what I'm doing." And not have to shy away from either.

pretense
He makes the "both sides are wrong" copout. Yes, both sides have flaws - but for one side, it's a few typos, while for the other side it's the equivalent of ungrammatical chicken scratch handed in on toilet paper.

ribs
I'm imprisoned in the stories I tell about myself.

soggy
Rain puddling under a bench where we sit and share a bag of peanut butter cups.

soreness
Damp and tired, feet chafed, after a long walk in the park with inappropriate footwear.

version
Change the narratives then. Cobble together some new ones. Find out who you are after years of not listening, of treating yourself as second-rate.

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.

Week in Seven Words #144

I had meant to post this earlier in the week, but better late than never...

crackle
The first time I step outside after the Frankenstorm, the air is cold and raw, like breathing ice crystals.

cramming
Early Sunday morning, the lines at the grocery store spill out the door.

howling
Flickering lights and rain lashing the windows, but thankfully no flooding. No long-term loss of power. Unlike other parts of the city and eastern coastline, which are unrecognizable now.

orbitofrontal
Young kids have a hard time focusing on multiple details. I see it during a game of Dominos where the child pays attention to one feature or number but overlooks another. Juggling details simultaneously is tough.

pococurante
I want to smack the people who go online to tell everyone that the coming storm is "hyped up" and that there's no need to evacuate or prepare for it in any way.

refuge
People clustered at the library looking for a warm place to read, sleep and use the Internet for the first time in a couple of days.

skewed
If they lose the first game, they tell me it isn't fair if I win the second one too. Even if the game is purely chance, a matter of how the dice land, they still want me to lose somehow, to appease their notion of fairness and make things right with the world.

Week in Seven Words #140

arch
"What do your parents do?" I ask. "As little as possible," she says.

expiring
I notice when the kids don't know how to pronounce a word they say the first sound or syllable, and then let the rest of the word die in their mouth. 'Significant' can turn into 'sigf.' Then they move on to the next word without looking back, as if they've committed a verbal hit-and-run.

gaggle
Geese settle onto the baseball diamond, where they strut from one mud puddle to another with awkward majesty.

gleeful
She shows how happy she is to see me by drawing a spontaneous stick figure portrait of me surrounded by hearts and balancing a blue dog on my head.

pitter-patter
Rain plinking on my shoulders as I sit in the Sukkah.

stirring
During the Hallel prayer service, the lulavs rustle, and a wind seems to rise and fall in the room.

waggish
"What do you want to do on your birthday?" I ask. "Anything I can get away with," she says.

Week in Seven Words #124

ambiance
Dinner is held in a dim and peaceful room, the windows framing a pink sunset. On the table, flowers are cradled in a vase.

chipping
I'm fed up with "good intentions" - not actual good intentions but the expression itself: "Don't be mad, I have good intentions" or "I'm telling you that nearly everything about you stinks, but that's ok, because I have good intentions." They're an excuse for every insensitive remark, personal affront, and belabored criticism; they absolve the speaker of any wrong-doing. There's no need for self-examination or a sincere attempt to speak with tact and empathy. How can anyone be hurt or irritated by good intentions? ("That's one of your problems right there - you're too sensitive. No, it's true. Believe me, I'm telling you this out of the goodness of my heart.")

drippy
Walking in the rain wearing sandals that nick my toes.

galvanized
For the most part she's an easy dog to watch over. She solicits belly rubs, flops down on the carpet by my feet for a rest, and tussles with some of her chew toys. But there are ten minutes when a switch flips in her puppy mind and she tears around the room in a circuit, over the back of the couch and under the bed and back out again.

mellowed
A game of Scrabble on a bench outdoors with a breeze from the river.

photons
Light shimmering on the underside of stone.

sweetness
When I tuck them into bed they sing me the lullabies that their parents usually sing to them.

Week in Seven Words #107

passive-aggressive
The clerks at the library have sullenness down to an art. They would rather be anywhere than here, scanning your books and DVDs, and they let you know it with every dead-eyed resentful look.

quiescent
On the train he nods off beside me, clutching his backpack to his stomach. He's quiet, asleep, self-contained - a great neighbor for a train ride.

ricocheting
Playing soccer in the corridor, I feel like I'm in a pinball machine, trying to keep the ball from zig-zagging into doorways and slamming off the walls.

spelunker
She can't yet clear the couch, not consistently, so she settles for crawling under it, flattening out and squirming around in the dust, only her hind feet showing us where she is.

squinch
A steel bowl and in it strawberries, and over those, blackberries - the kind of blackberries that will always bring to mind Galway Kinnell's poem "Blackberry Eating" where the berries are so plump, firm and juicy you don't just eat them, you squinch and splurge well on them.

tackling
He reads four books to me, making his way through them with determination. The most daunting one is Green Eggs and Ham - 60 odd pages - but once you've seen 'could' and 'would' a few dozen times you're less likely to trip up on those silent 'L's.

truce
The city is gentle dark and damp after the rain. I'd like to think that bad things can't happen on an evening like this.

Week in Seven Words #102

carpus
I'm pointed to Clockwords: Prelude, a game where the object is to quickly type words with certain designated letters, so that the letters can be shot at mechanical spiders who are out to steal secrets from your laboratory. As in Scrabble, the letters have different values, and can be further imbued with special powers, like the ability to explode and take out more spiders, who make a pulpy sound when hit. The game is amusing, and carpal-tunnel-syndrome-inducing. Mentally challenging, but a little depressing too (will I waste my words on spiders? Wear out my fingers and wrists for this?).

dreich
Stumping around outside on a cold soggy dreich day where the trees look like stale gray vegetables found in the bottom of a fridge drawer.

laryngitis
Feels like rock and gravel are getting scraped away from my throat so that my voice will eventually find its way out.

mouth-watering
A small lump of warm bread pudding with cinnamon and raisins, dissolving around my fork.

no
As a toddler he hears it all the time - no, don't dismantle the phone; no, don't put your sneakers on the cushions; no, don't wander off with strangers. No.

optimism
One of the first books I'm reading this year is a collection of dystopian short fiction.

rumination
I love how we take the stories apart, studying and discussing them. What's best is when we raise questions the author hadn't consciously asked but wove in while getting to know the characters and living through their struggles.