Week in Seven Words #518

This covers the week of 12/22/19 - 12/28/19.

again
Her dollhouse, I discover, has musical features. So that I won't forget about these features, she replays them repeatedly.

alleviating
In the car, I'm a little nauseous from lack of sleep and a breakfast of a single square of chocolate, which seems to hop around like a checker piece in my stomach. What helps is a walk through the parking lot in the mostly fresh air.

halted
I'm struck most by a sculpture inspired by Abraham and Isaac, the near sacrifice of the son by the father. The father figure looks tense and determined but nonetheless reluctant, holding back at the sight of his adult son kneeling with throat bared. The son is prepared, appears not to resist at all, but his fists are clenched.

potbelly
One museum guard allows me to keep my small backpack on me, as long as I wear it in front, like an artificial potbelly. Another guard tries to get me to return to the coat check with it, but I clutch my potbelly protectively and defend it from removal.

seasonal
Scuffed-up stairs and tired-looking stoops are showered with tinsel and potted shrubs.

spotted
A deer among fallen branches by an empty swimming pool.

wintry
An elegant bridge and brittle ice, bare trees and dark, cold water.

Week in Seven Words #503

From 9/8/19 - 9/14/19.

aggrieved
The middle child feels aggrieved, blamed by an older sibling who sides with a younger one.

butterscotch
The birthday cake is slathered in butterscotch icing. Over the weekend, it disappears in chunky slices that melt away on people's tongues and between their teeth, and in fist-sized balls that a child digs out of its side, and in slivers of icing picked away by restless fingernails.

cyclical
They cycle quickly from "I hate you" to hanging out together laughing to being deeply annoyed with each other again (which they call hate), a mood that soon shifts back to affection.

dinner
My clothes are damp and cold from a heavy rain, but the walk to the restaurant is worth it. A good burger, an easy flow of conversation, just a lovely evening overall.

occupations
The first night, she pretends to be a doctor, and she even knows the word "MRI," though she pronounces it "enMarigh." The second night, she's an ice cream truck driver handing out blueberry and mint scoops on cones.

outplay
Creativity, laughter, and hyper-competitiveness during board games. Once again, I get my ass whooped in Settlers of Catan by a ruthless kid.

roomy
The large dollhouse is reserved for a couple of small dog figurines and a little plastic baby in a drawer.

Week in Seven Words #502

With these Weeks in Seven Words posts, I'm still catching up to the current week... and it's eerie to see the contrast between life then and now (virtually empty Times Square, for instance, and going to a restaurant).

automatic
She opens the door, receives the gift, and closes the door after a bland thanks that says nothing.

cityscape
We walk up 7th Avenue, the lights of Times Square tiring our eyes, before we switch to 6th Avenue. Homeless people are folded under scaffolding.

consumers
When we arrive at the restaurant, it's empty. At one table, three workers are on their phones. One of them springs up to take our orders, which we take with us to a round green table several blocks away by a massive library.

denying
If I deny my own past, if I pretend that I was wiser than I was, then I also deny how I've matured.

earworm
"La, la, la, la... la, la, la, la... Elmo's song... La, la, la, la.... la, la, la, la... Elmo's song..." The toddler keeps squeezing the doll, bringing forth new bursts of Elmo's song. More Elmo's song. Elmo loves singing.

lunch
The restaurant is still a small cube where people are crushed elbow-to-elbow at the counter. But they've broadened their menu. I pick a salad with barbecue chicken and tortilla strips and find a bench in a nearby park outside of a museum. "Enjoy," says a guard, eyeing the salad bowl with unmasked appreciation.

patchily
She tries to hide by ducking behind her backpack and slipping on a pair of shades. It's like when a younger kid plays hide-and-seek by sticking the top half of their body under a bed but leaving their legs exposed.

Week in Seven Words #449

audience
Among the people listening to the outdoor opera broadcasts: a young couple who have chosen seats close to the giant screen and are now eating noisily and whispering, a young boy who is entranced, a panhandler crouched outside of a pharmacy blocks away, the voice of the soprano an eerie reverberation around him.

categorizing
"It's not a baby," he insists. "It's an action figure." But she doesn't care. Every small human-shaped toy, including Iron Man, is a baby to her.

expressively
The cantor is astonishing. His voice is full of hope and poignancy.

fey
The opening scene is entrancing. The green curls in her hair flow into her shimmering gown, as she reclines among the roots of a tree.

riches
We admire the embroidered birds and flowers on robes the color of pomegranates. We peer at the details on peacock feathers and at rivers ghosting across a canvas. The delicacy of blossoms and snow is exquisite. So are the tigers rippling across the golden panels.

sweets
At the restaurant, they move her to a different chair, one that isn't in view of the gum ball machine. Another way to distract her is to ask her to sing; her repertoire includes the classics, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," "Baa Baa Black Sheep," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

upright
With a sketch book positioned on her thigh, she sits before a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi that depicts Esther and Ahasuerus. The sketch focuses on Esther, who is close to fainting; her body looks as if it's about to come apart in different directions.

Week in Seven Words #434

addressing
It's a sleek open space where the light fixtures look like upside-down salad bowls. Three speakers eventually settle on stools facing the rows of seats. As the sky darkens, they discuss ways to make AI more ethical. From protecting data to detecting biases in programming, there's much to discuss, and there aren't simple answers.

Chasmosaurus
In 15 minutes, I learn more about horned dinosaurs than I ever learned in my life.

heaps
In the lower level of the supermarket, smoke is pouring out of a freezer. A little later, as I wait on line, we're asked to evacuate. Everyone leaves their cart or basket behind, and it makes an eerie picture: piles of abandoned food, much of it perishable, trailing along an empty store.

intermittent
During the storm, it looks as if a lightbulb is flickering between the clouds.

menu
We don't order the oxtail soup. We just marvel at its price.

select
The gift she receives is a doll that says, "I love you," and chuckles like a trapped squirrel. Keeping at a distance, she motions for it to be placed back in its bag and out of sight. Later, we play with the silent pink bear she likes; I help her and the bear down the slide.

virtuosity
On the radio, Vivaldi's Four Seasons comes on played by Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, and Itzhak Perlman. It's a violin extravaganza.

Week in Seven Words #428

aside
He's attached by a balloon string to his job. At work, he's mostly off on his own, bobbing in one place with his phone, his eyes on the screen where his real life is unfolding.

dismissed
His glazed-over eyes and faint "mm-hms." Another short, unsatisfying conversation.

monotone
Her voice doesn't have any inflection when she describes her day. Mostly, she talks about other people. Who said this and that and the other thing.

settled
The cold stone basement dust smell of an old dim house.

sonny
They tell me I'm old for sending emails. It's almost entirely texts for them now, and half the texts lack text, they're a barrage of emojis. (And I feel old complaining about this, as if I'm shaking my fist from my imaginary front porch, where I sit with curmudgeonly dignity on a rocking chair and communicate with the wider world via telegraph.)

taffy
Two young boys get a pink kite going in the breeze. It looks like a floating piece of candy.

tastes
I'm not sure why I like gefilte fish. It's basically a brick of fish matter.

Week in Seven Words #397

casually
Babies can be so nonchalant. This one has a cold, and without pause, she sneezes straight into her dad's face, then continues peering around and reaching for things.

characterization
"This time, it's going to be different," he says, "I'm going to write fiction that has characters. I mean, they're going to be like people this time."

diffuse
The number of people at the table makes it so that there isn't any pressure on me to speak; at the same time, I'll have someone to talk to (and something to talk about) when I choose.

dodge
He senses the pressure placed on him to read the words, to make the effort exactly to the adult's specifications, and he ducks behind his phone.

fluttering
She holds her troll doll in the air to watch the wind comb through its hair.

recuperate
The first night is rough, because my throat is raw and painful. The next day passes on wobbly legs. Then the second night comes, and with it, thankfully, a deep, healing sleep that helps so much.

riparian
We walk on a sandy path by the river. It runs like a thread through needly pale green shrubs.

Week in Seven Words #378

confect
He brings out a glass bowl with six strawberries bathed in whipped cream.

denial
The kid is determined to pretend that she's happy. She speaks in greeting card platitudes and draws smiley faces on her work. It's her way of getting through a childhood that's starved of love.

gliding
The day is flush with sunlight, and the air smells clean. I walk for an hour and feel calm.

narrowly
He spins the fidget toy on the surface of the desk (spin spin spin), his attention focused entirely on it and not on his book.

pressed
The silver din of utensils and the voices sparkling and roaring pin me to the doorway for a moment, before I step into the restaurant bar during happy hour.

tenant
The cat doesn't belong to anyone in the building. He moved in, and some of the residents took responsibility for veterinary fees. Now he wanders the corridors and curls up for hours in the courtyard among potted plants and folding chairs.

tongue-tied
Her gratitude catches me by surprise, and I don't know if it's deserved. I smile awkwardly, and the thoughts seem to empty from my head to make room for confusion.

Week in Seven Words #368

chow
She's catering the party. The doughy, salty, sweet dishes are spread across the counter.

redirect
The park has been carved out of a rocky hill. You think you're heading north, but really, you're climbing to a lookout point. It's a beautiful detour. You head back down, and again attempt to make your way north. Now you're in a garden. Could these stairs take you out of the park? No, you wind up at another lookout point. Best make yourself comfortable. Here's a bench.

serpentarium
He has turned a part of the basement into a sanctuary for snakes. They live in drawers and pails. Many of them are stuffed animals, and the rest are plastic, but he takes the trouble to feed them and set up a program for breeding them.

shorting
There's this frustrating thing that happens in conversations. People hear the name of a person or thing they don't like, and their brain blows a fuse. From thoughtful, complete sentences, they go to slogans and taunting names. They begin to raise their voice, and the intelligence leaves their eyes.

suggesting
As she sleeps, expressions drift across her face - a wrinkle of fussiness, the glow of a passing smile.

surfing
With his face mashed into a couch cushion he says, "Why am I watching this garbage when there's other garbage on?"

tidily
They have trim beards and pleasant smiles, colorful graphs on PowerPoint slides. And they make economics sound so straightforward.

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 #335

blot
I don't always know how an author's life will affect the way I react to or analyze their work. Just sometimes, the knowledge interposes itself between the work and me. The literary merits may still exist, but with the shadow of the knowledge on them.

extent
People have a village mind and vote on global issues.

glide
What she does on the diving board isn't diving; it's flying. She throws herself into the air with a faint smile. She's just as much at ease in the air as in the water.

masked
She sets up a doll schoolroom, where her doll, equipped with tiny books and pens, pretends to be stupid.

prominency
She's over six feet tall, and has trained herself to be less intimidating by smiling and laughing a lot. She's also been advised to give up high heels but has refused so far.

savings
They're sweating and shivering as they wait in line at the bank. The loss from their account is only a glitch, they hope, easily reversed.

tremulous
The ghost stories we share become explorations of what we're really afraid of - the fears that we hesitate to speak on the off-chance they'll become true.

Week in Seven Words #327

circumfluous
During the blackout, we're both downstairs, and the only ones awake in the house. We move as if we're underwater. The candlelight wavers against the cabinets.

claims
Suddenly, there's a dog on my lap. She gives me a look - "You got anything to say about that?" - then inspects the room from her new vantage point.

puffed
On a walk through a cold drizzle, we enter a street full of mansions. They seem like inflated bouncy castles, mushrooming from the dark green lawns.

surfaces
He's easygoing when he's awake, says there's no need to worry about things. I find out he has nightmares. ("Call the police!" he urges in his sleep.)

survey
Every room is tidy and lovely. I pause in each, anticipating the days of rest.

tart
This is the weekend of pie. One richly lemon, the other rhubarb and apple. Leave me the filling and a fork, and I'm good.

zookeeping
I help him build a giant zoo with blocks and plastic fences to make the pens. It's intricate and cramped. He has elaborate reasons for why different animals should be corralled together. Under his supervision, they wouldn't dare attack each other.

Week in Seven Words #323

arcs
Pushing him on the swing, his small, solid back against my palm.

fragrance
Peeling the lid off a bin full of sheets and towels and bringing them to my nose for a deep breath.

naturally
We dissect twigs and seed pods with plastic knives that he calls "plant knives." Afterwards, he shows me some plastic animal pets, including a rat with a yellow splotch on its back that he calls a "sunspot rat." (It also has white spots on it, but he says those are there to make it look sick so other animals don't eat it.)

olfactorily
The dog is nearly beside herself with the need to press her nose into people.

points
In the first round of our drawing competition, we both draw tigers, and he declares himself the winner. Second round, after I've drawn his sunspot rat, he graciously calls a draw.

pressures
The silence of what we're not telling each other makes the car feel like it's going to implode.

stealth
They take hide-and-seek to another level, not only finding the most improbable places to hide but texting each other updates on the seeker's location.

Week in Seven Words #312

brusque
Blunt, cranky, and doesn't care about popular opinion. A pinch of humor in his mouth, lips turned up at the corners.

creepy
For unknown reasons, the restaurant plays a kind of soft, demented circus music. Everything turns sinister: the glint of cutlery, the irregular laughter. The waiter's secretive smile when I order a hamburger.

fabrication
He introduces me to "Two Truths, One Lie," where you share three things about yourself and everyone tries to guess which one is false. The U.S. states I've visited and number of miles I've walked in a day throw people off.

locomotives
For a couple of hours, we're absorbed in building train routes across Europe.

petulance
Unwilling to do something fun, she claims the sofa and calls attention to herself by complaining.

shrugging
When the adults are being childish, take a break from them and sit at the children's table.

understory
He's absorbed in his rain forest of pop-up trees and plastic prowling animals.

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.

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 #270

cradling
Held in place by the people around her, she falls asleep standing up in the subway car.

enthused
Flowers spilling out of the grocery store to meet the warmer air.

frenzied
We have a short time together. Make it count, I think. Tell funny stories, crack jokes. But I can't think of anything. My need to perform is proof of the distance between us. I can only wave and gesture and pull faces like a clown; anything more subtle won't get noticed.

glaring
Coffee in a solarium. He wishes he could smoke indoors too. He takes out his lighter and turns it in different angles until a blade of sunlight springs out of it.

intrusive
Fog probing the upper reaches of the tree.

unaccountable
It's hideous when parents turn one of their children into the brutal enforcement arm of their parental power. The child dispenses punishment - berates the other children, bullies and hits them. The parents watch calmly from their heights.

wreckage
The fire station has fallen apart. A truck and a police car have smashed into the pizzeria. Mermaids bob in the harbor next to capsized boats. The future of Lego City looks grim.

Week in Seven Words #242

backyard
Cut a path across planks, past muddy furrows, pitted grass and cables coiling snake-like.

confection
A pink cake on a purple plate and a stew of plastic spiders are what he serves me from his waist-high kitchen.

disruptive
A pleading grown-up, a giggling child. The red clock on the microwave marking a wasted lesson.

hole
There's a well of misery in her. From time to time, she peeks into it, maybe sticks her head part-way in (the echoes of 'not enough,' 'not enough' are stronger in there). But for the most part she ignores it, even though its emanations and stagnant contents affect much of what she does.

listen
As a younger child gets read to, older ones hang around and listen in. The pleasure of hearing a story out loud, and sharing its delight with another person, doesn't have to fade.

rear-ended
A bewildered, apologetic face behind a windshield.

vibrant
Their happy shrieks and laughter mix with the shimmer of the swimming pool.

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 #200 and #201

#200

counterpoise
The closeness to others is beautiful, as is the possibility of finding space to be on your own when you need it.

fantastic
Their Lego city is imaginative. Castles, modified Hobbit homes, and modern shopping plazas with headless mannequins, all on the same street. City residents get around on zip lines and in horse-drawn carriages. Nothing has developed in exact accordance with the instructions in each Lego box.

keep
A laden table, a lawn in the dark, lights at the window.

plotting
I hope she doesn't lose her desire to fill up notebook pages with characters and ideas.

springy
Tigger, bouncing around the Hundred Acre Wood, entrances him. As we watch, he turns to me with a slow smile, pleased to see that I'm also enjoying his favorite cartoon character.

unwind
When she finds someone who listens, she talks until she's breathless - thoughts, dreams, books read, plans for the coming days and weeks.

unyielding
I'm not surprised that she doesn't try one of the burgers; maybe it would be too much of a concession.