100 words on Punctuality January 31, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in 100 Words.Tags: 100 Words, punctuality
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Chilean time runs forty minutes slower than the quickest snail in New York:
Never leave on time or you will wait; alone and outside.
Remember to bring quinientos pesos so you can get home quickly in a taxi.
Do not push or shove on crowded streets.
Revel in the ten shoe stores you pass. Stare at each one. Someday the shoes might be different.
Stop to buy an empanada. Do you want cheese or beef?
Run into three friends. Impede foot traffic while you greet.
Stop in a pharmacy.
Find friends and kiss each on the cheek. No hard feelings.
100 Words on Squash January 30, 2008
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It grows in the garden under the shade of its own leaves. Like a balloon squeezed tight at one end, I am afraid its squishy innards might explode over its dirt-lined home. Its casing is a hard diluted butter-yellow, but I cannot smell it. A fuzzy green stem arches off its top nod and snakes through the web of vines. Curly cues twizzle into the air. The soft bristles are painful and lodge in my fingers when I stroke the vine. The dirt and leaves, wet from rain, open their pores up to my nose and the garden comes alive.
People watching January 29, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in Uncategorized.Tags: people watching
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At the library today I ordered a hot chocolate. Nothing special, but I spent all morning looking forward to my treat. The lady who made it was distracted. She seemed sad and she tried several times to get a conversation going. But I was also distracted and only vaguely participated. This has bugged me all day because I wonder how many people I come across and just look through; not because of who they are, but because I am so caught up in my own personal musings…I guess this was just another one of those too.
100 Words on Lighthouse January 29, 2008
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We drove along the coastline, tracing California’s plummeting cliff line. The lighthouse shadowed us in the breezy shanty house. The sea blew through the house and mist splashed the air with salt. Sticky in the morning. Sticky at dusk. My arms squelched, skin pealing off of skin, when I wiped crusty wisps of hair from the corner of my mouth. Seagulls flocked below the tower’s guiding light, too high for even their timid wings. But I climbed the steep cinderblock stairs to the sailor’s lookout. The tiny peninsula jutted out all alone and fog wrapped around to conceal my bedroom.
You were: January 28, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in Uncategorized.Tags: Inclass
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Inclass exercise:
You were the one who was drunk on sleep,
who danced with a fire in your feet,
who declared you passion atop the glitter flecked table top.
100 words on Clocks January 28, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in 100 Words.Tags: 100 Words, clocks
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Summertime leaves its marks through sunburns, blond streaks, excess freckles, and tan lines. Some lines are like battle scars marking who you were before the summer and what you turned into. Others date your age with a vindictive truth that only several months of cloudy days can obscure. Time stops in the sweltering heat but my watch keeps ticking. It reminds me to do too many things that my lazy limbs refuse. A white band slithers around my wrist like a snake with a freshly eaten mouse inside. I slip my watch off and hide it inside my wool socks.
100 Words on Stretching January 27, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in 100 Words.Tags: 100 Words, Stretching
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I sit on the black tile of the gym floor. My shirt plastered to my back. The open window does nothing to relive the hotness of a Chilean summer. My toes elude my grasping fingertips and my inflexibility frustrates my exhausted body. My foot tingles and responds to something my ears do not hear. A smile pulls its way across my face and it strikes me on the floor next to the bench press and stretching mats. I am in Chile. The reggeaton and salsa beats pump in confliction. Their interweaving lightens my body and teeth show through my lips.
100 words on Cranberries January 26, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in 100 Words.Tags: 100 Words, Cranberries
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The tart tang sucks the juice dry from my mouth. The small round berry is hard. Its grainy body grinds through my teeth. There is no explosion of flavor and it does not bleed into my mouth to share its decadent lush drink. It drizzles into my mouth, but the tannins burn. The pores in my tongue pucker and shrivel. I spit out its mashed pulp but the sensation lingers. Raw and cold. I wait seven minutes and pluck another from the boiling pot. My teeth sink into its paper thin skin and flavor erupts in a hot juicy wave.
100 words on Gyroscopes January 25, 2008
Posted by onenutcake in 100 Words.Tags: 100 Words, gyroscope
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Things that spin make me sick. They toss my body about, but I am not a bouncy ball. I do not bounce. My stomach drops through my feet after a free fall from mouth to toes. But I cannot resist the whirlytwirly rides. I lie in bed and my blood swirls in my veins to slow like a merry-go-round. Queasiness overwhelms when the exhilaration of my gyroscope adventure is replaced by erratic pulsation. It consumes my body. Launched into a sideways world, my feet tumble underneath me. The cold asphalt hugs my body and sucks away the urge to die.
Revamped 100 words on Lightning January 25, 2008
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In an instant her legs explode into a pinwheel to churn the dirt up behind her as she pounds on the red rubber track. The curve of its red tongue guides her. Feet flipping up, her toes dig into the depths of her shoes making hard contact with knobby ground which gives itself back to her. Every step surges an electrifying bolt of energy through her body. The acrid smell of the approaching storm arouses her skin in a penetrating tingle that rushes to her starved legs and carries her down the straightaway.
