Week 7 Theme 5

Evaluation.

Writing is hard. I knew that when I signed up. I also knew that I was new to creative writing and that I would need to wear the keys of my keyboard to a smooth polish if I wanted to write with vibrancy and voice. Daily Themes seemed like a good place to start.

Seven weeks and thirty-three themes later, this eventual goal seems only farther away than it was when I began. I suppose that should be a heartening sign that I was learning. But that does not comfort the part of me who tries to recreate the musical elegance I read in the writers I admire, only to find that I’d composed a syncopated staccato.

I seem to have trouble with the “theme” part of the course. A theme is an underlying idea, an invariant that grounds the reader in a moving story. When I began the course, I wanted to learn how to orchestrate themes – to choose my words not only to express my ideas, but also to sound like them. I also wanted to emphasize those ideas at just the right points to keep the reader moving alongside my own thoughts.

While the words flow more easily now, and while I can say that I’ve improved on the goals I set earlier in the semester, I can still only capture that elusive eloquence in brief moments of inspiration or luck. Hopefully the next few weeks of writing will make that less accidental and more frequent.

Week 7 Theme 4

Revision: Create a fictional person who is like you in some significant ways.

Tony watched as a small turtle continued its trek towards the thick reeds around the pond. He was leaning on the bus stop sign. “Look, you just ruined my day for me. As much as I still love you, I’d rather not talk to you. Not for a while.” A groaning bus drove by, and Tony took the interruption to breathe. “Bye.”

It was getting dark, and the crisp evening chill only sharpened his newfound loneliness. Tony’s four-legged companion did not seem to notice any difference – and it was right, there really was no reason to let a disembodied voice touch his daily life. But it did, and Tony felt its unshakable tendrils once again. “How can you prepare for these things?” Tony asked. The turtle kept crawling. “I’ve been here before. I know how this works. I need to move on. It’s over. I can’t afford the distraction.”

Tony looked at his watch. Half past three. The bus would be here soon. He couldn’t hide his face for much longer. “Smile!” he told himself. “Smile! You’ll feel better.” So Tony smiled at the turtle and personified it as his sagely grandparent. “You’re probably older than him, aren’t you?” He said. “I bet you’ve been through your share. How’d you do it, you impervious git?”

The turtle stuck to its line, pulling itself along at the same leisurely pace. Even the whine of the approaching bus didn’t bother it. Tony laughed. He had to! It was funny! The turtle was speaking in metaphor! In this life, tonight was just another bus stop. So Tony muttered a thank you, smiled at the driver, and rode off, finally leaving the turtle in peace.

Week 7 Theme 3

After a short, two-theme break on theme writing to dispatch some unruly midterms, we're back and at it with a procrastinated piece on procrastination.

---

Write a story that meditates not only on experience but on how we talk and write about it.

Time has shown again and again that extreme circumstances inspire periods of extraordinary creativity and progress. It took decades of religious oppression to move the Puritans to the New World. It took a war for Picasso to paint his immortalized Guernica. And it took an ominous race of national pride and fear to land man to the moon.

Therefore, this particular late December night, in a darkened kitchen, shivering under three layers of coats, working by the fluorescent light of a computer screen, during a week-long power outage with no light at the end of the tunnel, I should have been able to write a half-decent college essay. They told me not to procrastinate in case extraordinary circumstances arose. So when the tiny, shrieking “told you so!” accompanied the draining battery meter, I could only admit that it had indeed told me so.

Procrastinators wish they were in my coats. I had no time to ponder topics. I would write, or I would go to community college. So my mind blundered in the shadows clawing for anything that could twist into five hundred coherent words. And after two percent of my computer’s juice, it settled back where it started its search. China, where I would go in a few days. That would have to do.

“Really? Seriously?” I muttered to my creative block. “Do you honestly believe that half the kids aren’t writing about visiting China these days?” And I waited, eyeing the barely legible How to Write the Perfect College Admissions Essay on the unlit bookshelf. Then it said back: “Okay, but nobody writes about toilet paper.” So I wrote about both.

Week 6 Theme 5

Revise an earlier theme in order to experiment with cutting your prose significantly.

Edited Week 5 Theme 4

Take time to talk to someone you would like to write about in the form of a brief profile.

Cut by a third:

I’m a bit early, so I find Paul in the kitchen. He straightens up from the table, striding with a bit of a penguin’s waddle to his oyster stew. 50 years were catching up. He gives me a taste. “It’s amazing!” “You know what I was thinking?” he says as he strolls to his table. “I’ll put the stew in these bowls and cover ‘em with a puff pastry. How’s that sound?”

“Amazing,” I say, but he’s already on his next dish. Taking a spoonful of hot oil, he pours it over a Chilean sea bass steak. “What do you think?” He asks, handing me a fork. “I heard that’s how the Chinese restaurants do it. Oh, how do you garnish this fish?”

“I’ve always added some salt, scallions, and ginger.” He cuts a stalk, arranges it quickly, and straightens back up, beaming. “How’s that look?” “I guess that looks fine.” I tell him. “Good enough,” he says, as he goes back to poaching bass steaks.

Cut half:

I’m early, so I find Paul in the kitchen. 50 years were catching up, but you couldn’t tell by his food. He straightens up and strides with a penguin’s waddle to his oyster stew. He gives me a taste. “You know what I was thinking?” he says as he strolls to his table. “I’ll put the stew in these bowls and cover ‘em with a puff pastry. How’s that sound?”

“It’s amazing,” I say, but he’s already on the next dish. He pours a spoonful of oil over a poached Chilean sea bass steak. “What do you think?” He asks, handing me a fork. “Oh, how do you garnish this fish?” “I just add scallions and ginger.” He scatters some and straightens up. “Good enough,” he says.

Week 6 Theme 4

Describe a night sky.

Betelgeuse was blocking the shot. A filmy haze streaked across the evening sky, just enough to scatter the more brilliant blacks with the tangerine terrestrial glow of sodium lamps. The gall! Had any other hidden behind the filmy mist, it would have been just a bright dot. But. Betelgeuse. Its red glare diffused into a blistering pimple on Orion’s shoulder. The hunter had seen better days.

Heather was already up far past her bedtime, and she did not enjoy the thought of her walk home as she sat stuck behind the console watching Betelgeuse ruin her night. The heavens – nowhere else might one find such a vacuous, vain space. Of the billions of miles spanning the sky, Betelgeuse had to attend its most popular corner, but tonight, it strangely joined the B-list. Any connoisseur of nighttime venues would know that Orion’s belt was the gathering place of the hip and young, the stars.

Betelgeuse was washed up. An old flame. A rare, inflated stalwart of a past eon ogled by too many eyes while it was still the only one that they could see. It was in every tabloid, its life combed over by far too many photographers hoping to start their petty careers. But tonight, Betelgeuse was dying, and Heather had no choice but to grant it one last centerfold.

Week 6 Theme 3

Exchange between two people who have different ways of talking.

The time is lunch, but the year is debatable. The place is an upscale New York restaurant, but the topic hasn’t settled. Our first conversationalist is a retired, grayed, congenial man who really has seen the world in his long career as a spy handler. Our second conversationalist is a thin, slightly taller than average, 22 year-old with a model’s face. But if you ask her, the conversation is between a very sharp man from the past and an ambitious young woman starting a career.

“Amanda, have you thought about what you’ll be doing next year?”

“Yeah, I want to do something interesting. Maybe work in the Middle East, or I could be a researcher for 60 minutes.”

“Well, you know what it is they say.” William gingerly rested his fingers on the table as his eyes glanced first left then back. “You’re attractive. You speak well. You know, I know a guy who works at the Picknell Foundation. What if you were to get in touch with him? Maybe have lunch.”

“He sounds interesting.”

“You could enter into their broadcasting program. Like those…” William glances left again, though no reporters are sitting there. “Like those news anchors. Maybe in a few years, you can have your own show.”

“That’s a good idea, William, but I’m not sure that’s what I want. I’d rather be doing the research.”

“Well, you want to meet interesting people, right? That’s always been the one way to meet everyone. You’ll get to interview them. You’re someone who could win a grant to do that. Hmm, look, here’s what I’ll do. Why don’t I send this guy an email, and I’ll include you, Amanda, I’ll include you in it.”

“William, thank you for trying to help, but that’s just not what I want to do.”

“You know, I was just speaking with him at dinner sometime last week. He was asking…”

“Oh, how was the meeting? Do you know who the fellowship winners are?”

The time is today. The place is still the restaurant. The topic just changed.

Week 6 Theme 2

Using plain, "ten-center" words, predominantly Anglo-Saxon in origin, write a theme about someone or something you love passionately.

3pm, just outside Shanghai. Two boys sit at the window of a Beijing-bound train. The summer heat is just barely too much for the air conditioner, but they don’t care. They’re staring at a board between them covered in grid lines. Flat white and black stones sit where the lines meet. The train bumps over the track, and the stones shudder in matching time. They smell like glass and palm sweat.

The younger boy clicks a black stone against the board. Another slips from his palm and crashes into the careful pattern on the board. The older boy sniffs it before he throws it into the bowl it came from. As he thinks, the younger boy fixes the arrangement.

“Why don’t you go there?” asks a slightly wider boy watching from across the aisle. The older boy puts his white stone elsewhere. “No, that’s a mistake. You should go here.” The wider boy takes the stone. The older boy clicks down another and stands up. “Listen, Fatso, I already thought of that. Give me the piece.” Fatso pulls his arm back. “Come on, think about it.”

The older boy sits down on the other side. “I did. Look, Fatso, if you think you know better, why don’t you take my spot?”

Fatso does, and he grabs a handful of white stones as he scoots into place. The older boy pulls a black stone out of the younger boy’s hand. Moist with sweat, it slips out of his fingers as he puts it down. It clatters into place, but the young one picks it up again. “He’s right. I was feinting.”

The older boy reaches for another stone, but the young one grabs his wrist with clammy hands. “Look, this is my game. If you want to play, take your spot back.” As the older boy ponders whether he wants to watch Fatso lose more than he wants to play, he smells his wrist. It smells like glass and palm sweat.

Week 6 Theme 1

Write a theme about a specific style you admire.

Wesley usually kept his door unlocked. This evening, I found him in his room peeling an apple with his pocket knife. He sawed up and down with his right hand as his left turned the apple, uncovering its yellow flesh as juices dripped down his fingers. He was always stubborn about his unusual way of peeling apples, in part because it would attract attention, but mostly because our debates over apple-peeling technique always entertained bystanders.

His clothes said as much. He had just returned from an evening performing stand-up comedy, and he was still in costume: jeans, brown leather shoes, and a purple velvet jacket with a smoking pipe in the chest pocket. The pipe blew bubbles. A rubber band ball, an empty wine bottle sat in his top hat – he always opened his routines by juggling all three of them. It was flashy. The other performers couldn’t do it.

As he finished explaining how the show went, he trailed off. Wesley was out of topics. The silence that followed was punctuated by only the soft scratching sound of his knife passing through the apple skin. He stood up, swaying left and right, catching himself before he would begin to fall. In his completely still room, he had to move.

As the last sliver of the apple peel fell into the trash can, he turned to me with the proud smile of a six year old that had just learned to ride his bike. He held the apple towards me. “See? Peeled. Now I’m going to eat it.” He impaled the apple on his knife, and, holding it by the handle, he took the loudest bite he could.

Week 5 Theme 5

Create a fictional person who is like you in some significant ways.

Tony watched as a small turtle crept off the pavement and towards the pond. He was leaning on the car door with a phone to his head, as he had been half an hour ago when he found the turtle. “Yes, I’m okay, life goes on.” The turtle took a step. “Look, you just ruined my day for me. As much as I still love you, I’d rather not talk to you. Not for a while.” Another step. “Bye.” He dialed another number. “Hey, I’m running late. Don’t hold dinner for me.”

It was dark. The parking lot had emptied, and he too would need to head home soon, but not yet. His life had reversed at the whim of a few intangible waves carried cross-country by the combined ingenuity of mankind, and in all their wisdom they had not prepared for the inevitability in which Tony now found himself.

The turtle plodded on oblivious to Tony’s self-pity. “You and I are not so different,” he said. The turtle took another step. “I have a deadline at work. I wish I had your determination.” Silence. And Tony sat in it as the turtle vanished into the pond.

Tony forced a smile, glad that the nighttime darkness hid the corners of his mouth that were struggling to stay raised. And when his mind finally wandered to thoughts of dinner, he sat back down behind the wheel. “You’ve got it figured out, little dude.”

Week 5 Theme 4

Take time to talk to someone you would like to write about in the form of a brief profile.

I arrive a little early to the dinner party, like I usually do, and find Paul in the kitchen. He greets me the way he always does. “Here, try this,” he says, dipping a spoon into a large pot on the stove. I know to taste before I ask what it is. Today, it’s a creamy oyster stew, good as always. Paul puts down his ladle to gesture with both arms. “You know what I was thinking? Andrew?” he says as he leads me to another counter. “I’ll put the stew in these bowls and cover ‘em with a puff pastry. How’s that sound?” Delicious. As always.

“Hey, so I was thinking we should do a Chinese New Year’s dinner,” he says as he pinches the puff pastries onto their bowls, “maybe with some fish, and fried rice, and maybe bok choi on the side. What do you think?”

Paul has recently been exploring Chinese food, kicked off by a trip to New York’s Chinatown. According to his friends, he took to the food like Charybdis in a drought. Perhaps his cravings were finally convincing him, or perhaps he was simply trying to expand his range as a chef. Having grown up watching others prepare Chinese food, I was quickly becoming his source of inspiration.

“I was thinking maybe I could steam some cod with a bit of soy sauce. What do you usually do?”

“I usually use sea bass.”

“Like Chilean sea bass? Oh, you mean with the fatty steaks? That’ll be amazing!”

With Paul, it always is.

Week 5 Theme 3

Metaphor

Normal people use their pens for writing. This “Talia Ehrenhart” clearly did not. When I found her name etched in precise letters on the plastic pocket clip on the pen’s cap, I realized that this wasn’t a pen you’d lose in a backpack. This pen wasn’t meant for writing – it just happened to be a pen.

Talia’s eccentricity did not restrict itself to an engraved name. I would later discover that Talia was a pseudonym, meant to hide Lydia from questions about her odd pens. Most of them began as Pentel R.S.V.P. Fine Tips. She would mold thin neoprene sheets onto the transparent body of the pen to create a grip. On the rubber, she would etch a thin circle near what I would later discover to be the balance point. The tip and back cap were weighted with cured glue, and Talia had drilled a hole in the back cap so that she could insert the ink cartridge backwards. She didn’t like writing with a backwards pen, but she also never planned to write with these pens.

Talia created these pen while she was learning to twirl them. This single, small, annoying habit blossomed into an evening obsession. She would twirl absentmindedly as she read, even as she wrote. She would twirl to stay awake in class. She would even twirl butter knives, more than once intimidating friends at lunch – Talia didn’t use butter knives to cut, either.

Week 5 Theme 2

Biography

Zack turned to me as we watched a worker unload sheet after sheet of cardboard from the Ikea truck. He rubbed his hands, wondering aloud: “How many layers do you think I need for a seat?” “Dunno. Why don’t you just try it?” I respond. “Four?”

“Maybe.”

Zack was always the kind of person who just tried things. Back in his high school years, he rigged an aerosol can and a match into a flamethrower. There’s a video of it on Youtube. During one snowy evening, he cooked a dinner without using a spatula, because he wondered if he could. While others were finishing their desserts, he dripped a Monet onto his napkin with candle wax.

One doesn’t often see an Ikea truck with piles of cardboard but no furniture. But then again, Zack would rather make his own. For weeks, he had been talking to me about cardboard furniture. “Do it right,” he said as he showed me his chair designs, “and you could make cheap, environmentally friendly furniture!” His designs always questioned cultural norms, though not to break them. He just forgets them easily. These designs were no different – the chairs had triangular backs and seats. “For structural integrity,” he claims.

“Nah, actually I just wanted a triangular chair.”

Week 5 Theme 1

Physical description.

She is never quite who she seems to be. Her hair appears between blond and brown and glows orange under bright light, never quite a single color. On dry or humid days, her hair falls just short of her shoulders, puffed outwards by her curls bumping against each other, never settling into a single shape long enough to be called a hairstyle.

At the age of twenty-two and in her senior year in college, she is clearly not a college student at heart. She wears lavender eye shadow and bright red lipstick, but she is hardly girly. Her frequent sports injuries, her fascination with cars, and her penchant for video games would tell you that. She drinks, but you will only find expensive gins and craft beers in her apartment. She takes classes, but she spends most of her time working, supporting herself because her family does not.

She isn’t thin, but then neither is she unfit – she looks like a carefully managed health regimen locked in a constant struggle with family genes. She is, for the most part, a vegetarian, but only because she hasn’t bothered to reintroduce her stomach to meat after Lent. She was too busy being not what you’d expect.

Week 4 Theme 5

Free theme focusing on voice.

Chat log with Tyler, May 13^th, 2010

Tyler (4:10 am): i’ll help you later, but i have to finish my senior project first

Me (4:13 am): that’s fine, I’m almost done wit hpart 2, working on the stats collector now

Tyler (7:21 am): crap, collasped on my keyboard

Me (7:31 am): take a nap

Tyler (7:31 am): no, ill finish

Me (7:32 am): you faceplanted the keyboard after two red bulls

Me (7:32 am): take a nap

Tyler (8:50 am): back sorry, was sleeping on the floor

Me (11:17 am): finished the stats, had to redo most of your work, but it works now

Tyler (11:30 am): still working on my project, i’ll be done a few hours

Tyler (11:32 am): if i wre more awake, i’d feel bad letting you do the work

Me (1:50 pm): just fell asleep standing up, back later, saved my stuff in the repository

Me (1:50 pm): this nescafe stuff tastes like shit.

Tyler (2:30 pm): finished.

Tyler (2:35 pm): i’m looking at your code, and i can’t understand any of it

Tyler (2:45 pm): know what? i should just leave it to you, me coding will stlow you down

Me (4:05 pm): back to wrok

Me (4:07 pm): you know what’d help? You should write the report while I go test this code

Tyler (4:09 pm): ok, i’ll write up the protocol

Me (4:14 pm): k

Me (7:50 pm): shit, one hour left

Me (7:55 pm): i’m tripping balls

Me (8:11 pm): come on

Me (8:11 pm): work

Tyler (8:17 pm): explain how you didt he stats stuff?

Me (8:23 pm): not important, just read my code and throw something up there

Tyler (8:56 pm): took my best shot, in your email

Me (8:59 pm): k.

Tyler (9:15 pm): how’s it coming?

Me (9:18 pm): two nodes working, trying to get autorecovery working, fucking annoying internte connection

Me (10:31 pm): works, no obvious bugs. i’m done… ugh, never goin gto pull thsi kind of all-nighter again

Tyler (10:32 pm): finished writing, how’s it look?

Me (11:13 pm): good

Me (11:13 pm): send it

Me (11:13 pm): too tired to care

Tyler (11:17 pm): ditto

Tyler (11:17 pm): done

Me (11:17 pm): I don’t want to be a junior any more.

Tyler (11:18 pm): huh, prof already gave us our grades

Me (11:20 pm): I’m going to go lie in a coma

Tyler (11:31 pm): it was an honor, sir

Me (11:32 pm): shut up and go to sleep.

Week 4 Theme 4

Write a scene of dialogue in which two speakers rub up against each other. There be some aggression or erotic excitement or both.

Agent: Hi, Nate speaking. Can I help you?

Caller: Hi, I’m calling because I got your bill in the mail, uh, there’s a line that doesn’t look right.

Nate: Okay, what’s your claim number?

Caller: Wait, one sec… let me get the papers out. Where’s the claim number on these bills?

Nate: The upper right corner.

Caller: The one with the dashes.

Nate: That one.

Caller: One-Three-Three-One-Zero-Seven.

Nate: Okay, our records show that you still need to pay us, uh, eleven thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.

Caller: What?

Nate: Our records show that you still need to pay us one one two five zero dollars, um, for medical expenses from August eleventh.

Caller: The bill says only one hundred twelve dollars and fifty cents.

Nate: No, sir, your bill says eleven thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.

Caller: What does your screen say the bill is charged for?

Nate: Ambulance…

Caller: Ride. Do you think there’s any way an ambulance ride can cost eleven thousand dollars?

Nate: I’m sorry, sir, your account says you owe one one

Caller: two point five zero dollars. The ambulance isn’t plated in gold.

Nate: Sir, if you want the bill corrected, you’ll have to

Caller: Can I speak with your manager?

Nate: Sir?

Caller: Your manager. I’ll have to speak with your manager. Sir.

Nate: Sir, I am the manager.

Caller: Then get your manager on the line.

Nate: Sir, I can’t

Caller: Fix the bill.

Nate: Sir, you’ll have to get the hospital to

Caller: Fix the bill.

Nate: Sir… sir… hello?

Week 4 Theme 3

A dream that included a resonant voice or conversation.

I’m standing on a bedpost. A voice emanates from the corner, where one would assume a door, its message dulled by the vacuum of sensation that obscures unimportant details. “Don’t jump!” it shouted. “Don’t jump!” The ground shrinks away below my feet placed perfectly side by side, my vertigo raising me to flagpole heights as a second voice fights the first. “That’s not so far. You’ve jumped off this bedpost before. How else can you get down?” “Don’t jump!” shouted the voice in the corner, its message dulled by sheer altitude. I jump.

I wake up, arms raised above my head balancing myself for the fall. My eyes go to that bedpost, three feet off the ground. Three feet. That’s not so far.

I’m standing again, this time in the basket of a hot air balloon, looking down. My friend’s voice says from behind, “You’re not thinking of jumping, are you?” I point. “My house. It’s down there. My bed.” A hand grabs me. “No, you’re not serious, are you? Don’t jump. You won’t make it.” I stare. “Don’t jump. Do you hear me? Don’t jump.” But no, comfort and rest isn’t up here. It lies in the squeaky mattress springs under that roof ready to catch me floating down. How else can I get down? “Don’t!” the voice shouts. I jump, arms raised above my head, trailing my falling body.

And I wake up as my knuckles strike the backboard, the rest of me safely tucked in. I whisper to myself. “Don’t jump.”

Week 4 Theme 2

A dialogue between one leader and several others.

“Is he worth looking at?”

“Well, he spent his time, um… volunteering in Africa.”

“But his essay sounds too… precious. He learned a lot, but, uh, what exactly?

“Okay, so no. Next.”

“This one’s a... what do you call them? Mathletes? Application says she’s won some national awards.”

“Female, too.”

“Rare breed. Keep her in.”

“Get this, this one set the state high school pole vault record.”

“Yeah, but look at his grades.”

“Keep him in.”

“We don’t have a pole vault team, do we?”

“No, seriously, his grades are crap.”

“Keep him in.”

“The next one’s a less obscure athlete.”

“I thought we prided ourselves on recruiting athletes who were also scholars.”

“Shut up. We’re keeping him in. Now tell me about the next athlete.”

“Nationally ranked chess boxing champion. Chess rating’s 2180.”

“What’s chess boxing?”

“You said he was an athlete.”

“2^nd in his weight division with the World Chess Boxing Organization.”

“There’s a World Chess Boxing Organization?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t ask a question. You just said ‘You said he’s an ATHLETE.’”

“You didn’t answer my question either.”

“Chess boxing is where you, um, alternate rounds of chess and boxing, and the first to get a checkmate, sorry, the first to get either a checkmate or a knockout wins.”

“That’s not a sport. That’s just weird.”

“He’s a warrior scholar.”

“This isn’t 1700.”

“Smart, fit, interesting interests, we should at least keep him in the running.”

“Fine.”

Week 4 Theme 1

Two moments clearly defined my writing style, although there were actually far more than just two defining moments. The first happened in junior year of high school, when my English teacher mentioned my “dry wit” in his class comments. I did my best to exaggerate the qualities that he thought worth complimenting by poking at the mundane elements of life.

The second moment happened last year when I read a list of bad similes. I began to respect unusual combinations of ideas. This first started as a daily notebook of off-the-cuff word associations: “rocket goat,” “honey marmalade,” and so on. The last entry was “conversation pit.”

In the passages that I bolded, you can see my attempts at addressing unnoticed details: the gloomy sky that any Portland resident has long learned to ignore, or the problem of finding seats at airports because people always put their coats on the seats. I end the paragraph with a sort of homage to Tim O’Brien’s writing in The Things They Carried and his unusual knack for ending thoughts with short, pointed sentences.

The bolded lines in the second paragraph are characteristic of my writing starting last year. They’re collages of images and multiple cultural connotations, sparing the rod, purgatory imagined by South Park as a plane stuck at the gate, the overwhelming dullness of modern art museums, the barren (Spartan) but functional Samsung branded poles, and so on. I’m often afraid that the connotations become too dense and start detracting from the story itself.

So when you read the sentence I underlined, it seems uncharacteristic. “Drift” is a verb commonly used with eyes, and “exercise videos” is a not-so-subtle way of saying “she’s exercising”. Neither carries the additional connotations I like to include when I write my sentences, which probably explains why my favorite pieces of writing seem to always straddle the border between artful and distracting word choice.

----------------

Selection: Week 1 Theme 1

Rows of black leather seats line the side of the room, some facing the windows that reveal the steady parade of planes lazing by under the Portland afternoon overcast. There are never enough seats.

For the lucky child who was spared the Benadryl, this purgatory reminds him of a modern art museum. Adults stare at the wall, engrossed by the Spartan arrangement of Samsung cell phone charging stations and flight information displays. He tried to sleep, but some door alarm is beeping from just far enough away for only the undistracted to hear. His heels are sore. His Nintendo DS is out of battery. He already complained to his mom. Everyone is in silent agony, but nobody wants to admit it.

His eyes drift to the other end of the terminal, where a woman, standing in front of the window, is swinging her arms like the women do in his mother’s exercise videos. The woman has been sitting down and getting back up every few minutes. Other signs of life drift by. Another child locks eyes as she speeds past on an airport car with her dad in a wheelchair. A well-dressed man loses his sandwich lettuce to gravity, but not before trying to catch it on its way down.

A college student who was also watching the lettuce turns to check the time on the ticket counter marquee. He smirks, pitying the blank-faced crowd as he digs into his suitcase like a kid with a better idea.