sara and danielle

I'm done with this for now.

sort of inspired by a true story

New thing I'm working on. I have the beginning and the end here but I need to work on the middle. The middle is the hardest part.

Mike-O’Malley, thirty-seven years old, walked down his block and paused three buildings in. She was upstairs, he was looking up and saw she was upstairs. Here he was standing on the sidewalk looking up at her apartment window.
He lived in the building next door to her, four buildings into the block. He didn’t know this until he met her at the Arizona Lounge, when he bought her a drink and lit her cigarette. She looked uneasy and divulged that she was nineteen; she wasn’t really allowed here. As he puffed once on a Marlboro Red, he thought, she trusts me, a pretty good looking nineteen year old girl could trust a guy like me. He had felt so good about himself that night. She excused herself soon after but later that week he saw her walking out the building next too his. He knew she lived there, he saw her putting keys away in her purse. Besides, if she had been visiting a boyfriend she would have told him she was taken that night at Arizona.
Not that he really thought he had a shot at her, he was just checking her out. Not... not checking her out that way. Of course. Not “checking out” that way, he wasn’t like that. I mean, he thought, it was legal, but it was just frowned upon. He was kinda becoming an old guy now, she wouldn’t even want to be with an old man.
He turned his head quickly down and left, pointing his eyes across the street. There was a chick about twenty-one, twenty-two standing outside a rowhouse, holding the door to the building open with her foot while she puffed on a clove or some kind of dark cigarette. She was looking at him but just in kind of a bored way, Mike-O-Malley noticed. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and pretended to be cold and waiting for something. This stupid neighborhood, filled with college kids.
**
A twenty-three year old man walked out of the building next door. He looked across the street and saw the twenty-one year old across the street, and she saw him. They smiled; he mouthed “Hi” as he climbed onto his bike and she mouthed the same. He looked once more across the street before pushing off and coasting down the block.

script for a comic

(Italics denote narrative boxes, parenthesis denote action, dashes denote page breaks)

Danielle and Sara stumble into their porch, holding beers for underage drinking and cigarettes for just-turned-legal smoking
S: Yes! Now it’s a girls’ night.

D: I can’t believe Robert let you drive
S: Robert is a doormat if you know how to get to him. Hello couch! (sitting)

D: I’m packing a bowl.
S: Goood! Good way to end the night. Yeah.

D: (passing) Here.
S: Hm? No, you go first.

D: I guess I need it, right?

(D inhales)

(D exhales) Smoke obscures her face and emotions
---------

D: Good thing Jack didn’t show up, huh?

S: Oh, he knows better than to show up there. Those are ourrr people.
When she’s drunk Sara extends her “R”s like a pirate
D: Still, I was worried cause he gets along so well with them.

D: God, it’s so fucking stupid. It’s been like a month already.

S: It’s not stupid at all. C’mon, I went through the same thing after Mike and I broke up.

D: That’s true. I guess it’s the whole first break-up thing. It’s fucking traumatizing.
S: Yeah it is. Man, that was a terrrrrible time. He was so mean to me.

S: Whatever, I’ve talked your ear off about it enough already.
D: Haha yeah, all you had to do was get over him. I had to listen to you get over him.
---------

(S smirks)

D: I’m sorry. God, what a drag.

D: Remember when we went ice skating? That was like the beginning of the end.
S: Well it’s definitely a process, y’know?

D: Yeah, it just feels like I’ll never get over it completely.
S: Well sure, that shit stays with you. You learn to block it out though.
--------

S: And y’know, you’ll find somebody again soon.
D: Psh, yeah. Maybe someday.

S: I mean it! It’s like, it’s like it’s all a process man. Don’t worrry.

(S inhales)

(S exhales)
S: It’s a harrd fall, but a soft landing.

D: Hm.

D: (smiling) Harrrrd fall.
S: Harrrrrd fall! Haha! Hahaha.
---------

S: (rubbing eyes) Man, I’m done. I’m fucking out for the night.

(smiling, S passes pipe to D)
D: (taking pipe) Thanks.

(D inhales)

(D exhales, smoke obscuring her face again) Danielle sits as her friend’s breath slows to a sleeping rhythm.

Staring into space, the weed and the pain and the yearning make her eyes glaze over.

Sappho

(H. T. Wharton translations thanks to this site)

Stand face to face, friend ... and unveil the grace in thine eyes.

That man seems to me peer of gods, who sits in thy presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one so poor ...

The stars about the fair moon in their turn hide their bright face when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver.

He who is fair to look upon is [good], and he who is good will soon be fair also.

No one maiden I think shall at any time see the sunlight that shall be as wise as thou.

old school

Oh, to love! To the next sight of a face, to feeling hearts beating, to arms around shoulders and murmuring “Come to bed, darling”! To frustration and elation, to knowing and not knowing and knowing and not knowing!

boredom is not an end-product

So I was going to enter this fiction contest on McSweeney's website but I've been too preoccupied with planning my thesis to finish it. This is part of what I have so far:

*
In a purple bedroom, the walls are covered with a patchwork of the kinds of posters you hang on your wall in high school. On top of a bed, skinny legs are tucked under torsos, and the girls are taking turns plunking strings and turning tuning keys. Lisa has already strummed through a cover of “Hey Jude” on her guitar and wants to help Regan figure out the bass line so they can play together. They’ve listened to the song three times so far, and Regan thinks she has the general idea of it already.

Lisa strums the chords in the perfunctory style of an amateur musician; she is not talented enough to play with flair and too reserved to want to know how. She watches how Regan’s face occasionally turns to her fingers on the bass guitar’s frets and wonders when Regan started learning the bass. They saw each other outside of school two months ago, each holding the cases of their respective instruments. They never really talked in middle school, but they warmed to each other quickly. Now they’re going to form a band.

Regan starts humming the chorus, but she is really thinking about how easily they could make it big. Since their first jam session, they’ve already written the chorus to an original song. And they’re almost good enough to play at the talent show the school has every month—most of those kids that perform just read their shitty poetry anyway. Regan and Lisa could definitely be the best act in that show. They could end up being one of those great songwriting pairs, like Paul McCartney and John Lennon, or Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. Their names even sounded well together: Lisa Morton and Regan Westick. Morton and Westick. Morton and Westick, the most influential female duo in music.
*

I dunno how I feel about it right now. I'll finish it someday.

God, even the train sounds ominous now.

When it gets warm: feel comfortable, chew on ice cubes.
When it gets hot: try not to stick, suck on ice cubes.