August 27th - Exercise 2: Tommy's Super Fantastic Diary, July 22nd, 2008

Well, this was fun to write. Just wanted to see if I could get the tone of a child down right. Well, a child who's too smart for his own good, anyway. Take note: My own childhood has no resemblance to this at all.

When Mommy told me she was taking me to the doctor's today to get a checkup, I wanted to scream and cry and kick my legs. But I didn't. Because I did exactly that the last time I had to go to the doctor and Mommy got angry and started yelling and told me that I was being difficult. It made her cranky that day so I didn't get any cookies or McDonald's or anything nice, plus I ended up going to the doctor's anyway because Mommy picked me up and carried me to the car no matter how much I tried to wriggle like a caterpillar out from her arms.

So instead of being difficult, I just gave Mommy a pouty face and crossed my arms so she would know I was not happy about it. Seeing my pouty face and crossed arms, Mommy compromised with me and said she would get me ice cream afterwards if I behaved and wasn't difficult. Ain't I such a smart nine year old to know the word “compromise”? It's a grown up word Mommy taught me and it's a thing grown ups do to get along with each other. Daddy taught me the words “selfish” and “society”, which have to do with the word “compromise”. Selfish people always want things their own way and never compromise and nobody likes selfish people because if people never compromised then society, which means all the people living with each other, would be a disaster like earthquakes or tornadoes, which are obviously not good things.

Mommy and Daddy tell me lots of things and talk to me like I'm a grown up just like them. When I don't get something they say, they try to explain it to me. I like that very much. I very much hate it when a grown up talks to me like I'm stupid, like I won't get anything they say. Just because I'm nine years old doesn't mean I don't have eyes or ears! I'm living in the same world as them!

Anyway, I am “digressing”. Another grown up word! My teacher used that word when she read my diary. She likes reading it and tells me I should keep on writing. The word “digressing” means to not get on with a story and talk about lots of things that have nothing to do with it and aren't important. But I think the things I am digressing on are things that are important! But my teacher said I shouldn't digress too much when writing so I will stop and get on with the story.

So after Mommy compromised with me, I decided that I would behave real well since I really like ice cream! We went to the garage where the Chevy Lumina van was and I didn't have to be carried this time. We got in, put on our seatbelt, and zoom! We were off!

On our way to the doctor's, Mommy took out a pack of her favorite Camel cigarettes and then started smoking one of them with the windows open. I didn't feel good about it. Because I remembered my friend Cody's grandmother, who was our neighbor and coughed a lot, and how I always saw her smoking cigarettes (her favorite was Marlborough) in her front porch. Then one day, poof! She disappeared! I overheard Mommy and Daddy saying that she was in the hospital for lung cancer, which happens when you smoke a lot of cigarettes. And then later I heard that Cody's grandmother died. I remembered watching Cody's parents, who looked really sad, move stuff out of her house. Then the house was empty with a big sign that said “For Sale” in front of it. It was like somebody took a big eraser and wiped it over Cody's grandmother.

I didn't want Mommy to get lung cancer and then have a big eraser wipe over her. So I asked her, “Mommy, why do you smoke cigarettes?” She said, “It makes me feel relaxed.”

We went back and forth like tennis balls.

“Aren't cigarettes bad for you, though?” “Yeah, it is a nasty habit.” “Then why don't you stop?” “Oh, I will, sooner or later.” “So what if I started smoking?” “You will absolutely not, not while you're around me, anyway.” “So why can you smoke and I can't?” “Because I'm a grown up, dear. We can make these decisions.” “But isn't part of being a grown up learning not to do things that are bad for you?” “Yes, but-” “Isn't that what Daddy said?” “Yes and he's right, but listen-” “Aren't you going to get lung cancer?” “Now, wait a minute, who said that?” “Isn't that what happened to Cody's grandmother and then she got erased?” “Well, yes, but you shouldn't say the word erased, hun. That's actually quite morbid of you.” “So why don't you stop?” “Like I said before, I will, soon, okay?” “Why don't you stop now?” “Oh GOD! I feel like I'm being interrogated by MY mother.”

The way Mommy said that last thing, I could tell she was becoming annoyed, like she does when I'm being difficult. So I shut my mouth and felt a little sad. We were both quiet for a while until Mommy did something that made me happy again. She took the pack of cigarettes and threw it out her window, although there was a lot left! She then smiled and said to me, “You know, you're right, hun. I should start quitting right now.” I felt like hugging her with lots of love, but she was driving so I didn't.

Oops, well I didn't write about the doctor's or the ice cream, but my hand is starting to hurt and I want to watch TV. The ice cream was really good, though! I got mint chocolate chip, which is the best flavor.

Okay, well, that's the end.

August 25th - Exercise #2: Passages

In today's published exercise, I wrote short blurbs experimenting with different tones.

Today, it's around the time of noon, and the sun is high and its beams are strong. The air is as dry as the dust of the earth. The heat is oppressive and inescapable. We are resting in the shade of a tree, but it gives little relief. Nature, at times, bids man to suffer; suffering is as holy and pure as God's will. Our chests are heaving with long, parched breaths. A crown of sweat builds on the dome of our foreheads and over the squinting eyes gazing out at the field. The field: there is work to be done. But the bodies are tired from the extinguishing effects of the heat. Chapped lips open revealing dry mouths that utter low groans at the idea of labor in these conditions. The work must be done, however; the field must be maintained. If not, then the sun will turn it to dust. “So let us move beyond the shade and into the field.” At this command, we stagger out from the shelter of the tree and we sweat and we moan amongst the crop like beasts...

An ominous chord from the belly of a rummy organ coupled with the click clack of industrial percussion – this is the sound of the phantom train heard, but never seen, miles away, following its predestined route through the track near Los Feliz, gliding past dilapidated warehouses and sketchy strip joints, and skimming the rusty fringe of downtown Los Angeles. I hear it howling through my window only at nighttime, never during the day. It is because during the daytime, the space is crowded with the noises of daily life: the rumbling and roaring of cars streaking down the street, the chirping of old Armenian women taking their healthy walks, the buzzing lawnmower, the chit chitting of sprinklers. All these sounds, evidence of the day's vitality, reverberate through the hours. Eventually, the sun retires folding itself gradually beneath the veil of the horizon and then the day noises filter out. And as the beginning of the day brings awakening to one world, the coming of the night is followed by its own set of creatures and designs. Time enters the realm behind the closed eyelid. Things of the night operate in the negative space – the unseen, the stillness. Like the howl of the phantom train, spirits float through the shadows like hallucinatory echoes. Dreams emanate out from profound pits. And in the realm of the night, I am often visited by dim images from a life I once had. These ruminations of the past are obscured by their own shadows so I can never recall them to completion, but only in fragments...

George exits the apartment and fumbles for the set of keys in his pocket. Now this action would be simply done with and disposed of in the narration of more usual lives with more usual people and would not give way to the extensive description that proceeds, but George is not making this a banal act, rather, he is executing a strenuously long scene that reveals many things about this classic buffoon of a man as if he were engaged in a silent monologue. The keys are deep inside the large left pocket of his oversized khaki pants; he always keeps the right pocket empty, finding a peculiar comfort in keeping his right hand within it while he promenades. The passage to his keys are impeded by the various other objects that are always attached to him like a habit wherever he goes: four Werther's Original caramel drops, a swiss army knife, a small package of soft tissues, and loose change. Now the abnormally long time it takes for George while he grunts and sweats to get to his keys should not only be attributed to the obstacle course of objects in his left pocket, but also to his very physical build. His fingers are like knobs and clumsy in functions that are simple to the sleek and elegant fingers of whom he refers to boorishly as the “snobbish bourgeoisie intellectuals.” There is a certain absence of grace, not only in his bulbous fingers, but in his whole figure. Firstly, he is of a disadvantageous weight, a result of all the rich and hefty meals his mom serves him lovingly, three times a day (he still lives with her, and at the age of thirty-two, can you believe it?). The second thing one would notice about him is his terrible posture, which his mother tries to correct by smacking the center of his back and screeching, “Stand up straight like a proud man! Oh your father wouldn't have this at all, no, not at all!” - but to no avail, for George continues to sink his shoulders and hunch over, which produces the unfortunate effect of emphasizing the rotund shape of his body, and gives him the appearance of a round ball. His short torso and legs are another addition to this living, breathing caricature...

August 21st - Writing Exercise #3

Memories of Santa Monica in the late night and early morning, sometime back then:

We saw bums lay out rags and tattered jackets so they could hug the shore and listen to the sound of the water – the steady rhythm of the ocean waves that roared coming in and then purred when receding. There was a certain feeling of warmth at seeing them sleep in the sand for they sunk into it so that the grains retreated and then conformed to their bodies. Against the unchangeable and indifferent form of concrete upon where I would usually see them sleeping within the city, they would shiver and squirm. Along the shore that night, they were perfectly still. You brought a half bottle of wine for my pleasure and I was faithful taking periodic gulps from it while looking at the pier that struck out into the water. The ferris wheel was on top of it, as it always would be, blanketing the shore with an alien glow giving it the ethereal quality of a dream. It filled me with an unexplainable nostalgia that made me contemplative. Time passed with silence between us, but I did not feel anxious; I looked at you; you looked peaceful staring out; I followed your eyes looking for the divide of the horizon; it was not there. The sky blurred into the water, an infinite congruous mass. When I stared long enough at a singular point of that expansive darkness, I felt a divine sensation of weightlessness and I swear I would have floated up into it if my eyes did not adjust their focus. Around us were other visitors who would enter and exit the scene only as silhouettes. Their words were undecipherable. The voices seemed to come in from another plane only to exist in our world for a fleeting moment and then volley back into theirs. Only the sound of the ocean remained constant. And as I listened to the waves, my thoughts took on the ambiguous shape of my existence. I concentrated hard on the shape. The lights of the ferris wheel started to dim. The lapping of the water eased away. Santa Monica melted into the void. Then as I became immersed into nothingness, the shape transformed; then, there was clarity. I saw my mother's gentle face lit up by the aura of the living room television. I saw the crows feet at the corner of my father's eyes. A parking lot that descended into a creek. Two hamsters in a glass cage on display at a garage sale. His angel face and a tuft of golden hair. A maze of sidewalks bending around towering brick apartment buildings. Sewer tunnel entrances tagged with ominous graffiti: “Welcome to Hell”. My mother aging, blemishes starting to spot her face like bruised fruit. Lines drawing themselves at the corner of my father's eyes. A U-haul, then whispering spirits beneath a dark red stucco rooftop. Weed persistent growing beneath the persistent lawn mower beneath the dome of apple tree branches. Wind chill burning up faces till they turn pink like frozen raw meat. Scribbled love notes put inside desk compartments with hopes of returned scribbled love notes. Falling leaves, then snow, then melting snow, then summer sticking to the skin with dew drops. Sticky love notes of hand jobs and blow jobs. Fucking. Scarfing down porno three-ways with hot fries and cafeteria meatball sandwiches. Another U-haul. Another unfamiliar place. Unfamiliar saliva and tongues and hands and sweat. Hurry up and roll that spliff, I'm wanting to ride. Fades, trips, wastes, shocks, buzzes, fiends, hits and can't feel good no more... Bruised fruit... Crows feet... Come down... Melting ice cream cones. Pink strawberry liquid streaming down tiny fingers dropping onto stove top asphalt. Strange pink strawberry blobs. An ambiguous shape... The pale lights of the pier ferris wheel came back in with streaks. I returned to Santa Monica at the bottom of the bottle and with a sadness settling in my body as lukewarm as the wine. A cigarette felt good between my lips and I found myself having another, then another, and more until my pack was fully dispensed. My legs felt stiff so I took a walk close beside the water, kicking sand, dipping my toes in – the water's chill was refreshing. I came back to you and you were wrapped in a blanket with your eyes closed. Your chest was rising and falling gently as you breathed. Another rhythm humming along with the waves. I felt the time ticking away with the completion of each of your breaths. And each present moment came in with a roar and receded with a purr, back into that vast black space. And there would be a certain measure of breaths, of waves, before we would no longer be figures on the shore. The sun would come and quake the bums from their stillness. Grains of sand would collapse into the imprints of their bodies disappeared. The ferris wheel would stand in the sun casting only a shadow. But time would go on, a relentless force, and cycles would not be hindered. The night would come on again blending the sea and the sky together. Figures would again stalk the beach and sink into it. And the glow of the ferris wheel would again embrace the darkness of their dreams.