relationships

2020 Blew Chunks

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2020 blew big ass chunks. And it’s over. And today is the official first day of 2021. Despite the fact that we all now have PTSD from COVID-19, political and racial tension, and staying home with our kids for almost a full year, and helping to virtual school, some good things came out of this year for me and my family. I also learned a bunch of things about myself, which I guess is stellar considering I’ve had 40+ years to figure these things out. Who knew we needed a global pandemic to gain some perspective? Here’s the Top 10 of 2020.

  1. We moved. We love our new city. Charlotte is fucking ah-mazing! And it will be even better once we can see more of it. We love our neighborhood. We love our friends. I have never felt more welcome moving anywhere in my life. I don’t know if it was the circumstances of the pandemic, but we made friends easily, and we are so thankful that they were able to be stand-in family as we moved away from those we loved.
  2. I figured out that I am a pretty good cook. I can follow a recipe with the best of them. Things my kids liked: chicken stir fry, broccoli chicken casserole, the rice in pork chop casserole (although there was way too much of it for us to eat). Things my kids did not like: almost everything else I made.
  3. I can bake with the best of them. Mostly cookies. Because cookies are the best fucking dessert, and if you don’t think so you can fight me. Chocolate chip, Gingerbread, Sugar. Bring it on.
  4. I am still really lousy at keeping a clean house. And it is really hard to do when four other people are living at home all the time. Well, really three other people, because the oldest child basically lives with another family at this point. Random Side Thought: Trying to make a teenager understand that pandemics can spread is so hard. They think they are invincible, and they are so into their friends at this age. Being with family all the time, not for them. I do love seeing the person he is becoming, and I don’t agree with the general sentiment that teenagers suck. I think they’re dealing with a lot, just like us, and need to be given the benefit of the doubt. Just as long as they keep wearing their masks.
  5. When gifted a lot of time in my life, what did I do with it? Write? Read? No, I binge watched Netflix and almost every other streaming service in the world (and there are a shit ton of them–I mean really, how many do we actually need?). Normal People, y’all. So good. NSFW and NSFK (Kids, is that even an acronym?) Why do we talk in acronyms now. The Queen’s Gambit. All 12 seasons of the Big Bang Series. The Middle with my middle child. Sex and the City. I finally watched both Deadpools. Slightly disturbing and bloody, but so funny. And Ryan Reynolds–man, I need you in my life (sorry R!). Really, now you know why I’m lousy at cleaning.
  6. I really like my husband. Like really like him. I mean, yes, there have been some ups and downs over the last few months. We moved for his job, and basically he is still working from home. So cray-cray. And we share a home office. And he walks and talks on the phone, and he often does that right behind me while.I’m.trying.to.work. And sometimes he eats lunch at his desk, and let me tell you, he chews so loud. (I’m sure I do too, but I can’t hear me). But he’s nice and funny. And he makes me laugh. And he’s not-as-lousy at cleaning. And he cooks. And he’s a pretty good dad. And he tries. And he understands that I need alone time, and that sometimes I’m depressed and want to lie in bed all day or take a bath with candles and be left alone. He puts up with a lot of my shit. But really, he is my best friend. And it possibly took a global pandemic for me to figure this out. For those of you who know me and my husband, you know we have had a lot of ups and downs over the year. But we all good. There’s no one I’d rather spend a pandemic with, R.
  7. My sister and I bonded over Animal Crossing. We play a lot. It’s fun, and our characters have the best clothes. We talk on the phone and play. So much fun. We did a lot of playing over the summer, and then she had to teach, and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss our daily chats and play. But I did miss them.
  8. My family is the best. We Zoom once a week. I miss my mom and dad a lot. We went from living 5 miles away from them to about 400 miles. That sucks balls.
  9. My dogs get me. They are my emotional comfort animals for sure. Jazz got throw up sick and I thought she was going to die. She didn’t–thank God. But it made me realize how much comfort they gave me. Also, my dog looks really freaking cute in pajamas. I may have bought more dog clothes this year than I bought human clothes.
  10. The biggest thing I learned was to not take friends and family for granted. Before March 13, 2020, we were all going in different directions. R working, me working, kids at school, activities. Life felt so stressful. I felt pulled in a million different directions all the time. Overwhelmed, strung out. We took a big pause. Everything changed drastically and suddenly. That part sucked so much. But in the end, I realized how much these people in my life mean to me. And we were able to slow down and really reconnect. Will we have that chance again once this is over? Who knows. I love my friends and family so much.
Jazz in PJs — the best of 2020!

Lastly, as we move into 2021, COVID has not mysteriously disappeared. It is getting worse all over the U.S. Hospitals and ICUs are overwhelmed. The vaccinations are taking longer to distribute than was originally anticipated. Even once we’re vaccinated, we need to stay vigilant. My family has been so lucky in that we have not lost anyone to the pandemic. We have been careful. And there is hope. But many of us are experiencing pandemic fatigue. We want life to go back to normal, and we think if we just pretend there isn’t a pandemic it will go away. Well, this is not true. That’s why so many people are getting COVID right now and why so many people are needlessly dying. All those people who traveled for Thanksgiving thought, it will never happen to me. Well that type of thinking can almost guarantee it will happen to you! We as humans have this tendency to think we can escape travesty. We have this ability to look at statistics and think they only apply to other people. Perhaps this is a survival mechanism, a gift curse to us from our cavemen days. Pretending something won’t happen never means that it won’t happen. It just means you’ve closed your eyes to the possibility of it happening, so when it inevitably happens you act blindsided. So act as responsible as you can. We are all so tired. We all want this virus to end. But what we need to want more than all of that is for our loved ones to be safe and healthy. And we can only do that by continuing to social distance, to mask up, and to make the right decisions every day for ourselves and those we care about.

So be careful, stay safe, have hope, and GET VACCINATED in 2021 as soon as it’s available to you.

Now I’m going to try to write a book again. Take that 2020–on to the next year, the next goal, the next step.

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I Held Your Heart Once

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Here’s a short story (748 words) I wrote for Chuck Wendig’s weekly Flash Fiction Challenge. Let me know what you think about it in the comments below:

I Held Your Heart Once

“I told you this was a bad idea!” he shouted.

Yeah, as if the entire idea had been mine. We sat in the house on the gray floor, my fingers almost completely numb. I wanted to shove a knife under his ribs. I plastered a faux smile on my face.

“You start the fire then.”

“Fine,” he said, grabbing the stick and the stone from me.

I studied El’s face as the light in the windows began to recede and the bitter wind howled. His cheeks were gaunt. When we’d left they’d been full of meat. Now, we both looked like shadow people; skinnier than we ever should have been. The lines of dirt on his cheekbones would have made him look like a football player if he were bigger. But now they accentuated the emaciated look of his face.

I tried to blow the blue out of my fingers.

El shouted at the stick as if it had ears.

I went to the door.

“What the fuck are you going to do, Mare?”

“Going somewhere else. I mean we’ll freeze to death in here.”

“It’s safe and it’s warm.”

“It’s not warm.”

“It’s warmer than out there.”

I looked out the window. The ferocious snow fell barricading us into this desolate place. We were stuck, and it was my bad idea that had brought us up here. I thought there’d be food, maybe canned goods. But when we opened the door a vacuous wasteland of dust greeted us. The back window had a crack letting in a constant stream of cold air and snow. No wood, except for wet, snow-bound logs sitting on the crumbling front porch. I could feel El’s hostility aimed at me like an arrow.

“I mean who the fuck goes up the mountain. We should have been going down.”

My heart felt like a worn stone in my chest. I stood by the door, not opening it, with my back to him. He struck the rock against the stick. Heat remained aloof. There was friction in the air but not enough to start a fire.

“My hands are numb,” I said. I turned toward him.

He put the rock and stick down and looked at me. I could see his old face hidden in his new one. The old face I’d fallen in love with. His eyes which had looked cold softened and his face crinkled into a smile. His smile warmed me up, and I felt the once familiar spark. The one that had been missing for awhile now, the one that reminded me that I’d held his heart once.

“Come here.”

I stood still.

He stood up and walked toward me, measured steps through the dust of the room. He pulled my shirt off before I could say no. His hands on my breast warmed me up. Body heat, the natural generator. He took off his shirt and grabbed my hands. He warmed them with his, rubbing them together like the stick and the stone. He placed my hands on his chest.

He slid down my pants then pulled down his. I shivered, and he wrapped his arms around me. We were like two unlit pieces of coal trying to catch an elusive spark. I felt him enter me and shivered again. We had not made love in ages.

“I don’t have a condom.”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t.

Our bodies moved together filling the cabin with warmth. I imagined soft lights. I imagined a rope bed with a soft mattress, blankets covering us. I imagined the smell of chicken cooking in the oven. I imagined our children.

When I blinked, I felt his hip bone against my inner thigh. I’d never felt his hip bone before. The barrenness of the cabin stole my fantasy. He moaned and I squeezed my arms around him trying to find the heat in what should have been passion. I didn’t want the fantasy of what we once had to end. But he pushed hard, climaxed, and rolled off of me. The frigid air pierced my sweat-smothered skin. El sat with his back to me and took up the stone and stick again.

I had been wrong to come here. He’d held my heart once but it has since shattered like an icicle.

A sudden spark rose from the stick. El lit the wood then turned to look at me with fire in his eyes.

The smoke was blue and grey and smelled like a promise.

Snow Mountain

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Living With Harmony

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Here’s another short story for Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenge. This week, the theme was “To fix something, you first must break it.” I’m not quite sure if anything in my story ever was actually fixed, but maybe that’s the point. You decide and let me know what you think.

Living With Harmony (1,025 words)

Harmony liked to take things apart and try to fix them. Her mom and dad said she would be an engineer some day. Her brothers said she was the worst. She constantly took apart their drones, robots, or any other amazing electronic they had received. Most of the time she couldn’t figure out how to put them back together again.

At school, Harmony didn’t quite fit in. All the other girls talked about princesses then as they grew older they talked about makeup and boys. She liked boys, but makeup didn’t make one iota of sense to her. Why would you put makeup on your face like a clown? Didn’t people know lipstick had been created to cover up the effects of tuberculosis? She didn’t understand how she could feel so smart and so able, but not fit into the box of society.

Then she met Reed. Reed fixed everything. The first time he came over to her house, the door creaked as he opened it. Reed asked if they had WD40. This cemented what Harmony already knew: they were made for each other.

Their relationship grew and eventually they married.

“Are you sure he’s the one?” Harmony’s oldest brother asked.

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“He’s a fixer.”

“I’m a fixer too,” Harmony insisted.

“No. You’re a destroyer. That’s what you are.” Her brothers laughed at her.

But Harmony didn’t see it that way. She and Reed both liked to fix things or at least try. She couldn’t figure out what her brothers were driving at so she ignored them.

Harmony and Reed moved into a studio apartment on the East side of town. The apartment started out as perfect as their marriage. They tinkered together toiling steadily over different projects. Reed landed a job in an up and coming architect firm while Harmony continually questioned what to do with her life.  And Harmony grew bored. There was nothing for her to take apart and for Reed to fix in the little apartment. The super took care of all of that.

On a Monday, Harmony burnt the pancakes on purpose.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the burner,” Reed said.

“There’s nothing wrong with the burner. I just burnt them.”

“That’s okay,” Reed said, giving Harmony a kiss on the cheek as he headed out the door.

Harmony sighed. Now she sat alone in the apartment bored with her perfect little existence. She took apart the television. Only, she couldn’t figure out exactly how to get it back together. She did the best she could, screwing in bolts and nuts, and putting the bunny ears back on top of the television.

Reed came home, sat down, and tried to turn on the boob tube.

“The TV is broken,” Harmony said.

“How’d that happen? I wanted to watch Johnny Carson”

Harmony shrugged. She went into the kitchen and scrubbed the pristine counters. Reed worked on the television. That night they made love more passionate than they had in six months. Harmony knew what she had to do to make things work.

The following day, Reed’s car wouldn’t start when he left work.

“I’m going to be late,” he said over his office phone.

“Working on a tough project?”

“Car won’t start. But it’s the strangest thing—I took the car to the dealership yesterday and everything was okay. I’m wondering if someone messed with it.”

Reed’s voice had an edge to it Harmony had never heard before.

“Honestly, Reed. Why would someone want to do that to you? You’re being paranoid.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right. Save me some dinner.”

He almost caught her with the toaster. She pulled out a piece, and when he went to fix it he found the piece in the drawer.

“Harmony, did you mess with the toaster?”

“No,” she said from the living room where she worked feverishly on a particularly difficult crossword puzzle.

“But I found a piece to it, in the junk drawer.” He stood, towering above her, holding the piece.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Harmony said, looking up at him for a minute then looking back at her crossword puzzle. “Do you know a four letter word for sex?”

“Fuck, I just don’t get it. Everything is breaking around here.” He slanted his eyes toward Harmony, but she had returned to her crossword puzzle.

That night when he crawled into bed, his breath smelled of gin and tonic. Harmony pushed her body closer to him. He pulled away.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m so tired. Do you realize I’ve fixed three things today? I feel like everything is falling apart.”

As time marched on, Harmony became more adept at breaking things and Reed became more adept at fixing them. With everything Harmony broke, she felt closer and closer to Reed. She loved how he could fix even the most complicated things she broke. But then she started to notice Reed pull away from her and retreat into himself. She felt as if they were no longer in concord with one another. And she had no idea how to fix it.

The second summer of their marriage, the air conditioning went out. The apartment sweltered. The Super had gone on vacation.

“Aren’t you going to fix it, Reed?”

“Fix it? I’ve fixed everything. And everything keeps falling apart. It’s like I’m cursed or something.”

“Well have you looked at it?”

“Hell, I just don’t know what to do. It seems like it started when the car wouldn’t start. Then the TV broke, the fire, the carburetor in the car, the stupid toaster, and now this goddamn air conditioning. I just don’t see why all of this keeps happening?”

“But Reed, you’re so good at fixing things.”

“Harmony, there are some things that can never be fixed.”

With those lines, Reed walked out the door. Harmony looked out the second story window and watched as he hailed a cab. She had no idea where he was going, but she knew he wouldn’t be coming back. Harmony could create problems, but she could never quite figure out how to fix them.

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The Last Push

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Disclaimer: This is where I tell you that this story deals with adult themes and language. Do not read it if you don’t want to know that your daughter, aunt, mother, friend, whomever I am to you writes about adult themes.

I wrote this for Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds. The assignment was to start with a BANG. I started with a banging.

The Last Push – 880 words

Banging her. Again. He looked out the window as he gyrated his hips. He couldn’t care less about this girl. She was loud in bed too. That drove him nuts. He just wanted to put his fucking hand over her mouth and tell her to shut-up.

Out the window the leaves had turned orange and red overnight. He pushed into her, and she squealed like a goddamn magpie. He didn’t like that. He wanted it over, but unfortunately they’d been screwing so much this weekend his stamina had improved. He pulled out and moved off of her.

“That’s it. You came?”

“Does it look like I did?” he asked, waving his hand toward his still erect dick. “On top.”

She obliged. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look at her face as she started moving and moaning on top of him.

On Saturday, he’d woken up and realized he’d spent the night. He kind of liked her smell. Melon—fruity—something like that. At the breakfast table, she poured a bowl of cereal and sat next to him. He ate his Cheerios and looked at the box, reading the words, but her loud chewing distracted him. Then she started talking. He thought they always ruined it with the talking.

“Next weekend my friend is having a birthday party. It’s going to be, like, this big blow-out. And you should come, Daniel.”

He should come. Like right now, come. He looked up at her, a mess of blonde hair in front of her face. He put his hands on her hip and adjusted how she sat. She thrashed about on top of him and made noises like a dying whale.

He’d known her exactly two weeks. They’d met at a party. He’d never invited her to his place. And for those two weeks all they’d done was spend time under the covers. He couldn’t talk to her about anything. She didn’t even know who Tolstoy was. “Is that one of your friends?” she asked when he mentioned the Russian author in conversation.

But she had a nice ass. And was a good lay except today with his mind on overdrive thinking about all the shit that made her so totally wrong for him. She looked nothing like Florrie. Maybe that was the only good thing about her. He couldn’t stand girls who looked like Florrie. He’d seen girls with short hair and that straight nose with the little upturned tip, and he’d run in the opposite direction.

And so he’d ended up with May. For the last two weeks. And he put in minimal effort. I mean, minimal, minuscule, the tiniest of tiny efforts. But she called him, texted, and sent him silly memes. He texted her too at like 10 PM every night to ask if he could come over. And then he’d come. A lot. And he liked that part. Well mostly, except moments like this when it felt like it would never end. When her groans were loud and annoying. When he knew implicitly that she wasn’t and could never be Florrie.

He pushed her over onto her back again. He needed to think of something, but Florrie’s face kept coming back to him. Once, a few years after he and Florrie had ended things, he’d been in the heat of the moment with a girl he actually liked. A girl he thought could maybe be more than just another fucking hookup, and he’d said Florrie’s name. The girl had freaked out. She beat his chest with her fist like some douchey cartoon character and demanded to know who Florrie was.

“Nobody,” he said. But the guilt of that statement stuck with him. Because she was somebody. Somebody he couldn’t forget or let go of no matter how many girls he’d been with since.

That girl had never called him back and since then he’d floated from one mattress to another. He’d seen purple sheets and pink sheets. He’d seen girls with OCD-clean rooms and disastrous clutters. He’d seen almost every size and shape one could think a woman could come in. Pear shaped, hourglass – that was his favorite–curvy. He’d seen girls who took care of themselves meticulously, and unfortunately, girls who didn’t.

And now he was here, in bed with May, wishing for an ending.

With May on her back, he began tracing her face with his fingers. He looked at her. He transformed her face into Florrie’s. He imagined the smile lines. He pretended she had Florrie’s deep set blue eyes. He erased May’s long hair with his eyes and transformed it into the short pixie haircut Florrie always wore. He saw the way she always bit her left lower lip toward the end of sex. He saw her face, and he began to move in a rhythm. May looked suddenly serious, but all Daniel saw was Florrie. He saw her on the summer day when they sat surrounded by dandelions in the middle-of-nowhere field where they stripped down naked and made love surrounded by picnic ants. Like some fucking Nicholas Sparks book. He saw all of the faces of Florrie on this girl in front of him. And he felt so turned on imagining her below him.

He put his head down on May’s shoulder, taking in her scent and pretending she smelled like Florrie. He felt the moment of explosion and his whole body shook with the last push.

One final release. He came. Goodbye to May. Bang over.

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School Girl Crush

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Yesterday, I wrote a scene for a work in progress about a childhood crush. In this yet-to-be-named novel I’m writing, the man had a childhood crush on a girl who spent the summers with him in Cape Cod. At a certain point, she never comes back. He spends his life tracking her down, and then stalking her until they meet again under strange circumstances on the METRO in Washington D.C. This scene had me thinking about my own crushes through my lifetime.

When I turned 12, which was a lifetime ago, my dad decided he wanted us to have family time by learning how to SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus). Yes, I had a privileged youth. I remember the nights we spent in the pool, learning how to breathe underwater. I also remember the book I was handed to study up on SCUBA, because all SCUBA divers have to pass a written test, even the twelve year olds.

Lauren SCUBA

That book with its blue cover sat by my bedside as I simultaneously thought of boys and played with Barbies. I had entered that time in my life where my body was changing and I was going through puberty, but I still loved my dolls. I straddled the line between childhood and adulthood, not sure where I belonged yet. As an aside, I also wore a heck of a lot of Laura Ashley jumpers. Twelve year olds today do not dress the way we did in the early 1990’s that’s for sure.

When the test day came I stared at the problems, and they looked like gobbly-gook. In all truth, I think there was a whole lot of Algebra. Math wasn’t my forte, and I hadn’t even started Algebra yet. (Now they seem to start it in Kindergarten, but then they didn’t).

And so, Phil, a tall, buff, blonde dive-pro at the shop sat next to me and gave me hints. He knew I knew the rules and how to dive. He just needed to give me a little bit of encouragement, so I could pass. And pass I did, with his help.

I’m sure dive-pro Phil knew I was in love with him. I made it blatantly obvious. I followed him around like a puppy-dog. I asked for him to be my dive partner on numerous occasions. I thought, me, a twelve year old child had a chance with this grown-up twenty-five year old man.

And Phil, knowing I was a child, dealt with it in such a nice way. He was kind. He didn’t blow me off. He never belittled me or was condescending. I’ll never forget, on one of our dive trips—I can’t remember if this was in Florida or in the Cayman’s—my mom burst her eardrum. I wanted to go back out in the water, because I was looking for sand dollars. So Phil went out with me, and he dragged his knife through the sand so we could find our way back to the boat, and took me out to a whole colony of sand dollars. This meant so much to my twelve-year old heart. He dealt with my school-girl crush with such grace, but he also gave me no allusions that he reciprocated (thank God—I was just a child).

Now I’m a grown-up, and I know the crush on dive-pro Phil was an adolescent awakening to the world of love and romance for me. It’s funny thinking back on those days and remembering how young and naïve I was. I had many more crushes after that, and I’m sure people had crushes on me. That’s just the way it goes. But the thing that makes crushes feel so poignant is the impossibility involved that doesn’t exist in a loving relationship. A crush is just that, a crush, and if it never moves forward it wanes and dies and both parties move on with their lives.

I don’t remember how I felt when I heard dive-pro Phil was getting married. I remember thinking it was logical, because he was an adult. But being only twelve or thirteen years old, it didn’t hit me the same way as other crushes who rejected me, who went on to get married, who left me when I felt like I needed them the most, or who moved on when they should have for the benefit of us both.

The thing about crushes, as illustrated in this story, is that they can teach you about love. Dive-pro Phil looked at me as a child, someone he could help teach to dive. He mentored me, and taught me about kindness, which is such a huge aspect of love. And he did it in a way that was appropriate, even knowing that I had a school-girl crush on him. I’ve learned a lot from all the crushes I’ve had, because pain also brings insight. I moved on and I learned how to apply that knowledge to my relationships, and now to my marriage.

Interestingly enough, another Phil came along when I was in college, and I thought I loved him so much. I put him on a pedestal, and I didn’t walk away even when he hurt me. I didn’t walk away even when I started hurting him. He was my best friend, my confidante, but the truth is a relationship wouldn’t have worked between us because we didn’t know how to communicate our deepest feelings with one another. It made the time we had together thrilling and fun, but it also made it hurtful, confusing, and frustrating. It took me a long time to move on from Phil2, and my relationship with my now-husband suffered because of my grief associated with losing my friendship with Phil2 and the possibility of what could have been between us. Once I processed all those heavy emotions, my relationship with my husband grew.

Crushes crush. They’re intense, yes, but they’re meant to end. Relationships bring a whole new level of love to your life, one that grows and changes with time. A crush is fleeting and not meant to last forever, but a lesson for how to love in your true and meaningful relationships.

Who was your first crush?

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Xs and Os

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I haven’t shared my flash fiction in awhile, because I haven’t been writing it as much. Between promoting The Devil Within, editing Little Birdhouses, and writing my no-name work-in-progress I haven’t had time. But this week, I decided to write for Mid-week Blues-Buster.

The song this week is Little Blue One by Cowboy Mouth, which is an upbeat song about a sad subject. When I heard this song, after not having listened to Cowboy Mouth for years it took me back to a crowded concert venue in Atlanta in the late 90’s or early 00’s, where I’d gone to visit my childhood friend, Stacy, at college. I hadn’t heard them before I attended the concert with Stacy and Andrea and a few other friends, and I immediately liked their music.

Fair warning: the subject matter is about divorce or the end of a relationship.

Here’s the song if you’d like to have a listen:

So here’s the Dear Jane letter…

Xs and Os
554 words
@laurenegreene

Dear Jane,

The dream again. Your face. But when I wake up you’re not beside me in the ocean swell of what-used-to-be our king sized bed. The room wreaks of your ghost. I pretend not to think of you. I tell my repetitive thoughts to still the image of you in my mind as I pour two cups of coffee instead of one for the third time this week. Without thought, I pour the second one down the drain. I think about picking up the extra cup and smashing it against the wall, but instead I set it in the sink and think about how you would have told me to “just put it in the dishwasher.”

The photos of you and me in the Caymans eating turtle soup. The smile on your face is eternal. You don’t live here anymore with me, but every waking moment I have to tell myself you’re gone. Today, I’ll take the photos down. It’s been six months, and I know you’re not coming back. I’ll put them in boxes, and I’ll wrap them up, and it will be like our life together never existed. That’s what you wanted.

When your text pinged my cell at 2 AM, I had to stumble from the couch where I’d fallen asleep watching Geraldo. I knocked the half empty bottle of wine onto the rug. You remember that rug, don’t you? We spent four hours debating on whether to get blue wool or the checkered cotton at Pottery Barn. I, like the sales clerk, wanted to gouge out my eyes with knives before you’d make up your mind. Back and forth. Wishy washy. That was always your way. Maniacal laughter erupted from my lips when I thought how ironic it was that this rug, your baby, your precious, had been left in my incapable hands. It’s in the green trashcan waiting for pickup on the curb now. So long sucker.

The laughter turned to tears when I read your text. “I want an annulment.” The words stung. Married for six years and just like that you wanted to pretend we didn’t exist. Well maybe you didn’t exist, but I did. I waited for you, lost in your blue world of depression as you were. I stuck with you when no one did. I made sure they pumped your stomach. I made sure you didn’t die on the pink title floor of our bathroom by sticking my finger down your throat. Covered in your puke and half-digested pills, I helped get you to the hospital. I saved your life…literally. And I helped you find your way. Even if that way was away from me.

So, my little blue one, now that you’ve found your way you want to pretend that none of it ever happened? Move on, put me behind you and that period of your life when you couldn’t control yourself. You couldn’t control your emotions.

The answer is no. I’ll grant you a divorce, but not an annulment. Because not every day was filled with vomit and fights over rugs. I walked on the beach with you. I kissed you under a gazebo. I imagined our life together, complete with babies, and I thought I’d be with you forever. I can’t pretend that never existed.

Xs and Os, the answer is no.

–John

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Thought of a Day: The best way to help a newbie author like me is to read, review, and recommend their book!

Make Me Proud

/ legreene515 / 11 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote for Flash Dash. This is a new challenge on the Flash!Friday page, in which you have only thirty minutes to write a flash piece up to 30 minutes long. The first sentence was supplied. As I looked at the sentence, the father/son dynamic came to mind. It could have easily have been a father/daughter dynamic. As a kid, I felt like I was constantly striving to make my dad proud. I also felt like he was critical, and it hurt.  Now, I know that’s just his personality and he is proud of me. I explored that theme a little bit in my story yesterday.

Make Me Proud
@laurenegreene
395 words

Winning was all that mattered. But, unfortunately, I was a born loser. I couldn’t even hit the ball off the tee when I started tee-ball. My father shouted from the stands, blaming everyone but his loser son.  And the losing streak continued. My father, a wolf of the banking world, could not stomach my losses.

At my basketball games in middle school, shoulders slumped over my chest, keeping the bench warm, I cringed as my father shouted at Ryan Peterson, the star.

“Come on Ryan! You got this. Four more points, and they’re beat.”

Then, I think he started coming to my games only to see Ryan.  Silent meals, as I speared cauliflower and my Dad recanted Ryan’s winning moments. I sank further and further into myself. My mother’s sidelong glances couldn’t even save me from the fact that my father was overlooking me.

I joined drama on a whim. Everyone has to be good at something, right? Turns out I’m good at stabbing Mercutio and rinsing imaginary blood from my hands.

Back at the dinner table, I recited my monologues to the tone-deaf ears of my father. He rambled on about how the basketball team missed me.

“Missed my what, Dad? My prowess of securing the bench to the ground?”

“You should have seen it. I thought for sure we were going to lose, but then a foul was called, Ryan got the free throws, and as the ball was being bounced up the court, Teddy Andrews—do you know him?—stole the ball and threw the winning shot. It was something else.”

The peas felt squalid and heavy in my mouth. I ate them, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t get any blueberry cobbler. And my mom makes the best blueberry cobbler.

“My play’s on Tuesday night,” I told my mom the next day.

“You should tell your father.”

“Why? He won’t come.”

Friday night, costumes littered the stage. Everyone rushed around, practicing their lines one more time. When the curtain rose, the lights glared in my eyes. I couldn’t see if my father was there.

I recited my lines, stabbed Mercutio.

“THAT’S MY BOY!!!  THAT’S MY BOY!!! Look at that. Did you see the flick of that knife?”

Peals of laughter rang out around us, but the show must go on.  At least I knew he finally thought I was a winner.

The Coffee Tastes Good

/ legreene515 / 2 Comments

Yesterday, I marked one of my goals off the list for the year: Attend a Writer’s Conference.

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Photo Credit Goes to Sheri Williams

So far my goal list for the year looks like this:

  • Publish a Book done on January 31st
  • Attend a Writer’s Conference done on February 28th
  • Query an Agent done on January 18th (I think that’s the right date)
  • Publish a Second Book by May In the process with “The Devil Within.” 

2015 has been a great year for my writing, because I made it so. I dreamed it, but more importantly I started living the dream.  Right now, I’m struggling to look at edits on my book and swallow my pride. I’m struggling to make necessary changes so my book can become the best book it can be. Stay tuned, because in the next few days I’m going to show you the photo of where the idea for my book came from!

At the Mid-Winter Writers Conference yesterday, I traveled down the road with a friend, writing companion, and my project manager: Sheri Williams.Sheri is just like she is on the big ole world wide web: funny, easy to talk to, and inspiring. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever met, without that little word expectation stuck to her.

I think my favorite workshop was done by Ashley Kitchens, “Say It So They See It.” She used poems by Carl Sandburg and e e cummings (reminded me of my days in Mr. Franek’s class) as examples. She started out showing us a sentence, “The Coffee Tastes Good,” and as she went through the poems we changed it.  Interestingly enough, “painted ladies” are apparently better known as prostitutes than whores (and only Sheri will get that!). By the end the phrase, “Coffee Tastes Good,” had changed dramatically showing us how the coffee tasted instead of telling us. My coffee phrase: Poured in the cup, it calls me to my day. That’s how I feel about coffee, it keeps me going at 4:30 AM. Oh and all that delicious, rich, titillating stuff too.

I also enjoyed Ellen Maze’s workshop, “Plot and Characterization: Bringing Fiction to Life.” She had the best sense of humor. She had a list characterization questions that should be answered on your character, at least your main character, before you start writing. I already do this, to a certain extent, but not as deeply as she does. I’ll use her outline in my next book and see if it helps my characters seem more three-dimensional.

Overall, I thought it was a great conference. I met some amazingly talented people. And we know, thanks to Kathryn Lang that it’s all about relationships. Because really it is. To be a writer, you need to have people supporting you, social media contacts, and people who are willing to spread the word for you. You need people to bounce ideas off of, to say, “Does this fall flat? I was trying to convey this, did you understand the picture I was trying to paint, the feeling, the emotion that came with it?”

You need someone to say the phrase, “The Coffee Tastes Good,” doesn’t convey meaning. What are you trying to say? Conferences are great for that, giving you a whole new way to think about your writing, and giving you a community who can help you in your journey, one who specifically knows what you’re going through.