Katie McMahon - Foot and Cereal Eating

Things have seemingly slowed down here at Writing, Writer, Writest, but don't let that fool you! I kind of felt like I was slapping myself in the face this past week. Week after week, I hear people saying, "I'm too busy to write this week," and I want to roll my eyes and tell them just to turn anything in or to stay up late or wake up early and send me a masterpiece!

Then, something happened to me this week: I was too busy to write. I mean, I wrote a few things here and there, like how risky it is to eat an entire box of cereal. I also scribbled some insanity into my journal about things in my life not going my way, but nothing that seemed appropriate or acceptable for the blog. So, here I am, putting my foot in my mouth, and telling you all that I understand if you're busy. I do.

At the same time, I want to challenge us all to write anyway. Maybe you can only write every other week, and that's okay. I'm going to do my best to remind us all and also I'm going to accept that some weeks we'll have one or two posts every single day, while other weeks we may only have a few posts throughout the entire week.

And that's okay! Hooray!

Anyway, we'll start posting submissions for the theme "And the winner is..." tomorrow. Submissions for next week's theme "What the--?" will be due on Friday 3/18 or as soon as you can send them to me at writingwriterwritest@gmail.com.

PLUS, a huge shout out and THANK YOU to Meg Wood for sharing in the editing process with me! Meg, you ROCK!

Thanks everybody,

Katie

Meg Wood: On the Topic of Vague Unease

Here's a transcript from an actual conversation I had the other day at the bus stop with a man I'm going to call "Oldest Man Alive" because, in short, it's apt. I'd never seen Oldest Man Alive before -- he's no regular -- and I feel fairly certain I will never see him again. However, I'm not sure if I'm glad or sorry about that latter fact, as this was certainly one of the most bizarrely interesting conversations I've had in a long time.

Scene: I'm standing at the bus stop in the afternoon waiting to go home. Oldest Man Alive begins walking very slowly towards me -- kind of like a wind-up robot with no knees, tottering slowly and methodically from side to side, leg to leg. I'm not really looking at him -- I'm just keeping one peripheral eye on him as he wobbles in my direction. He gets up very close to my right elbow and then speaks:

OMA: [in a barely detectable monotonous growl, speaking extremely quickly] Do you have a smoke? Do you have smoke? Do you have a smoke? Are you a student or a professor?

Me: Um, sorry. . . what?

OMA: You -- you a student or a professor?

Me: [pulling headphones out of ears] Neither -- I'm a librarian at the university.

OMA: No you aren't. A university librarian. You. are. not. one. What do you know?

Me: Sorry?

OMA: What do you KNOW? What do you know -- IN YOUR HEAD?

Me: What do I know? Uh, well. . . Just enough to be dangerous?

The girl sitting on the bus stop bench behind me laughs at my response. She's been watching OMA peripherally as well, I can tell. In fact, at this point, I look up and notice that most of the women at the bus stop have at least one eye on OMA and probably have for the last several minutes, just as I was doing earlier myself. Interestingly enough, most of the men barely seem to notice him, and this fact makes me think for a second about the marked difference between women and men's instinctive reactions to odd people on the bus. Before I can delve too deeply into this thought, however, the girl asks me "What library?" and I don't have time to respond before OMA continues. . .

OMA: [harrumphs] I know everything, you know nothing. You don't even know how much a pack of cigarettes costs.

Me: $8.19.

OMA: [startled] What?

Me: [pointing at sign on smoke shop across the street, shrugging] $8.19.

OMA: [starts to follow the direction of my finger but gives up quickly and returns his gaze to me] Librarian, give me enough to buy a pack of smokes.

Me: I'm sorry -- I have no cash on me at all today.

OMA: [speaking so rapidly I can barely understand him] Then what's in your wallet? What's in your purse? WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?

Me: Just a bus pass and some cards.

OMA: You're no librarian. You're not. You're a liar. Nobody has no cash.

Me: [opening wallet and showing him the utterly empty inside] You were saying?

Before OMA could come up with what I'm sure would've been a knee-slappingly witty retort to this, or perhaps just an extremely obfuscating one, a woman walks by us with a smoke dangling from her lip. I instantly become the human equivalent of chopped liver, and as he wobbles off to follow her, knee-less, wound-up, and doing the robot-totter from leg to leg, side to side, I can hear him saying, rapid-fire again, "Do you have a smoke? Do you have a smoke? Do you have a smoke?"

About five minutes later, I got on the 373 and when I looked out the window, he was standing in the bus shelter again, this time holding a cigarette, victoriously puffing on it so hard and so fast I felt sure he was going to hyperventilate any minute. As he stood there gasping down that smoky air like he'd actually been drowning in all the clean atmosphere he'd been inhabiting just moments ago, I suddenly realized what he reminded me of -- the nightmare-inducing (for me, anyway) Skeksis from that old kids' movie, The Dark Crystal. Same beaky face. Same hunched look. Same beady eyes. His grabby hands had overgrown, sharp nails on them, black with nicotine or dirt or both or worse. And I was torn between feeling sorry for him -- for clearly he was a poor, senile old man with a nasty addiction that would no doubt kill him and soon -- and shivering from the frisson of such a close encounter with a creature that once haunted my childhood nights with ferocity, beaks, and long, dark claws.

In the end, I did neither. Instead, as the bus began to pick up speed, I turned away from Oldest Man Alive, cracked my book back open, and reabsorbed myself in the captivating lives of the fictitious.

I'm not sure what this says about me. Probably nothing good.


Meg Wood is a librarian in Seattle who moonlights as the author of The Boyfriend of the Week web site and its companion blog of movie, book, and TV reviews, Senceless Pie. You can find her on Facebook and also on Twitter, if you so desire. Tobacco kills. SO DO SKEKSIS!

Fashion Week at WWW!

Hello, readers! This is Meg Wood speaking (writing, whatever), sitting in as Editor-in-Chief pro tempore this week while the Big Kahuna (Josh) is making last week's theme, moving, a reality in his own life.

We're about to embark on a journey together, my friends. A journey into the world of FASHION. Fasten your seat belts, lace up your boots, and brace your cheeks for Heidi Klum. You never know what might show up.

Platform heels? Acid-wash jeans? Hammer pants (see Simplicity pattern number 0693)? All I know is that in fashion, one day you're in and the next day you're OUT.

Take it away, writers! (And hey, I've only gotten four submissions so far and I'm taking late entries, so get hot: meg@megwood.com.)

Meg Wood: Stop and Smell the (What's the Opposite of Roses?)

Every summer at the library where I work, we box up the previous year's research journals and send them off to the bindery where, as legend has it, a bunch of convicts at the Walla Walla state penitentiary bundle them up into volumes and bind them in hardcover.

I say "as legend has it" because this prison thing is not exactly advertised on the bindery's web site ("Now with 85% more felonious labor!"). I only heard it once, from a customer support rep, and it's entirely possible she was pulling my leg. But I like the idea, especially since the only other bindery in our region is run by a group of Trappist Monks. That seems like a good balance. Balance is key.

Anyway, about six weeks after we send them out, the journals come back to us neatly packed in brand-new boxes. As soon as I see the delivery truck roll up, I always bounce out of my chair with excitement, calling out loudly my dibs on getting to unpack them (not that I've ever had to arm-wrestle anyone for the gig, mind you -- it's more the principle of the thing).

Why so much enthusiasm? Two words: sweet, sweet packing paper.

Sorry: four words.

The bindery, you see, uses real packing paper when prepping our materials for return. And, oh, man, do I ever love that paper. You know the stuff I mean? The manila colored stuff that feels like newsprint and comes in large sheets -- maybe two feet by three feet? The real stuff. The stuff used by professionals. The bona fide shizznit of packing paper.

It's nice paper, no doubt, but what I really love about it is the way it smells. The first time I ever sliced open one of those bindery boxes and the sweet smell of those pages wafted up to the sensors in my nostrils, I was almost knocked off my feet by a sudden tsunamic wave of nostalgia. Smells are extremely tightly connected to memories for me, and that was an aroma I hadn't encountered in a very long time. A smell of home. Of change. Of new beginnings.

The smell of my childhood.

I grew up the youngest of three kids in a Marine Corps family (though, I should note I'm only the youngest by five minutes, and I contend my twin was only born first because I shoved her out so I could have a few moments of blissful, womby peace). During my youth, we moved multiple times, usually from one side of the country to the other and then back again: South Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Japan, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, etc. etc. ad infinitum (or nauseum, I suppose, depending on how you feel about Texas).

Every time, the movers would pack everything up in that wonderful paper on one end, and on the other, in our new house, our new town, our new lives, we would unpack it again. Though many military kids lament the constant uprootings and replantings of their youths, I loved it. Every place a new start. Every town new people, new schools, new experiences. I didn't make friends easily, and I didn't need to -- I wouldn't be there long enough for it to matter all that much. The shorter your roots, the easier your transplantings -- it was the perfect lifestyle for an introverted self-loather like me.

Perhaps oddly, unpacking was always the best part of every relocation for me. Even if it only took a week to get to the new HQ, it still felt like everything in the boxes marked "Megan's Room" was brand new. Unpacking took days -- it was like a long holiday overloaded with gifts. Gifts and hope and aspirations. Stuff could even be organized as it was put away this time; maybe it would even stay that way. (My mother just snorted derisively at that last sentence, mind you. So did my husband.)

And now for the secret sharing part -- the part I bet you don't know about. There is, in fact, a method for dealing with all that delicious packing paper. A technique we kids were taught by my parents as soon as we were old enough to assist. You see, you can't just wad it up and chuck it in a bin, one smooshed-up sheet at a time; you'll never fit it all in that way.

No, sirs, there's a procedure. What you do is this: as you unwrap, you pull the corners of each crumpled sheet gently apart, removing all trace of whatever shape once nested inside it. Next, lay it flat on a hard surface (table, floor, teetering tower of unpacked boxes -- your choice depending on risk assessment), and then quickly smooth it out, edge to edge, with the flat outside of your hands. Smooth it sharply, karate-chop style. The paper makes a brisk whip-whip sound as you go. Once it'll hold a more-or-less flatness, move on to the next object in the box. Unwrap, pull corners, lay flat. The next sheet goes on top of the previous one, whip-whip. Then the next sheet on top again, whip-whip. And then the next, and the next, and the next again.

Breathe in the smells as you go: the paper, an extremely distinct combination of raw tree pulp and dryer lint (don't ask me; I but know 'tis true); your stuff, like your last home; your new room, like fresh paint and looming adventure. And possibly mold.

When you have a good-sized stack of flattened paper, start at one edge and roll the pile up tightly, a paper jelly-roll. Then, you see, you can stand this tube up in the bin, tucking others in around it. Fitting in three, four, maybe even five times the amount of paper that would've gone in the same space had you just lobbed it in there one crumpled piece at a time.

There's no need to rush, mind you. Transition is a process. Fresh starts take time, care. Embrace the process. Don't neglect the procedure. The procedure is the key to everything. Mindfulness, determination, method. This new start is going to be the one. If you're careful enough with it, it will almost certainly be the one.

The first time I ever unpacked one of those bindery boxes at work, the time I got that first blissful emanation of reminder, everyone within ear shot of my office came by to see what that "whip-whip" sound was all about. I explained the strategy in detail, mostly to faces that seemed thoroughly unimpressed. Whatever, I thought, as the person arched an eyebrow and said, "Um, oooookay." What do they know about packing paper, I continued, setting the next sheet carefully on top of my pile.

As I ran my hands smoothly, briskly across its corners, leveling out all its bumps and puckers, I breathed in that smell, heady with memories of the dozen mulligans of my youth. Whip-whip, whip-whip, whip-whip, repeat. Whip-whip, whip-whip, whip-whip, begin.


Meg Wood is a librarian who also reads a lot of books and watches a lot of movies. You can find out what she thinks of those last two things at her web site and blog: http://megwood.com and http://megwood.wordpress.com. She also likes Facebook friends and Twitter followers. She's just sayin'.

Meg Wood - A Western Rhyme 'bout a Hurricane Named Bob

Hurricane Bob did not screw around.
Like a red-sashed bandito, he rode into town.
Snarly with power, high up on his horse,
This was no drill, folks; this storm had some force.

T’weren’t no well-heeled Earps out in Newport that day.
Holed up in the hospital, we were tucked safe away.
The grown-ups were fretful as Spanish guitars,
While we crept to the windows, watched trees fall on cars.

Bob’s eye rolled around about eleven o’clock,
An hour 'fore High Noon rang out on the block.
Fury beforehand, still more to come,
Bob wanted a break, time to oil his gun.

The clouds parted clear, winds dead down to breeze,
We all rushed outside, despite our parents’ pleas.
The sun on our faces, we danced in the street,
But Bob was not finished, only resting his feet.

He started back up with a drop here and there,
Then came raging back angry, the skies all a’flare.
We dashed back inside, as Bob steadied his aim.
This town was too small, Bob’s grudge none too tame.

The one good thing to come out of this storm,
Was the loss of the power, ice creams getting warm.
As Bob flew to the north, we all headed downtown,
Where Häagen Daz was giving out scoops with a frown.

The battles go on in this summertime war
As banditos each year give the East Coast what-for.
All this science, computing, radar, and math,
And still history repeats itself yearly with wrath.

Bob’s gone away now, replaced by some others.
Katrina kicked his ass, then all of his brothers’.
Each season brings with it a new round of fear,
While the locals stock up with bread, flashlights, and beer.

Take that, Bob, you take it, we’ll never give in;
As long as we’re standing, you’ll fail to win.
Come back now, I dare you, come wrassle our bay!
(I say that from safety, moved far, far away.)


Meg Wood is a dork. Check out more of her nonsense at http://megwood.com and http://megwood.wordpress.com

Meg Wood -- Bus Etiquette: A Primer on Picking

It’s back-to-school time here at the college campus where I work, and with each year comes a new horde of students boarding my bus every morning, fresh-faced and ready for class (at least until the second week, anyway, when they start to look bored and ready for Friday). Some of these students catch onto bus etiquette fairly quickly. Others, however, seem to require a bit more guidance.

Take, for example, the guy sitting catty-corner to me on the bus this morning. Who was, of all things, picking his nose. Not just a subtle scratch ("I wasn't going to pick my nose, I was going to thump him!" -- name that movie) or a casual quick dig for a boog that was driving him bananas. This guy spent a good ten minutes rooting around in each nostril, elbows-deep, like his fingers were French sows that knew that somewhere, deep in those crevasses, there were truffles to be had.

He'd grope around in there for a second or five, then drop his hand to his knee and casually rub his fingers together to drop the detritus onto the bus floor. From the way he did this latter move, I could tell he was actually attempting to be subtle about it -- at least he wasn't flicking the stuff clear across the aisle or, worse yet, tucking it behind his ear for later. But what I found particularly amusing about the whole thing was that, out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was closing his eyes every time he brought his hand up for the pick. This is something I call "The Bugblatter Beast of Traal" mentality, wherein you think that if you can't see others, they can't see you (see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for details on the BBoT, and don't forget to pack your towel, you hoopy frood).

My cat does this too, though you may want to note here that she has a brain the size of a peanut. In her case, what she does is hide by sticking her head under the bed, leaving the rest of her body out in plain sight. Whenever I walk by and see this, I cannot resist sneaking up and tugging gently on her tail. "Whaaa...?" her shocked face will exclaim as her head whips out from under cover and whirls in my direction. "How did you find me? I was invisible!"

Now, if only there were a comparable action I could've performed on the Nose Pickah, because clearly someone needed to clue him in to the fact he wasn't being nearly as clandestine as he seemed to think he was. However, of course, he had no tail on which I could gently tug, and besides, it's considered bad form on the bus to grab at anybody's backside for any reason, ridiculously deserved or not. Also, he was actually sitting on said backside anyway. I suppose I could've leaned over and flicked him on the forehead, but, well, I didn't think of that in time, I guess.

Dear Nose Pickah: just because you can't see me watching you systematically mine your nostrils for gold does not actually mean I'm not watching you systematically mine your nostrils for gold. By the end of the ten minutes, I had run through so many emotions I was pretty much over being grossed out and had moved smoothly into a state of utter amusement. Luckily, before I could start tittering behind my sleeve (I'm so immature), a young girl, probably a high school student (though these days, all the college kids look 16 to me, which is how I know I’m officially OLD) came and sat down next to him and that made him quit. He probably thought, and rightly so, that said someone would not appreciate having boogers dropped so closely to her own knees and feet. It was a full bus on a rainy morning, after all -- not a hotbed of tolerance, patience, or joy, typically.

Anyway, if it turns out that Nose Pickah is a regular, I think I will be steering clear of him for a while. At least until the second quarter -- ostensibly, he will have learned some things by then. It's not that I think there's anything inherently bad about picking your nose -- haven't we all done this at one time or another? I don't even really have a problem with eating boogers, though it's not a delicacy I have a taste for myself. I guess it's more germophobia than anything else. Well, that and the image of one of his truffles permanently attached to the bottom of my shoe for the rest of the day. Now that's gross. No, like, really gross, now that I think about it.

Okay, so, to sum up, for all you n00bs out there:

1. Do not pick your nose on the bus;
2. Do not think that closing your eyes means I can't see you;
3. Keep your truffles to yourself;
4. Do not put anything in your nose smaller than your elbow, including your elbow;
5. Welcome to college.

Meg Wood can be even goofier than this. Check it out, IF YOU DARE: http://megwood.com and http://megwood.wordpress.com

Meg Wood: Bloomin'

Summer used to be my least favorite season – so hot and involving the least soothing clothing of the closet. No more sweaters to turtle down into, hide out in. No more scarves to curl around my neck in broad woolen loops protecting my breath. No more hats providing the perfect excuse for messy hair.

Socks! Soooooooocks!

But about four or five years ago, that all changed. Suddenly, the heat of the sun became transformative instead of stifling. Tearing off layers to get down to the barest of minimums and going out into the yard to work in the dirt, tugging at plants, examining leaves, petals, stems for signs of health, sickness, pets, imminent snacks – all these things became vital. Energizing. A full system’s snap-to.

Some of this change had to do with buying a house and having an outside of my own to play in at last. We moved in at the end of May 2005, and a week later, I took my first toddling steps into the world of gardening by planting peas. I still remember the jolt – zing! – the day I went outside and found there were actual peas on my peas. It had happened all of a sudden, it seemed to me. One day, there was nothing but plant, the next, fully-grown food!

I dug into the twisting reels of vine, turned one of the pods gently until it came off in my hand, plucked its string, and pulled it open. Inside were three perfectly round green balls, so sweet and crunchy, so flawless. It was the first living thing I had ever created and I had somehow, some magically how, created it masterfully.

I was as a GOD.

But it wasn’t just the divine feeling of creation that continued to entice me into the yard each bright evening after work. The more I let summer’s heat sink down into my skin and bones, flooding gently over every fibromyalgic part like spilled warm milk, the more the constant ringing of my skin seemed to quiet, lulled by an ultraviolet hug into a gentle snore. Sometimes I find myself having to fight the urge to race out naked into the hot sun, neighbors be damned; to expose all flesh to rays, to make every inch go quiet.

I don’t, though. And you know why?

Because that would be crazy.

Last summer, however, I was so consumed by the misfires of my head and heart that I grew nothing. All the garden tools remained cleanly untouched in the shed, the beds and pots empty. I threw a few flowers into the ground out front – that much, at least, seemed mandatory (let’s not arouse suspicions, now) – but just going out to water them periodically felt like a torturous waste of time. Who cares about flowers when there’s so much else? So much more important elseness? I spent a lot of time outside that summer, but almost all of it was really spent in. Inward, anyway. No deepening warmth, no soft, sustained snore – my heat that year was more a brutal, tearing fire, with me in constant struggle to find its source and put it out.

This summer, I’ve been back in the yard again, almost obsessively, weeding, growing, nibbling, examining. I spent two hours in July hand-washing the ailing leaves of a squash infested with slime-trailing pests. Grow, grow, grow, please. I need this. I need it. Please. Just. Grow.

There’s been little sun this year, however, little warmth, little sleep. And it has not escaped me that my hours outside have been more about avoiding the inside than anything else – a complete reversal, thinking back, and I can’t tell if that counts as progress or not.

Yet perhaps all change can represent net forward movement in some way, even if it takes periodic loops of retreat. It’s true the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but, at the risk of going all Robert Frost on your asses, maybe it’s the road less traveled by – the unkempt, weed-overrun, gravelly one you stumble across when you’ve been flailing around in the woods, panicked and disoriented, for what feels like a lifetime – maybe that’s the road that gets you to Point B, if not as quickly, then at least with more self-satisfaction.

I was lost. And then a road was found. Maybe that really does make all the difference.

In any case, the flowers don’t seem to notice the change, looping travels and busted compasses or not. Bright, blooming, and radiantly cheerful, they continue on in an endless cycle of birth, growth, wilt, and renewal.

And yesterday: my first ripe tomato.

Meg Wood doesn’t know the meaning of the word “Miracle-Gro.” You can read her sillier work at her two web sites: http://megwood.com and http://megwood.wordpress.com.

Meg Wood: Close

First came Alexander.
I met him an hour after he met the world,
Red-faced and wailing.
I’d seen his foot on an ultrasound once;
The same foot now fluttering against my palm,
A lively miracle.

I was pushing him on a swing when his brother was born.
A warm spring day.
The next morning, we met Matthew together.
I cupped his head in my hands, breathed in his breath.
Xander covered him in stickers,
A prized possession.

My sister’s first took me whole, no surprise.
I spent a week with Luke just after his birth.
I held him for days, hips rocking as to a metronome,
Heart wobbling like sea legs on land.
Atoms, energies exchanged, traded,
A permanent bond.

Then came Sydney, first girl, last.
I kissed her toes the day we met (one hundred times, I counted).
I love you, I whispered. I’ll be here, I’m here.
We girls stick together. We ladies, we stay.
Shared gender, shared blood,
An immutable connection.

People ask if it’s hard not having my own.
It’s hard sometimes, I say.
There’s a loss there of dreams, grief for a plan, a falter in moving on.

Then Syd curls up in my lap, calls me “Grandpa,” falls asleep;
Luke’s face lights up when he sees mine, so happy he claps as he laughs;
Matt listens rapt, sometimes skipping a breath, as I read him adventurous tales;
Xander teaches me football, tries not to laugh, high-fives as I finally score.

Some days it’s hard, the ones I’m alone.
My pockets emptied of toys.
Most days, though, I marvel I’ve earned such a life:
A lap full of nieces, piggy backs with the boys, the sound of “Aunt Meg!” through a door.

Desert body, oasis heart:
A closeness of close-enough.

Meg Wood usually ends her poems with knock-knock jokes. You can read her opinions about books, films, and TV at http://megwood.wordpress.com, as well as her internationally revered (or reviled, depending on what she's said about Christian Bale that day) Boyfriend of the Week essays at http://megwood.com.