A stolen post and a standing ovation.

I fancy myself a writer, but no one would ever consider giving me a job as one cause my schooling wouldn't allow for it, and my grammer must be atrocious. But I love it. And sometimes when I read something someone else wrote that I love I want to talk about it. Typically it is a book, or sometimes an article, but this time it is a blog. Reading it made me want to gather together my writer friends and publish a compilation of all our stories. Eventually we would publish one every year, and the stories would get better and better and it wouldn't be for fame or money, but to share the talent I am surrounded by.

So today I read a post by a friend and I want to share it. It isn't long. It won't take you forever. It's an amazing display of storytelling and in the end it's for a good cause. You can find the author's blog here.

His story in its entirety:

The People I See Around
I'm an impulse person and an impulse buyer. No, I've begun poorly. I can't start with me; this story is not about me.

Chad greeted me when the doors slid open, but I couldn't understood what he said, so I asked him to repeat himself. Well, what I really said was "Whuh?" The graveyard shift must be an endless mind-melt of half-formed conversations. I know I'd tire of it. I'm sure he already has. It's 12:07 in the morning, do you know where your diction is?

His name was Chad, but I only sidelong-learned it at 12:23 after our conversation at the checkout stand went off-script. Protected both by an ego-barrier of self-satisfaction at a celebratory day and an eagerness to be a clever little "personality," a bright spot in a dull night, I asked him if he judged the people who wouldn't cough up a buck for the Breast Cancer Society. I'd already refused, swiped and punched in my secret code. My vitamins, band-aids and greedily grabbed gum are bagged and waiting.

He replied that he didn't judge, but was disappointed. His mom was re-diagnosed two weeks ago.

Man, I feel like a jerk.

It's a deadly flaw in his family genetics, he tells me, but he doesn't say it like that. The word "pancreatic" was never on any vocabulary list at his school, so he curls his fingers as if around a giant tube of disease and draws in across his abdomen. "She had it here, but now it's up here" and his hand at his chest, over his heart. A false salute to an iffy future.

Man, I feel like a jerk.


The annual Race for the Cure is tomorrow - no, today. I know this because a friend was both earnestly and ironically wearing a pink bandana around all day. So I ask him if he's going, telling him I'll be downtown for it. That's a lie. I had no intention of going before I spoke those words, and probably can't fit it in to my hectic, fantastic "I love what I do" schedule. He, at least, is honest. He'll be sleeping because another all night shift begins at 8.

I should have left already, been out the doors and back home to spend another hour clicking through my Tivo playlist while pretending to write. But I'm in deep now as he pulls back his sleeve, revealing in the florescent overhead light a yellowed bump with a rosacead center. It's big, not enormous, but of a size that you know should have been checked out. A soddened tea bag squeezed of its last herb-juice.

"We all get them," he says. "And around thirty they turn to cancer. But I'd rather not know." If you have tough life, it's gonna show, so I'm struggling to pin down his age. His teeth, his face, the slump in his shoulders all say that he's hit that mark, or will soon. So again-

Man, I feel like a jerk.

I want to feel like a samaritan.

"Chad," I begin. I know his name now and I've committed to eye-contact. "You need to have that looked at. It's always better to have the facts so you can make a decision." Keystroke italicized - always.facts.decision. It's my presentational voice, my jedi-mind-tricks inflection. I don't think it's going to work, and I need it to work. Chad needs it to work. But this isn't a galaxy far, far away, so of course it doesn't, and he's already exited the conversation.

"When they find the cure..." he says, handing me my purchases and back in the proper posturing of employee-to-patron relations. "The cure for cancer, I'll get it checked."

That's a lie. We're both liars and one of us might die from it. And it's 2:33 now and I haven't showered and I didn't go back, dig down and give him the dollar or point him toward a free clinic. I left. I'm home. He's still working. And I'm reduced to melodramatic melancholy.

Tomorrow's another big day in my busy, busy, busy life. I'm doing things I believe are important, but now seem much less urgent than they did at two and a half hours ago.

NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN DELETED. THIS IS INCOMPLETE, BUT TO WRITE MORE SIMPLY FEEDS MY VANITY.

Here's the important part - If you were intrigued or bothered or whatever, click here to donate online to the American Cancer Society in whatever capacity you wish. I gave a few bucks, which I should have done earlier. I hope you can too.

200th Post contest

Sorry, let me explain, it isn't my 200th post and I'm not having a contest, although, when I get there, I'll be compelled now to figure one out. No, in fact it is someone else's 200th post. And so, in a belated attempt to win a prize that has already been won I am posting the following series of photographs and inspired writing because of this post



It holds a memory, a moment in time when each person that stepped down that long alley way felt rebellious, adventurous, inspired, or grossed out. Whatever the feeling they had, whatever the action they took, in so many ways, these walls speak.



The brick that lays beneath holds tales from long ago, when the dust from the dirt road and the tumbleweeds blew through. But the only tales the bricks tell today are tales from more recent years, from before it got it's name.

I wonder who was the first? What was the reason? Or perhaps more importantly, who was the second? for that is the person that I think made it what it is today.

I don't know what compels me to be a part of what has happened here, but as I stand in between the two walls, I am sad that I am not chewing gum.

i like short things.

I did something besides work, it took some time but, I read a brilliant book of short stories by author Meera Nair. All of the short stories, which I might just mention here are some of my favorite books to read, books of short stories that is because with life how it is, finding time to read one short story is easier than finding time to read one 250+ page book over the course of a month and having to re-read the last page again every time you pick it up because it's been so freaking long that you've forgotten what you've read. Or heck, the last time you read it was late and you drifted off to sleep and you turned the pages and looked at the words, but the story escaped you. Yeah. I like books of short stories. Any suggestions from you all out there?

So. "Video" was written by Meera Nair, a native of India and as you may imagine, each of her short stories in this collection are set in, unique to one another settings in, India, surrounded by Indian culture, and rich with details and insight. A warning to some, the Title Story deals with pornography. I just have to send out a tad bit of a disclaimer. I don't know who's reading this. But, please, do not be deterred because of this one subject. All of the stories in this book are amazing.

I borrowed it from the library, but I'm considering buying it for my bookshelf. I'll loan it out only after i write my name in it.

Unwittingly, I think I just wrote a "rave review" for this book. That was not my intention. Not because I didn't like it, on the contrary I really liked it. I just didn't want to blog a simple book review. Alas. I am sorry. I think that is all I have in me. I have no brain capacity to reflect on what I read and attribute my thoughts to that of fiction and life. It might also be because of the month I've had, it took me that long to read the 208 pages. Not a hard feat typically for me to accomplish in a day....and that brings me to my next blog about a book.

stay tuned. it's a juicy one.

Arlington Park

written by Rachel Cusk

"Set over the course of a single rainy day, the novel moves from one household to another, and through the passing hors conducts a deep examination of its characters' lives."

Previously, if I'd read this on the inside jacket of a book I would've put it back on the shelf and thought that not much could happen and why bother. Thanks to taking a chance on, and loving "One day in the Life.." and the fact that I wanted to read a new release next, "Arlington Park" fit the bill.

Set in London and following the intertwined lives of women living on Arlington Park seems like a good backdrop for a novel and at times it is. Many of the chapters are insightful, encouraging - in a backwards way (let's just say it made me appreciate the love of my good man and semi-quiet life we lead), and all are more than words on a page.

But, and here comes a little critique, sometimes I couldn't handle the fascinating, page after page of descriptions of rain...seriously. It's true. rain. I mean, I like rain, love it sometimes but 248 pages of one day, while it's raining? It was a little much.

I find myself searching for a focus in my novel. I wonder if reading the latest novel is helpful anymore. I need these influences in some way, because,
- if you already know what I'm writing you can skip this part -

The main character in my novel is a twenty-something woman, working in the highly popular culture of fashion and glamor. Her life is seemingly the epitome of so many a young girls list of life goals. She is married to a high-power man, with luxury and all the good. She is unsatisfied though, and finds a better man to fulfill her where her husband has not.

...because, for my main character to come to a moral climax she has to be someone that would "fit" in the world that these "chick-lit" novels portray. When I find my novel taking a more real life turn, I pick up another chick-lit book and re-focus my character back into the world she needs to live in.

So...I need these books. But I am writing (my book) because I despise these books. The characters never suffer consequences for their evil deeds. That is what I am writing against. And that is what I am hoping to expose with my own book and perhaps change the way we view what chick lit is supposed to be. To stay focused on my end result (and my ending that includes consequences), I can not read these chick lit books, they are a distraction and they, basically, make my writing suck. But to write a compelling "beginning" to my story, I MUST read and read with a mind to devour and soak in their meaning and feeling and sense of being that a chick lit offers.

I am stuck. My mind seems to full of everything. So, I'm reading C.S.Lewis' "The Discarded Image"