Heptadecagon

Talia walked into my bedroom with tears running down her face. "Is it normal to be so emotionally attached to a fictional character that you care about what happens to them?" After having just finished an episode of Sherlock , she'd woken me up. I don't know why she felt the need to risk my wrath by waking me up. Maybe she was worried about herself. Maybe she just felt like coming to see me. Maybe she needed comfort; most people don't like crying alone. Or maybe, based on her question, she wanted validation that she was normal. But I can't say that she is. I can say that she inherited this particular abnormality from me. Her reaction to Sherlock is the same one I get when I read a particularly well-written and engrossing novel. The books that I'll pick up a second time, the ones that I bawl my eyes out over and want to know what happens to the characters. Talia's reaction is what I hope to cause in someone else each time I finish a story and...

She used to chop the onions for tuna salad into tiny pieces. She used to read any book she could get her hands on. She used to make popsicles out of grape juice. She used to drown the popcorn in butter. She used to curl her hair each morning. She used to be able to fix a faucet. She used to call me every week. She used to play softball. She used to pay bills. She used to...

Forty-seven years today, he thinks, as he looks into her face. The same face he's seen almost every day since 1968, and yet, a face so unlike what he's used to. He always thought they'd see 50 years together. And while he thinks this still may be the case--that he and she both might be alive three years down the road--he realizes that she might never remember the milestone. The day will pass like most others do now, with a simple celebration that lasts for just a moment, and then within an instant, is gone. The information is fleeting, diaphanous, ephemeral, much like the bubbles that she blows with her grandchildren. It never even makes it to the storage tank of her brain, which is overwhelmed and overstimulated, unable to make new memories and sometimes even unable to cull information she's known forever. Will she even know me , he wonders, when we've made it to 50 years? It's a thought he chooses not to dwell on. Instead, he turns on the CD player, turns ...

I feel like we haven't had a really good conversation here in a while, and I'm not entirely sure why. Could be that I've been busy (saying those words is an understatement), or that my longing to write has waned (saying those words is also an understatement). Plus, I try really hard not to convert every moment of my life into writing. No one needs to read about everything we do out here. (Like last week, we had one kid at the doctor for a hearing aid, one kid at the doctor for spots, and one kid at the doctor for an ankle injury. The last kid didn't go to the doctor, but he did get a cut on his foot that I contemplated heading to the doctor for stitches. I could also inform you of all the other, mundane tidbits, but that would bore you more than what you just read, right?) So when I have these jags, I wonder if the realization of my dream is ever going to happen, and if the contemplation of the dream--just having the dream at the back of my head--is enough. Am I simpl...

thoughts spin like a whirling dervish, an analogy so overused, yet so appropriate. i sit and try to collect the thoughts into some semblance of order. lined up like soldiers, or cereal boxes, or cans of tomato soup. it's hard, though, when the story i want to write is so close to my heart. too close, really. i need more space between it and me before it can come out. so the three hundred words i started last week will need to sit and stew, brew, percolate, just wait. until i can step back and look at it with clear eyes. then, i hope, i'll find the right story.