taking stock, quietly

~'Knights of Cydonia' by Muse because it reminds me of sitting in the passenger's seat of my pal Christian's car, driving in LA. it's a good place to be sitting.

~Repulsion, hey rocky! watch me pull a rabbit outta my purse! but seriously, some of Deneuve's stares make perfect sense to me.

~"...this girl I see has grown so unfamiliar/and as she stands to leave with a stranger by her side/she can't help but laugh at a life grown so peculiar." -Cowboy Junkies, because that's me recently.

hiya gang, it's early-ish on the fifth day of the week. i've got a weekend packed with activity so i wanted to get my well-wishings out before i depart. i wish you well.

i've got a couple more tales to share, but before i do, something interesting to report about the untitled one.
if you haven't been keeping up, here are my self-imposed rules to get my ass back in gear and churning copy again:
1. assign myself 2 random words
2. give myself 15 minutes to write a tale surrounding those words
3. pencil to paper and it must be complete in 15 minutes and all tweaks and alterations are to be completed within those 15 minutes. it's not that i'm limiting myself so much as i'm just trying to get. it. out.
4. generally, i title it (or not) after it's written but once in a while a word will tug at my brainsleeve and say 'i should be paired with those other two words'.

so something really cool happened when i went to title untitled. i was writing ferociously, finished ferociously and immediately titled it "cape cod, 1914". i swear to Sara Lee that i don't know anything about cape cod or why the year 1914 crept in. i've scraped my days and happenings and could find nothing that would spark this date. hand to Godot.

so i got curious about what the f** that date meant and it lead to some really really fascinating research. i love research almost as much as i love deadlines. turns out to be a great story about this fella named August Belmont, Jr. here's what i uncovered:

on july 29, 1914 wealthy NY financier August Belmont opened the Cape Cod Canal. the isthmus was cut and cape cod effectively became an island.

Belmont's toll was too expensive for mariners. even if it could have accommodated their pockets, it certainly didn't accommodate their vessels. with too narrow a width and too shallow a depth, mariners bypassed the canal and used the standard outer routes.

-Belmont was a harvard grad and known sprinter. responsible for introducing spiked track shoes to the US.
-he owned/bred race horses, built Belmont Park Racetrack.
-he was one of the earlies investors of Interborough Rapid Transit, NY Subway. he owned the world's only private subway car which he used to give free tours of the transit. the car's name is Mineola.

one of his race horses, named Rock Sand. Belmont sold him and Rock Sand was taken, along with many other wealthy americans' horses on account of the anti-betting laws in NY, to europe.

because of his finely-strung temperament (most likely inbreeding and stress), Rock Sand developed a number of nervous habits, among them gorging himself on his straw bedding and kicking and throwing himself against the walls of his stall, frequently injuring himself
this prompted the owners to pad his stall and replace his bedding with sawdust.

Rock Sand's heart stopped on July 20, 1914--9 days before Belmont opened Cape Cod Canal.


there's a great tale in there. enjoy and thanks for staying. happy week's end. cheers.

~~

words: torpid & silver

untitled



Our women wait for the new moon before cutting the children's hair. They bury
the tips in the evening sand behind a makeshift, yellow-birch fence.

A horseshoe moon means a dry season approaches.
A season so dry that not even the hale and hearty beach plum will answer.

There was such a moon when fever struck your body. The wood of our house cracked as if to let the salt air in to please you. The house claims and protects you with a suspicious ardor.

When our women came with silver bread and sea carrots to rid you of the curse, the house would not allow them entrance. They declared us dire and let loose our goats.

We had five days of night and winds that whipped the sea grass with violence. When next the moon swelled, the house heaved a torpid sigh and your fever broke.

Our goats found their way back, wide-eyed and bleating, through the front door. Their harried return blew in whorls of baby hair and sand.



~~


words: admit & nothing

Sweatshirt

He backed out of the kitchen and into the snow, barefoot and breathing.
The house had taken on a smell of ages with nothing to show but stains.
Pockets of his sweatshirt had been haphazardly filled with coins and a stop watch
and an article from the local paper
A Baby in Arms is Worth a Thousand Dollars

His uncle had been taken in cuffs and a flash, admitting nothing.

He could time how long it would take for his feet to freeze or how quickly they would carry him across the Line.
He left the landscape to its own accusing quiet.

~~~
fin