Monday, November 30, 2009

Story continuation...

The thing with my parents is this: Neither one of my parents went to college, nor did they care to. They just got married so that their traditional southern grandparents wouldn’t think poorly of them for having me without being married. The main problem, and the thing that baffled me, was that my parents seemed to have no aspirations whatsoever. They hadn’t tried to go on to be actors in a movie, or wealthy owners of some fancy business corporation, or even somewhat wealthy real estate agents. Instead, they were fine with living in a po-dunk deadbeat town in the middle of nowhere with shitty jobs that mattered to no one. My dad’s job as a convenient store cashier only mattered to him and my mom because they got money and the occasional free pack of cigarettes out of it.

Friday, November 20, 2009

November 20th Free Write

So free write. I guess I’ll journal. I’m sitting in advanced writing right now, thinking about how close the Thanksgiving break is (once school lets out it starts) but all I can focus on is the fact that I have a lot of work to do for my documentary. I have to call and email tons of people in order to get them to agree to do the documentary by December 1st. Color me stressed. I want to try and get it all done this weekend so that I can have a whole week of the break not to worry about it, but people are good at taking their time getting back to me. Yesterday, Sarah and I went and fed some homeless people with Solomon and a guy who has a bi-polar disorder named Moe. We went to a new location which was next to Hardees and in the woods. There were tents all in the woods that the people lived in. It was scary because as soon as we entered the woods we heard a woman from off in the woods yelling “GET OUT OF MY WOODS!!!”. And then a guy and a woman that we gave food to were arguing and the woman was spouting off all kinds of cuss-words talking about how the guys in the woods call her a ‘prostitute’ and a ‘whore’ and other really bad things. The woman then went on to talk about how she actually had other places she good go to get out of the woods and live a successful life. I could tell that she had really lost it and probably had a bi-polar disorder of her own.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

More of Story I'm Working On...

“What?” I croaked. My throat was dry with morning breath.
“I’m going in town to the market, do you wanna go with me?” Above her mom-jeans, she wore a t-shirt that was supposed to be white but was stained yellow with years of sweat and country. A faded Rebel flag was printed on the back of it. She had probably bought it from the same market she was about to go to back in the day. Usually I would be more than happy to get away from the house and go to the market with her, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it that morning.
“No thanks, mama. I wanna stay home today,”
“Alright, well I’ll be back in a little while.” She turned and left and my room and a little while later I heard the front door of the house clack shut.
I got out of the bed soon thereafter, but I didn’t take a shower, as my parents encouraged me only to take one at night to keep the water bill from getting too high. Instead, I went into the bathroom, changed into the clothes that I was going to wear for the day, and combed my hair straight. After that I went into the tiny portion of the house that would be considered the living room. I plopped down in a chair in front of our old TV and used the remote to turn it on. Once the TV crackled to life, the only thing that came up on the screen was static. Daddy hadn’t paid the cable bill again. Beneath the TV sat our VCR with video cassettes scattered on the floor all around it. Those were the only other thing I had to watch because at that point no stores sold video cassettes except for the small thrift store in town. Everybody else in the world had switched to those things called DVD players…another item we couldn’t afford.

Favorite Stories/ #34

One of my favorite books ever is the Scary Stories Trilogy by Alvin Schwartz. Technically it can count as one book because the three short books were later compiled into one big novel and sold as a single book. I love the stories so much because of their unique style and their ability to completely captivate their audiences. Schwartz writes the books with such a dark tone and vibe that the reader becomes completely engulfed in them. Schwartz’s illustrations that he puts alongside each one of his stories also help to create the awesome, brooding, drippy, spooky vibe. The stories seem almost as if they are made for kids, but their subject matter is so dark and sometimes violent and written in mature ways that they seem as if they were made for adults at the same time. My friends and I used to go pick the books up from our school library and dare each other to read them, and I still feel like I would enjoy them just as much if I read them today. I haven’t read the books since I was in, like, middle school, and some of the stories in them are still as fresh as ever in my mind. Some of them still even have the ability to creep me out today. They are short and simple and able to hold your attention. I think that the talent in simplicity that the stories display is what makes them as critically acclaimed as they are.

Monday, November 16, 2009

When I Woke Up as Barbara Streisand


All of the sudden I had the face of Barbara Streisand, my ultimate idol. I screamed in excitement and touched my face repeatedly, trying to figure out if this was real or not. When I realized that my face felt the same as it looked in the mirror, big crooked nose and all, I sprinted to the other mirrors in my house to see if there was something wrong with the mirror, only when I stepped out of my bathroom, I realized I wasn’t in my house anymore. I was in Barbara Streisand’s house. To my left was a large portrait of her that had been framed. God was it beautiful. All of the sudden a man walked out from behind the corner of the room in front of me.
“Hey Babs,” he said, “Remember when you were in Yentl?”
I didn’t know what to say. I was confused and excited and worried at the same time, so I turned and ran back to the bathroom. I looked back in the mirror and began singing,
“Memories like the corners of my mind, Misty water color memories of the way we were…”
My voice trailed off. I looked back in the mirror and saw that my face had morphed. I wasn’t beautiful anymore. I was an aged decrepit version of Barbara Streisand. My big nose sagged low with wrinkles. I started singing.
Suddenly I jolted awake in my bed. It was morning.
I sighed. ‘What a dream!’ I thought.
Then my mom walked in the room and approached my bed.
“Good morning, Barbara!” she exclaimed.
“What?!” I screamed. I got up and ran to my bathroom and looked in my mirror. Barbara Streisand stared back at me.
“What’s the matter?” my mom asked. “You did great at karaoke last night as Barbara Streisand!” It was then that I remembered I had performed Barbara Streisand’s “The Way We Were” at a karaoke bar the night before, and I was still wearing a curly Streisand wig. I looked just like her in the wig.

Friday, November 13, 2009

A Vist from Barbara and Tammy!


Cindy has just awoken from her deep anesthesia-induced sleep. An IV was still in her arm. The papery-crisp sheets of the hospital bed were wrapped around her. Her mouth was swollen shut, and her surgery was finally over. What a relief.
Suddenly she hears a knock on the door.
The nurse pokes her head inside and says, “You have visitors!”
Cindy nods her head and motions for the ‘visitors’ to be let inside.
In walk Cindy’s two friends, Tammy and Barbara. Tammy is carrying a guitar with her, and Barbara has a bouquet of flowers.
“Hey, precious!” Barbara says to Cindy as she stuffs the bouquet into a vase on Cindy’s bedside table, “How are you feeling?”
Cindy holds up her hand and waves it from side to side, motioning ‘so-so’.
“Aw, well Tammy and I have something to cheer you up!” says Barbara. Tammy nods in excitement as Cindy raises her eyebrows in curiosity, unable to speak.
“I’m gawna play a song for yoo!” Tammy exclaims in her southern accent as she slaps the front of her guitar.
Cindy tries to express interest on her face and Tammy quickly plops down and sits on Cindy’s bed on top of her foot, crunching the foot as she does so. Cindy winces in pain, and Tammy begins before she can even express her discomfort.
“A wun, and a too, and a wun, too, three, fawr!” Tammy yells at the top of her voice. Tammy’s voice explodes around the hospital bedroom…and it is awful. Her voice cracks and occasionally hits the note of a nail on a chalkboard. As she sings and jams on the out-of-tune guitar, she wiggles in place, dancing to her own music and worsening the damage already done to Cindy’s foot that she is sitting on.
Barbara smiles and nods in approval of Tammy’s lacking musical skills.
Tammy sings: “Oh I hope yoo git better, I hope yoo feel gude! I hope you smell some daysays and eat a big ole’ shude!”
What on earth was shude? Cindy thought. The pain in her foot was unbearable as Tammy wiggled and jiggled around on it. Tammy’s long hard polished fingernails strummed the guitar strings hard, and suddenly one of the strings broke, snapped back, and popped Cindy in her already swollen mouth. Tammy kept on playing.
“With a whoo whoo here, and a kick kick there!” Tammy sang, and as she did so, she swung her foot forward in a kick and hit Cindy’s oxygen machine, which came unplugged, broke, and shut down all at the same time. Neither blonde Tammy or blonde Barbara noticed, but continued with the song.
Cindy began to try and motion that she was suffering and needed urgent help. She went to press her ‘emergency’ button, but found that Tammy’s rocking had made it fall off the bed. Cindy grabbed at Tammy’s guitar-strumming arm.
“Hold own! I aint done yet!” Tammy exclaimed, and she continued to sing. Cindy began to see dots. She felt dizzy. Her vision then became blurry.
Tammy held out the long, loud, ear-shattering final note of her song, and Cindy lost consciousness.
Barbara began clapping. “So what did yoo thank of that?” Tammy asked.
Cindy did not respond.
“Ugh, ruuude!” Tammy exclaimed.
“What a jerk,” said Barbara, “Let’s leave.”
And the two women picked up their things and left Cindy alone in her hospital bedroom.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain inspired short story

After I got back from the field, I walked inside my trailer and went to my bedroom. I could hear my dad coughing in my parents’ room. He wasn’t getting up. Him and my mom would probably be in bed until lunch time. I shut the lightweight hollow door to my room and crawled back inside my bed. It wasn’t comfy. The box-spring mattress creaked underneath me. I pulled my blanket back over me, a worn, stained, scraggly little thing that began to stick to my dew-covered legs as soon as I let it settle. Tough balls of lent were permanently stuck to it. It was much brighter in my room at that moment than when I left it to go to the field. I was restless, but I laid there and stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep again.
“Carly. Carly get up.” My mother was standin’ in the doorway of my room lookin’ down at me. She was wearing her usual tight blue mom-jeans, the kind that show off her child-bearing hips. Not that she was pregnant or anything, it was just that me and my little sister had left an impression on her. I pried my eyes open and lifted my head from my pillow to look at her, a line of drool briefly stretching from my cheek to the pillow before snapping in half.
“What?” I croaked. My throat was dry with morning breath.
“I’m going in town to the market, do you wanna go with me?” Above her mom-jeans, she wore a t-shirt that was supposed to be white but was stained yellow with years of sweat and country. A faded Rebel flag was printed on the back of it. She had probably bought it from the same market she was about to go to back in the day. Usually I would be more than happy to get away from the house and go to the market with her, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it that morning.


I will continue this from here...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

What Stirs Me.

The thing that easily gets me most excited and stirs me most is making movies, and not just making movies, but having a career as a movie director. Sometimes I feel trapped in my life, my school, and my town, because I am so unhappy just sitting in a high school every other day when I just want to be out in the world doing what makes me happy. For example, I have just been reduced to being forced to “serve a detention”, and honestly, how passé is that? I’m not a baby. What is serving a detention supposed to do to me? You might as well slap my wrist. Here I am, sitting trapped in this school, trapped in this class, trapped in this town, trapped in this detention, preparing to be trapped in a college, and I just want to go make movies and express myself artistically. Sometimes I wonder what the point is in man attending schools for so long. Sure, 8-10 years of school is understandable, but 16-18 years? That’s how long I’ve been alive. People are supposed to do what makes them happy and live life to the fullest, but most people are not happy in school, and how are they supposed to live life to the fullest if they spend a lifetime of it in a system that makes them unhappy and in which they can’t go out and achieve things. In case you cant tell, I am stirred. My blood is pumping. Because I just want to get out and do what I love and what makes me happy.
“No,” the system tells me, “Wait at least five more years.”

Free Write: Entry 29

I am so bored right now, and I actually just want to get done with this free write so that I can get to work on my other blog which is more interesting. And then I want to get that blog done so that I can work on my short story because I actually WANT to write in this class and get certain things done, which is my short story.
I'm also completely stressing because I want to get my college applications within the next two weeks, so I'm pushing it right now with the amount of school work I have to do. All this week has been projects and papers, and all next week is going to be tests before Thanksgiving break. Latin class just now was horrible because I couldn't stop myself from playing images from the movie "Up" in my head and I just kept daydreaming the whole time. Today is not the best day. Another problem is that I'm supposed to be taking pictures for the Sporting Youth magazine today, and of course I went and broke out with a huge pimple on my chin and my forehead aint lookin' all that hot either. Poopie doopie. I really hope that my word count is accurate right now also because I cant copy this post out of my blog to Word because this computer is dumb, and there's no word-count on this blog. Poopie doopie again. And I'm saying poopie doopie because I'm not allowed to say ****.

Friday, November 6, 2009

My Perfect World

In my perfect, people would not be lame. But basically, my perfect world would be the world that I live in now with a few minor changes, and the main change being that I am already a successful movie director and I've gone to a good college. I would basically just jump to the future. But then I would change some things, some of which I dont want to mention. But there would have to still be some bad things, because without the balance of good and bad in the world, how are we supposed to grow and learn?
Now how about that?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

My First Three Memories

I think that cake was a significant part of my life because it is my first and probably my second to first memory.
The first memory of my life that I have is literally of the image of my first birthday cake on my first birthday. It was made into the shape of a caterpillar and looked like a big cuddly caterpillar. All I can remember is the image of the cake, but thanks to home-video, I can see me eating the cake, having an allergic reaction to it, my face turning red while I shout "Boo boo boo!", and then me spitting up on my cousin.
My second memory was probably on my third or second birthday. I had a Barney cake, complete with little a little figurine of Barney the purple dinosaur standing on it. It was being served to me by my family at a picnic table next to a lake in Florida. The cake was decorated with little candy fish. I was so excited to eat one. My family sang 'happy birthday' to me, and I blew out my candles, and then I prepared to grab a candy fish. Right as I was about to reach out for one, the members of my family crouded in front of me.
When they all backed away, all of the candy fish were gone off the cake. They had eaten all of them. My family then went on to go play, which included a small food fight with some of my cake. I just remained at the picnic table where I sat, sad that I did not get a candy fish.

I dont know what my third memory is, but it was probably of me sitting in my floating device that I had as a small child at the public pool of my grandparents beach condo. I just remember that the intertube was shaped like some kind of cute cuddly creature, and it had tubes that inflated with little plasitc balls that would roll around inside of them as I bobbed around inside the intertube. I remember being pulled around by family members and loving the comfort of floating device, even though I apparently flipped over and almost drowned in one when I was a baby in a memory that I dont remember.

The 3rd Message

Right as I was about to walk away from my answering machine, the third message came on which made me stop in my tracks. Winston's voice came onto the machine. He sounded frantic.
"Will! It's Winston! You've gotta come to my house quick! Or just call me back, but either way it's an extreme emergency! I just took the biggest dump known to mankind! You have to come take a look at this thing!!!!"
The message ended, and I broke out in a nervous cold sweat. Had he already flushed it? Had he taken it out of the bowl? How old was the message? I picked up my phone as fast as I could and called him back.
"Dude!" I said, "Is it still there??!!"
"Get over here now!" he replied.
I sprinted out of my house in just my shirt and my boxers (because I had been in the middle of changing out of my work clothes), I jumped in my car, and I sped off to Winston's house as fast as I could. I was doing 30 over the speed limit the whole way there.
In the midst of my driving a cop pulled me over for speeding. I was panic-stricken.
"Sir, do you realize how fast you were going?" he asked.
I quickly explained the situation to him.
"HOLY SH*T!" he responded!
"Indeed!" I exclaimed, and the cop jumped in the car with me and we drove over to Winston's.
When we got there we jumped out of the car and sprinted through the front door of Winston's house, which was already open. Gabby was sitting on the couch of the living room, shaking her head which was resting in her hands. There was a croud of men piling out of the bathroom in the back of the house. Me and the cop pushed our way through the crowd until we reached the toilet. Winston was standing next to it, smiling and nodding with pride.
"Woooow," was all that I could muster.
It was amazing.
That night, I had a better night's sleep than I had ever had in my life.