REB #7: “I see her as a series of marvellous shapes formed at random in the kaleidoscope of desire.”

– The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter

This kid is nuts, not just because he went from an iPhone on AT&T to a highly unattractive Samsung candy bar on the Cricket network, but also because he gives his phone number out for the world to call/text him. It got so bad that he had to go to an unlimited plan, hence the switch to Cricket.

I suppose, in a way, it’s awesome that we live in a world where this kind of thing is possible. Where we can display our phone numbers for all to see and have a cell phone plan that allows for this without breaking the bank. In the grand scheme of things, $45 a month is a small price to pay for unlimited conversation. In a world where we can communicate via Internet with anyone—from any soil-covered and Internet-equipped corner of Earth—we can also speak directly to them on what is now becoming an old but trusty piece of technology: the phone. Specifically, the cellular/mobile phone.

On the other hand, it takes a lot of guts to put oneself out there like that because…this is a scary world we live in, and ironically, part of the scariness isthe technology itself and what it might mean in the future. Minority Report(which was first the title story in a book of science fiction stories by Phillip K. Dick) is not that far off. Of course, the other scary part is that some people are just plain crazy. Just read anything by Angela Carter, and you may think she was crazy—but really, she was just brilliant—and that was decades ago! Just imagine who’s out there now! On the streets of Baltimore, or Los Angeles, or London. Waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey. And mug, rob, threaten. Hurt.

Me, I keep my “purse” close and my cell phone even closer. And it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of pepper spray. Where’s the techno pepper spray, Cricket? You’re certainly no Google Voice.

*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.

“Mooching,” or “Excuse Me”

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted! I got into a bit of a frenzy with finding a place to live, and I’m only just now sorting it all out. I’ve got most of my stuff moved now, and I’m moving the rest, hopefully, by Monday. And classes start up the 30th. This semester, I’m taking Electronic Publishing and Typographic Form & Function. There won’t be as much writing this semester, perhaps the entire school year, so I might try to post more writing on here. This will have to do for today: an on-the-fly (re: hardly edited) piece inspired by my recent excursions from Bolton Hill/Mount Vernon to Downtown, on the free Charm City Circulator. Moving stuff a little at a time. This has been my life for the past two days. Work, eat, pack, move, pack, sleep. Repeat. I don’t expect tomorrow to be any different. Luckily, a friend said she’d help me on Saturday, so we can use her car instead of a bus. Which means I can get almost everything moved.

In any case, without further ado, here’s a quick draft of a potential story I’m tentatively titling

“Mooching,” or perhaps “Excuse Me“

Raindrops in your hair. But the sky’s mostly blue. How can that be? Rain drops in your hair.

Out of the blue, it comes, the inevitable question you’ve been expecting yet not expecting, because who would? “Excuse me—sorry to bother you, but you wouldn’t happen to have an extra cigarette, cell phone, car, dime, or toothbrush, would you?”

You don’t stop. You’ve been practicing.

“Sorry, no,” you say, and continue to walk away. But you know it’s there; it’s all there. Deep in the recesses of your right pants pocket. You chuckle. Pants are underwear in the U.K.

But it’s all there. A lone cigarette tucked into the bristles of a dark, yellowed toothbrush, scrubbing germs and old toothpaste residue into your iPhone’s beautiful multitouch screen, a dime jingling against the metal of your ever-shrinking car—clack, cling, clack. Your baby. Your pride and joy. One day, it’s going to disappear completely and you’ll have to get a new one, but today is not that day.

No. Today, you’re on a mission to find cheap parking—street parking. You hope that dime will be enough to get you started. You don’t usually carry change. Clack-cling, clack. It’s 4:46 on a Thursday afternoon. Clack, cling-clack. As you walk, walk, walk down the sidewalk, you clack, cling, clack. The dime.

If they want cigarettes, why don’t they find a job and buy some? Second thought, you doubt they could afford the cigarettes and the toothbrush, so maybe just the toothbrush. Just don’t smoke. Simple.

You don’t smoke; you’re allergic to the poison. Aren’t most people?

“Excuse me,” they almost always manage to say. That gets you every time. You chuckle; you’re a chuckler. At least they’re polite about the mooching.

You walk.

Walk.

And there it is. The perfect spot. The rain drops away instantly, vanishes as the sun quickly peeks out of wet, metallic clouds for the first time since yesterday. Rays shine on the spot, highlighting it. Bookmarking it for you automatically, like a 3G Kindle. It’s your spot. You look. As you suspected: it has your name on it. Right on the curb. You walk up to the meter: a dollar. Minimum.

But that’s not right. It’s never been that high…has it? You don’t know.

What to do now? Take the car with you. You always take it with you. In your pocket, like a match box. But you don’t even smoke.

A blonde is walking toward you, on a cell phone, and you look up. You look him up—and down. Gucci. He’ll have 90 cents.

“Excuse me,” you say, without thinking, “sorry to bother you man, but—”

He doesn’t look. He doesn’t stop.

The End Is Nigh

My first year of graduate classes at the University of Baltimore is almost over. This semester, I’ve been taking a class called Experimental Forms, in which we read experimental works of fiction and write experimentally, based on these readings, as well as a workshop in screenwriting and my second graduate-level workshop in fiction (I’d only taken a single undergrad workshop before I came here, to a grad program). Last semester, I took my first graduate fiction workshop and a class called Creativity: Ways of Seeing. All of these, except Screenwriting, are required for my degree. Screenwriting is just an elective—it’s the icing on the cake, considering that I want to write movies and/or for television.

Since late last week, I’ve managed to write three short stories and a reader’s response essay, but I still feel a little overwhelmed by what I have left. In retrospect, it was not a good idea to take three grad-level writing classes in one semester. Anyway, by next Monday at midnight, I have to have my screenplay and treatment finished/revised and turned in. Monday is also the due date for my final experimental piece, but that is one of the short stories that I’ve written in the last few days; I just need to edit, and it will be good to go. Furthermore, my professor said we don’t have to turn it in on Monday, since we won’t be meeting for class; that means I’ll turn it in on Wednesday, which is when the rest of my final projects are due (for Fiction). For that class, I have to put together a portfolio of everything I’ve written this semester, including any revisions, and then I have to write a reader’s response to a short story from our class’s anthology. I’ve already done that, but I’ll still need to find time to edit before next Wednesday. It’s based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s incredibly touching “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.”

For now, I’m mostly/only worried about my screenplay. It’s not done, for one thing, but I also don’t feel it is up to par on a line level. So I have to finish the storyline and do at least one revised draft of the entire thing, if I can manage that.

I can’t wait for this semester to be over. But then, that breaks open a whole new problem: I need a job so I can afford to stay in Baltimore. I will almost have enough to cover my fixed expenses for two months—almost. But I wouldn’t be able to spend any more money than that, and that’s just not going to work. So I need to make up for those extra expenses, and then pay all my expenses for August. It’s not a ton of money, in the grand scheme of things, but for a poor graduate student in Baltimore, it’s still a lot.

I just hope there are jobs to be had. In the meantime, I’m seriously considering ChaCha, but I don’t think that will really help that much, and even then, it will only help at all if I can pass all the required tests and get “hired.” I can’t believe I’m actually considering this, but I may end up having to go to the nearest Burger King or something. Since I worked for Burger King for 4 years, under both terrible and amazing management, you should consider that a sign of desperation.

It wouldn’t be so bad. Would it? If I’m making money, who cares what kind of crappy job it is?

Which reminds me, I need to find out if taking a graduate assistantship would affect my loan eligibility in any way because there’s a chance I could end up with a (bad but still paying) assistantship next year.

Grandma’s Spring Cookbook

Spring break is finally over, and I’m working like mad to finish my story for tonight’s Experimental Forms class. In fact, it’s almost done, but I only worry because I have to work until 3 p.m., and then I have Screenwriting at 5:30 p.m. I hope I have enough time to make the final edits I want to make.

The story is based on my grandma’s cookbook, which she wrote out, handwritten, for all her children; in December, my mom made my sister and me a copy for Christmas. It’s probably one of the most meaningful things in my possession. Without the Experimental Forms class, I might never have written this story. This is but one reason I am glad I chose the M.F.A. program I did.

Over break, I stayed in Baltimore (except for a couple of trips to the Bowie area). I worked on Monday and Tuesday (but only half-time), and I saw Justin on Monday night and Friday night. We saw Alice in Underland…er…Alice in Wonderland on Friday. In 3-D. It was a beautiful movie and a pretty good story, for the most part. I know some people expected more, but I was actually okay with what I got.

I watched The Office and 30 Rock the other day, online. I never have time to watch them when they air on Thursdays. Anyway, I found The Office funnier than it has been most of this season, even if there were a couple of cringeworthy moments (***SPOILER************Dwight choked Kevin? Seriously?************END SPOILER***).  There were a couple of good Michael scenes, which I was surprised about, because I haven’t liked Michael at all this season. There was also some “inconsistent” behavior and dialogue from some characters (I’m talking to you, Phyllis), but my Experimental Forms and Fiction teacher (he teaches both classes) makes a good point: People are inconsistent. So, I was mostly okay with it, especially when Phyllis called Michael “numbnuts,” and then immediately changed her tone. She knew that wasn’t her, and for that, I loved this moment. My favorite line of the episode: As Dwight stood in the middle of the local dump, he said, “This place has gone to hell.” How meta of him.

30 Rock was brilliant, as has been the case for a while now. Truth be told, I like it better than The Office, these days. I don’t have time to elaborate right now, though.

Last night, I watched the latest episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and it was pretty good but not quite up to par with the best episodes of the season. Even so, for a show that started off in terrible shape, I’m impressed and delighted with how far it’s come.

Finally, I also continued a recent endeavor last night: re-watching the original FOX/SciFi series Sliders (1995 to 2000). I watched the season two opener before I went to bed last night, and I must say, it was one of my favorite episodes of the series and had perhaps one of the best endings of any series. Ever. Plus, I don’t remember having seen it before! I can’t believe I missed this the first time around, if that’s the case. Thank you Netflix for reconnecting me to Sliders!

I guess I’d better go now. Unfortunately, I’m finding that work is the most lucrative time to blog, for me. It forces me to write quickly. Maybe that takes away from content, but every once in a while, I’ll do a blog on my own time.

Those are the ones to wait for. Maybe next time…

All This Busyness Business

Wow, it’s a busy week.

Sunday, Justin and I went to the aquarium with Lori, Kari, Eli, Wendy, and Danielle. It was a University of Baltimore event night. UB students got in for free; it was only $5 or $6 for Justin. Not bad, considering it’s normally $25 to go, and I don’t think they’re usually open at night. After walking around there for about an hour, and taking lots of pictures (*placeholder for pictures*), we went to ESPN Zone to eat and watch some of the All-Star game (for Lori, Wendy, and Eli) and Olympics. Then we went home. I had to go to bed early because I had to get up at…

7:30, or so, a.m. the next day. I have to work, so I walk Justin to his parking spot at Penn Station (because of the snow emergency in Maryland, there’s no guest parking at my apartment for the time being). He drives me back to the school, and we say goodbye. He goes home. I get my keys from the Public Safety desk and go across the street to the Business Center so I can clock in for work. Since I had a migraine the morning before, I haven’t finished my reading for class tonight. I work on it during any break I can get from work. It’s a pain.

I read at the desk; I read on lunch break; I read after work, at home, where I finally finish the reading. I finalize my writing assignment and print it out. I try to come up with a screenplay idea for my screenwriting class but get nothing. I make a sandwich for tonight since I won’t have much time for dinner because I have class from 5:30 to 10:45 p.m., with a fifteen-minute break between classes.

I go to screenwriting. It’s fun. We do a collaborative “screenplay idea” project, and my group actually comes up with a great idea. The professor has brought snacks, but ironically, this is the only class time in which we won’t watch any movie clips; and it’s because the snow day has caused us to cram material together.

In Experimental Forms, the professor says that he hadn’t contacted us during the snow break (no shit?) and that he decided we will just push everything forward a bit and try to fix the missing class later on. He couldn’t have told us that? So we didn’t break our backs trying to read the assigned reading, as well as finish the writing assignment from the class period that we lost? Oh well. Some of us hadn’t finished the reading anyway, but we all have the writing assignment done. Which we read next, out loud, one at a time. There are around twenty of us, so it takes most of class. One of us doesn’t read; she’s like that sometimes; she’s pretty shy. But she could at least give it a shot instead of saying, “My name is _____. I don’t want to read mine.” She’s the only one who doesn’t read. There’s no way she can keep this up and get a good participation grade. Then again, I’m not feeling so hot about my grade tonight either. I don’t speak much because of the nature of tonight’s class. I can’t comment on things read out loud to me (for the first time, at least), on the fly. I need to see it in front of me and have time for thoughts to fester. I’m not going to like these writing exercise classes. *sigh*

After class, I say goodnight to Mike and Lori and walk home with Kari. We say goodnight at the door and each go to our separate rooms. I come back out and pour some cereal. I eat while surfing the Internet—getting caught up on my YouTubes and checking my e-mail. I have a long e-mail to respond to but don’t have the energy or time tonight. I feel bad because I’ve been neglecting people today. Hélène had called during work, and I haven’t called her back yet. I realize I don’t have to work at 9 a.m. the next morning like I thought; I’m scheduled for noon. I stay up a bit longer, surfing, talking to Justin via IM. I get hungry again and eat some pretzels and Cheez-Its. I go to bed, trying to think of story ideas as I drift off to sleep.

I’m at work now—noon, not 9—writing this. I have to write a story for tomorrow’s Fiction class. I have an e-mail to write and a phone call to return. And a tax return to re-send, because I put the wrong zip code or something. I’m overwhelmed.

I’ll have class tomorrow evening. I’ll finish the story during the day (or not; he had said we don’t have to have them finished, per se). I’ll try to do the tax return, the e-mail, the phone call. I’ll relax at 9 p.m. with LOST on ABC.

I’ll try to remain sane.

I might succeed.

P. S. I want a Tivo. And a new camera, or two.

UPDATE: Sent the e-mail, finished the tax return. I’ll make the phone call soon. Then I’ll get caught up on my TV (still have to watch last week’s Supernatural and this week’s Life Unexpected), get dinner, and get ready for LOST.

“Oblivion Cycle: A Spider’s Nightmare” Re-imagined

My writing exercise for this week was to take a completed story and rewrite it, intensifying the conflict, exaggerating the tension—even to the point of absurdity. Well, I chose a story that was already pretty exaggerated, but I managed to exaggerate it even more, and I cleaned up the prose a little in the process and made a slightly different setup (by adding specific sections to the story).

But first…

NOTE FOR THE READER (STILL APPLIES TO THIS REVISED VERSION): James Joyce ends his novel Finnegan’s Wake with a sentence that concludes only by going back to the very first page and re-reading the first line. When I first learned about this oddity, I found it to be an ingenious literary device and immediately tried to think of a story that could end/begin in this way. With “Oblivion Cycle: A Spider’s Nightmare,” I think I’ve captured, in miniature, the basic “never-ending” structure that Joyce used. I really like this story, overall. I like the cyclical nature of the story itself, as well as the disorientation and short memory span of the spider, living in its own mini hell—hence the word “oblivion” in the title. Following are my suggestions for reading this flash fiction, cyclical horror story. Start with whichever paragraph you like, even if it’s not the first one, and read the story from there; then read it again, starting at the next paragraph and reading from there; and then read it one final time, starting from the last remaining paragraph and reading from there. It may be necessary to wait a few minutes in between rereadings. I think it’s interesting to see how well the story holds up in each “version.” I like to read it from beginning to end, then from middle to beginning, so to speak, and finally from end to middle. Without further ado, the story, which I will now call

Part 1 then part 3 then part 2

So, with her ghastly device engaged, she tortured him, maimed him, brutalized him. The tiny, black, defenseless spider twisted and writhed on the tabletop, screaming in agony until he had used up all the air at his disposal. The drinking glass with which the girl had covered him made both breathing and escape impossible. His high-strung screams echoed off the walls of the glass, and his ears rang, and then bled. He stopped screaming and tried to draw in a breath but couldn’t.

Part 2 then part 1 then part 3

The spider was suffocating, mouth cracked and dry. How long had she been at this? He couldn’t remember; he couldn’t tell. How long before she just killed him? Would she? Or would he have to live in complete agony for the rest of time, constantly pushed to the very brink of death only to be cruelly revived a moment later? While he pondered this, a distinct feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed his mind; it was as though he had had these thoughts a thousand times before, never arriving at a coherent conclusion. Suddenly, the drinking glass that was his prison rose high into the air, and he gasped, his lungs ablaze with a fire that grew more intense with each new breath.

Part 3 then part 2 then part 1

As soon as the spider had reclaimed his breath and his bearings, he charged off, away from the drinking glass and the girl, trying to escape certain death; but he was no match for her, in all her gargantuan, human glory. As quickly and easily as if she had done it a thousand times, she put the glass over him. His millions of legs darted toward the glass, again and again, as he tried desperately to run right through it, to no avail—and the air quickly evaporated into oblivion.

“Knot-Tangle” Re-imagined

Almost two years ago, I wrote a short short story called “Knot-Tangle,” and at the time, I felt like it was flash/micro fiction. A writing exercise just proved me wrong. The exercise asked me to cut half of the words in a previously written story. I chose to revisit “Knot-Tangle” and was pleasantly surprised by the resulting piece of real flash/micro fiction. The original (second) draft of the story, the one I published in the Writer’s Block at Wabash College, was 734 words, and this new version is exactly half that: 367 words. So, without further ado,

It glowed in the hazy moonlight: a knot, a beautiful tangle of brunette hair, wrapped around the headboard of my bed. Through overly moist eyes, I worked to untie it. The mass was thick, but I worked incessantly because she deserved her freedom.

“What’s her name?” Naomi said.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Ja—her name is Julie.”

Silence, and then: “Oh, Julie! Don’t stop!” She arched her perfect back as best she could with her hair trapped, a prisoner of vigorous lovemaking. Her skin was smooth, damp with twinkly sweat.

“Stop it!” A tear fell from my chin and soaked her hair.

“Don’t tell me to stop. You should have stopped. What happened to love?”

Something died. Darkness poured in through a funnel, and I wanted her to hurt me. Somehow. Just hit me, I thought. “I do love you. I just—missed you, while I was away.”

“When you miss someone, you call them,” she said. “You don’t go out and fuck the first thing you see.”

I frowned. “I’m…sorry.”

Her face was empty, eyes gray and wet. “You cheated!” Tears leaked onto her pillow in two spots, forming a broken heart.

I couldn’t tell her what had really happened, that there was more to it than a bit of hot sex. That, paradoxically, my spontaneous encounter meant more to me than any lovemaking with Naomi ever did. It was something I’d always craved but never had the guts to try—because I loved Naomi.

“For Pete’s sake, cut it!”

Hesitantly, I reached into the end table drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Are you sure?” I said, looking at her beautiful hair.

“Cut the damn thing off!”

At that, I sobbed uncontrollably, and my tears connected with hers on the pillow. Just a blob. It mocked us, me. I held the scissors up, and the brunette strands flowed into the metallic grip of the scissors. I hesitated again.

“I can’t do it.”

She grabbed the scissors and started cutting. The knot—the tangle—turned into a million dark hairs, in slow motion, and fell between bed and wall. She dressed, and then left. My tears kept coming, exploding, like supernovas in deep space.

NOTE FOR THE READER: In this story, I was intentionally mysterious and vague/ambiguous about a few things (not to a fault, though, I hope). This wasn’t the initial plan, but I had an epiphany soon after starting the story: I could make it sexually ambiguous, which would be very interesting, at least to me. As you read the story the first time, you likely read it as Naomi and her cheating boyfriend. I invite you to read it again but more deeply: Try to see it as Naomi and her cheating girlfriend, then again, perhaps most interestingly/shockingly, as Naomi and her closeted bi/gay boyfriend. I think all of those scenarios work well, but maybe that is my writer’s bias talking. In any case, this was a difficult story to write because of the logistics, the purposeful ambiguity. It’s actually quite a challenge to be unclear or vague on purpose!

We Like Boys

Wow. My writing exercise for this week was to do a structural repetition, in which something a character or narrator says or does is repeated or echoed, perhaps in a different context, by different people, or on a different scale. Mine started out boring, but it transformed as I was writing it, from a story about two sexually-charged daughters and their mother into a story about a mother who was raped when she was younger and a son (hers) who is coming out of the closet. Still not very original, but I like it so much better than what I started with. I call it

In 1984, Suzy Salinger had been a rambunctious 16-year-old, but not really one to get herself into trouble. Nevertheless, she had gotten into trouble on that particular November afternoon when she had finally stood up to her mom about dating.

“What can I say, mother?” she had said. “Boys just like me!” And then she had smirked and received a slap across the face and instructions to go to her room. Furious, she had sneaked out her bedroom window that night, for the first time ever, to meet up with an older boy who had said he liked her. And that night, he had raped her.

Twice.

Thinking back on this night, Suzy now began a dialogue with her 15-year-old son, Chad, about respecting women and dating. If things went well, she might even bring up sex. And things did go well because Chad swore he had the utmost respect for women and didn’t think he was ready to date anyone yet, male or female.

“Excuse me?” Suzy said, and picked at her ear. “What did you say?”

“Mom…I like boys. Maybe even…just boys.” Chad looked at his feet, and Suzy saw his face turn crimson.

Shocked as she was, she knew this was 2009, when being gay was almost okay. She worried that rejecting his sexuality now would make her lose him forever, and besides, she was a pretty cool mom, wasn’t she? She could handle this. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but cry a little; she had to grieve the loss of that heterosexual life she had subconsciously envisioned for him all these years. A beautiful wife. Two-point-five naturally conceived children. Low chances of contracting HIV. An aversion to that shitty pop music—Beyoncé, she remembered—and to the color pink, which even she, a woman, a straight woman, hated with a passion.

But wait. Now she was being unfair and buying into stereotypes. Chad was still Chad, and this wasn’t going to change his personality and tastes. At least, she didn’t think so. She stepped closer to him and put both hands on his head, one on each side. She tilted his face up toward hers and kissed his forehead.

“I was going to talk about sex after all that, but you caught me off-guard,” she said, and smiled. She looked into his eyes, and he smiled back. “I liked boys too when I was your age, of course, and I need to tell you where that got me one night because you need to know what boys can do. And why you don’t have a dad.” She swallowed hard, and then continued: “First of all, you need to remember that you have the right to say no, and it always, absolutely means no. Okay?”

Then Suzy and her gay son sat down to have a serious talk about sex. And boys. And to her great surprise, it was the best conversation they’d ever had.

Where the Wild Things Are

Okay, so there’s probably not much point in blogging about Where the Wild Things Are now, two days after seeing it, but I still want to say a few things. First of all, I really liked it; it’s probably one of my favorite movies, in fact. Visually, it is stunning. While the shaky cam can get a little hard to deal with if you are in the front row like I was, I’m sure that, under normal circumstances, it is mostly effective and only slightly offputing. The most problematic part, meaning the worst of the shaky cam, is the first few minutes.

But what the shaky cam does is try to capture the excitement, spontaneity, and liveliness of being young. The cuts, tracking shots, and shaky cam in the opening scenes combine to give the viewer a sense of what it’s like to be Max—leaping about in a wolf costume, chasing after animals, having a snowball fight, and burrowing into a homemade igloo. I find myself shocked when the older kid jumps on top of the igloo with Max inside it. That scene is unexpected, and it is partially because of the camera movements and cuts that it is effective. The speed of everything is quick until the kid jumps on the igloo, and then everything stops. Cuts get fewer, the camera gets less shaky, and we focus in on Max, crying and furious. I could say more about this, and I’m sure I haven’t done an adequate job with what I did say, but I need to move on because I’ve got lots to do today!

So next, the writing, the imagination. I am incredibly pleased with what goes into this film. There is actually very little in terms of text in the original story, so the writers have to fill in the blank spots to make the movie. They have to add backstory and relationships for the wild things, complexities that one doesn’t find in the book. They also have an interesting reason for why Max is in trouble, one that is very relatable and real. And in a familiar twist, it’s not just one thing that lands him in trouble. It’s a build-up. He trashes his sister’s room after her friends destroy his igloo (and jump on him, in the process), but his mom doesn’t blow up yet; she’s disappointed, of course, and angry, but she doesn’t really blow up until Max acts out just before dinner, jumping on the kitchen counter in his wolf costume, saying, “I’ll eat you up,” and then biting her when she tries to admonish him.

As for the island of wild things, I realize right away that Max arrives there in a different way in the movie: Instead of being sent to his room and turning his bedroom into an island of wild things, he runs out of the house after his mom yells at him, runs through the woods, stumbles on a boat in a river/lake, and rides it to the island. He somehow manages to turn the river/lake into an ocean, and his mind transforms the woods he is running around in into an island full of wild monsters. Once “there,” Max meets the wild things and sees their complex relationships and problems. For the first time, we get some actual insight into the wild things of this wonderful children’s story, and I find myself completely fascinated with what the writers come up with. I see that the problems they have are a combination of the problems a child would run into and the (grownup) problems he/she would encounter in life (i.e., he sees his mom’s relationships and projects them onto the monsters that he imagines, he sees the discord of his own childhood fights and inserts them into his made-up world, and so on). I even notice that, at the end, his mom’s face bears a striking resemblance to the wild things, KW in particular. The fort that Max and the wild things build reminds me of the scene in which Max is laying in his bed, upset, and the camera shows a huge rubber band ball in the foreground. In other words, Max seems to drag the tiniest things from his ordinary life into his imagination when he creates his fantastic island of wild things. The fort also resembles his igloo from the opening scenes of the movie. Forts are Max’s specialty, it seems, and he builds them all in similar fashion.

As for dialogue, that aspect is closely related to the writing, but I will say that the dialogue feels very childlike. And that is a very good thing. Even as I try to get myself into a child’s mindset for this movie, I find myself laughing at the ridiculousness of some of Max’s words and plans (e.g., that the fort will somehow debrain anyone that enters without being welcome). Max has a quick wit, and everything he says in the movie is believable as something a child would say. Children think so differently than grownups and even teenagers; whatever they dream up can be a reality, even if only in their heads. This is one of the most inspiring aspects of the movie, the idea of childlike creativity, the kind we forget about when we grow up. I struggle now, even as a writer, to be as creative as I was when I was a kid, to be as creative as Max.

This movie helps me remember my place in the world, as a grownup (my, that’s weird to say), but it also helps me hold onto that childlike mentality. It helps me tap into my creativity, and for that, I am in love with this movie.

And I’ll definitely be buying it.

Cocky Jock and the Pansexual Nobody Nerd

My writing exercise for this week’s Fiction class was to “steal a plot.” Specifically, we had to take a legend, fable, or short short and rewrite it—making it for an adult audience, if it was originally meant for kids. I choose to do the tortoise and the hare, changing the tortoise into a high school nerd and the hare into a God’s-gift jock. No hard feelings, of course. I was just having fun with it.

Any comments and criticisms would be appreciated and duly noted.

I call this 704-word story (or at least this draft)

There once was a nimble-footed, silk-wearing high school jock—we’ll call him Cocky—who was always bragging about his God-given sex appeal and speed. For years, the intellectually nimble nerd—the nobody—had listened to the boasting, but one day, he decided no more: He challenged the jock to a ten-mile race around the school’s cross country track, in front of anyone who would watch. And every student came to see the nerd lose to the obviously superior jock. But it was the principle of the thing that mattered, and the nerd was a young man of principles. He would race, no matter what.

A gun went off to signal that the race had begun, and the nobody nerd watched helplessly as Cocky the jock pulled ahead of him in the first ten seconds. No matter, he told himself; he could still win, and even if not, he would never quit, not against this jackass. He kept running, and before long, he came upon a boy, whom he had never met before and who started running to keep up with him.

“Hi,” the boy said, panting. “This is really brave of you.”

The nerd said hi, and from there the two carried on a wonderful conversation about high school politics, sexual orientation, and gender equality, but they soon realized that there was no spark between them; they were not compatible as lovers. They would, of course, remain close friends. Not long after parting ways with the boy, the nerd happened upon a beautiful girl, whom he had never met before and who also ran with him and talked about deep, important subjects before realizing that she wanted something else in a boyfriend; the nerd felt the same way, and the two parted ways with a hug. The nerd kept running as fast as he could go, which was to say not all that fast, and he soon met another interesting boy to explore.

Meanwhile, the jock was two miles ahead before he realized that he could not even see the nerd behind him. He stopped when he saw a hot blonde with large breasts sitting on the side of the track, crying. The nerd was way behind. What could a fifteen-minute break hurt?

“Hey baby,” he said, and smiled his gorgeous, cocky smile.

The blonde looked up and, despite her sourpuss, smiled back. The jock spent thirty seconds cheering the girl up, and then asked if he could fuck her. She told him yes, and he had his way with her, and then moved on down the path, running once more, the top button of his silk shirt now undone. Before long, he came upon another beauty and had sex with her as well. He started running again when he was dressed, save for the top two buttons of his silk shirt, but before he could go half a mile, he met another bombshell. What a lucky day! He stopped to have his way with this girl, too. But when he got back on the path, his silk shirt forgotten on the side of the road, he realized that he was getting drowsy and achy, and he saw a small, blackish red blob on his bare chest. He ignored it. With thirty steps to the finish line, he collapsed and died, yellow crust forming on his lips.

After meeting a beautiful girl and two cute boys, the nerd eventually caught up to another girl on the track, and the two struck up a conversation. They each realized that they shared similar values and opinions, that they were attracted to one another, and most importantly, that there was a spark between them. Together, they crossed the finish line, where they asked the school slut for a condom and went behind the bushes to make passionate love.

It was an hour before they were done and the nerd realized that he had won, that the jock had never even crossed the finish line. In fact, Cocky had died of rapidly-progressing complications from a sexual infection, a little gift given to him by his God-given sex appeal and speed. The jock boasted no more.

And the nerd was in love.