Hi.

 "Magic Mirror, if we only could / see ourselves as others would." --Leon Russell


Hi.
I tried to call you last night.
I tried twice more but you never picked up.
Where were you?
Oh. Who did you go with? 
Yes, I know her parents. She smokes, doesn't she?
I'm just saying.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Don't get upset like you do, please.
Yes I know she's 21.
No, she can't be 37? 
Okay. I guess that's right, you kids are the same age. Time flies!
Well, you'll always be kids to me.
So...
Did you get the recipes I sent you?
Some coupons, too.
Did you go to that job fair I told you about?
I thought it would be good for--
Oh.
But you don't want to do that for the rest of your life, do you?
It's not really going to take you anywhere.
You could do--
Pardon? You did? That's wonderful. How much of a raise was it?
Well, excuse me. I'll never ask anything again.
So...
Any men in your life?
Hello?
Yes, but I thought that might have changed.
Oh yes, her.
Uh-huh.
But why were you so upset? It was only another woman. 
I just worry about you.
If you'd lose a little weight, and dress a little more--
What?
Well, I'm sorry you heard it like that.
You've always been too sensitive. 
Your brother isn't that way at all!
Always do what?
Don't be that way. I'm trying to help you.
Why take everything I say as criticism?
Don't raise your voice, please. 
I never said that.
I don't remember saying that.
I just want you to be happy.
Well I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I was saying.
You know how you confuse things sometimes, just like your father.
Well, your friends don't say these things to you because they don't love you like I do.
Have you thought any more about becoming a Lutheran?
I only thought--
Well, when we went to church with your brother and Debbie, you said--
Oh. 
I thought you did express an interest. 
He'd be glad to talk to you about--
All right! I just wish you had something solid in your life, that's all.
I worry.
So...
What have you been up to?
An award, how nice. Is there any payment for that, or...
Oh, I see. 
Well, that's a nice hobby I suppose. Nothing I would ever think to do, of course.
Yes. Yes, but...
I just think that if you spent that time in a more--
Well, because I'm your mother. I care about you. I worry.
At your door? Right now? It's rather late.
All right, I'll call you tomorrow then. 
You won't?
How about Wednesday? Any room in your schedule then? Ha ha.
Well, they'll wait, won't they?
You're just like your father, always running off someplace but never getting anywhere.
All right, yes, better go see who's at the door, my goodness.
Be careful.
Love you.
Bye.
_______

for Out Of Standard at Real Toads.

Image: The Broken Mirror Effect by croissance at deviant art.

Blogger won't let me add a video, so here is a link to Leon Russell's "Magic Mirror." 

One

There are a million pretty girls
climbing in the windows,
filling up billboards and tv screens like pretty kudzu.

There are a million other girls
marking and piercing, trying anything
to make themselves different from all the rest. 

Be pretty like THAT girl.
Be thin like that one.
Fit in, fold spindle and mutilate, and most of all keep smiling.

But,...what if you are never meant to fit in?
What if you are marked out by God, or life, or nature?
What if, Jehanne,
what if, Janis,
what if, Miss Brains, Miss Butch, Miss Misfit Toy,
you believe?
you belt it out?
you don't let them shame you or shrink you or stop you? 

What if you accepted that you were touched by God? 
Damn, you'd be different.
And, damn, wouldn't that be fine?
________ 

I have become fascinated with Brazilian model Mariana Mendes.

She was born with a birth mark, melanocytic nevus, on her face. 

At age six, her mother paid for laser treatment, but it didn't have much effect. Mariana says she's glad it didn't, and doesn't want any more treatment.

She's a model, an internet sensation, and fucking gorgeous. 

Rock on, Mariana! 

Dustlips

Come over.
For dinner.
Here's a box and a bowl.
Something wrong with Rice Chex?

What I want,
what I'm in a fever for,
is that book.
Dja bring it?

Here I am,
ever the lady,
climbing you like a fire ladder.
Not kissing you--
I want the book.

Got it!
Go, now. 
Thanks.
Toodles.
______ 

for Flash 55 at Toads.

Book Review: "Business Cat : Money, Power, Treats"

Business Cat: Money, Power, Treats by Tom Fonder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Business Cat is a tycoon, captain of industry, cat, and cartoon. He's all about the bottom line until something trips him up, like an empty box to sit inside of, or a can of tuna served at a leading restaurant.

Whether he's playing with print-outs or sending employees to sensitivity training for looking at cat memes, Business Cat is hilarious. He runs toward the elevator someone is holding open for him, then sits down and won't get in. His house has a cat habitat on the roof. His Secret Santa gift to an employee is a demised critter wrapped in cheery holiday paper.

The combination of cool, collected CEO and goofball kitty is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. (Not as funny if BC horks up a hairball on your keyboard, but that's life in corporate America.) Absolutely recommended.



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Sand & Water

"Solid stone is just sand and water, baby; sand and water, and a million years gone by." --Beth Nielsen Chapman

They say that if you love a Selkie,
she will leave with the tide, and not return for seven years.
Lovers of Selkies walk the beach collecting shells
and other empty things, here...and here...and here.

They say that if you love a Selkie,
to keep her, you burn the seal-coat she's shed.
Then you'll have a Selkie wife
silently crying in your bed. 

Here I've been, since who knows when,
Drawing pictures in the dust on the sill while you slept.
Don't say you believe, in me, in us
anymore; what's been burned can't still be kept.

Down through the town, past the fields, to the water
with my seal-coat stitched from paper and leather,
I slip back home, on my back I'm carried
by the change in the waves, in your heart, and the weather.
_______

for Margaret's Artistic Impressions at Real Toads.



 

Book Review : "All's Fair In Love And Cupcakes"

All's Fair in Love and Cupcakes by Betsy St. Amant

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oh, for Christ's sake. Kat works at a cupcake bakery in Bayou Bend, Louisiana, and yearns to breathe free, or make more interesting cupcakes at least. Her long-time bestie is Lucas, the local high school football coach. There's just this one thing...they've each gone sweet on the other, but are scared to come clean for fear of blowing up the friendship and ending up with nothing. Okay. I get that, at least to begin with. In fact, this novel is as sweet and easy as a cupcake at the start. Even the cover art is appealing. What could go wrong?

The two of them like to watch a Food Network reality show called Cupcake Combat. Sounds familiar, yeah? (Just go with it.) Lucas gets the brainstorm to secretly send in an application for Kat to be on the show, and wouldn't ya know, she's accepted. I'll tell you what she's won, or *will* win if she defeats these other six baking teams: she wins a year's internship at a prestigious New York bakery. But she needs an assistant, so coach dons an apron and off they go to L.A.

So far so good, right? The first flashing neon sign I encountered, saying "Turn back!" appeared around page 125 or so, when a couple of clumsily inserted religious references got wedged in. By about the third one, I investigated the small print on the back cover, and sure enough: FICTION/CHRISTIAN/ROMANCE. From that point on, in an evident effort to be able to market this turkey to a niche audience, the narrative keeps hitting these defects in the track as it chugs along. ("Should I get strawberry, or chocolate? WWJD?")

But still, the religious stuff wasn't any heavier than vanilla icing, and was only a mild annoyance, mostly because it didn't flow. What turned this book into a torture device worthy of Torquemada was the way these two grown people danced around each other for 300 pages. Want to read about 50 pages of Lucas wringing his hands like an old woman, worrying whether he should tell Kat how he feels? Want to watch him jump-back-jack as if she were electrified, every time they might actually touch? Want to slog through 150 pages of Kat's insecurities and misinterpretations and general whiney baby nonsense? ("He gave me a million dollars, a ring, and his autographed Knute Rockne football....he's obviously trying to get rid of me! Boo hoooooo....")

Really, this woman--who I actually liked at first--must be brain damaged or have been recently poleaxed with a railroad tie or something, because the reader and everybody else in the western world will figure out that coach digs her long before she ever does. And as for coach, he dithers around and analyzes more than a lesbian or a 12 year old boy. I am no fan of vulgarity, but I began to long for Burgess Meredith's character from Grumpy Old Men to show up and tell Lucas, "Ya mount the woman, son!" Seriously, this football coach must have had a horse riding accident in his youth or been hit in the grapes with a bowling ball at some point, because he just will NOT make a move, and is actually horrified when a buddy asks if he slept with Kat. "NO!" he responds, as if he'd been accused of selling crack to kittens. There's Christianity, my dears, and then there's idiocy. One is reminded of the Newsboys lyric "Do you really want a love that waits its turn?" Because that's what Lucas does, for 300 pages, agonizing like a palsied jellyfish the whole while.

Oh, eventually--like, 3 pages from the end--they actually throw all caution to the wind and actually talk to each other. (Weren't they supposed to have started as best friends? Did they not talk before? Or was their bond based on collecting American Girl dolls or something?) Oh, Kat! Oh, Lucas! Oh muh gawd, it's about time y'all. In addition, the remaining loose plot threads resolve themselves in the very manner that readers had already figured they would by page 12. Oh, and Kat's dismissive relatives do an about-face and shower her with love, because Jesus, I guess. Whee. NOT recommended.



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Figure 8's On A Frozen Pond

He told me they were hiding, he and his wife and son,
when the air ripped, his eardrums ruptured and by the time he got to his feet,
his house was gone and he wasn't married anymore.

I set his broken arm, treated his gashed forehead. 
I asked him his name, but I don't think he answered.
His son is here, as are so many. Some will survive and wander off.

I was trained as a nurse in a hospital in France, with a job promise
back home in Quebec. I am multi-lingual:
I can say "You're going to die," in seven languages.

I am slight. My movements are deliberate.
I was never any help in our backyard hockey games, growing up. 
Now, I am as healthy as a chambered bullet.

I thought he was blind for a minute, but he was only in shock.
Once, I saw a lightning-struck tree next to a frozen pond where I was skating. 
I put my arms out. Ta da. I will save this guy's arm, stop his head from bleeding.

You can see the tracers. All this death, it gets into your head,
the blood forever under my bitten nails.
Things bodies were never intended to withstand come from the air,
sent by strangers, wiping heartbeats from the face of the earth.

"Would you like to see your son?" I don't add, "while there's still time."
He is ambulatory and triple-oriented. He is blown up, within himself.
We pick our way around the cots, shelves, and treatment stations.

A tv is on, powered by generator. We pass by it.
Someone is talking about the war. My patient can't hear a word.
Here is his boy. I smile at him out of old habit, gesture at a box where he can sit.

I have been here six months. These people, they shiver and cough,
hemorrhage from catastrophic wounds, ask for water, go still.
I will go back to Canada in January, empty and silent,

Healthy as a chambered round.
_______

For Karin's "A Glance At Narrative" challenge at Real Toads.