306090 4/9

My last 10 entries for the 30/60/90 project. The above photo was taken in my bedroom while writing.

Daily writing prompt, Day 40
Obsession.
- Janet Allard, playwright

I wonder if there’s more obsession in David’s lust for Bathsheba or in his attempt for cover-up and subsequent killing of Uriah the Hittite, her then husband?

Daily writing prompt, Day 39
Rubik’s cube as a metaphor for …
- Jason Neulander, writer/director/producer

Glossy magazines were piled high in the center of the table. “Why they come to our country, I don’t know,” she said with a sneer. The rubik’s cube on your key chain showed one side as solid green though the other sides were a patchwork of colors. Just behind you, you heard the wheezing of the espresso machine and the credit card machine come alive with electronic purrs and beeps. “Why here?”

You pulled hard on your cigarette, the tip going from orange to red to brake light red. Marcy swiped her hand in the air in front of her face. This was meant to go unnoticed.

“They send their kids to our public schools,” she said, flipping through the pages quickly, scanning the photos. “Our schools.” She was skipping over all of the text. “They have to bus them in on top of that — and they’re all on those lunch program, you know that.”

Every Saturday, you two did this — you and Marcy. It was a tradition, you’d go to the chain bookstore on Hill Street, you’d done this for god knows how long and, frankly, you can’t stand the look of the place anymore. If you flipped the top of the rubik’s cube one half turn, you thought, you could get three whites in a row.

“I mean it, they fill up the E.R.’s,” she said. “You remember when I sliced open my hand when I was planting the heirloom rose bushes at my mother’s? It was a wall of brown faces in the waiting room. Why can’t they go to France?”

Maybe it was the rash of recent closings of smaller bookstores, independently owned establishments. Maybe you’d just grown out of it. Maybe it was the fact that they over roasted their coffee, burned it really. Or that they over foamed the lattes, even when you specifically asked for a half inch. Or that they stopped keeping raw sugar in stock.

“What was I just talking about,” she asked without waiting for an answer. “Oh right. About Eduardo. Can you believe that he’s been married to his ex-girlfriend for six years? They broke up year before last. All for citizenship. Thank god, I mean I couldn’t sleep with a married man, could I? Personally, I think E is on the run. Wouldn’t it be romantic if he was being hunted by the long arm of the law?”

The only people who are hunting Eduardo are the ponytail police, you thought. You tapped the end of your cigarette in the ashtray. As Marcy waved at her face again, you chuckled silently, you chuckled because you knew that the smoke bothered her. She’d never say anything though.

“You look great, I don’t know how you do it with the going out and partying every night,” Marcy said, coughing lightly. “I couldn’t do it, no thank you.”

You resisted rolling your eyes behind your sunglasses. The lenses are dark and Marcy pays as much attention as does a dog in heat so chances are good she’d never know but you just couldn’t muster the energy. You’d have to break up the solid patch of green, you decided, to make any progress on your cube.

“I mean, things are good with me,” Marcy said with a sigh. “I can’t complain. I mean I can but it’s not like I’m an Ethiopian baby with a distended belly and flies all buzzing around my head.”

You decided against the theory of the big corporate giant running the little guys out of business and, sure, maybe you had grown out of this place and the coffee sucked but you sure that it had everything to do with Marcy. You looked at the thick gold rings on her fingers, cluttered with a rainbow of stones and flourishes.

“More than the price of eggs in Oklahoma anyway,” she said. “Eduardo has a brother you know. I don’t think he’s particularly attractive. His English isn’t so good and he drives a hatchback, but you might like him.”

You looked at her pile of magazines — dominated by lipstick glamor rags and scandal sheets. And then at yours — literary journals and two boutique photo magazines. And the blue side was so close too, you could get some traction on the white and the blue but you could keep the green patch intact.

“Oh, did I tell you,” Marcy asked, fluttering her hands around. “You remember my aunt Gretchen? With the hair piled up to here? She left me some money.”

After spending any amount of time with Marcy, you were exhausted, drained. Naps were often the order of business after an outing. Not like you did any of the talking, let’s be honest, you could be anyone — literally. You’d resolved years ago that your side of the conversation was completely trivial and added nothing valuable.

“Guess how much,” she stated. You could feel the satisfaction coming off of her in waves. “Guess, guess, just a guess. More than a million.”

Right then, you resolved to start a new Saturday tradition. Maybe cycling, maybe going to the dog park, maybe golf. Whatever it was, it’d be alone. Definitely break up the green, you thought, definitely break up the green.

Daily writing prompt, Day 38
The last time I cried was when …
- Jacqueline Lawton, playwright/performer/dramaturg

The last time I cried was when I said goodbye to my baby girl.

I was told it was best that I not see her or hold her — this way, the stern nurse with the chocolate-rimmed glasses would say, you can put this behind you and go on with your life. A closed adoption is better for everyone, she’d say.

Despite all their efforts to keep its location secret, I found the nursery though — two lefts, a right and a left from my room. And I knew immediately which one she was, even in that sea of tiny faces and plastic boxes. I would make sure that I was just out of sight of the nurse in the window, in her white uniform she’d sit with all the babies, she’d sit with them in a rocking chair, playing with them, checking them carefully. Over two days, I saw her fed my baby girl seven times. On the day that I was discharged from the hospital, I went back to the nursery but my baby was gone, her weight and height absent from the list on the wall. I cried all the way back to my room, made my bed, checked out, climbed into my father’s black Oldsmobile at the curb and never shed another tear again.

Daily writing prompt, Day 37
The whine of an electric drill
- David Gonzalez, criminal defense attorney

“I used to have a fear of tools, largely because of my father. When I was three, and he, my mother, and I lived in a basement apartment on Beacon Hill, my father developed a ritual to scare me when I misbehaved. Somewhere, he had acquired a beautiful set of tools, each of them red and shiny like a child’s fire truck. I don’t know why or where he got them, since I have never seen him use them again. I remember the apartment as industrial green. There were lots of pipes overhead, and linoleum seems to have been on all the floors. I also remember the high chair, and the arm chair I had to sit in when my father was mad at me. It faced the closet. While I was sitting there, feeling smaller than I should have in this chair for adults, my father would get out the electric drill, plug it in, and open the closet door until I could see both him and it in profile. He would then drill some holes in the door, while telling me I had been “bad,” and the possible consequences that might result if I continued to misbehave. The insistence of his voice competing with the whining of the electric drill was always what frightened me the most.”

– John Yau

Daily writing prompt, Day 36
She stood across the room. He walked in. They caught each others’ eyes and smiled. And then she farted …
- D. Bruce Pate, writer/minister

Without a moment’s hesitation, he walks straight over to her.

He (to her): On average, humans fart 12 times a day.

She giggles.

He (cont.): And when we begin exploring space in ernest, astronauts best beware, because methane constitutes a significant portion of the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and …

She: And?

He: Uranus.

She: Funny.

He: But it’s true.

She: I’m sure it is.

He: I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t.

She looks at him in a curious way, as though just seeing him for the first time.

Daily writing prompt, Day 35
Dancing in bad shoes.
- Megan Monaghan, literary manager/dramaturg/new work nurturer

And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing

which would infinitely enrich your life:

the powerful, uniquely uncommon,

the awakening of dormant stones,

depths that would reveal you to yourself.

In the dusk you notice the book shelves

with their volumes in gold and in brown;

and you think of far lands you journeyed,

of pictures and of shimmering gowns

worn by women you conquered and lost.

And it comes to you all of a sudden:

That was it! And you arise, for you are

aware of a year in your distant past

with its fears and events and prayers.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

Daily writing prompt, Day 34
Take a grapefruit, hold it in your hands with your eyes closed and wait. Write five lines. Cut it in half hold one open half to your nose and smell it deeply. Write five lines. Squeeze its juice into your mouth (be messy) tasting it fully. Write five lines.
- Daniel Alexander Jones, playwright/performer/director

underground,

bursting through,

over ground,

they can’t find you, they blame themselves, they blame each other,

so many points to consider, where to begin, where to end

bright, coming up for air,

sweet, a growing sense of despair,

bursting through the doors, swinging wide,

soup de jour, fruit de jour, cherry tomatoes pop in your mouth, fresh off the vine,

a sunny Bakersfield afternoon

thick and light at the same time, it’s like a rainstorm at the beach,

vacation bible school, John chapter 17,

melting and dripping like washing away tears, sweet and good,

remembering Elton John’s “Amoreena,” living like a lusty flower, running through the grass for hours,

rolling through the hay like a puppy child

Daily writing prompt, Day 33
Why Lebron James matters.
- Kristoffer Diaz, playwright

Best quote from this weekend came from my grandfather, “Sure, he may have had as many points as Michael Jordan did in his rookie season — but Lebron James will always be in the shadow of MJ’s 23.”

Daily writing prompt, Day 32
A journey to a loved one.
- Caridad Svich, playwright/translator/editor

A young albatross is just learning how to fly. He stumbles out into the water and lands awkwardly. He floats for a moment. Then, a shark comes up out of the water.

Albie: Hey!

Shenkie: Hey yourself.

Albie (getting out of the way): Hey.

Shenkie: Don’t mind me, just getting a snack.

Albie: Me?

Shenkie: Hey, a shark’s got to eat.

Albie: But: me?

Shenkie: Convenience is king.

Albie: Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?

Shenkie: Why should I?

Albie: It’s just rude.

Shenkie: I’m hungry.

Albie: Get in line.

Shenkie: Just dive for a fish, I need the protein.

Albie: I’m not hungry, dope. I’m smitten.

Shenkie: You’re what?

Albie: See her over there? I’m trying to mate with her.

Shenkie: The one with the black tuft on her left wing? Over there?

Albie: No, the one with the gray spot under her beak. There.

Shenkie: Nice looking bird.

Albie: No doubt. She doesn’t know that I exist.

Shenkie: Sure, she does. She’s just playing hard to get. When I was a shark pup, I had a crush too.

Albie: What did you do?

Shenkie: I wooed her, I’d bring her presents, she loved albatrosses, in fact.

Albie: Oh, great. I can’t really do that –

A shark comes out of the water and chomps down on the girl albatross. A moment, the albatross looks at the shark at first with a look of distress, then realizes what he’s got to do.

Albie: So. Does it hurt much?

Shenkie: I’ll do it fast.

Albie: Thanks for that.

Shenkie: Good luck, man. Never say die, go get her.

Albie: Okay, do it quick before I change my mind.

Shenkie: Ready?

Albie: Just do it.

The shark opens his mouth wide, inhales the albatross and chews thoughtfully.

Daily writing prompt, Day 31
A conspiracy theory, from a completely unexpected source.
- Steven Tomlinson, economist/teacher/writer

Two of the people in the scene that follows are black. One is not.

Theo: I’ll say it again, Rosa Parks was not just tired.

Glenham: Theo.

Theo: What? It’s a fact, you can look it up.

Glenham: You can’t say that about Rosa Parks.

Theo: Yes, I can. Besides, it’s true.

Will (entering with a book and reading): “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day.”

Theo: It’s not like she was the first, many others had defied the bus segregation laws on numerous occasions since the 1940’s.

Glenham: But that’s not what happened.

Will (reading): “I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Glenham: See?

Will: Right place, right time.

Theo: Sure, I’ll give you that. But it’s not an ordinary citizen spontaneously deciding to resist and defy racial segregation.

Glenham: Man, you’re white. How can you say that?

Will (reading): “At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for workers’ rights and racial equality.”

Theo: Man, put that book down and listen to me. Rosa Parks was a registered member of the Communist Party. The Highlander Folk School was started in 1932 to train Communist activists.

Glenham: So, we should revert to separate but equal?

Theo: That’s not what I’m saying. Racial strife is a weapon of the elite. And Rosa Parks was part of that arsenal.

Will (flipping through the book wildly): None of what you’re saying is in here.

Theo: Social change cannot take place unless the powers that be (the money men, media moguls, etc.) are on board, unless there’s some kind of sponsorship, some kind of agreement. MLK was killed after he realized that he was a pawn, that he was duped, he saw that desegregation would impoverish the black community. Now there is no black community, there is no real leadership and as such there is no collective economic power.

Glenham: That’s messed up.

Will (who’s long since put the book down): Man.

Theo: Makes you rethink the cold war, huh? Now, are we going to play cards or what?

A long silence.

Daily writing prompt, Day 30
Copy a paragraph from some piece of literature you admire. Actually write it out with a paper and pen. It will force you to use some other writer’s bag of tricks and you’ll be amazed at how weird and interesting it feels.
- Amy Stewart, writer

“Two-Headed Boy” by Neutral Milk Hotel: http://twitpic.com/a8781.

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From one of my favorite albums of all time, Aeroplane over the Sea. Sounds great on vinyl.

Daily writing prompt, Day 29
Write a one page play. it must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Go.
- Janet Allard, playwright

YESTERDAY.

A wall with a window and a ledge. A man opens the window from the inside and crawls out onto the ledge. He stands and considers the distance to the ground. He goes back inside.

TODAY.

The same wall, window and ledge. The same man opens the window and crawls out onto the ledge. He stands and considers the distance to the ground. He returns inside.

TOMORROW.

The same wall, window and ledge. The same series of actions until the consideration of the ground. He inhales deeply, holds his breath, pinches his nose and jumps. After some time, the sound of sirens begin to get closer and closer and soon they arrive at the ground just below the ledge.