306090 5/9

My last 10 entries for the 30/60/90 project. The above photo was taken in New Orleans in 2009.

Daily writing prompt, Day 50
The fun fact on the inside of a Snapple cap.
- Kristoffer Diaz, playwright

XX1: There was one.
XX2: This is ridiculous.
XX1: There was one, I know. She had to disguise herself as a man.
XX2: In the Revolutionary War? Come on!
XX1: I don’t remember her name, I can look it up though.
XX2: Women should not be in combat situations, period. That’s my point. I don’t care about what happened in history.
XX1: She was found out by a doctor, who fell in love with her.
XX2: That’s like a movie of the week.
XX1: I’m sure it’s true. I read it somewhere. A book. Newspaper. Maybe a bottle cap fact.
XX2: All of that fit on a bottle cap?
XX1: I don’t remember.
XX2: You’ve got the memory of an elephant.
XX1: Elephants have great memories.
XX2: It’s an urban myth.
XX1: How do you know?
XX2: I just know.
XX1: You know, when I was your age I thought I knew everything too.
XX2: But elephants do have great memories.
XX1: No, they don’t.
XX2: Yes, they do.
XX1: No.
XX2: Yes.
XX1: No!
XX2: Yes!

BEAT.

XX1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes they do.

BEAT.

XX2: Okay, all right.
XX1: Thank you.
XX2: But I still think it’s ridiculous for women to be in combat.
XX1 (exasperated): Mom!

Daily writing prompt, Day 49
Someone loses his/her voice
- Megan Monaghan, literary manager/dramaturg/new work nurturer

The first time I met him, he couldn’t speak above a whisper. Last night at dinner, his wife talked about his great booming voice, which I had a hard time hearing because I have no idea how that’d sound. As far as I’m concerned, he’s always spoken in this way, in his hoarse whisper.

He admitted to me, while opening a bottle of pinot grigio in the kitchen, that when he was a kid he had a stutter. While he recounted the details, I thought of how aerodynamically a bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the yellow and black insect doesn’t know any better and so it goes on flying anyway. He had the benefit of being able to feel his speech blocks before they manifested and so he trained himself, using magazine ads and picture cards, to relax his tongue and lips, exhale, and spit the word out.

Daily writing prompt, Day 48
You’ve made a promise that suddenly becomes very expensive to keep.
- Steven Tomlinson, economist/teacher/writer

She said, I’m way beyond your means. Beyond my means, I asked. She tapped her finger on her lips, this is one of two things she did when she was thinking about something. What exactly do you mean beyond my means, I asked again.

I asked because cost is a funny thing, whether it’s a monetary expense, an emotional price, an expenditure of time, trouble or a sacrifice. But it’s also a necessary thing, I think, and autobiography is very different from the truth, both of which can be a great distance from popular opinion. Cost is a funny thing, I know.

She said that she was a fussy girl, that there was no way I could afford her in the long run. My mom, the epitome of hard work and dedication, taught me to never expect anything for free. But here’s the thing, when you decide on something, when you dedicate yourself to an idea, you want to pay for it, you want to participate, you don’t want a handout.

And so I asked her, Would you want it if it were without cost? Would you want it if it were free?

What’s that, she asked. What’s it?

Daily writing prompt, Day 47
Every time I hear the word Dad . . .
- Jacqueline Lawton, playwright/performer/dramaturg

“Are you taking over or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards or are you going forwards?”

His ancient Telecaster — you can tell it’s his because of the “Ignore Alien Orders” sticker — leans against the wall and I raise my glass to St. Joe Strummer, I think it’s true, he might have been our only decent teacher.

Daily writing prompt, Day 46
Run around your block right now, come back and write for five minutes without thinking.
- Daniel Alexander Jones, playwright/performer/director

like a halo, the heat roosts around my ears,
it’s heavy-handed and oppressive,
who cares if it’s the humidity or the temperature itself,
it’s like a jet engine firing full throttle and
punching underneath your skin

inhaling, I feel as though I’m sucking in the fever end of a candy cane
and my lungs can’t quite keep up,
just a few steps behind at first and
then beginning to lag more and more
until you’re running all alone

when I take my shoes off,
it’s as though I can hear them hissing and groaning in relief,
like a soda bottle fizzing upon opening,
releasing pressure and gas

“That’s all you kids ever talk about is the weather,” my father used to say. “Why don’t you talk about something useful,” he’d ask before he added with a smirk, “Like politics.” He thought this was especially funny because I worked as a lobbyist for a telecom firm, I’m not supposed to say which one, but we’ve hit some hard times lately. I live in D.C. — well, no, technically that’s not true, I live in Virginia but I spend most of my week in D.C.

My father hates what I do. He thinks that my salary is drawn directly from the fees, taxes and surcharges on his various phone bills. “You must be making a mint,” he quips. No, I don’t think he hates what I do, he doesn’t know what I do. It’d be more accurate to say that he doesn’t care what I do. Never has and never will. This is what a trust fund will do for you, will do to you. Fuckin’ trust fund brat.

I know, I know. Where does that put me? Son of a trust fund brat? I know, I know.

Daily writing prompt, Day 45
A desire is stolen
- Caridad Svich, playwright

a desire at gunpoint,
an emotion tucked into the waistband of jeans just loose enough to evade suspicion,
a poached feeling

wait for something better,
wait for the next thing, it’s got to be it,
the future holds such promise,

a glittering kind of coverage,
bright, shiny

out of the corner of your eye, you notice the police car sitting at the curb,
hovering, watching, waiting –
when in fact, the patrolman is talking on the phone making plans for Friday night

one excuse begats another,
one excuse looks like another,
they all look the same,
pull one excuse from inside another,
one more reason to stay in bed,
tomorrow always seems to work better

stop, just stop,
this time it means us,
this time it’s just us

Daily writing prompt, Day 44
He is breathing heavily.
- David Gunderson, writer/editor/performer

The applause begins slowly, peppering the silence of the club, becoming more succinct and resounding. The stage lights are bright, the lights are always so bright on a Friday night at the Hothouse. He mopped at his brow and put his hands together in the shape of a prayer, bowing to the audience. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought about the five years he’d spent in Chicago, the four years he burned in New York and how things never seemed to catch fire, never seemed to line up — one smoky, low-lit room after another.

At first, things seemed optimistic and as though they were looking up, but it was his novelty, he was the new kid in town, after all. Don’t jinx it, he thought, Don’t think about the past, there’s no value in that.

He breathes in heavily. His whole body is tingling, bristling, like an electrified rod. Though his voice is raw and lower in his throat, it’s normal for the end of a gig. Sure, he has certain rituals — honey, lozenges, a bottle of red wine — but he knows that his voice will not last the year. It can’t, he’s asked so much of it. At the very least, he’ll have to take a break for the winter, maybe somewhere warm — that” get him through the spring and summer, make things stretch out, make things nice.

He looks out, this is the regular Friday crowd. He knows they’ll want an encore — maybe “You Wouldn’t Fool Me,” maybe “I’m A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas,” maybe “Stardust.” The clapping continues, a young blond kid wearing a too-new fedora (trying to impress his date) and sporting a tie worn much too short (he’d probably just finished some Kerouac book) shouts out “What a Wonderful World.” The jazz singer shakes his head, shaking it slowly. Then, he looks towards the back, towards the wall of mirrors, catches the eye of the bartender and nods. Danny knows what that means, he always knows — an encore cocktail. Just a little, just one hit, he owes it to his fans, he owes it to his regulars whose drinks will pay him $600 cash tonight. A few more weeks of the Hothouse and he can take a break, lie in the sun when the shakes come and jump in the water when the fever strikes. Just a little more, just a little farther. Just a little bit.

Daily writing prompt, Day 43
Consider the phrase “love your enemy.”
- Michael John Garcés, playwright/performer/director

A small bedroom with an agit-prop poster on the wall. Two people are tussling in bed, the sounds of sex are clear. Black out an instant before the culmination. Silence.

Lights up on a small table. A young man sits uneasily. Another man enters, holding a drink.

Bartender: Edgar.
Edgar: Hi. I didn’t order this, did I?
Bartender: She did. For you. Asked me to send it over.
Edgar: I don’t want to look.
Bartender: She’s at the end of the bar.
Edgar: Of course she is.
Bartender: She’s blonde.
Edgar: Bad start.
Bartender: Send it back?
Edgar: Keep going. My type? One to 10?
Bartender (rubbing his fingers together to indicate money): A solid seven.
Edgar: Good for a drink. Polite?
Bartender: She’s been in a few times, seems nice enough. Not real chatty though.
Edgar: Nice to you though?
Bartender: Amiable and to the point.
Edgar: If someone treats a bartender like shit, never a good reflection. Thanks, Sam.
Bartender: Sure thing.

Edgar raises his glass off-stage, Bartender exits and Edgar sips his drink. Some time passes and an older woman dressed in a smart suit saunters over to the table.

Business woman: Corny, I know.
Edgar: It’s got its own kind of charm.
Business woman: Who sends over drinks anymore?
Edgar: I didn’t mind.
Business woman: I didn’t want to presume.
Edgar: Presume what exactly?
Business woman: A nice young like you sitting here by yourself.
Edgar: I was hoping that you’d notice.
Business woman: You did?
Edgar: You work at the Surety Trust on 52nd, don’t you?
Business woman (taken aback): Wow.
Edgar: I thought that I recognized you.
Business woman: How did you know?
Edgar: My great aunt just passed away and she left me several large bonds as an inheritance.
Business woman: I’m sorry.
Edgar: She was a nice woman. And very kind.
Business woman: I’m sorry.
Edgar: Thank you for saying so. You were working Thursday, right?
Business woman: Guilty as charged. I head risk management.
Edgar: Sounds exciting.
Business woman: Eh, it’s a lot of market analysis and evaluation of credit risk.
Edgar: Ooh.
Business woman (stuttering): Enough about me, what about you?
Edgar: Me?
Business woman: Yes, what about you.
Edgar: Little ol’ me?
Business woman: I could just eat you up with a spoon.
Edgar: I’d like to see you try.

Their eyes lock. Black out.

Fade up on small bedroom with an agit-prop poster. Edgar and the banker are standing, kissing and groping, their clothes are strewn everywhere.

Business woman: What did you say that you did anyway?
Edgar: Hard to explain.
Business woman: Try.
Edgar: Hard to explain, might not be the best time.
Business woman: No time like the present.
Edgar: Think of it as the polar opposite of what you do.
Business woman (jokingly): Do you rob banks?
Edgar: I’m a child of the rainbow.

The kissing stops.

Business woman: A what of the what?
Edgar: A child of the rainbow.
Business woman: You’re a hippie?
Edgar: Not in an exact sense.
Business woman: Hey, I like to put on my old Grateful Dead records once in a while.

BEAT.

Edgar: Anything else you want to know?
Business woman: Favorite color?
Edgar: Yellow.
Business woman: Anything you need to know?
Edgar: Are you a natural blonde?
Business woman: Only one way to find out.

A beat. And they resume kissing with abandon and fall onto the bed, blackout.

Daily writing prompt, Day 42
I do all my best thinking underwater.
- Amy Stewart, writer

“I do all my best thinking underwater,” she said before she spit into her mask and rubbed it on the inside surface of the lens. “It’s the quiet.”

Just before that she said, “We might have to add more weight. I really want for you to sink. And I don’t love you anymore. I know we’ve got you loaded up with 10 pounds already, I brought four more pounds just in case.”

And just before that, “I don’t know how anyone thinks that wet suits are sexy. Look at this, six mil,” she said pinching the fabric around her wrist. “Fuckin’ Hollywood.”

I looked at her as though seeing her for the very first time. Glints of sunlight shone off the water and caught her eyes. What’s funny is that I thought we were having a good day. Anniversary, drive to the beach with the top down, singing at the top of our lungs to Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want” — though, I think, the version by Desmond Dekker has more soul — and the diving trip.

Daily writing prompt, Day 41
I’m not sure how to tell you this, but…
- Kristen Gandrow, writer/dramaturg

“I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I have to tell you this. Are you awake?”

She murmurs and nods. I can feel this on the pillow.

“I need for you to listen to me for a minute, I need to get this all out.”

She jumped in, “Are you mad at me, she asked, Was it something I said earlier?”

“No, no,” I said. “Nothing like that, just listen.” Deep breath and, “I am becoming very fond of you, I don’t know how you feel about me but that’s how I feel about you. If you don’t feel the same I can take my own feelings and parlay them into our friendship — I will never bring this up ever again. But if in some part of your heart, you feel similar , I’d like to try and see where a relationship between you and I takes us. I don’t know, this could be the worst idea in the world, I have no clue, but I think it’s pretty clear that we’ve got some crazy chemistry. Our friendship is also very important to me and so I want to be very clear but I also think that if there’s the potential for something more, we’ve been spending so much time together lately, I’d kick myself if I didn’t say something before we fell asleep.”

I paused and sucked in air slowly, wondering if I said everything, hoping that I said things in the best way. But the room feels more languid somehow, it feels dense like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, I can imagine fish swimming by my face in the thickness just in front of my eyes. And I wait, I wait for her to say something, to answer, to say anything.