February 2012
4 posts
2 tags
1 tag
4 tags
Queen of Swords
Violet climbed the polished concrete steps to the eighth floor. She passed the busy inhabitants of the building carrying large, ornate flower displays down the stairs or arranging roses, tulips and hyacinths by color into large buckets in the open areas. The colors provided a jolt of life against the worn, industrial wooden floors and once-white walls.
The aroma of flowers followed her as she...
1 tag
November 2011
2 posts
October 2011
2 posts
How My Name Changed In An Instant
Actual conversation at a restaurant yesterday:
Me: Hi, table for two, please. Host: Is your partner with you? Me: No. Host: Ok. You can wait here until they arrive. What’s your name? Me: Teresa. Host: Julie? Me: Sure.
We went on a whale watch in Provincetown, Ma last... →
July 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Albert Goes to the Beach
Albert woke early, before his alarm. “Ah, Saturday,” he sighed. “No work. No obligations. No nothing.” He rolled over and looked at his clock – a wooden-looking relic of the ‘80s with small buttons and switches, and large, green digital numbers. He wanted one with the flip numbers, but he couldn’t find one. Sometimes he set it so the radio woke him up, but he usually set it so that it started...
6 tags
Lily Pond Lane
Celia shaded herself with a wide, floppy-brimmed hat that stretched out past her shoulders and nearly obscured her face when she wore it at an angle, like a model. She checked her bathing suit, making sure her cleavage was just so. Satisfied, she wrapped a sparking red sarong around waist and secured it a large diamond-encrusted brooch in the shape of a long-legged spider. It had been a gift to...
June 2011
1 post
5 tags
25-Word Stories
I wrote these with the intention of submitting them to a contest. I must have gotten sidetracked because I never entered the contest. Each story is 25-words long, on the nose.
Crossed Lines
“Indiana. Indi-ana,” Cheryl stressed into the phone. Robert looked around at the Hindi and Sanskrit signs, knowing he could never make up for this one.
The Test of Love
She believed that if she stood...
April 2011
2 posts
A Window Full of Bull Dogs
Saw these in the window of an antiques store last night on Madison Ave, and I just found out that my brother is the type of person who would have them in his living room. You know, his birthday is coming up…
3 tags
Sweet Ride
A crocheted tricycle by Olek found last Sunday at Spring and Lafayette.
February 2011
3 posts
For Thelonious: A Found Poem
While looking for some old radio spots that I had written, I came across this poem. I wrote it after house and critter sitting for a friend. One of the critters was a beautiful, longish-haired black cat.
For Thelonious
If every step you took
Was a light, resonant trip
Of piano wire,
The house would fill with jazz colors
As you run
From the table to the chair
And greet me
With your great...
Picasso in Code
Grand & Wooster.
3 tags
Chinese New Year Parade 2011
It’s the year of the Metal Rabbit! We went to China Town today to watch the Lunar New Year parade.
Here are some of the highlights:
The rabbits were fun, but I liked the dragons.
More images are posted at my flickr account.
January 2011
1 post
4 tags
Free Bird
Elena swiped a red-tipped, talon-like finger through the sealed envelope of the letter that the waiter discretely delivered to our table on a small silver platter. Her pointed ruby lips opened wider as her eyes darted over each word; her alabaster hands gripped the edges of the letter, causing the paper to wrinkle. She looked up at the table, her blue eyes beaming under a well-coiffed mess of...
October 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Bridge at the End of the Rainbow
I don’t know if it’s an “Ohio Thing,” a habit picked up from living in places visited by wicked storms and tornadoes, or sheer curiosity, but I go outside when the lighting is weird. Today I was treated to a rainbow arcing over Hell’s Gate and the Triborough Bridge!
2 tags
He Works Hard for the Cookies
Times Square at 47th St and 7th Ave.
September 2010
4 posts
1 tag
7 tags
Learning to Flirt
She’d been called many things – haughty, rude, snippy and even volatile – but demure had never been one of them. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, rubbing the hot spot on his cheek where he could feel the outline of her hand rising.
[Three Word Wednesday submission using the words demure, offend and volatile.]
5 tags
The Eyes Have It
“I always find the blue ones to be too cold, whether they’re roasted, grilled, seared or served in a rich béchamel sauce,” he said in between chewing his food and inserting another piece of prime roast between his lips and running the fork across his teeth.
He sat at the head of the table, clad in a burgundy dinner coat over a ruffled, white blouse. A mess of perfectly oiled and curled black...
5 tags
Nature’s Golden Ratio
Ernie sits on a park bench and watches her eat lunch. He’s been coming out to the park every day for three months to sit across from her quietly ever since the day he saw her after he was let go from his job as a copywriter for an Internet marketing firm.
“Don’t take it personally,” the manager told him. “The entire department is being let go.”
Ernie took it personally until he saw her...
July 2010
1 post
4 tags
One-Word Story: Miles
I got up and started running. I ran through the streets in the early morning light, trying to escape the conversations that still echoed in my head. I ran for miles, but it felt as though I never left where I started and the conversation would never end.
June 2010
2 posts
4 tags
One-Word Entry: Spine
The covered bridge rises over the horizon like an exposed, sun-bleached spine. We approach it from the east, and the opening seems to widen as we get close. The bridge gives a little under our weight. I swear I can hear it breathing.
1 tag
One-Word Entry: Starlight
Guided by starlight, we made our way through the dense forest to a hilltop. We counted our group to discover that two were missing, but no one dared to go back in lest we encounter the gnarled old man with pointed teeth wearing the long, velvety red cape. A flock of birds rose above the trees as a wolf howled off in the distance.
May 2010
8 posts
4 tags
One-Word Entry: Lantern
He walked past the ornate Chinese lantern hanging off the post on the dock. It had an ethereal, orange glow that complemented the eerie singing coming from the under the wooden planks.
4 tags
One-Word Entry: Kite
The woods get deathly quiet as I walk through. All bird and animal chatter stops. I stop too, wondering what happened. A smallish hawk – a kite, perhaps – swoops low through the grass, grazing the head of a squirrel squashed against the tree trunk, panting.
4 tags
One-Word Entry: Balloon
To the surprise of the adults, the Brick Man was more popular with the children than the Balloon Man. The kids understood why, though. Bricks didn’t float away or shrivel up like balloons. And they knew they could keep their bricks forever.
2 tags
One-Word Entry: Dress
It’s not that the dress was inappropriate for the wedding, per se (after all, in modern times, one can get away with wearing almost anything to a wedding), but it was more about the monkey lying across your neck, holding its tail. It kept flipping off the priest.
1 tag
One-Word Entries
A friend told me about OneWord.com. It works like this: The site gives you one word and 60 seconds to write about it (a helpful timer lets you know when your time is up). I am now hooked on it!
These are some of my entries:
May 3, 2010
The word: Regardless
My entry:
Regardless of what was being said, I still decided to try the special. I didn’t care that the fish might not be so fresh, or...
3 tags
4 tags
Victoria Falls
“To overcome your fear, you must face it.” That’s what Dr. Arden said to me at the end of our last session. Perhaps I have taken his adage too literally as I’ve decided to face my two biggest fears today: death and falling – in no particular order. It was pretty easy, actually, and I had a lot of time to think about it while waiting in line for my ticket, then waiting in line for the elevator, and...
9 tags
Subway Prophet
Tall and lanky, sporting canary yellow hair (obviously not his natural color) swept up in a pompadour, and arched, primary-red eyebrows that match the red beard that accentuates his angular face, he steps onto the train with a bike wrapped in duct tape and outfitted with a small motor. Sitting on the blue bench of the Six Train, wearing rolled up jeans with green suspenders, a plaid shirt and high...
April 2010
5 posts
I just overheard a woman in Union Square talking about taking a polygraph test: “It’s like a really hard interview!”
3 tags
5 tags
Last Lick
It wasn’t that Susan hated vanilla ice cream so much as she despised Hank. The white smoothness of the confection reminded her of his pale, flabby skin. The subtle hint of bourbon had the scent of his breath, which always had a slightly spicy smell though he hadn’t touched a drop in more than 10 years. The chill of the ice cream against her lips was slightly warmer than Hank’s affection, though it...
5 tags
The Night Mare
Richard awoke to find a horse in the living room of his sixth-floor apartment. He closed his eyes, rubbed them and opened them again, but the horse was still there: A hulking, white beast with brown spots and blond mane, absently lifting one foot, then another. Richard couldn’t get to his phone as it was on the other side of the living room which was now filled with this horse, this...
March 2010
9 posts
5 tags
Dance, Dance, Dance!
The music was intoxicating, and the dark-haired bassist slapped out a beat that called everyone to the dance floor. Determined to get his attention and stand out from the crowd of beautiful women, Amanda began to dance. She shimmied, cha-cha-ed, sambaed, rumbaed and did a merengue that segued into a mambo then the lambada before she two stepped, quick stepped and fox trotted. The crowd parted as...
4 tags
290 Faces on the Sidewalk
As I was walking back to the train from the Creative Mornings event at the Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, I noticed chalk drawings on the sidewalk: 290 Faces by Felix Morelo.
I admire his dedication.
2 tags
Short Story Update
My story “Special Ingredient” was featured on Six Sentences today!
Six Sentences offers writers a great writing challenge: Craft a story using only six sentences. I’ve written two so far, and am planning a project with my photographer friend.
If you’re a fan of flash fiction, or want to take part in the challenge, check out Six Sentences.
5 tags
The Window (a six-sentence story)
He didn’t really believe that she could actually see him standing in the window of his 47th-floor office, but he hoped she would feel his presence. She, meanwhile, walked through the park, searching for the perfect bench from which to start reading her new copy of “Anna Karenina.” The bench had to be in an area that was not so popular that she would have to share it (her fear of...
2 tags
Special Ingredient (a six-sentence story)
The haggard-looking waitress tries to muster a smile as she puts the menus on the table, but her eyes are angry, and we jump every time she slaps down a menu. There are 12 of us – my parents, my siblings and their spouses and children, and Aunt Helen, whose house we are supposed to be at right now – crowded around pushed-together linoleum tables (the wobbly, dingy kind, not the stable, colorful...
3 tags
2 tags
Overheard on the 6
A woman was arguing with someone as she was getting on the train. The doors closed and then opened again, at which point she grabbed the sides of the train doors and yelled out: “How stupid are you?!”
That’s one my most favorite rhetorical questions ever! (Seriously, who answers that?)
2 tags
A New Way to Annoy People
While having a late lunch yesterday at a very noisy restaurant, I overheard two women at the next table having this conversation:
Woman 1: So you went with Eddie?
Woman 2: No, Eddee.
Woman 1: Eddie?
Woman 2: No, Eddee.
Woman 1: Eddie.
Woman 2: Edd-ee.
It went on like that until Woman 1, I presume, gave up. But it got me thinking: A fun, subtle way to annoy people would be to say their names...
4 tags
Lucky Owl
I’ve seen Lucky Cats waving at me from store windows, but until the other day, I’d never seen a Lucky Owl! This one was in a restaurant window with several waggy-tailed cats.
February 2010
6 posts
After the Snow
Two hours after the snow stopped on Friday, the moon came out.