Maryanne revisited: Just Enough for a Blink.

Maryanne's toes pointed straight up to the ceiling above her, back slightly arched and if there was a connect-the-dot line between her slopey nose and the skylight above her it would be absolutely straight...no bend whatsoever. Her eyes, a certain green that made everyone think of frogs when they looked at them, were bloodshot and tearing as she timed the seconds she could count the stars (without blinking) out of her skylight. At about two and a half minutes, record time for this star counting veteran, her obscenely large phone buzzed like a defective vibrator—on-off-on-off. She ignored the first set of rings expecting a voicemail, but it only encouraged them to call again. Maryanne blinked. Too teared up to see who was calling, she blindly answered. It was no one. Or rather it was someone, but she pretended it was no one. She answered speaking some twisted form of Mandarin.
“Maryanne, is that you?” But she’d only respond in jibberish with the occasional "hello" in Mandarin...
“Hello? Is this…Maryanne I think you’re cutting out. If this is you, I need to tell you that I’m back in town and I’d like to see you, Rusty too if you want. I’ll even…well, I’ll even hang out at your apartment. Just this time…well, nevermind, just call me back.” A tear rolled down her cheek from burning blind eyes, and she hung up the phone. She lay back down and Rusty came around the corner having just awoken from his slumber he was ready for some attention. He licked her face as she lay there gazing…restarting her star counting.
He licked her forehead, but this would not distract her enough to blink. Bored to pieces he spitefully licked her nose.
Cheerios.
Stale Cheerios.
She smiled. Counted star number 50 and blinked.
“Perhaps tomorrow it’ll be clearer.”


(Credit to Devin Lai for this gem!)

Peek-a-Boo

I told myself I’d never be one of them. Those gosh darned prodigal bloggers! But promises are for the committed and clearly that’s something I’m not good at. The rules are simple…don’t get attached, expect little, be excited when you get better than “little.” Follow those rules, and I guarantee I’ll make you happy. That there is probably why I’m single as stag sock.

Wherever have you been dearest Green Fuzz contributor!?
-Well, between writing wretched fiction, breaking an ankle, getting really fat off of Trisquits (thank you, Nabisco) and the usual, warding off all attractive men in Seattle (and just about everywhere else I go) with my lack of charm, sophistication and apparently stlye , I’ve been working! Yep, that’s right, amidst all the ridiculousness in my life I somehow was able to not only acquire a job, but LOVE it.

Well…have you been writing?
-Funny you should ask. Yes, I have been writing. In fact, not only have I been writing but I get paid to do it as well! That’s right, I thank everything that is holy that I somehow landed a writing job as a content writer at a board game company. The distraction from my personal writing isn’t necessarily a bad one, but I do miss just writing about nothing.

What do you write at work? Did you write Monopoly?
-What? Really? Monopoly? You mean the game that was created back in 1934, which is by the way, before my grandmother was born? No I didn’t write Monopoly, in fact nothing I’ve written has been produced yet…most of the stuff will be in stores in early Fall. I write card content; ad copy for packaging, catalogs, sales packets; I write rules, and do a shit ton of research. As we all know…these days nothing is for sure, few things last…who knows how long I’ll have this job, but it’s writing, it’s my career and I’ll relish it for what it is as long as I can.

So…you’ve left the blogging world?...
-Actually, no! I haven’t…more of a hiatus because I got intimidated by all the awesome blogs I follow. I kept thinking my stuff was crap compared to everyone else’s and that I wasn’t going to post unless I felt like it was worth posting. I’m doing this new thing that involves having a little more a filter. In fact I’ve been practicing in notebooks..outlining. I’m also going to be writing a new blog for work. You will all have to follow that…it’s snarky meets stupid meet professional meets…ahh fuck it’s none of that…how bout I just kindly ask you to check it out and you can see whether or not I suck at life?

Anyway, now that I got the crap out of the way…how about you start posting some stuff with substance?
-I will. I’m working on it. I promise. Maryanne is coming back. There’s also a boy named Harold who I’m going to make you hate and love. There’s also me…there’s always me.

Also...check out this new triumph of mine. They're still blacklisted, but...at least i finally owned that sucker! Grapefruit: 1 Joey: 2. word.