My father chose to heat our house with a wood stove in the basement, rather than the conventional American heating method. I know — you and everyone else thinks I was Amish growing up. Other than the belief system part of it, you wouldn't be that far off. Using a wood stove, however, meant that every summer my family spent a lot of time down by our shed chopping logs for the winter months. Man, the more I type this and start throwing out phrases like "winter months", the more I'm starting to think we really were Amish.
Category: Writing Prompts
Layover
I sit and wait for hours—tired, bored. These seats are hard: they feel like formed cement. I stare out many windows tall and clear; outside I see the airplanes flying by. Again and again, they’re taking off— the same scene repeating before me. My stomach growls, but I ignore it: The food in airports sucks. … Continue reading Layover
My Birthday Party
The loud pop of a balloon pulls my attention from the open prairie landscape I'm sketching and brings me back to the incessant chatter carrying on around me. My brothers are laughing obnoxiously— almost completely wasted—about some chic they were creeping on all day, with Dad listening eagerly on the side, throwing in a few … Continue reading My Birthday Party
Best reason to quit your job? Embarrassment. — Writing Prompt #15
People often imagine The Office when I talk about my workplace. My company is much bigger, but I can understand why everyone's imaginations go there. Most of my stories I bring to the outside world revolve around just my department, which has often acted like they belong on that show. I have a few different stories I could share, so maybe I'll save a couple for another time, but today — I'd like us to focus on my personal fave.
A Night to Forget
Heavy metal music throbbed in my ears with my heart pounding along, hammering in time to the reckless noise. Darkness had begun to invade the room. Not the dark that I walked into when I arrived. A different dark. A cold darkness that crept up my legs and back until finally it was around my … Continue reading A Night to Forget
If you don’t remember something, did it really happen? — Writing Prompt #14
Yesterday, my mom brought me all my old notebooks from college to help clear some space in their basement. Most of them are just full of notes and homework assignments, but there is one notebook I'd like to keep for sure. It's the notebook I first started recording memories in. I have 51 recorded memories in it, some filling only a few lines, some multiple pages.
Midnight Kiss
Nothing seems so foreign to me as the room of my four-year-old girl. My eyes glance around the dark room and take in my daughter’s own precious world. Her own pink precious world. Pink Curtains, pink pillows, pink lampshade, pink walls. So pink. Like Barbie puked everywhere. Dolls are sitting in a circle, grouped around … Continue reading Midnight Kiss
Memorable Dreams — Writing Prompt #13
I've never paid much attention to my dreams, except for the short phase in my teens when I was having nightmares of people trying to kill me using various — let's just say "interesting" — methods. That was an odd stretch of time, and fairly inexplicable. I wasn't that much of an angsty teenager I don't think.
My (not recommended) at-home piercing experience — Writing Prompt #12
Have any of you watched the new Parent Trap? Wait, not new — it's, like, twenty years old. But of the two Parent Trap films, it's the newer one, with young Lindsay Lohan. In it, one of the Lindsays gets her ears pierced by her sister-twin at camp. I decided to be that Lindsay, only with my cartilage instead.
I don’t make friends….just besties — Writing Prompt #11
I realized last night that I've never been much of a "friend-maker." Instead, I'm more of a besties-maker. Throughout the different seasons of my whole life, I've had a smattering of a few different friends but almost always one very close friend who I'd spend most of my social time with (read, like 97%). In fact, even when it came to the few smattering of other friendships, I actually had a habit of thinking them more like acquaintances.
