Quill & Claw/Pen & Paw

*) it's been forever and a day since I wrote anything. I used my 'story ideas' book to suggest a fictional topic. Weird to write fiction after a bit of time off. It said I needed to write about "the Booth in the Corner." Needs a window behind it... Clark had hated it when the state went totally nonsmoking. His own personal experience had been that smokers had tipped better than anyone ever before and since. He was not a smoker himself, but his parents were. He filled his time outside of the coffeehouse with writing and the gym-so the smoke was only temporary until something better came along. Besides, he felt it was another intrustion of the world at large into the private lives of its citizens. He heard the arguments, and he eventually, reluctantly agreed that carbon monoxide was killing others. But that did not change the fact that he was making less money. His justification? He was going to die anyways. Might as well use the extra cash. Clark dreame...

An old coworker colleague of mine, someone I’ve kept in touch with over a social network, was bragging about her life. She has two beautiful children and has been able to keep her amazing figure. Her husband is still a hottie even after all of these years and, frankly, she had much to boast to about. She mentioned in her posts, “The life I prayed for is now here.” I got it. I understood her on several levels. I got it. I live in Florida now. I have a beautiful husband. And though I might look pregnant, I’ve been able to keep this figure too. And as a bear, that’s a good thing. But I had to talk a little about living out your dreams. For eons, I had noticed, I dreamed of living next to or nearer to a Disney Park. Any park really. I spent tons of money to see them and when I did, I hurried through like a kid on a sugar rush hoping to enjoy the moments in a buzzed blitz. But I never had enjoyed the parks. Trust me, all those trips with all of those friends were worthwhile and...

Not really Buddhist, but it will help you get into the right mind frame.... My surprise today was that the person who almost hit me was not old. In fact, he was a teenager. Foppy Bieber hair edged his eyebrows as his eyes watched the other column of drivers; the column I was not in. In fact, he turned his tanned face briefly to face our Saturn and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was on his cell. I was nervous that I would have to label this youth some kind of automotive freak-someone who gets into accidents without the usual parameters here in Florida. Are those cones? Or targets? Perhaps it is my want-and-need to make this place work out, but I really, truly love it here. That means excusing faults inherent to the place and choosing the positives over the negatives. It also means picking my battles. And some are so large, they are hard to miss. My adaptation to my new homeland does have several snafus that if I do not recognize, people might caulk me up to some kind of selec...

Athens NY Style Diner 18750 US Highway 441 Mt Dora, FL 32757-6723 (352) 385-3592 My family is from New York. Now, I don’t mean, they are from New York as in, they were born there but spent more of their life elsewhere—I mean even thou the entire community makes comments about their heavy accents, they refuse to give them up in suburban Colorado. It’s like a scar from a particularly exciting shark attack. They are so New York that people know that even before they get to experience the accent; it’s like they create a New York-vortex that causes W.A.S.P.s to suddenly swear and want to get very, very fat. It’s this fat part I want to talk to you about. I live back in the East now, right here in Florida. Most would say that isn’t the East, but when you count the snowbirds and Old World seniors that are starting to float down from Boston and NYC, they bring with them not only that East Coast cynicism, but they bring their palates with them too. So I lucked out. See my family, w...

A ROUGH COPY: Recently, my favorite video game underwent a huge overhaul. It’s one of those MMORPG jobbies and, well, I’m addicted. You’ve already read about my addiction to comic books. Well, let’s see here, I get to play a game with my friends where we play comic book heroes and villains called City of Heroes/City of Villains. I probably don’t need to elaborate on why it’s so addicting for me. Add to it that fact that I’m a few million miles from my created family and it is a way of keeping in touch with them—we all game together. Keeps us out of trouble and spending money. And it is something my husOtter and myself can do together. Grant you, we just moved to Florida and once things come together, I don’t know how much time we’ll spend on the computer. Unless, of course, it’s so I can write. This little fiction piece was born out of the fact that I downloaded some music from the game and had visions of a story using all of our characters coming together…and pitted against...

Ignore the ".com" there, folks, I just liked the picture for what I was writing!! You’d think with me being totally into Zen mastery and Eastern philosophy, the wonders of sushi would have a special place in my heart. And judging by my shape, you’d think I’d so enjoy eating those flavorful morsels would bring me another step close to Nirvana, ya know. Yep. That you’d think. So, after deep meditation, I have to come to another personal truth. I don’t like sushi. In these trying times, money can be issue. And, well, if you saw my size, girth and height, you’d realize, sushi doesn’t really fill me up. If it were to do so, it would take a few hundred pieces to get me started. And since sushi is such a labor intensive work of culinary art, it takes specialized chefs to make them. And they are paid very well. So a sushi meal for this old RooBear means a few hundred bucks… …only to be hungry again a few hours later. However, let’s look at the reality. Sushi tastes fan...

I’ve long pointed out that the movies, heck art-in-general, have two purposes going for it: one, to enlighten and another, two, to entertain. And it seems that the summer months are all about entertainment, which may or may not be a good thing. When I sit and see movies like “Transformers 2,” it seems like the decline of Western civilization is right in our faces. We have the same characters, explosions, thin waistlines (I don’t know many who look like my movies stars, really, outside of my own husOtter who poses like a soap actor when he sleeps…but that’s for the other blog), and noise. The concept of ‘entertain’ is piled high without real thought about the audience and it becomes something of a mess. The result? Earaches and a feeling like you’ve just eaten a bowl of rice: full for now but wanting more in an hour or two more. Paramount rushed the summer gates with the first Iron Man movie, releasing it bright and early in May. This gave me the sense that they weren’t sure what t...

We are programmed to seek our heroes in popular culture. Makes sense that our society wants us to be the best, so our immediate sources for entertainment should circle around those kinds of heroes who are direct (and most likely, American and have a large gun) and have substantial things that you don’t have. That way, you have to continuously work and contribute to those who make money without ever reaching those lofty goals. I think of John Wayne, who is frequently painted as a hero by those who define themselves as “Boomers.” But ask yourself, outside of defining himself and very, very manly, what did he do for society, other than to recommend you shoot things too? He donated money? Most likely. Did he save a busload of kiddies from falling off of a cliff? No, I can’t think of much outside of that. Sometimes, you can find a hero built outside of the constructions of popular existence. If you look to history, you can find those people who encouraged you without actually seeking t...

Mrs. Oquendo has her couch moved to the curb. Why? (prompt)  This story is unedited---I had to write 1000 words, that's all, after getting the prompt. Stew stirred his coffee slowly, wondering if he should treat himself to a ride down to the corner store something that tasted better. He normally would have had his coffee black, but the swill his grandmother kept in her cupboard, a cheap brand that she could afford, was just not cutting it, even after several adds of sugar and milk. He hated milk, but could not deny it was saving him from this flavor hell. He cracked his back and looked out the front windows. His grandmother’s windows always impressed him. For years, he had grown used to the smaller panes of glass that modern windows have, but here, like most grandmother visits, was a step back in time. A large pane, three feet by two feet, gave a view on the street. The glass itself was not without flaws, a result of natural glassblowing. It had a warp in the upper left hand...

If you could have any view from your home, what would it be of? A few years ago, my buddies over at Disney had a great promotion—who the heck remembers the name of it, but I do remember it had something to do with these ‘Magical Moments’ where they have these Cast Members with random gifts stand in certain spots and, if you were there, puft, you got a gift. Some of them, well, most of them were zero skin off of Disney’s nose, and basically giving you the overpriced crap they bought for 30 cents from Oriental Trading years ago and couldn’t get rid of. Some was just a cup of soda pop; maybe the occasional pair of ears. Husotter and I won as well, getting a free “Fast Pass” for all of the rides in the park for one day and then getting a lanyard with a collectable pin on it. Okay, those were pretty cool gifts, moments, whatever have you. We danced and sang when they handed it to us. But there was a huge, huge, huge prize. Something we only saw reported on the nightly news. It was ...

Journal Entry (nonfiction): If you could occupy the world occupied in a novel, which would you choose? [taken from the book “IF” by Evelyn McFarlane and James Saywell] Garsh, any where but here, really. I mean, with the wonderous worlds that books creates, even the evilest of ones, there’s more existing, there’s more excitement, there’s more adventure then this world can ever have! The first world I would be drawn too is the world that took me to novels in the first place. Sherlock Holmes’ gaslamp existence in Edwardian and Victorian England. I’m not one to believe in past lives, but I have consistently been drawn to this exciting time when the boundaries of life were being rewritten in London. Steamerpunk (think of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) was massively exciting, providing today’s technology but keeping the novelty of worlds yet to be explored . Jack the Ripper was haunting the streets, and trust me, I’ve read several novels about that creature. HP Lovecraft even ...

So yeah, I saw "Kick-Ass." And yeah, it was against my better judgement. Seriously. I mean, I listen to  Roger Ebert and Rotten Tomatoes . That doesn’t always mean I do what they say. I’m totally one for respecting others differences, but in the end, I believe that I have do what I want to do. I wanted to see this movie. It’s pretty clear I love me some superhero movies. I really do. And everyone panned "Superman Returns. They were right. It sucked moosepenis. But I still went to see it. It’s just the way I am. Maybe it’s something inside my heart to be a rebel. And since I’m such a chickenshit to rebel against people I know, it’s much easier to rebel against writers and post-ers I’ve never met. So I went to the critically panned Kick-Ass this past night. To show you how much of a rebel I am, I didn’t even try to convince my husband to go. The mere fact there was a swear word in the title turned him away. Now I don’t know how to say this, but how can you agree...

When is a classic a classic? I came to this question when I watched “Clash of the Titans,” last week. See, for two hours, I had a bit of free time to really kinda ponder this query—given the fact that my brain was empty as much as this flick was. I saw it with a group a friends, should you wonder why I would subject myself to this show. I also wanted to see this from the perspective of a teacher. Nothing beats the classics, as it were, for teaching fiction. And I’m still looking for a good example. See, in 1979, I saw this now-classic picture with good friends of the family. Our world was recently turned upside down with that little upstart of a movie called “Star Wars,” making our expectations totally be rewritten when it came to special effects. But the original “Clash” held true. Yes, it was pretty obvious where the stop-motion special effects blared across the screen, but it proved something back then— --when the story is well written, you can handle bad special effects be...

Alright, I like to eat. And because of that, I sometimes don’t have discriminating taste. I don’t have many vices left, frankly, outside of a decent palate that needs tons of tasty bits to keep it entertained. So when I go out to eat and I’m actually going to sit at a table, I have decent expectations. Not high expectations. Decent is usually enough. In a world that gives us Applebee’s drive up service and Red Robin’s cookie cutter service, expectations will be slightly dulled after a time. We went out last week to this place called Indigo Joe’s. Our western corridor of Colorado Springs is a mess. I don’t think there is one independently owned storefront or restaurant the entire Powers boulevard distance. So if I’m in that area and have to eat, I always tend to look for not the Mom-n-Pop diner, because I would have to squint too hard. Instead, I look for that one place that I’ve not actually gone to. That’s I how I found Indigo Joe’s. It’s labeled as a sports bar. Sports bars are n...

Middle schools sucks, frankly. If it didn’t teachers today would not have meetings, weekly, if not hourly, about ways of avoiding bullying and how to build self-esteem whilst the government sends messages that you are stupid and cannot be trusted---I mean, we have so many repetitive meetings, it is really impressive that many of these issues that one experiences only in middle school should been solved probably in the fifties. But these issues are STILL happening. It’s part of human development. Anyone who was in middle school knows it has nothing to do with adults. It has everything to do with being a pre-teen. The hormones, the inability to grasp any kind of reality and this nagging feeling that you’re not going anywhere---quite soon. That’s the focus of the kids, not the adults. And any movie that reviews the eons that are middle school years, that should be their focus. So teachers, including myself have frequent meetings, all trying to figure this ‘middle school’ thing out. ...

"Boy that was a forgiving mother," my coworker explained. Our discussion, for some reason, had led to my writings and she had inquired about at what age I had started being an author. I pointed out that I had abhorred a blank page and would sometimes create tales for no purpose whatsoever. The conversation verred this way and that, and at this point, I had elaborated on a moment in high school. I still hadn't mastered typing, so I had my mother transpose one of my handwritten tales for my English class. The story was that of a murder. I had written a short story about a painting in a wealthy man's home where people would stare at it, go home and then multilate themselves graphically. My coworker and mother were wondering why me, a person who really strives to find connections with the personalities around him; a man for whom the term "Poopiehead" is a frequent jibe---could write about a man who cuts off his own cheek and eats it. I bring this up in l...