playing with words »

The white cargo van was so typical as to be invisible.  I only noticed it because I cut around it to walk across the street.  The graphics were utterly unimaginative - the company name in…

Today I have my second of four voice-acting classes.  Last week’s kickoff session was a lot of fun, very similar to the two other classes I’ve taken there.  We started with introductions,…

Her office is next to the corner.  Her desk is broad and glossy; the view out her windows is unobstructed.  He knocks on the open door with practiced tentativeness.

Good afternoon…

Hey I’m not out of words, I’m just using them on other people right now.  You’re better off not hearing from me today anyway, unless you want to talk about program-owned evaluation…

When I first read about it, the only books nearby were a dictionary, some procedures manuals, and a book of poetry by Shelly (Percy, not Winters) on page 23 of which was a biographical sketch in non-sentence…

I wanted to say something about it yesterday but it seemed disrespectful.  Now I see a sign in today’s paper that I’m supposed to put those qualms behind me: when I see an article referencing…

This morning I got the news: the green-brown shirt is beyond repair. It was my favorite and luckiest shirt, the soft one that people always wanted to touch, the one that went with most of my clothes,…

My exercise for myself started with one that I learned from pea: three short stories, each beginning with the same sentence.  I added a few twists - five sentences…

Every afternoon the crowd heading to the Richmond BART station meets at Beale and Howard, and cars troll up docilely to take them on, two or three or four at a time.  Each day the crowd gathers,…

I had a few other items I thought I might blog up for y’all but this one seems too timely to defer.  I wrote it on my way to a playdate on Tuesday night.

It’s been like a rodeo soda around the Chucklehut - bucking fizzy - and I’ve had no chance to correspond, post, or even sleep. In fact, I was reformatting my hard drive till 3 am today and…

For the past three weeks I’ve had a little yellow race-car sticker stuck to the left sleeve of my favorite coat.  I’d notice it and think, “that’s just the sort of jaunty…

The committee meeting is coming up quite soon and I don’t have time to share one of the essays bursting from my little book of arcane runes, so here are some arcane runes from one of my close…

Today I spent six hours in the second of three departmental planning meetings.  We had a working lunch, working snacks, and got working toys to fiddle with while our brains were ostensibly otherwise…

I got a comment from a writer-friend a few days ago that has stuck in my head because it’s so true: I think too…

I’ve been wrestling with this for some time and now I have concluded that the only honorable path is to punt - to evoid it altogether through circumlocution. 

Here’s the issue:…

i never saw it coming
didn’t bother to expect it
i flew beneath the radar
left no footprint on the sand
i was sure i cast no shadow
then i found myself confronted…

Maybe it’s only funny to me, but when we had the big biotech convention in town recently, I kept misreading it as “biotch.” So there would be all these articles in the newspaper about…

He pulled on his new shirt with the childlike enthusiasm he once felt when he’d get a new notebook at the beginning of the school year.  It was riotously colorful, a petrol puddle in polyester,…

* Are you mad at me?

* What do you think?

* I think that sounded like you’re mad at me.

* I just wish you hadn’t said those things to them.  To them, especially.…

When it’s heavy enough
I can carry it anywhere
lift it from the ocean’s floor
and smash it through the very sky
When it’s too much for mortals
I…

Let’s get away from the ranting for a minute and enjoy one of life’s entertaining little coincidences.  Our clerk at work is taking classes at the local state university and one of…

Malum prohibitum
Malum in Se
Took a wandering walk
On a blustery day.
“Prohibitum, where
is your…

Don’t you think marzipan would be more popular if it was actually from Marz?

During the last debates our President underscored emphatically the importance of having “facile” weapons systems.  That…

On a morning when I’m rushing around in anticipation of a day of sitting on my ass in meetings less interesting than watching my skin pucker in the tub, here’s what I’m counting on…

OY there’s not much time left this morning for me to get a post up for y’all but luckily I don’t have much on my mind (stop snickering) so it shouldn’t take too long.

…

Lately I’ve been using this space to talk about big events and my small perceptions of them, and to engage in the sort of theoretical and political diversions that tend to make me think of myself…

* Okay!
* Okay.
* So?
* Well, I need six of these boxes down on the fourth floor.
* But?
* I guess we could try to carry three each, or make two trips....
*…

A few weeks ago pea posted a little piece of fiction that got me thinking about a lot of things, one of which was: I have not written much fiction lately. …