1.6.3 The house we lived in…

The house we lived in…

Was a home once. A little strange perhaps, but it was my home, my place. It was full once, of light and laughter and music and cooking smells.

And then it stopped. There were no sounds except shouting and sobbing. And slamming doors. Things didn’t fit the way they once had, and everything felt like it was falling apart.

Everything fell apart.

Then she moved out, and he packed his things. And I cried alone on the floor in an empty, darkened room with bits of paper and string stuck to the carpet, feeling helpless and furious, and embarrassed and destitute. Because it was all over.

It ended with a quiet departure. It ended with a mercilessly scrubbed house where no trace of them remained. It wasn’t our home. It was never my home again.

1.6.2 There was something about the way he…

There was something about the way his eyes met mine, in the way he smiled at me. I don’t know if it was his physical beauty or his soulful eyes, or even the slightest quirk of his lips in one side of his smile that promised such sensual experiences. I was enthralled by the deep wells of his eyes, hypnotized by his body moving together with mine on the dance floor to the pounding heartbeat of deafening music. His lips met mine, and then possessed them in this passionate embrace. Intoxicated by the smoky taste of him, by the tug of teeth on my lower lip, igniting the embers of intrigue into a flame of desire.

1.6.1 This Journal is...

This Journal is…

A project. A goal. A beginning. I have to be able to dedicate time to writing and developing my skills. To eventually write a novel. Or three. Even if they’re never published, even if no one likes them. Even if Matt thinks that they’re garbage. I believe that this journal can serve as a marker, a starting line, a jumping off point for my inner creative spirit. Crochet is a physical exercise of expression, but I want to build something more ethereal with words, and this is where I’m starting from. And I will not allow myself to turn back.

1.1.12 Dream

Dream

I had a dream that I can’t remember anymore. It was so vivid and colorful, full of ferocity, heartache, tragedy. I wish I could remember it because it would make a wonderful story, one that I could write and develop and study until I captured the essence of the dream, and found the story that I’m meant to tell.

It’s happened before, the dreams, not the storytelling. This was all long before writing became a goal, a hazy, fanciful flirtation that has now developed into a fully blown rose, serious and sensual.

Goals always seemed like such dry, practical, unimaginative things to me, so imagine my delight in discovering that they can be fantastic and wonderful in the truest meanings of the words.

Alas, it faded too quickly for me to capture, too quickly for me to even consider jotting it down. And now I must wait until it visits my dreams again.

1.1.6 Fantasy Conversation with Jesus Christ

Fantasy Conversation with Jesus Christ

“Jesus, tell me how you do it? How do you forgive and forget so readily? How do you walk on water and calm storms? I would like to know.”

“Well, I trust the people who need to be trusted in order to be validated as human beings to turn their lives around. I show them kindness so that they may learn from my example and treat others in a Godly manner. I forgive and try to forget, but let’s face it, I’m God, I’m infallible, so of course I really do remember what happened. I just choose to believe that they never betrayed my trust.”

“That’s deep.”

“Not Really. It’s basic innocence. Take abused children for instance. They still love and trust their parents for years, until they learn all that they have been cheated out of: stability, safety, love, respect, growth. It’s terribly sad.”

“I agree. And what about the miraculous things? How do you do them?”

“I am the Son of God. I whisper to the storm and it stops to hear my words, for I created storms. I walk on water because the water longs to tough the feet of its master.”

“Wouldn’t you fall in and sink to the bottom?”

“No. Creation was made to uphold the Creator. Sinking would be undignified.”

1.1.5 A Letter I'll Never Write

12/25/13

JR and DO,

It’s been a year since my last letter to you. I don’t regret not speaking to either of you, and I wish that I thought about you less than I do. I wish sometimes that I had never experienced this entire relatioinship, including when I still loved you, J., and when you were one of my best friends, D. I often wish that I could extract you both completely from my mind.

D., after I found out that you’d been sleeping with my fiancé for the better part of a year, I saw red. I am happy and deeply in love, and it still makes me fiercely angry to think of my own obliviousness and your clear betrayal. Especially after all we’d been through.

J., I wanted to tell you that you are a child, ignorant, and clearly too blind to know when you have a good thing. I stopped loving you a long time ago. Before we ever decided to get married. Before we moved in together. I had convinced myself that I’d never get anyone who was really good to me, who really loved me, so I stayed with you when I shouldn’t have. I never told you, but when I was 16 you got me pregnant, and I lost the baby, and I hate you for being so irresponsible because you were almost 20 and you should have known better. That’s when I stopped loving you. The rest of the time was an experiment in power and control and manipulation, and using you to meet my sexual needs.

So fuck you both.

Victoria Ann

1.1.4 Longings

Longings

Perhaps one of the deepest longings I have is to be a mother someday. I would love to be one now, although I know it wouldn’t be practical. Practicality be damned!

Oh who am I kidding? We all know I my never get to have my dream of a half dozen rug rats running tame through my home, making messes, creating masterpieces, pulling their sisters’ hair, laughing, shouting, screaming, joking, imagining. That’s one of the reasons I want kids, and a bunch of them. I want the noise and the wild, and the fierce love that is synonymous with family in my mind.

I desperately desire the opportunity to create a new person, and to help shape them for the world that should exist. Yes, I want to raise idealistic, kind, children for a world that is becoming increasingly hostile. I don’t know that my love, my soul mate, will allow this to happen. God must have a great sense of irony, to give me an amazing, funny, articulate man who is everything I could ever want, but who doesn’t really like kids or want to reproduce.

We talk about it, and he really believes that he can contribute nothing positive, genetically speaking, to a child. He says he will be alright with one child, but he would prefer to adopt or use a sperm donor, and while adoption is a noble thing, I can’t help but feel that he’s missing my point: I want to have a child with him. I want to come together and grow a new person who is a little like both of us, and raise him or her to be a better person than we are.

1.1.2 Overheard Concersation

Overheard Conversation

“That’s why I prefer to hire younger sitters.” “I agree! They actually play with the kids instead of setting them in front of the TV and play with their phones.” “Yeah, it’s a shame.”

This conversation took place while I was at one of Anna’s field hockey practices between two of the moms who thought that I couldn’t hear them. Yes, they were talking about me. And although I made no outward sign, I was fuming. One of them had just gotten there, 40 minutes into practice, and I had just given Tommy  my phone to play puzzle games on. In the previous 40 minutes, we read a book, practiced math, played soccer, and colored, thank you very much. And it was really the cherry on the cake when this same mom turned around and told an entire team of nine year old girls that winning was the only thing that mattered. The other mom had another child there, playing with her phone too. For the entire hour and a half practice.

And people wonder what’s wrong with kids these days. Clue: It’s the parents.

1.1.1 Observation

Observation

“Jeshica cahn oo come stahr da compooter fo me?” Tommy asked.

I sighed loudly. Without even looking I know he’s put something in his mouth. Again. I wonder what it is this time. So far this week I’ve made him spit out contraband candy, a rubber wristband, a marble, and Angry Birds toy, and a hanger. Yes, a clothes hanger, the cheap metal bent into almost unrecognizable contortions, his mouth. WHY??? Why would a six year old boy who’s never had any oral fixation suddenly start putting random nonfood items in his mouth? Is it a cry for attention, like his sister’s static cling habt? How can I get him to stop without criminalizing the action and therefore making it a more desirable pastime for a young boy? Help!

1.2.3 Things People Have Said to Me

Things People Have Said to Me

-          You are F***ing Brilliant.

-          I love you.

-          Why you no Amurica?

-          You’re the best Jessica ever.

-          Suck it up.

-          I don’t have anything to give you except spit.

-          If you’re going to make a mistake, make it a loud one.

-          I love articulate people.

-          I am cold, but that jacket is hideous. I’d rather freeze than touch it.

-          What song do you want to dance to at our wedding?

-          I’ll always be your little kid.

-          I love watching the kids run and jump on you after school. You can tell they love you. Good job.

1.2.8 List of Things to Make Lists Of

List of Things to Make Lists Of

-          homework

-          chores

-          groceries

-          Christmas gifts

-          Crafts to make

-          Email lists

-          Wish lists

-          Book lists

-          Goal lists

-          To Do lists

1.2.7 What to Take on a Journey

What to Take on a Journey

-          underwear

-          hoodie

-          Tylenol

-          Pillows

-          Blanket

-          Flip flops

-          Cute shoes

-          Tennis shoes

-          Jeans

-          Bras

-          Toothpaste

-          Hairbrush

-          Hair ties

-          Tablet

-          Phone

-          Chargers

-          Hair clips

-          Wallet

-          Socks

Quotation 1.4.3

“Freewriting is about taking your writing to that loose, languid place where anything goes. It’s the nudist camp for words where your writing self goes to let it all hang out.” – Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Pen on Fire

Potential Character Names 1.1.7

Potential Character Names 1.1.7

Erin

Tucker

Lorraine

Lucille

Tommy

Anna

Robert

Clara

Morgan

Andrew (Drew)

Calliope

Arizona

George/Georgia

Rose

Corinne

Michael

James

Anthony

Seth

Owen

Shawn

Caleb

Roger

Carl

Henry (Hank)

Quotation 1.4.2

“And who could have asked for better teachers: generous, uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only the dead can be?” – Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer

Titles of Things I’m Never Going to Write 1.1.14

Yellow Submarine (I hate yellow)

Fried Green Tomatoes (No food names, that’s weird)

A Night to Remember (lame)

Fever of Passion (smut)

Eden’s Garden (smutty with puns)

A Happy Ending (also lame)

The Mudge Family Experience (No. Just no.)

A Perfectly Sane Life (Because that’s boring)

A Dog’s Tail/Tale (EXTRA lame)

Evan, and Other Things that are NOT Pumpkins (because I don’t want to bastardize a sweet memory from when he was little)

Jihad (too violent)

Great IPA’s, According to Jessica (because IPA’s are gross)

Computers for Dummies (let’s face it, I’m not the most tech savvy person, and possibly one of the least…)

The Guard Llama (ok, I might write this one)

Freewrite 1.6.2

My mother used to have…

          this dress. This black lace dress. I remember she had it made for her when we lived in a country where the clothes didn’t fit and where she didn’t fit the cultural standards of beauty. But my mother was beautiful when she was younger. Is sometimes still beautiful now, if you catch her in the right mood, or the right light, or at the right angle. I digress.

The dress had capped sleeves and a high neck that came up as a collar of lace, leaving a keyhole below her throat, over her breast bone. It was fitted through the bodice, around her curves, and the skirt didn’t flare, but floated gracefully to the floor. It was her dress for the military ball that year, the first one she had ever attended, although my father had already served nearly four years by that time. I suppose that an evening of finery and dancing seems foreign to a young mother with two small children.

I still have a photograph of the two of them at the ball, in front of a massive Christmas tree. My father looking impressive in his crisp Class A’s, and my mother beaming on his arm in her one of a kind, romantic whisper of a black lace dress.

Quotation 1.4.1

“These days I wonder why we’re holding back on bliss. You blaspheme everything you see, I just want to give you a kiss.” - Third Eye Blind, Can You Take Me

This caught my attention because it implies that the individual holds themselves back from experiencing happiness. Why would someone not what to be happy? So the remain miserable by choice in order to get attention? Why would one want to be pitied?

I also thought that it was an interesting longing, to want to kiss someone who blasphemes everything, presumably even love. I think it also hints that they desire someone who is completely different from themselves, or someone who openly expresses things that the speaker keeps hidden and barely acknowledges to themselves.

Inspiration from Public Places 1.3

Forsythe puts me in mind of an old fashioned farmer cutting hay or crops with a scythe. It reminds me of a time when things were simpler and more labor intensive. I suppose this makes it an appropriate name for a middle school.

Wines makes me think first of growing grapes, and second of having a party.

Halle makes me think of Catwoman, as played by Halle Berry. The slinky,feline way she moved and the fabulous jewelry she liked to steal.

(Forsythe Middle School, Wines Elementary School, Halle Library)

What is Inside My Body 1.2.6

Juvenilia

Energy

Sass

Silliness

Impatience

Carriwitchits

Amour

Anxiety

Nerves

Needs

Moods

Unusual thoughts

Dogma

Germs

Edge