January 23, 2006

• MONDAY READING

  Willful Creatures
  by Aimee Bender

  Been reading this collection of short stories that I checked out of the library after reading a review in some magazine. I usually ignore short stories, like I ignore TV series. I like something I can sink my teeth into for awhile. On the other hand, short stories are kind of like photos – they capture a moment (or two), an essence of something. And like a great photo, having them around can always take you back fast to that feeling they captured. Aimee Bender, I found out on looking her up, is young – 31 to be exact, teaches creative writing at USC, and burst onto the scene in 1997 with her graduate thesis at UC Irvine, a collection of stories called The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. With a novel in between this is her newest venture. And here’s the first paragraph of the story I just read called Flowers and Words:

  So there we were, Steve and I, smack in the middle of the same fight we’d had a milion times before, a fight I knew so well I could graph it. We were halfway down the second slope of resignation, the place where we usually went to different rooms and despaired quietly on our own, and right at the moment that I thought, for the first time in seven years, that maybe things were just not going to work out after all, that was the moment he suggested we drive to Vegas right then and tie the knot. “Now?” I said and he nodded, with gravity. “Now.” We packed as fast as we could, hoping we could pack faster than those winged feet of doubt, driving 100 miles per hour in silence, from sand to trees to mountains to dry plains to that tall, electric glitter. Parked. Checked in. Changed clothes. Held hands. Together we walked up to the casino chapel but as soon as Steve put his nose in the room, well, that’s when those winged feet fluttered to rest on his shoulder. Reeling, he said he had a migraine and needed to lie down. An hour later he told me, washcloth on his forehead, that he had to fly home that instant and could I drive back by myself? I stood at the doorway and watched him pack his nicest suit, folding it into corners and angles, his chest and legs and back and butt in squares and triangles, shut and carried. “Goodbye,” we said to each other, and the kiss was an old dead sock.

  Now that’s a moment we’ve probably all experienced in one way or another at one time or another – that moment when something hopeful hit the brakes. The rest of the story takes a turn you’d never EVEN imagine. Like life has a way of doing.
  

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  Deep Thought: “If you’re ever stuck in some thick undergrowth, in your underwear, don’t stop and start thinking of what other words have “under” in them, because that’s probably the first sign of jungle madness.”
  Today I am grateful for: The enjoyment of walking downhill
  Guess the Movie: “ I know now why you cry. But it’s something I can never do.” Answer: Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991. Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
  Matriotism
  by Cindy Sheehan
  Much as I wish I could take credit for the word “matriotism,” another woman wrote to me and gave me the concept. I was so intrigued by the word that I have been meditating on the possible ideology behind it, and a new paradigm for true and lasting peace in the world. (Rest of article here.)

  • 10:19 am
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