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“What do you mean something’s wrong with the kitchen sink, I just spent 4500 dollars getting it fixe?”
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“Marianne, fun stuff comes with a certain age.” Sarcasm dripped. “ Pain comes out of nowhere, it leaves one disgusted and usually debilitated in some sense of the word.” Her thumb was out of commission for a weekend once. She couldn’t use her left hand, gratefully, She was right handed, but it made typing a
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Show Biz “Oh, come on. You can be Festus and you can be Ms. Kitty,” “But, I want to be Matthew. He’s the sheriff,” he was being petulant, we all knew because his lower lip was sticking out. He was a decent actor. “You can’t be Matthew. You get all the women in the cat
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Make Mistakes The acronym for Math is Mistakes Allow Thinking to Happen. Because of the mistakes I’ve made in my life, I am the wisest woman in the country, not the world though, I have not experienced war. I’ve thought about it, and don’t want to go through it. I know it’s coming to this
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“Aren’t you supposed to party with pretty plates and finger foods on New Year’s day?” “You’re supposed to put out all these pretty snacks and have your friends over and drink champagne and talk about all the disappointment you got at Christmas.” “You’re supposed to be putting away the Christmas tree, running the sweeper, doing
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Jan 1 Writing Prompt I didn’t make this one up. “What chances in my life did I let go or didn’t take?” This is the stuff that four a.m. monologues are made of. I laugh in the face of such insolence, ha. Should we include the stupid alternative choices I made as well? I should
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Don’t make any, They have no power, no grip That’s not exactly true You always remember them, no matter what you do. It’s a boundary thing. Put your head down and go face first into the maelstrom, get it over with Like shots, jabs, injections When I was in my forty-fives, I swan dove into
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God, if you say one more weird thing about something, You’ll get punched.
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The Appointment
***Warning! Trigger warnings. Contains thoughts of suicide and mental illness. Possible School Shootings. “Do suicide hotlines keep a record of who calls when and why?” Bob talked suicide over with the shrink at his last appointment. “Probably,” she was taking fast notes on the computer as well as on the notepad beside her. Her soda Read more
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Remembering Elouise on Her Birthday
Elouise, tall and elegant, shrank to five foot nothing by the time she died at seventy-seven. Her youngest daughter, Dagmar, stayed all night with her the day before she died and dreamed of Grandma, Elouise’s mom, that night. She called me that morning to tell me all about it. “I dreamed about Grandma last night,” Read more
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Fin
The sequel to Norris Tales is written, twenty-five thousand, one hundred nine words. Norris Lives. It’s a book of short stories and vignettes about Norris, the seventeen year old cat that I’ve fought and lived with for a long time. Hey, this is a big deal. I have two more big deals to go, formatting Read more
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Some thump
“What the fuck? It’s three a.m. and my kitchen is as nasty now as it was when I fried chicken at noon today,” thought Tess. Something had woken her up out of a sound sleep. Some thump. “What the fuck?” She found the fuck passed out on the couch in the living room. How dare Read more
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Meteor Shower
The house went dead quiet and the den lights went out. The whirr of the refrigerator stopped. Norris knew something was wrong, same as I did. He asked for cream before the fridge got warm, he understood. I gave him treats instead. Usually these things flickered and came back on within seconds, then everything blinked, Read more
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Tune up
“One of the best parts of the concert is when the orchestra tunes up their instruments,” said Silas. “It hides the frenzy backstage, but hints at it when the squawks and squeaks get flung from the pit to the back of the house.” “The more frenetic the tune up, the bigger the tribute the director,” Read more
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“What do you mean something’s wrong with the kitchen sink, I just spent 4500 dollars getting it fixe?”
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“Marianne, fun stuff comes with a certain age.” Sarcasm dripped. “ Pain comes out of nowhere, it leaves one disgusted and usually debilitated in some sense of the word.” Her thumb was out of commission for a weekend once. She couldn’t use her left hand, gratefully, She was right handed, but it made typing a
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Show Biz “Oh, come on. You can be Festus and you can be Ms. Kitty,” “But, I want to be Matthew. He’s the sheriff,” he was being petulant, we all knew because his lower lip was sticking out. He was a decent actor. “You can’t be Matthew. You get all the women in the cat
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Make Mistakes The acronym for Math is Mistakes Allow Thinking to Happen. Because of the mistakes I’ve made in my life, I am the wisest woman in the country, not the world though, I have not experienced war. I’ve thought about it, and don’t want to go through it. I know it’s coming to this
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“Aren’t you supposed to party with pretty plates and finger foods on New Year’s day?” “You’re supposed to put out all these pretty snacks and have your friends over and drink champagne and talk about all the disappointment you got at Christmas.” “You’re supposed to be putting away the Christmas tree, running the sweeper, doing
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Jan 1 Writing Prompt I didn’t make this one up. “What chances in my life did I let go or didn’t take?” This is the stuff that four a.m. monologues are made of. I laugh in the face of such insolence, ha. Should we include the stupid alternative choices I made as well? I should
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Don’t make any, They have no power, no grip That’s not exactly true You always remember them, no matter what you do. It’s a boundary thing. Put your head down and go face first into the maelstrom, get it over with Like shots, jabs, injections When I was in my forty-fives, I swan dove into
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God, if you say one more weird thing about something, You’ll get punched.
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Ukiyo
“I’m home,” Liza said walking through the door of her house. Nobody answered, nobody was there. “I’m home,” she sighed. The silence that greeted her made her smile. She set her bag on the floor beside the china cabinet and heard the faint rattle of the dishes within its wooden walls. The cat sauntered from…
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Reflection
Will I be calm because I am the crone now? The wise woman and matriarch. I’ve been where most women haven’t been yet and I hope they don’t have to tread in all of my footsteps. I’ve walked through painful places, broken glass and hot coals in bare feet to develop the calluses of wisdom. …
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Bridal White
Say yes to the dress. There’s power in the dress. I remember my sister standing in the dressing room as she stepped into the puddle of white satin on the floor. The puddle became an armor of white. Bridal white. At twenty-three, I was reluctant to get a wedding dress. I couldn’t bear to go…
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The Tree
Once upon a time, I felt like I was separate from everyone else, standing off to the side by myself. I felt ugly and freakish. I just didn’t feel like I was in the forest with the rest of the trees. I felt like a different species that had been planted in the yard as…

