The boss's house sits mountain-top, high among the clouds, kind of Greek-myth-like, and it takes forever to drive cross-city and up-hill to get there, 40 minutes of vapid pop radio and traffic reports in the encroaching dusk. Arrival at sunset, and from the enormous picture window in the living room the entire city unfolds far below, sparkling in the cold and growing ever more glittery as the darkness deepens. The fireplace is big enough to roast a man whole and the guest bath looks as though wa…
Continue
Added by Mariah on November 24, 2009 at 3:56pm —
2 Comments
It was trash day on that rural stretch of highway, for at every intersection of a county road bags were piled high. The sun hung low in the mid-morning sky, casting long shadows over those ziggurats of trash and every couple of miles or so a stray dog or gaggle of ravens was shoulder deep in Hefty and Glad. The tall-snow capped mountains fell away in the rear view and ahead lay nothing but stone plateaus and endless blue sky.
She drove past a long-forgotten billboard that read simply "BIG" in p…
Continue
Added by Mariah on November 20, 2009 at 3:04pm —
4 Comments
Watch the moon rise over the tarmac, feeling very alone. Yawn and blink into the sunrise through smoked glass, coffee and diesel a heavy morning perfume.
Queue, shuffle; hurry, now. . . wait.
Faces and conversations are a swirling blur but location is a three letter code. Consider the daydreams carried through this place.
In the rush of being place-less yet always moving towards, origins are forgotten and only destinations matter.
Continue
Added by Mariah on July 8, 2009 at 7:04pm —
5 Comments
The Scientist had just rather urgently ordered a bottle of wine and was willing his wife to reign in her disdain, shooting her death-looks, and silently pleading with her to please, please, please NOT offend the Dinner Guest, this esteemed colleague who was considering moving to town to work for the corporation and who just might be the kind of geeky, low key, well educated friend he'd not been able to find since college.
As the waiter scurried over with the bottle and the wine key, the Dinner…
Continue
Added by Mariah on June 10, 2009 at 3:53pm —
2 Comments
It was Friday night in a trendy restaurant in a mid-size city and the place was packed elbow to elbow with trendy, mid-size people, and while initially a low hum kept the place pleasantly cozy, by eight the noise level had risen to a din.
The scientist was there with his wife and the dinner guest who was his colleague, but they had hit it off well and the scientist had hoped he and the dinner guest would become great friends seeing as they had so much in common and it was tough to find good, ne…
Continue
Added by Mariah on June 5, 2009 at 1:30pm —
4 Comments
The television advertisements for ice cream started the second week of May, right around the time that local writers started bragging about enjoying their home-grown tomatoes.
And sunscreen is now sold with an SPF as high as 100, which is great because you can't find a sun hat or a swimsuit, so you'll need the extra coverage.
Don't bother trying to find supplies for your swamp cooler over Memorial Day weekend because the hardware stores are already sold out.
The hot dog to bun ratio is alread…
Continue
Added by Mariah on May 19, 2009 at 7:30pm —
8 Comments
"I'd like a ticket to New York please," she said, smiling worriedly at the ticket agent, "and, um, I know it will be hard to find a seat for me at such short notice, but I just got news of my grandma's death, you know, she'd been real sick for a long time, putting up such a good fight and, well. . . no one expected it today. . ."
She would ticket-through overseas once she reached the coast, finding this sympathy-gathering lie conveniently advantageous.
She picked the ladies' room nearest the t…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 30, 2009 at 3:30pm —
7 Comments
Among other distractions:
A large, framed photograph of the most recent Miss Our State on the entry-way credenza.
Contemporary country music piped in to ALL the offices.
Scented candles burning everywhere - at 10:30 a.m.
Hardly seems like a place of business.
Hardly seems like the place for me.
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 29, 2009 at 10:45am —
4 Comments
As I walk down the state highway on a warm and endless blue-sky day, the divided lanes interrupted only by the roar of an occasional semi or pick up truck, I squint and wage a battle with the wind to keep the hair out of my face and fight the urge to bite my chapped lips.
When I get to the gas station, I try to put myself back together and then notice that I'm barefoot and clad in my pyjamas, the ones that are mismatched and too big, printed in horrible pastel plaids.
I'm embarrassed when I ha…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 27, 2009 at 12:14pm —
9 Comments
It takes awhile to find your way around the place and learn its ins and outs.
At first you are only told to go to the Transition Bureau on a regular basis, and you do for a few weeks until you realize that all you do is wait in line and the other people there waiting with you drive you nuts with their rustling/pacing/pencil-fiddling, not to mention that if your number ever IS called, the Bureau workers can't seem to find your paperwork or, look here. . . you made a mistake in box number 42.
Ev…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 23, 2009 at 3:32pm —
3 Comments
They were all shivering under the soaked awning in the hotel entryway, waiting for the car service to take them to the next location for the day's sessions, ill prepared for such cold and foul weather in June.
He wandered over to a group of women who came from the west, finding them friendlier in general than the other attendees, really drinking and smoking and laughing at the evening cocktail sessions, they dispensed with the conference formalities and just got on with life at its best.
Natur…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 23, 2009 at 10:37am —
8 Comments
I always try to arrive early for an interview, and this day found me ten minutes ahead of schedule. The receptionist settled me in the lobby with a glass of water, saying, "Mr. X will be right with you, he's just finishing up with someone." When I walked in the door, I could sort of hear the yelling, but once seated, all I could hear was the knock-down, drag-out, profanity-laced shouting match unfolding down the hall. The receptionist made small talk as long as she could, trying to distract us b…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 21, 2009 at 5:18pm —
2 Comments
It was that dreaded time of year again. All day and all night, funky broadcasts and amateur reportage was interrupted every fifteen minutes by requests for money. As the days wore on, the tone of panic in the radio volunteers' voices rose as it looked like the station's goals wouldn't be met. "Please give, please give," they asked for two weeks, mirroring our own need for jobs, tuition, payments on the house note. Local radio was a favorite 24/7 background noise and it was a welcome distraction…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 21, 2009 at 10:21am —
1 Comment
Grandma and Grandpa had a bean farm up in the high desert, and as was woefully common in those days, Grandpa had a bad accident one day during harvest season. This was long ago, long before all nine of their children had been born, long before they had neighbors within driving distance, a very long time before the regional hospital had been built. So it fell to Grandma to sew up the stub on Grandpa’s hand after he passed out, carefully making a tourniquet with a clean rag and a wooden clothes pi…
Continue
Added by Mariah on April 20, 2009 at 11:24pm —
3 Comments
