Really

[Cita]

I wrote a letter to the manager of a strip club, saying nice things about one of the girls, a kind of commendation I never imagined writing.

Yesterday, I rode three miles with an Apache named Frankie.

I also picked up two boxes from Kinkos, bought pickled herring and birdseed, ate a ham and cheese sandwich with chemical-tasting cheese, and got my red pen ready to attack the novels, one in each box, no agent or publishing house in sight.

A baby mouse came and sat on  my foot, but he couldn't stay so I swept him outside with the broom.

I saw a wedding cake in a freezer and my dead grandmother's handwriting, my own eyes looking as if I had been in a prize fight, and I guess I was, but I didn't win the prize.

The stripper's name was Mercy.

[Gita]

I love your line from Jerry Clower and yes, I will shoot in amongst you but I'll be aiming for your sister,

Although, now they have to pay for a totaled Explorer, so that should be punishment enough.

 

[Diana E. Backhouse]

It just goes to show that fact is very often more far-fetched than fiction. The only normal part about your couple of weeks is the bit about the chemical-tasting cheese.

[Cita]

This piece is a strange summing up of the last couple of weeks.  Add in the fact that on Sunday, my sister and my bil gave my not-quite-16yo daughter a Ford Explorer.  I found out about it on fb.  Yesterday, my daughter rolled and totalled the Explorer with my sister in the passenger seat.  (Didn't you know that all 16yos are "entitled" to a car on their bd?)  No one was injured. 

 

 Someone shoot in amongst us.  Someone needs some relief.

[Teresa]

That last line brought it all together and just shocked me still.  Like a whole life was forgiven and made possible and protected by the name.  However it was intended or even if you just let the piece write itself, it has a surprising impact.

 

Unfortunately, I've never met a Hope or Faith or Christian or Jesus I thought was in a good place.  Maybe their parents sensed something at their birth and tried to remedy it in a name.  We do crazy things like that.  Good one...(I look forward to the longer essay though...:0)