Another slow night at home. That’s the last thing I can handle. I need to get out of this place. I’ve called everyone in my phone book, and nobody has a plan. I need a plan. I need to get out in the open. I walk up to my roof to have a smoke. I can hear my phone ring through my jacket pocket. It’s Craig. I hate Craig. Craig and I went to school together for eight years, and although he thought we were friends, I never really liked him. My mom was friends with his mom, and because of it I had to hang out with him. I did not want to hang out with Craig, but Craig is better than my roof, and he knows people in the city so it seems that I have no better choices. He told me his phone broke, so he gave me the number of a girl he was hanging out with.
I went downstairs and hopped in a cab. I went across the park to the Upper East Side, right next to the metropolitan museum. I was calling Craig’s friend to try to find out where they were. I walked around the met until I saw a group of kids sitting in a circle making a bunch of noise. I hoped for the best and walked over to them. I lucked out, Craig was there. The group had the idea to go to “the obelisk,” or as sometimes referred to, “the penis statue.” They spoke of it like a mystical Garden of Eden for teenagers, and wow were they wrong. I was already wishing I stayed on my roof. The obelisk was an octagon of benches surrounding a large Egyptian totem pole like artifact. We sat on two of the benches and tried to find something better to do. I met a few of Craig’s friends. All but one was even worse than Craig, but I unfortunately cannot remember his name.
As a lost my buzz, I began to remember that I had been to the obelisk with a different bunch of friends from my old school. They were much more entertaining than Craig, though. Both times I was at this place, there was the same tall, lanky guy wearing all black. He had to be at least 5 years older than me, and I was probably the next oldest person there. He was very strange, and had a certain energy that made me think he might have been a narc. I wanted to get away from him, but everyone else seemed to like him and know him very well, so I played along.
Craig’s only cool friend, who I will call Andy for the rest of the night, pulled me aside to tell me that there was a huge party going on in the mid west side, as long as I was willing to pay a ten dollar cover charge. I was, of course, going to say yes. The whole point of leaving my roof was to find a party, so what kind of person would I be to turn it down. Andy, some other kid, and I stealthily left the obelisk to grab a smoke, find a McDonalds, and get a cab without the rest of the crew. Little did I know, the night was young.
We crowded into the cab and asked for 47th and Broadway. It wasn’t too long of a drive, and the kid that I didn’t like was paying for it. We got out and my stomach dropped. We all admitted later to getting a terrible feeling about the party when we saw at least one hundred people outside trying to get in. It was loud, but the line was misleading. Most people were just waiting outside, not going in but not leaving. We paid our ten dollar cover and went in. There was a staircase packed as tight as it could have gone. I heard that the fifth floor, the top floor, was the place to be. I thought about going up there, but since it took me ten minutes to get to the second floor and when I was outside the door, someone opened the door and pulled me in by my arm. It wasn’t too crowded, but it didn’t look fun. I was about to leave when I saw some of the people I was at the obelisk with, so I sat down and took my coat off. I talked for a while with the people I had met earlier and some college kid selling shots of cheap vodka. I walked over to the window after a few minutes and saw a massive crowd waiting outside. There had to be at least three hundred people outside, and the building must have been at maximum capacity. People said that if the crowd doesn’t cool down, the cops will come. I didn’t want to leave, but it was a matter of safety. I stayed, and to be honest I kind of wanted to get in trouble.
Well, as expected, the cops came. I panicked, but people said to stay in this room and they’ll vouch for our not being a menace. I stayed, and when the sirens were in earshot a stampede formed in the stairs. I’m still not sure how nobody was killed. People rushed down the steep, crowded stairs like their lives depended on it. I sat down on the couch and thought about the terrible punishment my mom would give me if the cops took me in. Most of the people left and the cops never even had to get out of their car. They weren’t trying to bust people, but they needed to clear the street. There were so many people outside it looked like there was no sidewalk.
About ten minutes later, the cops came back. This time, they brought multiple cars and they got out. I was on the second floor staring out the window when I saw the cops get out of the car and walk towards the building. I heard someone mention that they were going to go to the roof, so I followed them. I’m not sure what compelled me to trap myself on the roof while the cops were raiding the house, but I found myself trespassing on the roof of a five story building with a bunch of teenagers, either drunk or drugged. Across the street, there were a bunch of people videotaping us from a window, so everyone sober enough to hide their face did so. I walked to the far side of the roof and looked down. There were five or six cop cars and hundreds of people running down both sided of the street. It was mayhem. It was like watching a movie, a completely surreal experience I doubt I will ever see again.
The guy who owned the building came up to the roof and told us all to get down. I think he realized how ridiculous it was that we were all up there. We made our way down the building and the cops were regulating everything. They were directing traffic, and I have never seen a scarier cop than when I knew the cop wanted to catch me doing something. I walked by him and I could hear him sniff me. I sped up and briskly walked out the building. On the sidewalk, everyone was power walking or jogging away from the building.
When I got to Broadway Avenue, everything was dispersed. I found a guy that seemed cool and stuck by him. Some hot girls offered us to go to their party, so we obviously said yes. They turned around for a minute, and a bunch of other people who saw them tried to join in. They stood near me and my newly acquainted friend, so when the girls turned back around and asked if I was in college while I was staring at the cops, someone else answered, saying that he wasn’t. I would’ve said I was. They assumed that I was with them and said that they couldn’t take people anymore. My friend waited until they were away from the crowd and asked if he could go. They took him, but nobody else had a plan.
I got a call from an old Gunnery friend Katie Cunningham literally moments afterwards. I don’t think either of us actually like each other, but we have mutual friends, so sometimes we hang out. She called within a minute of my walk back home. She said she was having a party at her house and I should come. I got in a subway and took off. It was a short ride back to my normal stop, the one I get off when I go home. She moved about five blocks away from my house, so her house was closer to the subway stop than mine. It took me a while to find the building, but once I did it wasn’t hard to get to her apartment. It was crowded and loud, and there was a thick smell of smoke through the hallway.
I went in to a small, crowded house with lots of older, sketchy guys and a few younger girls. It looked like the worst excuse for a party that I have seen since middle school. Nobody seemed contented except for one guy on my right side doing shots alone. He was really happy, though. I turned left and wandered my head into the next room. It seemed interesting, as there were about five reasonably attractive girls in there and no guys. I leaned a little further in and saw that one of them was crying and the rest looked occupied. I turned around so fast I nearly knocked over another guy to my right who wasn’t doing shots, but wouldn’t give me one of the beers.
I found Katie and exercised my lacking skills in “small talk.” We spoke about her new apartment and her job as an actor and the party. I found out that she and her roommate found each other on craigslist, and they hate each other. I couldn’t help but laugh, and she gave me a very angry look, so I took her cue and told her that I would have to leave shortly. This, of course, was not true, but the thought of staying in that room with a bunch of over privileged actors under the impression that they were living their life to the fullest ruined my mood and made me want to go home and sleep. I stuck around for a half an hour longer to see if anyone there was genuinely interesting, but as I expected, no. I left the house and walked back at around 2 a.m. to my building, where I was greeted by my doorman snoring loudly and the rest of my family asleep.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Midterm portfolio 20 page collection
By Farsh
Pledge Observed:
POST PROMPT 30 hold up
An episode of writer’s block
I had a prompt asking me to begin a story with a predetermined sentence. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out where to go with the story, and when I finally figured out something and finished a long paragraph, I reread it and knew I needed to get rid of it. Now, I’m writing about my issues in writing the piece. I didn’t think it’d be so difficult to work with the prompts, but it was pretty damned hard.
JOURNAL OF THE DAY
A memoir of that one odd night
I’m going to not mention quite a bit of the night for the convenience of the people involved. Please do not hold this against me, and you should know that some of the following is fiction and some is fact. I will leave you to make that decision.
It is currently 5:20 in the A.M. and I am just beginning to settle down. I have put in my dissolving whitening strips, which makes my teeth feel slimy and sour. The first load is finally in the crappy new washer, which takes small loads and a full hour. I absolutely must pick it up in one our, 6:20 A.M. and I don’t think I’ll be tired yet.
I can feel my heartbeat slowly moving down to it’s normal pace. What a dull but eventful sequence of events my Saturday from The Gunnery turned out to include. I am glad I can try to recall the past. Here we go.
I left from The Gunnery School right before 10 A.M. because my brother and I both have the second Saturday block off. My dad always lets me drive back to NYC and to The Gunnery because he admittedly does not like to drive and it’s good practice for me.
On the drive back, my dad spoke nonchalantly about a likely job offer to be a partner at his new firm. He hasn’t even been there for a year and he might become a partner. I can’t imagine him not doing it, but he seems so bummed I feel like he might not. It was really strange, and my brother fully agreed with me on it’s peculiarity.
We got back and hung out at my mom’s house while we waited for my sister to come from the east side. My mom lives on the west. It was my dad’s first time in the apartment in over a decade. For the first seven or so years of my life, he lived there with us and things were kind of awkward when we were showing him around. He’s always been really discomforted since I moved in with my mom. It’s not completely official, or at least he doesn’t want to think it is. He’s always asking me to come over like I’m on a sleepover.
It’s not that I don’t like him or anything. I’m not in a good situation with his mother, who is over there often, and he knows it. He hates it, and it makes our relationship hang on the wire all the time.
Also, when on the first night my siblings and I were going to stay at his house, I forgot my flashlight and refused to sleep at his house without it. I kind of feel a little guilty now because I have actually ceased to live at his house.
Anyways, back to the story. Right before lunch, my sister and I had a great and fulfilling chat. She and I don’t talk much, which is because I don’t like her friends, she doesn’t like my friends, and my brother and I hang out without her. It was nice to get a good one on one chat with the unknown close family. That’s one of the most frustrating parts of boarding school unless your sibling goes with you; you get separated from everyone you used to be close with. My brother goes with me, so we have gotten much closer.
Next, I was alone in my room playing computer games while my brother hung out with his girlfriend in his room. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that. I was sitting back and relaxing on one of my rare days off, continually procrastinating starting my midterm portfolio.
You see, I have been overly busy doing college work and I forgot to start the 20 page creative writing portfolio due in one week. I still have loads of other work to do, so I decided to stay up all night on a caffeine rage and get out the full 20 pages.
It was supposed to be a bit of an experiment with my teacher, where I was curious if writing 19 pages of poetry till 6 in the morning will improve the creative qualities of my writing by the 20th page from practice or lessen the writer’s creative skills from the drowsiness.
Of course, there is the chance that the drowsiness will improve the creative writing and the 19 pages long warm up will tire the creative being. It is a difficult thing that I intend to figure out.
Anyway, the night before this whole debacle occurred, I found out through facebook and AIM that my old dorm mate nick izzi was going to be in NYC coincidentally with his friend nick west. They came over with a colleague, which brought upon the strangest of situations.
My guests nick west and nick izzi were in a room with my brother nick Strelov. There were so many nicks in that one room. Nick must be such a popular name for this generation. I called to my brother “nick” and all three turned to me. It got so confusing, I took nick izzi and nick west to my room, where we indulged in delicious treats that nick izzi’s friend brought. He neglected to inform me of their narcotic ingredients.
Oh by the way, you should know that when nick, nick, and their friend Ben came to the house, which was at about 4 in the morning, my brother’s girlfriend had already gone back to New Jersey and his friend from our old elementary school, Connor Coleman, took her place. I guess I prefer Connor to his new girlfriend Sarah. I can’t put my finger on whether or not I like Sarah. She seems nice enough, but she seems like she might have a mysterious side.
Nick got a body piercing, and I guess its kind of nick’s new look, but I would have thought he wouldn’t want it. I can’t see it in his attitude to get a piercing at St. Marks place, but I guess it almost looks cool. I’d never want one though. It could get infected. St. Marks place has the most shady piercing/tattoo parlors I have ever seen. They all don’t care how old you are and sell hundreds of “tobacco” glass pipes. I think it was his girlfriend who convinced him to get it, but he says it was his idea.
All right, I’ll get back on track. The nicks and co. were tired and loud. They were being very disrespectful, seeing as it was 5 A.M. and they were wrestling and practically shouting. By now the abundant THC supply in the baked goods had kicked in, and I am almost certain there was a whole lot else in there too. I wanted to play wii more than I ever had before, but this Ben character, which I have never met before in my life, wouldn’t give it to me. I wanted to punch him in the face, and nick west and nick izzi were crying they were laughing so hard. We shot each other with the nerf guns that my brother got for Christmas for about an hour. I’m a much better shot than he is, and I kept on hitting him in his face. I was panting when he finally gave up. It’s been a really long night. I wasn’t furious, just pissed.
They ended up crashing on my brother’s lovesac. I got them each on some sort of a sleeping area. One was on my brother’s lovesac, on on his bed, and one on my sister’s bed. Once they all were settled and comfortable, I left them to be and got to my writing. I even helped Ben, after everything he had done, make oatmeal and sleep on my sister’s bed. I asked him not to go in her room with his shoes on, it’s been her rule since she got her new white carpet. He went into the room with his shoes on and got stains all over the carpet.
I think I’m going to get in trouble for that one. I said he could do it if he didn’t touch anything and didn’t wear his shoes inside. I really have come to hate having people over, which is very frustrating in the winter. The last time I had a friend bring a friend over, he left a burning marijuana cigarette on my mattress and almost lit the house on fire, but that’s a whole different story for another time.
I’ve been enjoying my music and my new computer. It all feels really good. It’s so great that I think I can stay up till 6:30 A.M. and still have enough fuel to keep on writing, but the cookies I took before aren’t very helpful.
Oh no, my laundry load is done. I’ve got to go put the wash load into the drier, more of the dirty clothes in the washer, and keep everything quiet. This is a tough one. I’ll be back soon to record when I should pick it up. I’ve got to get a lot done here. This won’t be easy but it’s very important.
Laundry is such a damned pain at The Gunnery. It’s expensive and far from cost efficient. The new laundry machines at home use less soap and are very quiet. I just got it done at around
Since I put a new load of the laundry in at 6:30 A.M, I need to pick it up by 7:30 A.M. I still have a whole bunch of loads left to do, so I’m not sure if I will be able to sleep or finish the laundry. Things are getting slow.
I’m starting to get drowsy, and I’ve put on the episode of 30 ROCK season 2 with Jerry Seinfeld. It’s good, but I need something to wake up already.
I’m not sure what to do, because time moves slowly now, so it’s becoming harder to stay up writing. I’m out of creative ideas and I’m ready to sleep, but I’m not tired.
Oh my god what is this amazing website. This is the key to my 20 pages being done before I get back on campus. This is going to be the most helpful Internet find since stumble Upon, which I found recently. In all
honesty though I don’t usually find great stuff on the Internet.
My brother just walked into the room, and he looks pissed. Shit, I left my friend on his bed. I was about to go to sleep, but I hate being on bad terms with him, so I let him sleep in my bed. It didn’t effect me, I wasn’t in the slightest bit tired.
FOREIGN DRIVING
Vehicle, style, and continent
Driving in a new or unfamiliar car usually makes me feel uncomfortable as a driver. I consider myself a fairly competent driver. I don’t think I’m going to crash any time soon, but I certainly recognize that there is plenty of room for improvement. When I take a car I’ve never driven before though, I always feel a little lost. It makes me anxious, and I get an unsettling feeling in my stomach. I think I’m wider than I really am or think I can turn easier than I can or some other issue I am left second-guessing. What’s even worse, though, is driving a new style of car. The first two cars that I drove in my life were my grandfather’s ’76 Cadillac El Dorado and my mother’s Land Rover. The El Dorado is all white with white leather interior, red trimmings, and a matching red dashboard. It has a long, wide body, complete with long fins and an off-white soft convertible top. Because of its age, the back of one side of the car reads l Dora, but the other side says El Dorado like it should. This car is infamous in my family because of its history as a driver’s education vehicle. My grandfather likes it because the front and back rows are single blocks, so he can control the gas and brakes if he needs to. Once he lets you drive it alone, though, it is like being in a club. It’s like being made in an Italian mafia or having your bar mitzvah if you’re Jewish. Getting to drive that car alone is my grandfather’s blessing that you can drive competently, and that is not easy to achieve. He founded the national car safety foundation, so as I am sure you can imagine his standards are very high for safe driving. Once you’re in the club, it doesn’t sound stupid to call that car “the boat.” For some reason, it always sounded foolish when I called the El Dorado a boat. After I could drive it though, it made sense because it quite literally drives more like a boat than a car. None of us like to drive it, but it certainly is fun pulling out of the driveway in such a beast of a car. All it needs is some Puerto Rican hookers and some fuzzy dice and the package is complete.
The second car, the Land Rover, gave me a whole new meaning to the term “boat” as far as cars go. The first time I took the Land Rover for a drive, I felt like I was in a sports car. Never after that did the boat seem to drive as fast. Nothing feels as slow as the boat. The Land Rover isn’t much to look at when it’s next to the boat. Its dark green with tan interior and has what I like to call the boxcar look. That’s when there isn’t any flow in the structure of the car, so it looks like an engine box next to a cabin box and four wheels. It’s my least favorite look for any type of vehicle. There really isn’t any magic in the Land Rover like there is in the El Dorado. It’s the first car I drove that feels like driving a car, which is nice. It was the first car where I thought about driving on the left side of the road.
When I went to Croatia for the first time, my dad rented a car. He drove a stick shift for the first time in over 20 years and I have never been more scared in a car. He didn’t deserve to drive in the country, but it took him a total of ten minutes to get his international license. It made me worry about people from England coming to the United States and renting a car. They drive on the wrong side of the road and with the wrong foot. It would take me years in the least to learn to drive smoothly with my left foot. I get nauseous just contemplating driving with my left foot. That seems to me like a law that needs to be fixed. I don’t understand the benefit of having some countries drive on the right and some countries on the left. More than that, it means that cars European cars in the United States are built reversed from their original design.
KOREAN DOCTOR
the curious case of the strange disease
My dad is dating a Korean doctor who he loves to talk about. He always says, “Did I tell you I am dating a Korean doctor.” He tells me that she has a kid with a rare medical disease, which is funny to him because his girlfriend’s ex husband is also a doctor, and the two doctors never noticed a very rare but strange disease. “Her daughter’s insides are all reversed, so her heart is on the right side and her throat cilia send the food back up. Isn’t that funny?” he would say. “It’s a very rare disease, but how could neither the mom or dad notice when they went to take her pulse or something.” The idea of a disease where all of your organs are switched in your body fascinates me. If she gets surgery, it would be so easy to cut something wrong if they don’t know where anything is. The worst part is that the girl is in her early teens and is finding out that everything in her body is not in its right place. She even has trouble eating because she becomes congested by all of her food being pushed up her throat by her confused organs. I’d love to understand how such a thing can happen and what other health issues could be caused by it.
PROMPT 255:
12 good reasons to sleep in are as follows:
1. School is just not for you
2. You’re still burnt out/reasonably hung over
3. You don’t feel well
4. You stayed up way too late
5. It feels so nice
6. You’re with someone else
7. It’s easy to snooze
8. You ate a big meal last night
9. It makes sense
10. You have to get up early every other day
11. New sheets, pillows, blankets etc.
12. Can you think of 12 reasons not to sleep in?
PROMPT 40
20 things that annoy you are…writing about a few
1. People who don’t call you back 11. Surprisingly difficult prompts
2. squeaky voices 12. jealousy
3. fools 13. music off key
4. death metal music 14. Infomercials
5. people who abuse facebook 15. too many keys
6. humidity 16. bad service areas
7. punk rock kids 17. winding country roads
8. salt 18. bad amusement parks
9. icy sidewalks 19. the wrong order from delivery
10. overpriced goods 20. headaches
2. squeaky voices, more specifically high squeaky voices, are what really makes my teeth clench. I HATE squeaky voices more than anything I can think of right now. The perfect example, if you can’t hear it in your head, is stereotypical rich, dumb blonde, high school cheerleaders.
19. never before I got to the gunnery have I experienced with such repetition a main moon, all aboard, or Washington pizza delivery go horribly wrong for the customer. And the customer is NEVER right. Not never without long angry complaints. They have been spoiled rotten with their monopoly of good food for gunnery students and expect no problems when they charge too much or forget to bring a few meals. It is a terrible order experience and I am terribly annoyed by their existence.
4. in death metal music, I see loads of incredibly talented musicians playing bad music really fast. It isn’t cool to be a metal head and I am sick of my friends obsessing over it.
PROMPT UNKNOWN
Write about a habit you find hard to break
Recently, I have been continually biting my nails. They’ve been shorter than is comfortable since I started, but I can’t seem to bring myself to stop it. Its an annoying nervous habit that I wish I would stop. I don’t think its too big a deal, but I don’t like that I chew on my fingernails because I end up with a bad taste on my first few teeth.
PROMPT 231
7 worst things to say to a person who just got dumped
1. good for him/her
2. you are way too fat (to her)
3. my life is so much better than yours
4. (laugh hysterically)
5. can I hit that then?
6. sing “Scotty doesn’t know”
7. you don’t deserve him/her
PROMPT 305
List 20 rules you’ve broken (revised to 5)
1. j walking
2. being in a dorm mates’ room after lights out
3. drink from the OJ bottle
4. forget to feed cats
5. being on AIM during ESH
PROMPT 303
Catching the signal from one of her friends, Angela brushed her skirt, took a deep breath and walked towards where he was sitting…
He grinned, and welcomed her to his table. She softly replied, “get up”, turned around, and walked through the doors with him following closely behind her. Angela marched quickly to the side of the restaurant and turned sharp around the corner. He started up a brisk pace and bumped into her as he turned the corner. Angela was holding her bag open in one hand and had a knife in the other. “Give me your wallet,” Angela said. He stood there, stunned, as his hopeful hook-up turned out to be a theft. She put the knife up to his chest and made a gesture suggesting him to speed up. He gave it to her and asked to leave. “Come with me” she said. He walked in front of her with her knife to his back about 30 feet to her car. “Get in.” He got in and sat staring straight into her eyes. She walked around the backside of the car and got in to the driver’s seat. She pulled out of the lot and started down the state border. She saw him fidgeting and put the blade against the back of his hand. He stopped moving at all for a minute or two. Suddenly, he turned and grabbed the radio knob and turned it onto full volume. He reached down to his right calf and grabbed a small revolver handgun. She put the knife near him and swung like she was going to cut him, but he leaned against the window well out of range. Once she saw the gun she froze her hand and dropped the knife. “Turn right here,” he said. He proceeded to give her directions for another five minutes on curvy, dim lit back roads, but other than that there was perfect silence. She pulled over on his command and he got out, gun still pointed at her. “Thanks for the ride, babe” he said. He turned around and ran into a forest.
PROMPT 242
10 reasons to skip bathing (revised to 8 showering)
1. sick dread locks
2. more alone time
3. rock the bed head look
4. run pimple experiment
5. can’t afford hair gel
6. avoid annoying people
7. get back at roommate
8. slide better on slip & slide
PROMPT 30
Write an excuse for not working today
Dear senior editor of the Boston globe,
I had every intention to finish my report this weekend. This morning, when I woke up and walked to the store to get breakfast, I was struck in the back of my head with a small stone. I turned, and was punched in the face by a large middle-eastern mafia soldier. When I woke up, I was sitting in a chair with built in cuffs in what looked like a high tech containment chair. Suddenly, my ears popped from what felt like a takeoff in a helicopter but was completely silent. I ascended in some sort of spacecraft to what felt like high above the city. After a series of examinations and tests both physical and mental which I will not describe in further detail for personal reasons, I was dropped off gently and discreetly in central park.
PROMPT 228
Write about a thing you feel should not have been invented
Metal and grindcore style music drives me crazy. I love music, and even though I went through a period where I grew my hair out and obsessed with slipknot, etc. I don’t see the benefit of having it around and I don’t like the angry craziness that ensues from its noises.
PROMPT 71
write about a memory related to a holiday (revised to birthday)
On my who knows which birthday, my father and his mother were very upset at my disinterest in having cake. They were very angry, so I told my dad that I’d get any cake he wants, but I won’t eat it. I knew it would drive him crazy, and I was right. Such little things drive him so crazy sometimes. He got cupcakes to surprise me, making the argument that I must eat at least a bite of the cupcakes or cake. I refused, like it would be a big deal at all for me to eat a bite of cake. I never agree to things like that though. He got mad, and we began to yell at each other. I can’t remember, but it is a safe guess to say that his mother, my “nana,” was nagging about how I was causing so much aggravation for my father. She really drives me crazy. So she was harassing me and my dad was screaming at me, until suddenly my dad picked up a cupcake and threw it at me. I moved out of the way, and it his frosting side first the bookshelf. There was frosting on a handful of books, and he had to go clean it up. I really never will understand how he manages his temper.
PROMPT 7
Think of 12 things to do when there’s no power
1. light some candles
2. start a fire
3. play a sport
4. go for a walk
5. make a card game
6. write a journal
7. take a nap
8. go fishing
9. have a water balloon fight
10. teach yourself about the wiring
11. go for a drive
12. go swimming
PROMPT 162
Use “a culture of solitude,” “faithful blue sky,” “where we still discover” in a poem
Above the treacherous forest
Under the faithful blue sky
A small town slept in the darkness
Into the shadows where the others remain hidden
A culture of solitude
An army of few
They dream about freedom
In a trance of contentment
Zombies working from day to day
Happiness is only an idea
Where we can still discover
Emotion is false
Truth is meaningless
PROMPT 30
Write an excuse for not working today
Last night was a long and troublesome night. I was greeted in the dorm by an overloading workload and an aching headache. When things seemed at their most unfortunate, I discovered I had done the wrong exercises for one class and the wrong questions for another. It was a long night where I spent hour after hour doing everything I would have done today. My point being that either way, my work for today is completed. In fact, I was planning on asking you if I could do this every day. It was rather nice. Basically, I didn’t get work done today because I didn’t have anything to do and because I was thinking about not doing work. That seems good enough for me, how about you?
PROMPT 51
List 10 things you can do with tissue paper and write about one
1. draw on it
2. blow your nose
3. toss infront of a fan and watch it fly around
4. change lightbulb coloring
5. fold for origami
6. paper mache in color
7. make snowflakes
8. wrap a gift
9. light on fire. Watch.
10.write about
Everyone has done at least a little paper mache-ing where I’m from. It’s just something that you do before you’re done with art class. Everyone has the same problem with paper mache- it’s all black and white. Nobody ever wants to make a big black and white paper mache sculpture. If paper mache were more popular, it would be directly related to the emergence of colored tissue paper in its creation. Newspaper is the go-to paper for all paper mache. Think about it, when was the last time you were going to make a really cool and colorful paper mache structure and everyone near you said no. If you’re normal, it was probably a really long time ago, and that’s okay. Its okay because you were the one who wanted to make the cool and colorful structure. Don’t you ever wish that your friends cared about paper mache as much as you do? I sure do, all the time in fact. It’s absurd that paper mache from tissue paper isn’t more popular. What was that? What did you just say? I’m getting groundbreaking news that tissue paper is too thin and flimsy to make paper mache, and since construction paper is too thick, paper mache will have to stay in its authentic black and white colors until further paper mache technology has been created.
PROMPT 66
What’s the worst meal you’ve had? Write about it in the present tense
Easily, no questions asked, the worst meal I have had in the last 18 years, 6 months, and 7 days of my life has been this beef stroganoff at The Gunnery. These mealy “beef” strips, which closely resembles food that a starving dog would turns down, are the poorest excuse for edible I can imagine. I’m not even sure it is edible. And what a surprise, there is pasta again. One day, when we remarkably don’t have pasta for advisor lunch, the earth will stand still. Pasta, pasta, pasta, and then more pasta. The school must have a sponsorship with a pasta company to make this much pasta. Its never good pasta either, always tolerable or bad. Someone really should do something about that. The worst part about the beef stroganoff is that it’s served on a fairly regular basis. For some reason, even though almost none of the food is eaten after every advisor lunch, the dining hall staff is under the utterly false impression that it is a popular meal. I shouldn’t say that, it is not true. Beef stroganoff is a very popular meal, everybody talks about how bad it is all the time.
GOOGLEY BOOGLEY
Screamed the pirate
“Googley Boogley” screams the pirate as he jumps in front of you. You pause for a moment as your heart skips a beat, then as a reflex punch him in the throat. He makes a gagging noise and falls to the ground with a load thump. You think he’s dead, but he starts to regain air in his lungs and slides the knife on his belt out of its sheath. You turn around and run as fast as you can, faster than you ever have. You run down the hallway in the ship and turn into one of the rooms with an open door.
You shut it and lock it as fast as you can, securing you from the angry pirate screaming in the hallway. You close your eyes, turn, and lean against the door while you exhale a panicked sigh and slide down the door. You open your eyes and see that you are in the mess hall, and there are too many pirates to count. They haven’t noticed you yet, so you turn around. The door you locked for your own safety has jammed and there is no way out.
The mob of pirates is grunting while wolfing down inhumane amounts of food. You walk slowly to the other exit, and just as you are about to crawl into the shadows, you hear “aargh, we gots us an trespasser now. Ahoy! That way.” You peek around your shoulder and see the entire mess hall is running towards you. You slam the door behind you, breaking a few fingers of an abnormally tall and scary looking man. If he got near you, he could and would kill you accidentally. A pirate ship’s small corridors are no place for a giant man. You dart out of his threat and run up the first flight of stairs you see.
At the top of the stairs was a hatch that you punch open and climb up to the main deck. You close the hatch and push some heavy crates over it. There is a dingy to your left, which you must leap onto before the pirates on deck notice. You don’t make it in time, and they shoot a hole into the dingy. You run to the back of the boat and take the sword lying on a crate out of its sheath. You scope out whom to go after, but you are distracted by a sound. Something you have heard before. “Googley boogley,” the pirate from before shouted as he swung towards you on a rope. You swing your sword at him, but miss and he sways over to the other side of the boat. You wait for just the right time, then swing your sword with a mighty blow He swings like a pendulum over the other side of the boat and goes flying through the air and into the water. You turn, waiting for an attack from another pirate. They are staring at you with a look of approval. You have killed their captain and you are now the king of all.
PROMPTS FOUND AT
http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/
By Farsh
Pledge Observed:
POST PROMPT 30 hold up
An episode of writer’s block
I had a prompt asking me to begin a story with a predetermined sentence. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out where to go with the story, and when I finally figured out something and finished a long paragraph, I reread it and knew I needed to get rid of it. Now, I’m writing about my issues in writing the piece. I didn’t think it’d be so difficult to work with the prompts, but it was pretty damned hard.
JOURNAL OF THE DAY
A memoir of that one odd night
I’m going to not mention quite a bit of the night for the convenience of the people involved. Please do not hold this against me, and you should know that some of the following is fiction and some is fact. I will leave you to make that decision.
It is currently 5:20 in the A.M. and I am just beginning to settle down. I have put in my dissolving whitening strips, which makes my teeth feel slimy and sour. The first load is finally in the crappy new washer, which takes small loads and a full hour. I absolutely must pick it up in one our, 6:20 A.M. and I don’t think I’ll be tired yet.
I can feel my heartbeat slowly moving down to it’s normal pace. What a dull but eventful sequence of events my Saturday from The Gunnery turned out to include. I am glad I can try to recall the past. Here we go.
I left from The Gunnery School right before 10 A.M. because my brother and I both have the second Saturday block off. My dad always lets me drive back to NYC and to The Gunnery because he admittedly does not like to drive and it’s good practice for me.
On the drive back, my dad spoke nonchalantly about a likely job offer to be a partner at his new firm. He hasn’t even been there for a year and he might become a partner. I can’t imagine him not doing it, but he seems so bummed I feel like he might not. It was really strange, and my brother fully agreed with me on it’s peculiarity.
We got back and hung out at my mom’s house while we waited for my sister to come from the east side. My mom lives on the west. It was my dad’s first time in the apartment in over a decade. For the first seven or so years of my life, he lived there with us and things were kind of awkward when we were showing him around. He’s always been really discomforted since I moved in with my mom. It’s not completely official, or at least he doesn’t want to think it is. He’s always asking me to come over like I’m on a sleepover.
It’s not that I don’t like him or anything. I’m not in a good situation with his mother, who is over there often, and he knows it. He hates it, and it makes our relationship hang on the wire all the time.
Also, when on the first night my siblings and I were going to stay at his house, I forgot my flashlight and refused to sleep at his house without it. I kind of feel a little guilty now because I have actually ceased to live at his house.
Anyways, back to the story. Right before lunch, my sister and I had a great and fulfilling chat. She and I don’t talk much, which is because I don’t like her friends, she doesn’t like my friends, and my brother and I hang out without her. It was nice to get a good one on one chat with the unknown close family. That’s one of the most frustrating parts of boarding school unless your sibling goes with you; you get separated from everyone you used to be close with. My brother goes with me, so we have gotten much closer.
Next, I was alone in my room playing computer games while my brother hung out with his girlfriend in his room. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that. I was sitting back and relaxing on one of my rare days off, continually procrastinating starting my midterm portfolio.
You see, I have been overly busy doing college work and I forgot to start the 20 page creative writing portfolio due in one week. I still have loads of other work to do, so I decided to stay up all night on a caffeine rage and get out the full 20 pages.
It was supposed to be a bit of an experiment with my teacher, where I was curious if writing 19 pages of poetry till 6 in the morning will improve the creative qualities of my writing by the 20th page from practice or lessen the writer’s creative skills from the drowsiness.
Of course, there is the chance that the drowsiness will improve the creative writing and the 19 pages long warm up will tire the creative being. It is a difficult thing that I intend to figure out.
Anyway, the night before this whole debacle occurred, I found out through facebook and AIM that my old dorm mate nick izzi was going to be in NYC coincidentally with his friend nick west. They came over with a colleague, which brought upon the strangest of situations.
My guests nick west and nick izzi were in a room with my brother nick Strelov. There were so many nicks in that one room. Nick must be such a popular name for this generation. I called to my brother “nick” and all three turned to me. It got so confusing, I took nick izzi and nick west to my room, where we indulged in delicious treats that nick izzi’s friend brought. He neglected to inform me of their narcotic ingredients.
Oh by the way, you should know that when nick, nick, and their friend Ben came to the house, which was at about 4 in the morning, my brother’s girlfriend had already gone back to New Jersey and his friend from our old elementary school, Connor Coleman, took her place. I guess I prefer Connor to his new girlfriend Sarah. I can’t put my finger on whether or not I like Sarah. She seems nice enough, but she seems like she might have a mysterious side.
Nick got a body piercing, and I guess its kind of nick’s new look, but I would have thought he wouldn’t want it. I can’t see it in his attitude to get a piercing at St. Marks place, but I guess it almost looks cool. I’d never want one though. It could get infected. St. Marks place has the most shady piercing/tattoo parlors I have ever seen. They all don’t care how old you are and sell hundreds of “tobacco” glass pipes. I think it was his girlfriend who convinced him to get it, but he says it was his idea.
All right, I’ll get back on track. The nicks and co. were tired and loud. They were being very disrespectful, seeing as it was 5 A.M. and they were wrestling and practically shouting. By now the abundant THC supply in the baked goods had kicked in, and I am almost certain there was a whole lot else in there too. I wanted to play wii more than I ever had before, but this Ben character, which I have never met before in my life, wouldn’t give it to me. I wanted to punch him in the face, and nick west and nick izzi were crying they were laughing so hard. We shot each other with the nerf guns that my brother got for Christmas for about an hour. I’m a much better shot than he is, and I kept on hitting him in his face. I was panting when he finally gave up. It’s been a really long night. I wasn’t furious, just pissed.
They ended up crashing on my brother’s lovesac. I got them each on some sort of a sleeping area. One was on my brother’s lovesac, on on his bed, and one on my sister’s bed. Once they all were settled and comfortable, I left them to be and got to my writing. I even helped Ben, after everything he had done, make oatmeal and sleep on my sister’s bed. I asked him not to go in her room with his shoes on, it’s been her rule since she got her new white carpet. He went into the room with his shoes on and got stains all over the carpet.
I think I’m going to get in trouble for that one. I said he could do it if he didn’t touch anything and didn’t wear his shoes inside. I really have come to hate having people over, which is very frustrating in the winter. The last time I had a friend bring a friend over, he left a burning marijuana cigarette on my mattress and almost lit the house on fire, but that’s a whole different story for another time.
I’ve been enjoying my music and my new computer. It all feels really good. It’s so great that I think I can stay up till 6:30 A.M. and still have enough fuel to keep on writing, but the cookies I took before aren’t very helpful.
Oh no, my laundry load is done. I’ve got to go put the wash load into the drier, more of the dirty clothes in the washer, and keep everything quiet. This is a tough one. I’ll be back soon to record when I should pick it up. I’ve got to get a lot done here. This won’t be easy but it’s very important.
Laundry is such a damned pain at The Gunnery. It’s expensive and far from cost efficient. The new laundry machines at home use less soap and are very quiet. I just got it done at around
Since I put a new load of the laundry in at 6:30 A.M, I need to pick it up by 7:30 A.M. I still have a whole bunch of loads left to do, so I’m not sure if I will be able to sleep or finish the laundry. Things are getting slow.
I’m starting to get drowsy, and I’ve put on the episode of 30 ROCK season 2 with Jerry Seinfeld. It’s good, but I need something to wake up already.
I’m not sure what to do, because time moves slowly now, so it’s becoming harder to stay up writing. I’m out of creative ideas and I’m ready to sleep, but I’m not tired.
Oh my god what is this amazing website. This is the key to my 20 pages being done before I get back on campus. This is going to be the most helpful Internet find since stumble Upon, which I found recently. In all
honesty though I don’t usually find great stuff on the Internet.
My brother just walked into the room, and he looks pissed. Shit, I left my friend on his bed. I was about to go to sleep, but I hate being on bad terms with him, so I let him sleep in my bed. It didn’t effect me, I wasn’t in the slightest bit tired.
FOREIGN DRIVING
Vehicle, style, and continent
Driving in a new or unfamiliar car usually makes me feel uncomfortable as a driver. I consider myself a fairly competent driver. I don’t think I’m going to crash any time soon, but I certainly recognize that there is plenty of room for improvement. When I take a car I’ve never driven before though, I always feel a little lost. It makes me anxious, and I get an unsettling feeling in my stomach. I think I’m wider than I really am or think I can turn easier than I can or some other issue I am left second-guessing. What’s even worse, though, is driving a new style of car. The first two cars that I drove in my life were my grandfather’s ’76 Cadillac El Dorado and my mother’s Land Rover. The El Dorado is all white with white leather interior, red trimmings, and a matching red dashboard. It has a long, wide body, complete with long fins and an off-white soft convertible top. Because of its age, the back of one side of the car reads l Dora, but the other side says El Dorado like it should. This car is infamous in my family because of its history as a driver’s education vehicle. My grandfather likes it because the front and back rows are single blocks, so he can control the gas and brakes if he needs to. Once he lets you drive it alone, though, it is like being in a club. It’s like being made in an Italian mafia or having your bar mitzvah if you’re Jewish. Getting to drive that car alone is my grandfather’s blessing that you can drive competently, and that is not easy to achieve. He founded the national car safety foundation, so as I am sure you can imagine his standards are very high for safe driving. Once you’re in the club, it doesn’t sound stupid to call that car “the boat.” For some reason, it always sounded foolish when I called the El Dorado a boat. After I could drive it though, it made sense because it quite literally drives more like a boat than a car. None of us like to drive it, but it certainly is fun pulling out of the driveway in such a beast of a car. All it needs is some Puerto Rican hookers and some fuzzy dice and the package is complete.
The second car, the Land Rover, gave me a whole new meaning to the term “boat” as far as cars go. The first time I took the Land Rover for a drive, I felt like I was in a sports car. Never after that did the boat seem to drive as fast. Nothing feels as slow as the boat. The Land Rover isn’t much to look at when it’s next to the boat. Its dark green with tan interior and has what I like to call the boxcar look. That’s when there isn’t any flow in the structure of the car, so it looks like an engine box next to a cabin box and four wheels. It’s my least favorite look for any type of vehicle. There really isn’t any magic in the Land Rover like there is in the El Dorado. It’s the first car I drove that feels like driving a car, which is nice. It was the first car where I thought about driving on the left side of the road.
When I went to Croatia for the first time, my dad rented a car. He drove a stick shift for the first time in over 20 years and I have never been more scared in a car. He didn’t deserve to drive in the country, but it took him a total of ten minutes to get his international license. It made me worry about people from England coming to the United States and renting a car. They drive on the wrong side of the road and with the wrong foot. It would take me years in the least to learn to drive smoothly with my left foot. I get nauseous just contemplating driving with my left foot. That seems to me like a law that needs to be fixed. I don’t understand the benefit of having some countries drive on the right and some countries on the left. More than that, it means that cars European cars in the United States are built reversed from their original design.
KOREAN DOCTOR
the curious case of the strange disease
My dad is dating a Korean doctor who he loves to talk about. He always says, “Did I tell you I am dating a Korean doctor.” He tells me that she has a kid with a rare medical disease, which is funny to him because his girlfriend’s ex husband is also a doctor, and the two doctors never noticed a very rare but strange disease. “Her daughter’s insides are all reversed, so her heart is on the right side and her throat cilia send the food back up. Isn’t that funny?” he would say. “It’s a very rare disease, but how could neither the mom or dad notice when they went to take her pulse or something.” The idea of a disease where all of your organs are switched in your body fascinates me. If she gets surgery, it would be so easy to cut something wrong if they don’t know where anything is. The worst part is that the girl is in her early teens and is finding out that everything in her body is not in its right place. She even has trouble eating because she becomes congested by all of her food being pushed up her throat by her confused organs. I’d love to understand how such a thing can happen and what other health issues could be caused by it.
PROMPT 255:
12 good reasons to sleep in are as follows:
1. School is just not for you
2. You’re still burnt out/reasonably hung over
3. You don’t feel well
4. You stayed up way too late
5. It feels so nice
6. You’re with someone else
7. It’s easy to snooze
8. You ate a big meal last night
9. It makes sense
10. You have to get up early every other day
11. New sheets, pillows, blankets etc.
12. Can you think of 12 reasons not to sleep in?
PROMPT 40
20 things that annoy you are…writing about a few
1. People who don’t call you back 11. Surprisingly difficult prompts
2. squeaky voices 12. jealousy
3. fools 13. music off key
4. death metal music 14. Infomercials
5. people who abuse facebook 15. too many keys
6. humidity 16. bad service areas
7. punk rock kids 17. winding country roads
8. salt 18. bad amusement parks
9. icy sidewalks 19. the wrong order from delivery
10. overpriced goods 20. headaches
2. squeaky voices, more specifically high squeaky voices, are what really makes my teeth clench. I HATE squeaky voices more than anything I can think of right now. The perfect example, if you can’t hear it in your head, is stereotypical rich, dumb blonde, high school cheerleaders.
19. never before I got to the gunnery have I experienced with such repetition a main moon, all aboard, or Washington pizza delivery go horribly wrong for the customer. And the customer is NEVER right. Not never without long angry complaints. They have been spoiled rotten with their monopoly of good food for gunnery students and expect no problems when they charge too much or forget to bring a few meals. It is a terrible order experience and I am terribly annoyed by their existence.
4. in death metal music, I see loads of incredibly talented musicians playing bad music really fast. It isn’t cool to be a metal head and I am sick of my friends obsessing over it.
PROMPT UNKNOWN
Write about a habit you find hard to break
Recently, I have been continually biting my nails. They’ve been shorter than is comfortable since I started, but I can’t seem to bring myself to stop it. Its an annoying nervous habit that I wish I would stop. I don’t think its too big a deal, but I don’t like that I chew on my fingernails because I end up with a bad taste on my first few teeth.
PROMPT 231
7 worst things to say to a person who just got dumped
1. good for him/her
2. you are way too fat (to her)
3. my life is so much better than yours
4. (laugh hysterically)
5. can I hit that then?
6. sing “Scotty doesn’t know”
7. you don’t deserve him/her
PROMPT 305
List 20 rules you’ve broken (revised to 5)
1. j walking
2. being in a dorm mates’ room after lights out
3. drink from the OJ bottle
4. forget to feed cats
5. being on AIM during ESH
PROMPT 303
Catching the signal from one of her friends, Angela brushed her skirt, took a deep breath and walked towards where he was sitting…
He grinned, and welcomed her to his table. She softly replied, “get up”, turned around, and walked through the doors with him following closely behind her. Angela marched quickly to the side of the restaurant and turned sharp around the corner. He started up a brisk pace and bumped into her as he turned the corner. Angela was holding her bag open in one hand and had a knife in the other. “Give me your wallet,” Angela said. He stood there, stunned, as his hopeful hook-up turned out to be a theft. She put the knife up to his chest and made a gesture suggesting him to speed up. He gave it to her and asked to leave. “Come with me” she said. He walked in front of her with her knife to his back about 30 feet to her car. “Get in.” He got in and sat staring straight into her eyes. She walked around the backside of the car and got in to the driver’s seat. She pulled out of the lot and started down the state border. She saw him fidgeting and put the blade against the back of his hand. He stopped moving at all for a minute or two. Suddenly, he turned and grabbed the radio knob and turned it onto full volume. He reached down to his right calf and grabbed a small revolver handgun. She put the knife near him and swung like she was going to cut him, but he leaned against the window well out of range. Once she saw the gun she froze her hand and dropped the knife. “Turn right here,” he said. He proceeded to give her directions for another five minutes on curvy, dim lit back roads, but other than that there was perfect silence. She pulled over on his command and he got out, gun still pointed at her. “Thanks for the ride, babe” he said. He turned around and ran into a forest.
PROMPT 242
10 reasons to skip bathing (revised to 8 showering)
1. sick dread locks
2. more alone time
3. rock the bed head look
4. run pimple experiment
5. can’t afford hair gel
6. avoid annoying people
7. get back at roommate
8. slide better on slip & slide
PROMPT 30
Write an excuse for not working today
Dear senior editor of the Boston globe,
I had every intention to finish my report this weekend. This morning, when I woke up and walked to the store to get breakfast, I was struck in the back of my head with a small stone. I turned, and was punched in the face by a large middle-eastern mafia soldier. When I woke up, I was sitting in a chair with built in cuffs in what looked like a high tech containment chair. Suddenly, my ears popped from what felt like a takeoff in a helicopter but was completely silent. I ascended in some sort of spacecraft to what felt like high above the city. After a series of examinations and tests both physical and mental which I will not describe in further detail for personal reasons, I was dropped off gently and discreetly in central park.
PROMPT 228
Write about a thing you feel should not have been invented
Metal and grindcore style music drives me crazy. I love music, and even though I went through a period where I grew my hair out and obsessed with slipknot, etc. I don’t see the benefit of having it around and I don’t like the angry craziness that ensues from its noises.
PROMPT 71
write about a memory related to a holiday (revised to birthday)
On my who knows which birthday, my father and his mother were very upset at my disinterest in having cake. They were very angry, so I told my dad that I’d get any cake he wants, but I won’t eat it. I knew it would drive him crazy, and I was right. Such little things drive him so crazy sometimes. He got cupcakes to surprise me, making the argument that I must eat at least a bite of the cupcakes or cake. I refused, like it would be a big deal at all for me to eat a bite of cake. I never agree to things like that though. He got mad, and we began to yell at each other. I can’t remember, but it is a safe guess to say that his mother, my “nana,” was nagging about how I was causing so much aggravation for my father. She really drives me crazy. So she was harassing me and my dad was screaming at me, until suddenly my dad picked up a cupcake and threw it at me. I moved out of the way, and it his frosting side first the bookshelf. There was frosting on a handful of books, and he had to go clean it up. I really never will understand how he manages his temper.
PROMPT 7
Think of 12 things to do when there’s no power
1. light some candles
2. start a fire
3. play a sport
4. go for a walk
5. make a card game
6. write a journal
7. take a nap
8. go fishing
9. have a water balloon fight
10. teach yourself about the wiring
11. go for a drive
12. go swimming
PROMPT 162
Use “a culture of solitude,” “faithful blue sky,” “where we still discover” in a poem
Above the treacherous forest
Under the faithful blue sky
A small town slept in the darkness
Into the shadows where the others remain hidden
A culture of solitude
An army of few
They dream about freedom
In a trance of contentment
Zombies working from day to day
Happiness is only an idea
Where we can still discover
Emotion is false
Truth is meaningless
PROMPT 30
Write an excuse for not working today
Last night was a long and troublesome night. I was greeted in the dorm by an overloading workload and an aching headache. When things seemed at their most unfortunate, I discovered I had done the wrong exercises for one class and the wrong questions for another. It was a long night where I spent hour after hour doing everything I would have done today. My point being that either way, my work for today is completed. In fact, I was planning on asking you if I could do this every day. It was rather nice. Basically, I didn’t get work done today because I didn’t have anything to do and because I was thinking about not doing work. That seems good enough for me, how about you?
PROMPT 51
List 10 things you can do with tissue paper and write about one
1. draw on it
2. blow your nose
3. toss infront of a fan and watch it fly around
4. change lightbulb coloring
5. fold for origami
6. paper mache in color
7. make snowflakes
8. wrap a gift
9. light on fire. Watch.
10.write about
Everyone has done at least a little paper mache-ing where I’m from. It’s just something that you do before you’re done with art class. Everyone has the same problem with paper mache- it’s all black and white. Nobody ever wants to make a big black and white paper mache sculpture. If paper mache were more popular, it would be directly related to the emergence of colored tissue paper in its creation. Newspaper is the go-to paper for all paper mache. Think about it, when was the last time you were going to make a really cool and colorful paper mache structure and everyone near you said no. If you’re normal, it was probably a really long time ago, and that’s okay. Its okay because you were the one who wanted to make the cool and colorful structure. Don’t you ever wish that your friends cared about paper mache as much as you do? I sure do, all the time in fact. It’s absurd that paper mache from tissue paper isn’t more popular. What was that? What did you just say? I’m getting groundbreaking news that tissue paper is too thin and flimsy to make paper mache, and since construction paper is too thick, paper mache will have to stay in its authentic black and white colors until further paper mache technology has been created.
PROMPT 66
What’s the worst meal you’ve had? Write about it in the present tense
Easily, no questions asked, the worst meal I have had in the last 18 years, 6 months, and 7 days of my life has been this beef stroganoff at The Gunnery. These mealy “beef” strips, which closely resembles food that a starving dog would turns down, are the poorest excuse for edible I can imagine. I’m not even sure it is edible. And what a surprise, there is pasta again. One day, when we remarkably don’t have pasta for advisor lunch, the earth will stand still. Pasta, pasta, pasta, and then more pasta. The school must have a sponsorship with a pasta company to make this much pasta. Its never good pasta either, always tolerable or bad. Someone really should do something about that. The worst part about the beef stroganoff is that it’s served on a fairly regular basis. For some reason, even though almost none of the food is eaten after every advisor lunch, the dining hall staff is under the utterly false impression that it is a popular meal. I shouldn’t say that, it is not true. Beef stroganoff is a very popular meal, everybody talks about how bad it is all the time.
GOOGLEY BOOGLEY
Screamed the pirate
“Googley Boogley” screams the pirate as he jumps in front of you. You pause for a moment as your heart skips a beat, then as a reflex punch him in the throat. He makes a gagging noise and falls to the ground with a load thump. You think he’s dead, but he starts to regain air in his lungs and slides the knife on his belt out of its sheath. You turn around and run as fast as you can, faster than you ever have. You run down the hallway in the ship and turn into one of the rooms with an open door.
You shut it and lock it as fast as you can, securing you from the angry pirate screaming in the hallway. You close your eyes, turn, and lean against the door while you exhale a panicked sigh and slide down the door. You open your eyes and see that you are in the mess hall, and there are too many pirates to count. They haven’t noticed you yet, so you turn around. The door you locked for your own safety has jammed and there is no way out.
The mob of pirates is grunting while wolfing down inhumane amounts of food. You walk slowly to the other exit, and just as you are about to crawl into the shadows, you hear “aargh, we gots us an trespasser now. Ahoy! That way.” You peek around your shoulder and see the entire mess hall is running towards you. You slam the door behind you, breaking a few fingers of an abnormally tall and scary looking man. If he got near you, he could and would kill you accidentally. A pirate ship’s small corridors are no place for a giant man. You dart out of his threat and run up the first flight of stairs you see.
At the top of the stairs was a hatch that you punch open and climb up to the main deck. You close the hatch and push some heavy crates over it. There is a dingy to your left, which you must leap onto before the pirates on deck notice. You don’t make it in time, and they shoot a hole into the dingy. You run to the back of the boat and take the sword lying on a crate out of its sheath. You scope out whom to go after, but you are distracted by a sound. Something you have heard before. “Googley boogley,” the pirate from before shouted as he swung towards you on a rope. You swing your sword at him, but miss and he sways over to the other side of the boat. You wait for just the right time, then swing your sword with a mighty blow He swings like a pendulum over the other side of the boat and goes flying through the air and into the water. You turn, waiting for an attack from another pirate. They are staring at you with a look of approval. You have killed their captain and you are now the king of all.
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Sunday, January 4, 2009
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