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thepauser

~ “I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)

thepauser

Monthly Archives: October 2014

Thursday Stretch: Joe’s Girl

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Fiction, Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

creative writing, fiction, short story, writing

Today, I conquer the pingback.  What follows is a daily post prompt to which I responded.  I also used a picture that I pulled out of my stuck bucket.  I’ll tell you more about the stuck bucket in next week’s paus(ed) post.  

Friday Fiction Coat Weather

He thought of her each night before sleeping.  Prayers said, tucked in, he stared out the window into the inky darkness and wished she were closer.  Her neck, a column of precious alabaster.  His hand would sometimes reach for her involuntarily, as if she were there, her gentle smile, her slender fingers.  Before falling asleep he said clever things to make her laugh.  He breathed deeply three times and smelled her perfumed hair.  He watched the ocean lap against her bright red toenails.

Once he’d had a headache, and she bent down to look in his face. “Aw, Ralphie,” she’d said, “Do you have a fever?”  She touched his forehead with the back of her hand.  To him, it felt like the lash of a whip, that sudden, that scorching. “Joe, I think he’s got a fever. Hey, Joe, your brother’s sick.”

“You sick, kid?” his brother asked.  He couldn’t decide.  What would a man do?  Would acting sick or acting well work more to win her favor?  The indecision stuck in his throat, and to his horror, he felt a tear forming in the corner of his right eye.  It pooled and puddled, dripping onto the kitchen linoleum with a loud plop.

He quickly turned to the refrigerator and opened it, seeking something, anything to change the landscape of his face.  “Well?” Joe prompted.

“I’m alright,” he said finally.  He reached into the open refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of pop, then sat down at the kitchen table.  He prayed they would leave soon.  The shame of loving his brother’s girl was starting to creep up his neck.  If they stayed, he might end up in an ambulance.

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “You drink that pop.  It’ll cool you down. When you finish, you can watch Perry Mason with us.”

“He ain’t watching anything with us.” Joe grabbed her hand and pulled her into the living room.  Ralph could hear the buzz of the television warming up.  He could hear her soft laughter.  Joe was in there nuzzling her, he bet.   “Ralph,” Joe shouted from the other room. “Go outside and play.”  His voice was a little bit like a growl.

Ralph knew what the growling was about.  He’d seen them together, tangled up in one another’s arms.  Joe had messed her hair up, and her lips looked punched.  He sat at the kitchen table thinking of how strange it was; they sounded like they were hurting each other, but they acted like they wanted to hurt each other some more. It made him feel like hitting something, like climbing a tree, like playing with the toy soldiers he’d loved a long time ago.

He finished his pop and went out the back, letting the screen slam behind him.  Winter was just beginning to edge its way into the neighborhood.  Although no snow had fallen, the cold barked his knuckles.  He stuffed them into his pockets and walked aimlessly around the yard, kicking pebbles across the brown grass. He thought of hurtful things to say to his brother.  You lost that football championship when you fumbled the ball.  Everyone says so behind your back.  He wished he had someone to play with.

She pushed open the screen door. “Ralph!  It’s too cold out here.”  The breeze flirted with her skirt, pushing it against the curve of her calf.  He noticed that she held a black coat in her arms.  She floated down the steps and walked across the yard to him.  His eyes filled with her face as she came nearer.

“Here, wear your brother’s hat and coat if you are going to play outside.”   She placed the hat on his head and turned up the brim.  Then she surrounded him with the coat, and for one moment he was in the circle of her embrace.  She buttoned up the coat and patted the lapel, over his chest.  “Now, you are ready to go.”  She smiled.  “It’s a little too big for you, but one day you’ll be a big handsome man like your brother.”

She turned to go back into the house.  Right before she closed the screen door, she turned to smile at him.   He smiled back, closing his eyes against the devastation of her light.
Trio No. 3

Paus(ed): The Comma, Can Change Everything.

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Education, Learning Theory, Writing Instruction, Writing Process

≈ Comments Off on Paus(ed): The Comma, Can Change Everything.

Tags

Gallagher's Write Like This, sentence construction skills, Sentence of the Week, writing skills

The playful title of today’s post, contributed by an eighth grade student, is so true.  The comma can change everything, not only in a sentence, but in our lives.  When he handed me the piece of paper with this statement written on it, he didn’t know that I’m on a year-long comma.  And one of the things I love about my comma is the opportunity to work part-time with children just like him.

Breaktime

This school year, I’m working on a wonderful and timely project called Write For Texas. Part of that job is to go into schools and work with teachers and students to improve both the quality and quantity of student writing.  To that end, I try writing activities with students that may not have been tried before.

Last week, I modeled an activity I called Sentence of the Week, sentence imitation work   adapted from Kelly Gallagher’s Write Like This.  Gallagher contends that students learn more about how sentences are constructed when they engage in both simulated and integrated practice.  When I designed the SOW model to use with Middle School students, the sequence of events was as follows: 1. Students simulated by copying three example sentences taken from a mentor text. 2. Students noticed what the three sentences had in common, discussing these similarities with a classmate and then with the whole class.  3. After a brief mini-lesson describing the type of sentences they were looking at (Compound sentences for the 6th graders, Complex for the 7th and 8th graders), they practiced writing these sentence types, first with a partner, and then alone.  I then encouraged them to use these sentence types in their future writings.  If these were the students in my classroom, I would require that they use compound or complex sentences in their writing for the next week, thus integrating their learning into their own writing.  I’m hopeful that their teachers will incorporate Sentence of the Week type activities into their lessons, because I feel that it’s a much more effective way to teach grammar than asking students (who know very little about how good sentences are constructed) to correct sentences that are written incorrectly.

http://www.amazon.com/Write-Like-This-Teaching-Real-World/dp/1571108963/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414617158&sr=8-1&keywords=write+like+this

I always try to get feedback from the students before I leave, asking what they liked about the activity, what questions they have, and what they learned.  Students made some interesting connections and observations about this activity that I’d like to share.

Nuts and Bolts

Some of the student feedback referred to the nuts and bolts of sentence construction. They talked about putting commas before conjunctions, and that there were commas in the middle of sentences that started with subordinating conjunctions. While their ideas were not fully developed, the ability to make the connection between a 20 minute lesson and a concrete action on their own part is encouraging.

Thinking about Thinking

Students told about their own thinking, with one student referring to the fact that this activity had made his brain work.  Even though these comments may seem unrelated to the activity, it’s clear that the students who responded like this were thinking about their own learning rather than someone’s teaching.  That’s what they should be thinking about.

Questions

The students didn’t ask too many questions, but the questions they did ask indicated a real curiosity about how sentences worked.  They wanted to know why the conjunction and comma were used in a compound sentence, whether or not there were other ways to formulate complex sentences than the examples I showed, and other techniques for writing sentences.   I have twenty-one years of teaching experience.  I’ve never done a grammar worksheet, grammar correction exercise, or sentence diagramming activity that generated questions like this.

Confidence

If you believe you can do something, you can do it.  That’s why I cherish the type of feedback that indicates increased self-belief. Students indicated that the model was easy to understand and that the sentence types were easy to write.

Part of the personal comma is to take a close look at what’s working and what isn’t.  When I do this activity again, I will make several changes based on the student feedback.  However, I could clearly tell by looking at the comments the students made that they found the activity valuable and worthy of their time.  But I’m one of the lucky ones.  I’m getting a paycheck to try new writing activities with students. I’m trying to help, but their teachers are the ones who have to live with the intense pressures of testing and the overwhelming demands of teaching. Teachers need the comma too, to stop and think about what’s working for their students.  And they need the freedom to respond to what their students are telling them.  That’s the comma that can change everything.

Daily Discomfort: If you’re going to get Cancer…

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Essay, Prostate Cancer, Writing

≈ Comments Off on Daily Discomfort: If you’re going to get Cancer…

Tags

dumb stuff that people say, Medicine, Prostate Cancer, writing

Then Prostate Cancer is the kind you want to get.

She’s an acquaintance, and I suppose she is saying this to comfort me, to make me feel better.  But it doesn’t make me feel better.  I’m not the get angry right away type, and we barely know one another, so I finish the conversation with some mild defense of Prostate Cancer as an actual disease.  On the way home, the feeling bubbles up, and I’m driving down the highway ranting to my imaginary road buddy, Mz. Itchy.

So, if Prostate Cancer was a planet, it would be Pluto?  It’s on the edge of Cancer?  It barely even rates as real Cancer?  Any day now, the CDC or whoever decides what is and isn’t Cancer will downgrade it to one of the sub-Cancers?  It’s the sub-tropic of Cancer?  It’s so easy to cure and common that any day now people will be able to buy their Prostate Cancer surgery and radiation kits over the counter, like Nasacort and Zyrtec?  In that case, why did we spend all of that money to have a surgeon take care of this?  I should have just given SH a big dose of Jim Beam and attacked the area with a butter knife.  Maybe we can perform the radiation treatments on the back porch with a really strong varmint spotlight.  Is that what you mean?  Do you really mean to say that someone should want to get this Cancer?

Because I can tell you right now, Prostate Cancer is not the type of Cancer that my husband wanted to get.  He wanted to get a case of NO Cancer!  In fact, I think he would pretty much take cancer-less over cancer-full 100% of the time.

 

Mz. Itchy for the pauser

Original Artwork by me. Hold your applause, please.

Mz. Itchy did her job, kept her big mouth shut, and listened without comment.  After I wound down, I reminded myself that everyone is fighting some kind of battle.  Maybe the people who say stuff like this are trying to reconcile themselves to their own fears.  Maybe categorizing some things as better and some things as worse gives them a framework for understanding the world, or mitigating the more common obstacles as being easier than those that are more rare.

There may even be some truth to the idea that Prostate Cancer is not as life-threatening as other types of Cancer.   I don’t know about that.  Someone I love is living with this disease and all of its consequences.  That’s all I know.  I’ll let the experts wrangle over semantics. http://www.pcf.org/site/c.leJRIROrEpH/b.7425707/k.7A02/10_Myths_and_Misconceptions_About_Prostate_Cancer.htm

Maybe my reaction is all about me.  I have probably spouted some platitude that was equally upsetting to someone in my day.  Mz. Itchy thought the solution was a girl fight on the playground.  But hey, I’ve done the same thing, so I just have to let it go and move on.   This experience is my opportunity to learn that when people are hurting, they don’t want to brush up against a cliché.  “I’m sorry you are going through this,” is all I’ll say in the future.  And if I ever use the phrase, If you’re going to get________, then this is the kind of ________ you want to get, I’ll fill in the blanks with something good, like chocolate, or a puppy, or strong, or news, or love.

Daily Discomfort: Living with the Ists

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Essay, Social Commentary

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

medical specialists, Medicine, Prostate Cancer, writing

The only thing that makes me more uncomfortable than dealing with Cancer is writing about dealing with Cancer.  However, I promised myself that I wouldn’t have a blog that blinked.  I’ve put this subject off for two months now, and I have a lot to say.  So for the next four weeks, I’ll write about some of the experiences our family has had while navigating this foreign landscape.

I’ve taken to calling my life partner Super Husband on this blog, and I am not being ironic.  He’s the most supportive, loving, respectful, trustworthy, and helpful person I’ve ever met.   So when he was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer eighteen months ago, I was blown back.  This moment changed my perspective about work, happiness, security, and faith.   It changed the way I spend my time, the way I think, and my role in the relationship.  And when you are a caregiver to a person who is sick, one of the first things you begin to learn about is the Ists, the medical specialists who become an important part of the patient’s life.   And life in Ist-ville can be a bumpy experience for first timers like my husband and me.

The Urologists came first.  The original Urologist did a prostate biopsy, which resulted in septic infection and a four day hospital stay.  A second Urologist signed SH’s release from that stay and informed him of his cancer diagnosis.  A third Urologist performed a radical prostatectomy with a robotic device.

Deep Vein Thrombosis, or a blood clot, brought us into contact with the Hematologist.  We met this doctor for the first time during the third visit to a third hospital in three months.

The Oncologist and the Radiation Therapist are our newest Ists.  Nine months after the surgery, when the PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level started to rise, we decided to seek these two out for some advice on how to proceed.  So we’ve met, taken advice from, gotten treatment from, and listened to the opinions of six different medical specialists in the last eighteen months.

It’s easy to see how this could get to be a problem.  Except for the cancer, which hasn’t made him feel bad, my husband is in good health.  He’s relatively young. And even though he has had two major, life-threatening complications, things could be worse.

How would it feel to keep all of these doctors and their advice straight if I were 84 instead of 54?  What if one of us had dementia?  Poor hearing?  What if there were other complications like diabetes?  The speed with which the Ists could accumulate would be mind boggling.  Even if each specialist gives you the exact same opinion and advice about how to proceed with your medical case – and they don’t- it’s difficult just to put names and faces together.

For the most part, our Ists are calm and professional.  They have patiently answered our questions and indulged our attempts to learn more about the disease and treatments. But there have been times, especially when we were in the hospital, that I could see the Ist looking toward the door with longing, just wanting to tell us what happens next and get out of the room as fast as possible. These are the times when I have to channel the Dog Whisperer and summon my calm, assertive energy.  As my daughter stated in a recent conversation, “You just have to keep them there as long as you can and get as many answers as you can.”

One of the things I have learned from living amidst the Ists is to pay close attention to conversations with doctors.  After the visit, I always make an effort to ask Super H what he heard.  I write things down.  I take pictures of the board that has the nurse’s name and the date.  Communication is very important because emotions are high, and expectations for the visit may be different for everyone involved.  Clarity can save time and enable good decisions about treatment.

Another thing I didn’t do at the beginning of this journey that I do now is to stay.  If SH is in the doctor’s office or hospital, I don’t leave until he has seen all of his Ists.  This isn’t easy because sometimes Docs show up in the hospital after the normal day has ended.  Patients are in the hospital because they are sick, and the things they hear while lying in a bed may not be remembered after a long, drug induced sleep.  At 8 p.m., I feel like dropping the strong façade, but I don’t.  I can’t.  I won’t.  This temporary discomfort is paid back in full when my husband and I are able to make calm, rational judgments about his care.

I have no wish to bash doctors, and can empathize with the growing pressures they face in modern medical practices.  Sandeep Jauhar explicates some of these dilemmas in Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician.    Here’s a link to an excellent review of that book.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/08/19/341632184/cardiologist-speaks-from-the-heart-about-americas-medical-system

The medical profession is taking steps to address the Ist lists.  At least one of the hospitals we visited in the summer of 2013 assigned a patient advocate who oversaw the whole case.  I’ll write more about this particular hospital in the coming weeks, because one of the enduring take aways from this whole experience is the good in the world.  All along this journey, we’ve been treated with kindness, patience, and care that we may not have even known we needed.  My Super Husband has his first radiation treatment today.  We live in hope that his Cancer will be eradicated, and we are grateful for the Ists that have made a cure from this disease possible.

Thursday Stretch: Luna Lovegood and the Mystery of the Dead Chicken

16 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Essay, Non Fiction, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

country life, Dog Stories, writing

I don’t think I’ve told you, my blog audience, this before, but I live in the country.  We live on five acres, and we own a tractor.  We pay for a hunting lease, and our mailbox is down the road from our house.  Our driveway is rock and caliche.  And last week, we experienced a mystery that can only happen when you live in the country.

Our daughter called one evening and I took the phone out on the back porch to talk, but I had to leave because it smelled bad out there.  You know that sulfuric, pungent odor of death?  That’s what it smelled like.  I went back in the house to finish the conversation, and then Super H and I went outside to investigate.

As we walked onto the back porch, we observed our dog, Luna Lovegood, had wriggled about half of her body underneath one of the large ferns we keep there.  Her tail was wagging a hundred miles a minute.  As we watched, she proceeded to drag a black carcass out from under the fern.  As she pulled the corpse out, feathers separated from its body, leaving a black and red trail across the porch.  Then, she raised her brown and white face to us, wearing what I can only describe as a chicken eating grin.

After we had cleared the feathers and maggots off the back porch, we speculated.  We figured the chicken came from one of our many neighbors who have them.  If a chicken wandered into our yard, it was also a possibility that one of our dogs did cause the demise of said animal.   My husband ascribed the whole gory sequence of events to the as yet unconvicted Luna, while I thought maybe the chicken had died of natural causes after crawling under the fern.

One thing we both agreed on was that our other dog, Goldie, was completely innocent.  She was exonerated by reason of extreme laziness exacerbated by extreme age.  So Luna was on the hook for the whole chicken enchilada.

The sleep of the innocent.

The sleep of the innocent.

I’m the first person to admit that my dogs aren’t perfect.   We haven’t taught them to sit or fetch and they bark when they’re not supposed to and they have been known to roll in their own poop and sniff the neighbor’s underwear zones.  We know they do these things, because they are country dogs, and we are okay with their crass behavior.  We love our dogs a lot, but they live in the yard and get their haircuts at home.   If any dogs are going to be up for some murdering mischief, it is our hippy dippy country dogs.

But could our sweet Luna really have committed chicken murder and then hidden the evidence for the three or four days it took for the chicken to get nice and maggot ridden underneath the ferns?  Okay, I acknowledge that she could have done it.  She spends 8 to 10 hours a day chasing anything that moves in our yard (lizards, bunny rabbits) and immediately eats anything she catches.  We regularly find half eaten dead lizards in the yard, and she’s been chasing the same bunny for the last three years, ever hopeful.   She probably could have caught a chicken, especially if it injured itself  first.  But what were we going to do about it?  Ground her?  Take away her dog treats?  It was a heinous act, and I hate that it happened.  However, if she did it, and I’m not saying she did, I forgive her.

Remember that chicken eating grin?  About two weeks ago, Luna flashed that same ear-to-ear doggy grin at us just as we were returning home from an appointment with SH’s new oncologist.  I felt so deflated after the long consultation about how to treat a recurrence of my wonderful husband’s prostate cancer.  I just wanted to go straight into the house and crawl under the covers for the rest of the night.  But there she was, smiling her head off, saying how happy she was that we were home.  We stopped to pet her and Goldie, fed them a treat, and went in to have supper.  The world kept turning, and she had helped me keep turning with it.

That’s the great thing about pets.  They just don’t care about what’s going on in your life.  They love you and are happy to see you no matter what your day has been like, or how you feel, or how many mistakes you might have made.  And for that goofy, hippy dippy, country love, I can overlook the occasional alleged brutal homicide.

 

Luna Lovegood, my camera shy girl.

Luna Lovegood, my camera shy girl.

Friday Fiction: Enter Joy

03 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Fiction, Short Fiction

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

creative writing, fiction, short fiction, short story, writing

Here’s a short story I wrote a long time ago.  Because it’s one of my earliest attempts, I can see the dependence on form that makes this piece sort of stilted and awkward, as well as the charicatures I created that I would now soften, because of my experiences with writing. I’m not making too many changes to it, though.  In honor of my newest endeavor, blogging, I’m going to reveal a younger self.  A year from now, I hope I’ll view my early blog posts the same way I see this story- as innocent and ignorant children with seeds of potential.

Enter Joy

By Joni Koehler

      Mother and Grandmother are tottering down the massive concourse in the mall, discussing our heroine’s womb. “She should have gone to the doctor after the first six months.  I warned her about the tilted uteri in our family, but she wouldn’t listen.”  Mother rolls her eyes and shrugs her fur-shrouded shoulders.  Black patent pumps “ka-lack, ka-lack” in rhythm as the women enter Saks Fifth Avenue.
“Uteri?” says Grandmother.  “I’m not familiar with that term.”
“The plural form of the word uterus, mother.”
“Oh.  Mine was tilted.  The doctor told me when he took it out.  I still gave birth to you and your brother.  And yours was tilted, but you had Susan.”
“Hers is worse.  She got it from her father’s side, too.  I’ve told you this before.”
“They could have had such beautiful children.” Grandmother waves the perfume girl at the door of Saks away with a passion plum fingernail.  “Maybe if she had had her breasts enlarged.”  She sighs, and considers alternate universes, where women procreate as they’re supposed to, boobs never sag, and husbands never leave.
“It’s the uterus, mother.  Harv wanted a baby.  It’s that simple.”  Mother sits on the high stool next to the cosmetic counter and checks her blonde double up-do in a small round mirror.  “A man of his stature needs a child to carry on the family name. You know how rich and influential they are, Mother.  The Benningtons came over on the Mayflower.” She motions to the nearest person behind the counter.  “Excuse me, darling, can you go get our salesgirl?”
“Yes ma’am.” says the girl.  She is older than she looks, but is still in her teens.   The shoulder seams of her aquamarine smock reach almost to her elbows, and she has rolled the sleeves up several times. Her hair is a rich cordovan tan, but she hasn’t washed it in two days, so it has clumped into strings.  One lock troubles the corner of her mouth, and she has fought the urge to suck on it all day.  There is a thin sheen of sweat covering her whole body, and as she stands staring at the two women, she can feel her heart beating all the way down to her feet.
“I said excuse me.  Our regular girl is Delores.  I’m sure you’re nice, but she knows what we want.”  Mother says.  “You understand, don’t you?”
“They could have adopted.  Adoption is quite common these days.” Grandmother is standing at the counter next to Mother, and places her hand on it for extra support.  Her feet are getting tired.
“I never should have let you get cable, mother.” She shoots a reproachful glance at her mother as the girl disappears to fetch their salesperson.

In a high-rise office nearby, Harvard Bennington the Third is waiting for his morning coffee.  He leans back in his burgundy leather office chair.  His feet are propped on an ancient Japanese cherry desk.  He glances out his window at the skyline of the city.
His secretary enters, bearing a silver tea service.  She places the tray on the desk next to his feet and pours coffee for Mr. Bennington.  “Mr. Thornton is here to see you, sir,” she says.  “He doesn’t have an appointment, but he says it’s important.”
“Give me five minutes, and then show him in.”
“Yes sir.”
As the secretary ushers him in, Jack Thornton crosses the room, and extends his hand to Harv, who has not taken his feet off the desk, or put his coffee down.  “Hello, Harv.  I have some news about the divorce settlement.”
“Good.” Harv puts down his coffee and shakes the proffered hand. “What does she want?”
“The standard.  Half of the estate and alimony for a period of two years.  We can schedule discovery as soon as you want.  My assistant finished preparing that document yesterday.  Then it’s just a matter of signing off on a couple of other matters, and you’re a free man.”
“What matters?’
“She’s claiming emotional damages. Four million.  It’s a nuisance suit. I’m sure her lawyer put her up to it.  We’ll settle for half.  And she wants the dogs.”
“Damn!” says Harvey Bennington the Third.  He removes his feet from the two hundred- year old desk and leans forward in his designer chair. He takes two deep breaths through distended nostrils.  He loosens his three hundred- dollar tie.  He deposits the coffee cup on the desk with a clunk.
“Now, here’s what I want you to do, Jack.  Call her attorney and offer a hundred thousand.  That’s the total.  If she tries to fight me on this, I’m taking her to court and I’m going to announce to the whole world that she married me under false pretenses.  She knew about her infertility when we got married.  I’ll sue for fraud. Tell her that!”
Jack holds his palms down and extends his arms in front of his waist.  “Let’s just back up a minute here, Harvey.”
“That’s Harv, Jack!  You know I haven’t been called Harvey since we were at school.”
“Sorry.  I forgot.  Look, as your attorney, it’s my job to point out that a lawsuit has to have merit. A tilted uterus does not mean a woman can’t have children.  Besides, you refused to go with her to the fertility clinic.  How do you know it’s her problem?  Maybe you’re the one who’s sterile.”
“Her own mother said she was sterile, for God’s sake. And she’s frigid.  Did you know that?”
Jack thinks of Susan, the day she laughed in the rain as she raced toward the door of the college library. Susan, wringing her blonde hair out with her head cocked sideways, eyes alight with a prism of emotion as she waved to him from the doorway.
“No,” he says, “I didn’t.”  His mouth takes on a grim set.
“Besides,” Harv snorts. “I’m not sterile.”
“How do you know?”
“There was the woman in Atlanta a couple of years ago.  I spent a lot of money to make that go away.  She wasn’t the only one.”
“Let me be frank. If this case goes to trial, I don’t like your chances. Susan will be a fantastic witness. The jury will sympathize with her.”
“I don’t care.  She has to pay for what she did.”  Harvard Bennington’s bottom lip is stuck out, and he has a scowl on his face.
“I don’t understand.  You left her, remember? What did she do?”
“She made fun of my, er , manhood.”
“Your muscles?”
“Just the one.”
“I see.” says Jack.
“She said it was a ninety eight pound weakling.”
“Was this before or after she found out about the Bobbsey twins?”
“Their name is Roberts. And it was after, not that it matters.  She’s going to pay.”
“Harvey, be reasonable….”
“She sang the inchworm song at me. Such a stupid, stupid, girl. When she finally gets mad, all she can do is make jokes at my expense.  It’s ironic really.  You remember the night we had that big Christmas party?”
“Yes.”
“She told me she wanted a divorce, said I was a lousy lover and that I could probably never father a baby, said all that stuff about my inadequate member.  Well, right before we had that argument, I had just made it with that author’s wife.”
“Which author?”
“I don’t know.  I fed her a couple of drinks, and ten minutes later I was doin’ her in the guest wing.”
Jack is still.  His breath quickens.  “Just some woman?”
“It’s easy, you know.  Women will believe anything.  I could teach you.  I bet it’s been a long time since you got laid.  Since before your wife got sick, I bet.”
“Don’t talk about my wife, Harvey.”
“I am your employer, Jack.  I will say anything I want to you.  Remember where you were when I gave you this gig.”
“That is ironic.” Jack says.  His eyes narrow. He begins to clench and unclench his fists.
“What?”
“Your wife saying you’re a bad lover on the same night you commit adultery in her home.”
“Yeah,” Harvey laughs, “And now, this woman can’t get enough of me. She left a hot message on my cell.  You want to hear it?  It might inspire you.”
Jack takes two long steps around the desk and says, “No.”
Harv stands up. “What’s with you today? I have to go, Jack. Call her lawyer.  Oh, and another thing.  That asset report you prepared?  Let me have it.  My accountant is going to shuffle some property before the discovery.”
“That’s fraud, Harvey.”
“I’m tired of you, Jack.  Either do as I tell you, or I’ll find someone who will.”
“ I think that’s an excellent idea, Harvey. You go ahead and find someone else.” Jack strides out of the room, passing the wide- eyed secretary on the way out the door.

On the other side of town, Susan Pratt Bennington sits in a brown and rust plaid recliner in the middle of a cavernous room.  Her father used this space as a warehouse many years ago, and is now in the process of renovating it into lofts.  The opening he had available at Susan’s short notice was the one she in which she now sits.  The only finished spaces in the loft are the bathroom and the kitchen.  Her father has said that when she is ready for walls, she can build them to her specifications.   She is not ready for walls.
Besides the recliner, the only objects in the room are a 13-inch television, ten large boxes filled with Susan’s former life, and a mattress.  The mattress is covered with rumpled bedding and used tissues.  Twenty minutes ago, she got off the mattress, got herself something to eat out of the refrigerator, and flopped into the chair.  She thought it would make her feel less pitiful, but it didn’t.  She dips her celery stick into a pint of Chunky Monkey Ice Cream.  While she licks it, she watches “A Baby Story” on The Learning Channel.  A mother to be is lying in a hospital bed, legs spread apart and pulled up to her chest.  Every couple of minutes she grunts and groans with the struggle of pushing junior into the light.
Susan grimaces as she licks her ice cream.  When she watches the next push, she groans in sympathy with the new mother.   The noise, which she has made unconsciously, startles her into a new round of tears. She stands up, abandoning the idea of progress, and flops down on the mattress, leaving a perfectly good pint of Chunky Monkey Ice Cream to melt into the plaid recliner.  She cries herself into a dry, dreamless sleep.
She is awakened at dusk by knocking on her door.  It has been twenty-four hours since her last encounter with her Mother and Grandmother, but she is not yet in the mood to listen to another round of insipid whining about boob jobs and babies.  She crawls off the mattress and mutters, “I’m coming,” and as she stumbles to the door, she wipes the slobber off her mouth with her right hand.  She unbolts the door, yanks it open, and says, “What???”
“Are you Susan?” says a young girl in an ill- fitting aquamarine smock.
“Yes.  I’m sorry; I thought you were my mother.”
“No,” says the girl.  Her shoulders are slumped forward and a sizable lock of hair is covering her left eye.  Her skin has the grayish cast of putty, a white cloud swelling with storm.  Her head is down, and she is swaying with the effort of remaining upright.
“Are you all right?” says Susan. “How can I help you?”
The girl takes a deep breath and looks directly at Susan.  “I hear you want a baby, and I’m going to have one I won’t be using, so I thought you might like to have it.”
Susan looks at her visitor for a long time.  She turns her head, looking to her makeshift bed, makes sure she isn’t still in it.  She looks at smock girl again, watches the hard breaths the girl takes, noting the girl’s quivering lower lip.
Susan exhales and says, “Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you,” says the girl.
“I’m Susan.”  Susan takes a step to close the distance between them and extends her hand.
“I know,” the girl says, “I was at your Christmas party.”
“Sorry, but I don’t remember.  It was a bad night.  How did you….?” says Susan.
“How did I know where to find you?”
“Yes, and what were you doing at my party, and how did you know I wanted a baby?
“Your mom and grandma were in the store today, and I heard them talking, about your…”
“Uterus?”
The girl nods. “I went to your old house, because I had been to the party.  The maid told me you were here.”
Susan nods. She shows the girl the raw space, and says, “I’d ask you to sit down, but, well, the cat threw up on the chair.”
“That’s okay.”  The girl looks at the overturned carton of Chunky Monkey on the chair and smiles at Susan.
“The cat can open the freezer. Really.”
“Yeah, right.”  The girl giggles, and when she does, Susan giggles too.
“Okay, you caught me.  I’m a pig.  Listen, I know you’re having a baby, and you know all about my womb, but I still don’t know your name.”
“Sorry.  I’m Joy Thornton.  I think you know my Dad.”
“Yes I do. He and I went to college together.”
“Yeah,” says Joy.  She takes a huge breath.  Her thin shoulders lift, and her eyes brim with tears.
“Your dad is my husband’s attorney.  We’re getting divorced.”
“Sorry.”
The two women stand in the doorway for a moment.  Susan finally says, “This is silly. Come in. Sit down.” They sit on the foot of the bed. On the television, the new mother has completed her birthing ablutions and is showing her pink bundle to a crowd of astounded relatives.
“Bummer,” says Joy.
“I’m saying.”  Susan reaches over and turns off the television.  “Start at the beginning.  Don’t leave anything out.”
Joy says, “I don’t think I can.  It’s too humiliating.  I’m so stupid.”
“I think you’ll feel better after.”
“I went to this frat party, and everybody was drinking those frozen drinks that come in the tall plastic glasses.  My friend said that they had hardly any alcohol.” Joy pauses, staring at the blank screen. “He was very handsome.  Older. He said he was a movie producer, and he told me how beautiful I was.”
“And?” Susan urges.
“We went to this room, and I didn’t even realize what happened until the next morning.”  She starts to cry.  “Oh my God.  My Dad is going to kill me!  He already thinks I’m irresponsible.  That’s why he made me take that shitty job!”
“He will not kill you.  I won’t let him.”
“I’m gonna’ throw up.”
Susan helps Joy run to the bathroom.  She wets a rag while Joy is vomiting, running it under warm water in the bathroom sink.  When Joy is through, Susan helps her wipe her face and get up.  She supports Joy’s arm while they slowly make their way back to the mattress.
“I’ve been doing that like ten times a day.  God’s punishing me.”
“No. God doesn’t work that way.”  They are near the bed.  “Wait,” says Susan. “Sit over here for a few minutes.”  She steers Joy to a packing crate.  Then she finds the extra linens.   She throws away the used tissues, strips the mattress and puts the clean linens on the bed.  “Now.  Come and lie down.”
Joy complies.  “Thank you. No one’s helped me like that since my mom was alive.  If she were here, she’d know what to do.”
“Yes she would.  She was a wonderful person.”
“Did you know her?”
“No, but she was married to Jack.  Joy?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think he raped you?”
“I don’t know.  I don’t remember saying no.”
“What was this boy’s name?”
“I don’t know.  When I found out I was pregnant, I went to the frat house to find him, but he wasn’t there and nobody knew who he was.”
“I’ll be right back. Just lie down and rest.” says Susan. She goes into the bathroom and sits on the floor. She grabs a clean towel off the rack and pillows her face with it. She begins to cry, for Joy, yes, but mostly for herself. For all the nights when she willed herself to lay in the bed with an adulterer who never loved her, for remembering every breath and sigh, for dragging herself through it time after time after time, just to get along, just to be the person people seemed to want her to be, and just to get a baby. For staying so long. Wanting so much. Susan cries for a long time, hacking dry sobs when there is no moisture left in her barren body.
When she opens the bathroom door, she sees Joy sleeping.  Joy snores softly, and her face has more color than it did when she arrived.  She goes to the mattress and pulls the covers over the sleeping form.  Then, she picks the telephone up and goes out the side door, where there is a tiny balcony.  She hasn’t been out of the loft for three days, and the sun on her face feels like a jolt of electricity.  When she warms to it, she realizes it feels good to be in the light.
She dials information and asks for Jack’s work number.  She tells his secretary she wishes to speak to him about an urgent matter unrelated to her pending divorce.  The secretary puts her on hold for a moment, and then Jack says, “Susan?”
“Hello, Jack.”
“My secretary said it was urgent.”
“We, you and I, we have a situation.  Your daughter is here.”
“What is she doing there?” Jack’s voice is toneless, flat.
Susan replies, “She has something to tell you, but it’s best done face to face.”
“Is she pregnant?” Jack says.
“Yes.” Susan answers.  There is a long silence.
“I’ll kill the son of a bitch.” He says.
“I’ll help.”
Jack hurriedly takes directions to Susan’s and says, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”  Susan hangs up and returns to Joy.  When she goes back in the house, Joy is awake, and sits up in the bed.
“Your father is on his way, Joy.  When he gets here, we’ll talk to him together.” Susan sits down next to her.
“He is going to kill me.”  Joy begins to cry softly. Susan folds her arms around the child, and Joy puts her head on Susan’s shoulder. As Joy sobs in Susan’s arms, she feels a power she has never known.  It is a paradox, this power, fierce and tender at the same time.
In an instant, Susan knows what she wants. “Yes.” she says.
The statement catches Joy off guard, and surprises her tears away. “You’re going to take my baby?”
Susan laughs. “I don’t know. You’re the one who needs a mother right now.” Susan shakes her head and smiles. Joy hugs her again.
“I could sure use one, but I wonder what my Dad will have to say about it.”
“I didn’t mean it literally. I meant that I’m going to see you through this. Whatever I have to do, but did you know I once had a terrible…?”  Susan trails off, and her face grows red.
“A terrible what?”
“Never mind. Just a little crush I had on your father when we were in college. It was nothing.” She is clearly embarrassed.
“My father?  Hmmm.” Joy places her hands on Susan’s shoulders and steps back. She gives Susan an appraising look and says,”How long until he gets here?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Well, you’d better take a shower.  I hate to say it, but you don’t smell too good.”
“But you barely know me.” says Susan. “When you find out what I’m really like, all the stupid things I’ve done, you’ll probably hate me.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No! I couldn’t. Not ever.”
“And I interrupted your nervous breakdown to ask you if you’d like to take my baby. So I could never hate you, either.” Joy looks around the loft. “I’m going to clean up around here.”
Susan watches Joy swing into action, but doesn’t move.  Joy turns to Susan and says, “Hurry up!  He’ll be here any minute!”
Susan turns and runs to the bathroom.  She undresses and steps into the shower.  She turns a knob, and somewhere, a canal opens.  Water flows through the opening, surging, strengthening as the conduit grows smaller, smaller, and the need to burst more urgent.  Susan looks up as the first warm drops descend.  In their fall, she can see an alternate universe crowning.  She sees Harv in an orange uniform, peering out of a barred window, doing fifteen months for stock fraud.  She sees the rooms in her loft: a large master suite, a library, a room for Joy if she wants to visit, a deck that has perfect light all day long.  She sees herself telling her mother to go to hell.
She can feel her muscles relaxing, and revels in the pops up and down her spine as it realigns itself.   She soaps her hair twice and scrubs her body with soap until it is pink with new circulation.  Just as she steps out of the shower, she hears a knock on the door.  To Susan Pratt Bennington, the knock is a most beautiful sound.  It is the sound of something coming untilted.

The Thursday Stretch: One Month of Blogging

02 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Blogging

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blogs, social media

I started this blog a little more than a month ago, and I have learned some interesting things.  Here they are, in no particular order.

  • After you start your blog and discover that you have one follower, don’t run around the house screaming and celebrating like you just won the lotto.  Your first follower is… yourself.  Kind of like that Goofy song, “I’m my own Grandpa.” Parenthetically, whose idea was it to call them followers?  Jim Jones had followers.  So did Charlie Manson. Ditto David Koresh.  I just want friends.  Wait, I guess friends is taken.  I just want readers.
  • If you create categories for your blog posts, they will show up at the top of your post in the description.  I suppose if someone happens to put your category term into a search engine, they might blunder onto your website.  Then, if they aren’t bored senseless by your drivel, they will follow you?  I’m speculating about a lot of this, but as my friend E.S. says, “Fake it till you make it.”
  • Tags are similar to categories, but if you want your tags to be public, you have to put them into a widget.  A tag to me seems to be a sub-category, so I’m making them more specific, i.e. if the category is Ocean, the tag would be Underwater Basket Weaving.  I could have my tags and categories mixed up here, but again, FITYMI.
  • I have learned that a blog can be an avenue for conversation about topics that people care about.  This is one of the things I set out to learn when I started blogging, because my previous cursory examination of social media left me feeling like venues such as Facebook and Twitter were mainly outlets for shallow topics examined briefly.  Now I know that any media outlet can be the source of deep and meaningful interchange- you just have to work at it a little harder.

In the next month, I want to examine the following:

  • What is a pingback, and how and why would I use it?
  • What is the difference between blogging and being a blogger?  I am also thinking about the recursive nature of being a writer and being an author.
  • The RSS feed.  My brain’s a  flatline.   Will unravel the enigma at least a little this month.
  • My on again, off again, relationship with Facebook.

To my 12 follow/readers, I thank you for pressing the button and letting an email go to you every time I post.  That was just nice of you.  My Blogging 101 instructor, Dan Blank, questioned my real purpose for writing this blog, and who my audience would be.  My rhetorical answer was I don’t know.  I don’t know who my audience is.  I’m still trying to figure it out, but that’s okay.   I’m having fun, and I’ll figure out these deep philosophical questions later.

 

 

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  • Where I’ve Been: A Tale of Two Babies
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  • If you get an Outfit, You can Go to Zumba, too.

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Charlotte Hoather on New Site:On Revision
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