Velvet Verbosity

This post is going to have to get straight to it since it is past my bad time, and my upcoming week is going to be fierce.  FIERCE!

My pick of the week is Scetches with her piece, Breakfast: Last Night.  Delicious imagery that made me feel like I was there:

I warm the hot chocolate between my thighs and look out on to the Thames as we pull closer to Borough Market. Last night hangs between us as the sun, like an excited toddler, scribbles orange on the river’s calm surface. Abbey Lincoln sings:

And it’s supposed to be love.

We pretend we have no use for irony.

In the morning light my puffy eyes adore the freshly caught fish and fancy aged cheese that you buy because I stared long enough. As we walk and eat spicy sausage sandwiches for breakfast I relax, but the night tauntingly hangs on.

In other words:

• 100 Words on Breakfast by Michael 
• It’s Only Breakfast by If Mom Says Ok
• Breakfast in 100 Words by Popping Bubbles
• Quiet Breakfast by Irish Storm (You’ll have to scroll to find it…I can’t link to the post itself for some reason.)
• Feast or Famine by Titanium 
• Stark Light of Day at Life in Balance Sort of
• Conversation Over Toast by Patti
• I Don’t Want to go to School by LouCeel
• Breakfast by AuroraLee
• Alley Breakfast by Rhoni Renee
• Scrambled, Not Fried by Slouchy
• Baby Bird by Texan Mama
• Yankee Doodle Grapefruit by Von Cookie

I also received two email entries this week from folks without blogs.  This one is from Mae:

Both dogs were underfoot, whining impatiently for breakfast, reaching for the food before she could even place the bowls on the floor. It was then she noticed a few remaining shards of glass glittering on the linoleum. It had been her favorite vase. She knew about his temper even before they married. Lately their fights had become more vicious, but last night was the first time he was violent. She was neither surprised last night when he left in anger, nor this morning when she woke alone. Sometimes things look different over morning coffee. Sometimes one action can change everything.

And from the owner of Cardinal Cardz:

I’m excited for Mother’s Day this year.  Our children will be five and eight and I will finally get breakfast in bed, WITH the messy kitchen.  I know, it sounds weird.  If you’re a Mom of an infant, or a two year old, you’ll understand.  Hollywoodmakes family life all sexy.  THAT IS SUCH A LIE!  Having kids is so FREAKING hard it hurts.  This year my husband won’t have to help make breakfast and I can bask in the wonderment that after spit up, life doesn’t totally suck all the time. At some point, it resembles a new normal.

That wraps up last week’s challenge.  A few reminders:

• Remember to give your post a title.
• Remember your blog manners and link back to either this post, or the 100 Word page in your post so that your readers can pop over and find more 100 words, and see what we’re up to over here.
• Remember to leave a comment here with a link to your post to make the round up easier, and so that others can find you!

This week’s challenge (for details on how to play, go here), is from an interesting book I’ve just started, and recommended to me, Dies the Fire: A Novel of the Change, by S.M. Stirling.  Here’s the quick synopsis:  All technology stops for an unknown reason, huge fall out, chaos and death, and then how the remaining survive and how they band together in peace or for war.  In other words, what would happen if civilization got almost wiped out and we had to start from scratch.  And the word is:

Thirty

Write 100 words on it, post to your blog, and leave a comment here so we can find you.  Challenge closes on Saturday-ish.  Happy writing!

With love,

This is one political post I will make no apologies for.  In all of our distraction with the very good cause of Haiti, somehow this law got passed by the Supreme Court right under our noses, with so few mentions in the press as to be suspiciously negligible, and…well, just watch Keith Olbermann explain exactly what this means for us.  This is the most important thing I’ve shared with you, my readers, since the start of this blog.  Please pass it on.

For more background, start here.

Olbermann is right.  The passing of this law has just monumentally, and possibly irrevocably, changed politics in this country.  It’s not like there wasn’t already collusion between big corporate money and politics, but until two days ago, such things were at least still seen as unlawful and corrupt. Today, thanks to this new law, corporations can now legally pour as much money as they want into a candidate.

Think about that.

And it’s not just Liberals like Olbermann that are stunned and dismayed.  Conservatives too.  The Senior Editor of Veterans Today has called for the arrest of the 5 Supreme Court Justices that passed this law.

This is not the kind of news that you swallow, feel a little angry about, and then simply move on to the next distracting thing.  This is a historical moment, and left unchecked, will radically alter the political trajectory of this country.  This is the kind of news that requires action.

So, as Keith Olbermann asks, “What are you going to do about it?”

Another week has slipped by, sucked into the vortex of “past”.  This past week for me was heavy, in a good way, like moving a box of beloved books and then reveling in that sore muscle haze while blowing the dust off the bindings, and rediscovering cherished stories and philosophical truths.

This week also brought a handful, or two, of new readers and writers, and it’s been delightful to read all of your 100 word stories on NERVOUS.  My pick of the week is Slouchy.  I just loved this short little piece of fiction:

She waited in the wardrobe, the spot her oldest brother favored. The air smelled musty. Her grandmother’s coats brushed against her cheeks and made her nose itch. She grew impatient. Really, this game had lasted far too long. She moved to let herself out and frowned to find no handle on the inside of the wardrobe. Why would there be? She banged on the wood, shouted for her sister, for anyone, but heard only silence, thick and oppressive. Clutching at coat hems, she slumped down and inhaled mightily, as if through scent she might summon their owner, and her release.

In other words:

• “An unrelenting wind chills…” by Element 22
• The future can make you nervous by Michael
• The envelope by Aurora Lee
• 10-60 by Northern Zazu
• “Nervous son?” by Angelgal
• Nervous No More by Secret Agent Mama
• Buying love by LouCeel
• It’s Defective Typewriter’s first time
• The Blind Date by Patti
• Hidden by That’s Live 2.0
• The Gauntlet by Gabriel Gadfly

That wraps up last week’s challenge, and going through that reminds me that it would be helpful to me if you all gave a title to your pieces so I don’t have to make one up.  Sometimes that’s awfully fun, but sometimes I’m rushed.

This week’s challenge (for details on how to play, go here), comes from a book I picked up off someone’s shelf to pass some time, The Saturday Morning Murder: A Psychoanalytic Case (Michael Ohayon Mysteries, No. 1) by Batay Gur.  The word is:

Breakfast

Write 100 words on it, post to your blog, and leave a comment here so we can find you.  Challenge closes on Saturday-ish.  Happy writing!

With love,

Two days left before the door closes on the 100 Word Challenge for Nervous.  Here’s a little, uh, inspiration.  Or entertainment.  One of those.

With love,

Apparently today is national blog delurker day.  I saw it on Twitter, and while I rarely, RARELY, participate in memes, I like this one.  I always wonder who YOU are, you who reads here often but never comments.  I don’t care about the comments, I’m just, you know, curious.

So, today is the day to introduce yourself, even if only to say, “Hey!”.

With love,

I have very good reasons to not make the 100 Word Challenge a contest.  The goal of the prompt, and the challenge to keep to exactly 100 words, is to stretch you, to share little digestible bits of your writing with a group, to have fun, and to practice the craft.  I don’t want to lose sight of that.  Another very good reason, is because I don’t like having to choose “winners”.  My pick of the week has never been about who did that week’s challenge better than anyone else, but rather a completely subjective selection of what moved me that week.  Some day, I may even do away with that practice and install a Mr. Linky widget on here.

With that said, I did say I was going to pick a winner who could choose a coffee or tea from Esselon and I’m sticking to that.  I KNEW I was going to have a hard time with this.  I spent the weekend wringing my hands, and reading each of your posts very carefully, looking for that one special piece that just screamed, “PICK ME”!   Didn’t happen.  I liked LouCeel’s witty and funny dialogue, and Mommy is Moody’s sober yet hilarious twist at the end, and so on.

Finally, I narrowed it down to two contenders, and as I went back and forth rereading the two, I finally came to my decision.  I CAN’T DECIDE, so CheekyWench and Patti, you both get to choose a coffee or tea from Esselon (email or DM me).  Simon Cowell, I am not.

The dark, bitter, and delicious entry from Cheeky Wench:

She tucked a stray strand of inky black hair behind her ear as she stared out the café window into the snow drifts. The flakes fell silently like a blanket being laid over a sleeping infant. Taking a deep breath, she took a sip of the bitter brew she held; the hazelnut flavoring tickling her nose. Her hands shook slightly as she glanced to see blood caking under her fingernails. Putting the cup down, she picked up a nearby napkin to try and clean them. She kicked the body lying at her feet. He should’ve known she preferred black coffee.

“I Swan”, by Patti:

Swaying soundlessly on the porch swing, sipping her sweet tea, she watched the sun slowly slip below the horizon.  She hoped it would bring some relief from the scorching summer heat she’d felt stalking her all day. 

 

“I swan,” she declared, delicately peeling the bodice from her damp bosom and fanning herself with the wedding program she’d picked up at the ceremony.  “I might just melt right here!  How could a sane person even consider an outdoor wedding this time of year?”

 “Perhaps you’d prefer a funeral,” Miles smirked, raising an eyebrow. “At least then, you wouldn’t have to dance.”

In other words:

• Preference, a poem by Gabriel Gadfly
• Mommy is Moody shares her revelations on punctuation
• Aurora-Lee defines her own success
• 100 Words on Andre Dawson by Michael
• Bach meets Gen Y by LCeel
• A little piece of heartbreak by Angelgal

I noticed comment participation was down this week.  Not that it’s a rule or anything (pay no attention to the big dudes with knee cap breakers behind me), but I think it’s a good practice to drop some comment love/critique for fellow 100 worders.

I saw Sherlock Holmes this weekend (for the second time), and after decided to grab my copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and reread.  Quite delightful those Holmes and Watson are.  Jude Law as Watson was brilliant, even if a large margin deviation from the original Watson.  This week’s prompt from Sherlock Holmes is:

Nervous

Write 100 words on it, post to your blog, and leave a comment here so we can find you.  Challenge closes on Saturday.  Happy writing!

With love,

Only two days left for the 100 Word Challenge on Prefer.  Here’s a bit of modern day beat poetry (Def Poetry) for inspiration.  Amir Sulaiman - “She Said I Prefer a Broken Neck.”  Heart-breaking and beautiful message.

Welcome back.  I trust that you all had merry and happy holidays?  Yes, thank you for asking, mine was swell.  I’ve just now, however, realized a very serious limitation to one of my Christmas gifts.  My Dad gave me a Kindle as a gift, and at first I was all blinded by gadget-love, but THEN I was scared because I realized how dangerous the Kindle could be to my bank account.  It’s like this: Amazon account - 1 click shopping - lightning fast download - insta-book - half the price.  Are you getting me here?  I hope you are, because that thing is in the house with me, and I swear it just winked at me.

(send help)

Aside from that, I also realized that my “open book, insert finger” technique to choose the weekly 100 Word Challenge prompt does. not. work. on a Kindle.  Oh, I guess I could close my eyes, hit the “next page” button a random number of times, and then poke the screen with my finger, but…WAIL!  It’s not the SAME!   So, do I compromise authenticity by choosing from a book that I am NOT reading at present, or, do I compromise authenticity by poking a plastic screen?

***We Interrupt this post for a very special announcement - Just for fun this week, I’m offering a prize to my pick of the week.  I’m not planning on making this a regular habit (yet), but thought it would be a fun way to kick off the first 100 Word Challenge of 2010.  I’m totally stoked to share with you coffee or tea from one of my favorite roasters, www.esselon.com.  They roast their coffee in a vintage German roaster, which?  Is pretty awesome.  So, pick of the week gets to choose their flavor of coffee or tea and I’ll have it sent to you.  (Pass it on yo, VV just upped the ante!)

While I mull over plastic vs. paper, let me introduce you to…oh wait.  That’s right, I CAN’T introduce you to the new anonymous 100 Word entrant who only posted his 100 words on Hope in the comments BECAUSE I DELETED IT.  Dude, if you are reading this blog right now, you know who you are.  Drop another hello into the comments here, and if you have what you wrote saved somewhere, drop that in too.  It was my pick of the week, but a deluge of spam got past my captcha filter somehow, and in my annoyed sweep of deletions, your comment got caught up.  Baby with the bathwater kind of thing.

Shout out also to Bibliovore, who left me jolly Christmas greetings that also got wiped out with the spam.  Of course, he won’t see this post because he’s busy for the next two weeks reconnecting with his wife and 2 children who have been gone for 7 months, or 7 weeks, or some amount of 7 that is wickedly wrong for loved ones to be separated for.

So that’s it, the pick of the week is a mystery.  Let’s see what else was said in 100 words across the web:

• We Chose Him by newcomer Michael. 
• It always comes back, by Patti
• Tic Toc,Tic Toc, by Lori
• No Hope by LCeel
• Aaaaand, this last post that came in by Joe Hage, and I must tell you, he’s been quite enthusiastic about this whole process, so be sure to give him a shout out in comments here, or on his site somewhere.

Looking at the taxi meter clicking away.  Should I get out here?  Every minute we site here in traffic I get charged another fifty cents.  Does he take credit cards?  I hope I have enough money in my wallet.  Dammit.  I never get to the bank anymore.  I have five checks on my refrigerator door.

“Do you take credit cards?”

“I’m sorry, I was listening to the radio.  What did you say?”

“Do you take credit cards?”

“Yes, but I charge extra to cover the credit card fees.”

I hate that, but I don’t have much of a choice.

“Ok.”

Also, Joe shared with me that his little guy Zach is trying to raise $5,000 for Charity: Water by Easter.  Check that out here.

Alright folks, that wraps up another round of the 100 Word Challenge.  It’s been decided.  I’m going to try a random word selection from the Kindle, only because I’ve just finished reading Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk, and while it falls into the same category as every other pop self-entrepreneur book in the genre, in that it doesn’t tell you much of anything you don’t already know, its energy is pretty contagious.  At least for the first hour after reading it.  This week’s challenge is”

Prefer

Write 100 words on it, post to your blog, and leave a comment here so we can find you.  Challenge closes on Saturday.  Happy writing!

With love,

Internets, the holidaze are over, and I’m finally coming round from my food coma.  I’ll be up and running with the 100 Word Challenge tonight.  (Just remember, my “tonight” is your morning.)