The Prompt: Doppelgänger Alert—You step into an acquaintance’s house for the first time, and discover that everything — from the furniture, to the books, to the art on the wall — is identical to your home. What happens next?
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
be it ever so humble, there is a place like home!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WAZ60xA9wo
(stock photo)
The Prompt: Fourth Wall—You get to spend a day inside your favorite movie. Tell us which one it is — and what happens to you while you’re there.
That bouquet of sharpened pencils? They had me from the start.
Who knew that Mr. Hanks had that effect upon my heart?
I know it was the writers. I’m a writer. I’m not dim!
And it was just a role he played—it really wasn’t him!
Nor was it his main character that penned those words so fine.
It was his alter ego that he only used on-line!
Suspending disbelief is what we writers count upon.
In another lingo, we might call it a fine con.
We take our readers from themselves into a new dimension,
where we create a world that’s purely of our own invention;
and there we spin a fantasy that catches them within it—
offering a prize so rare that readers want to win it.
And films use music, too, to try to capture our emotions,
wiping out our common sense and filling us with notions.
The track to “You’ve Got Mail” was as romantic as could be!
If little birds fly oe’r the rainbow, why, indeed, can’t we?
We all identified and put ourselves into the tale,
and when it ended happily, we all read, “You’ve Got Male!”
A comment from loupmojo warrants its own reposting, so those who have already seen my blog today will see it as well. It is a perfect humorous illustration of my chopped liver post! Thanks, loupmojo. Hilarious.
Since it is obvious my desktop barely has a gap,
it’s clear to see why my computer sits atop my lap!
The Prompt:Sweeping Motions—What’s messier right now — your bedroom or your computer’s desktop (or your favorite device’s home screen)? Tell us how and why it got to that state.
I found five old passports and an international driving permit from 1986.
Why, oh why can I not find my current passport?
An extra hour would be nice. A day’s not long enough.
I know I’d use the extra hour looking for lost stuff!
My passport has gone missing and it’s been a major pain.
I would give most anything to have it back again.
I’ve looked in all my files, my drawers and every purse.
I have too many places. It couldn’t get much worse.
If I ever find it, I’ve made myself a vow to
make my life much simpler, if I just could figure how to!
Post Script: I actually lost my passport a few years ago. I looked for it for 4 or 5 hours without finding it, but my housekeeper found it in 5 minutes when she came the next day–in a place where I’d looked twice!!! She lit a candle and said whenever I lost things I should do the same. She says her friend has a Virgin and Child statue, and whenever she loses anything, she takes the baby out of the mother’s arms and says she’ll return it when she has helped her to find whatever she has lost!! Talk about blackmail in high places! Ha. A simple solution.
All dressed up for the coffee ceremony, but what is missing?
The Prompt: Dictionary, Shmictionary—Time to confess: tell us about a time when you used a word whose meaning you didn’t actually know (or were very wrong about, in retrospect).
Coffee With No Ceremony
I lived in Addis Ababa adjoining Mexico Square.
I ate injera every day. Had cornrows in my hair.
I thought I knew it all, and though my language skills were poor,
I knew enough Amharic to get by in any store.
Seated in a circle, on low stools around a flame,
We watched Demekech fan the fire—this ritual the same
in every house and every village all throughout the land.
The thick and sludgy coffee was always ground by hand.
Boiled in a clay carafe, then set aside to brew
as in another little pot, some corn kernels she threw.
The popcorn taken from the flame, the colo nuts were next.
Except—we found that we had none, and we were sorely vexed.
The coffee jug was sealed up with a fresh-wound plug of grass
ready for the pouring, but one aspect of our mass
was missing, so I said I’d go to buy some at the souk,
lest our hospitality give reason for rebuke.
These little shops were many, lining both sides of the street;
and at each one, I knew the custom—always did I greet
the owner with proper respect, and always, he said, “Yes!”
when I asked if he had colo, but I couldn’t guess
why no one ever seemed to want to sell any to me.
Always the same reaction—first the shock and then the glee.
So, finally, I walked back home. My failure I admitted.
Departing, I had felt so smart, but now I felt half-witted.
What had I done wrong? I knew that every shop had colo.
The problem must have been that I had gone to get them solo!
Returning empty-handed, I felt I was to blame.
Coffee without colo was a pity and a shame.
But my roommate and our guests and cook were really most surprised.
I must have asked for something else than colo, they surmised.
What did I ask for? When I told them, they dissolved in laughter.
They said that I was lucky not to get what I asked after.
For colo had two meanings, depending on the stress
put on the first syllable, and I had made a mess.
Instead of nuts, they told me (and this was just between us,)
I had asked each souk owner—if he had a penis!
(This is a true story of only one of the gaffes I became famous for in the year and a half I taught and traveled in Ethiopia in the period leading up to the revolution that deposed Haile Selassie.)
Upturned Noses—Even the most laid back and egalitarian among us can be insufferable snobs when it comes to coffee, music, cars, beer, or any other pet obsession where things have to be just so. What are you snobbish about?
Rummy
Forget my birthday or my name.
Beat me at my favorite game.
Insult my décor or my looks.
Ignore my artwork and my books.
Any coffee brand will do.
I am not snobbish about my brew.
If you must, you may be tardy.
Just serve me no rum but Bacardi!
If someone one day deemed to proffer
the finest Cuba has to offer,
there is no choice. I wouldn’t totter.
I’d just decline and ask for water!
If I should find a time machine, I might or might not buy it.
And even once I bought it, I might or might not try it.
To think about the future always makes me sweat,
for I am trepidatious about how bad it might get.
I foresee live-in bubbles for one or two or three
who merely turn on YouTube for whomever else they see.
Pollution would be too advanced to venture far outside—
the world turned way too violent for most folks to abide.
If I visited the future, chances are I’d see
the death of friends and loved ones—perhaps the death of me!
See our country crumble due to earthquakes or to slaughter.
See Monsanto poison food crops after ruining our water.
Our seasons turned to drought, tornado, hurricane and flood—
by turn made dry or spinning or blown away or mud.
I know there are alternatives, but I can’t help but doubt
that current politicians will let it all work out.
But if I went into the past, perhaps I’d also rue it.
I might just be happier if I chose to eschew it
I might see as a toddler that I was just a brat—
a little squirming dervish—graceless, spoiled and fat.
I might hear that my singing voice was just a bit off-key
and see the looks the others gave as they were hearing me.
If I encountered me, we might just end up in a fight
like ones I had with sisters—and discover they were right!
Yet, this probably won’t happen and perhaps it might be fun
to have another look at what I’ve seen and what I’ve done.
And though to relive some things would leave me feeling queasier,
I know that it would certainly make memoir-writing easier.
What fun to relive Christmases from year to year to year,
To see my mom and dad again, what’s more, to get to hear
all the stories of my dad and this time to record them—
to spend time with my sisters and to show how I adored them.
What fun to watch me with my friends— Rita, Lynn and Billy—
to see when we were children if we were just as silly
as little kids I see today who just seem to be reeling
with energy and foolishness and excesses of feeling.
I’d drive on roads with fewer cars to spots no longer there.
Go roller skating in Draper gym. Fall on my derriére!
I’d have a Coke in Mack’s Café and then I’d shop at Gambles.
Buy love comics at Mowell’s Drug and then expand my rambles
down to the playground monkey bars, where I would do a flip.
Then to the Frosty Freeze where I would have another sip
of orange slush and then I’d have to buy a barbecue.
(I fear that in my tiny town, that’s all there was to do!)
I’d skip ahead, then, many years, to 1971,
and fly off to Australia for adventures in the sun.
Then Singapore and Bali, Ceylon and Africa.
See everything as it once was, when it was new and raw.
Regrets? Of course. I’m human, and so I’ve had a few,
but over precognition, I prefer déjà vu.
The Prompt: One-Way Street—Congrats! You’re the owner of a new time machine. The catch? It comes in two models, each traveling one way only: the past OR the future. Which do you choose, and why?
I should have been cramming for English—reading Macbeth or Candide
and finishing off all my papers on Shakespeare or Becket or Bede.
But I always put off all assignments until the last possible minute,
lugging around every textbook without really looking within it.
When final week came, I was panicked. I studied all day and all night.
Living on No Doz and coffee, my eyes were a terrible sight.
Bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, they read on and read on nonetheless—
Chaucer and Dickens and Somerset Maugham (and Cliff’s Notes, I have to confess.)
My very worst procrastination was ten papers in just seven days—
my mind racing onward and onward as I searched for each insightful phrase.
Biology, German and history, psychology and all the rest
battled to come to the front and be heard when they came to be put to the test.
By the end I was crazed and exhausted, craving only closed eyes and my bed—
putting authors and symbols and figures and facts right out of my overstuffed head.
I could have avoided this torment, the pressure, exhaustion and dread
If only I’d started three months in advance to prepare for each “big day ahead.”
In college I fear I was guilty. I put all things off just a smidge.
I majored in procrastination and minored in marathon bridge!
( This poem is dedicated to Marti, Yvonne, Patty, Ramjet, Karen Rea and all the house hashers, with whom I wasted many a long college afternoon and evening expanding my mind by playing bridge. I must admit that I haven’t played it since, which is why I have the time to write a poem a day and post it on my blog. Sometimes we learn more after college than during!)
The Prompt: Big Day Ahead—It’s the night before an important event: a big exam, a major presentation, your wedding. How do you calm your nerves in preparation for the big day?
The Prompt: Mouths Wide Shut—Are you a picky eater? Share some of your favorite food quirks with us (the more exotic, the better!). Omnivores: what’s the one thing you won’t eat?
No room for mushrooms, can’t live with liver.
The thought of brains just makes me shiver.
Though I like pizza, my other law
is I don’t eat tomatoes raw!
Drinking milk’s against my wishes.
Fish is simply for the fishes.
I eat no veal or other baby,
and steak for me is simply “maybe.”
So if it’s your plan to invest
in things that I like to ingest,
I won’t make it any harder
for you to come and stock my larder.
All else you want to bring to feed me—
what edibles you wish to cede me:
Injera, curries, Thai, Chinese—
all are sure to tempt and please.
Except for one thing I just thought of
that in the past I’ve had a lot of.
There’s one more mouthful I won’t try.
I have no taste for humble pie!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 