meme first study

This is a meme started by Lexa of Author!Author! who, among numerous achievements is also a National Novel writing Month winner for 2006. Congratulations Lexa! I have successfully failed that competition 3 years in a row.

I wrote this entry at work so I grabbed the first book of the shelve in the teacher's room which happened to be a novel by Tama Janowitz, titled: "The male cross-dresser support group."

Five sentences down on page 123 I found:

Martin shrugged. "At first the stepfather and his mother sent him to all kinds of expensive clinics and institutionalized him. But then his family got tired of spending the money and they sent him to me."

As I am a rather bookish person I'll consider whom to challenge this evening but did not wish to hesitate in participating.

Everyone is encouraged to visit Lexa's site. It's worth your time.

Regards, B8A.

conjugate monopoly tangerine

For Powell Longballs, December 8, 2006 had started out as an ordinary day. He got up, got to his car, got to work.

The commute was faster than usual, Powell thanked his good fortune and let himself relax a little behind the wheel.

Really a lot fewer cars this morning, he thought to himself. He remembered that day a few years ago during the big rightsizing at his firm when he got up as usual, got to his car as usual and got to work in light traffic only to realize as he tried to open the locked doors of his office that it was Saturday.

he checked the date on his phone, nope. Today was Friday, he breathed a huge sigh of relief.

At the office, the problem grew in his mind (when exactly he'd started to think of it as 'the problem' was a mystery to him but that's what he called it once he'd taken notice).

There were so few employees. All nervously going about their tasks, preparing audits, credit opinions, reviewing balance sheets. It dawned on Powell that everyone had noticed the problem but didn't dare to discuss it. Perhaps out of fear that whatever the problem was, it would hear them talking and thus happen to them sooner.

His manager had once boasted that there could be a nuclear strike and the end of civilization and still his department could keep operating for over a month without ever needing input from above.

Now Powell watched it happening. Everyone just working through the day even as more and more employees went for lunch breaks and never returned.

Powell had gone beyond terror by the time 6pm rolled around. By then there was no one left but himself and the receptionist. She had stayed for the same reason he had, there was a lot of work to do and even as the phones had died down until by quitting time they hadn't rung in an hour she bravely sat attentively; ready to greet visitors who didn't come, answer questions that weren't asked.

As he left, he said goodbye.

"Goodbye Grace, have a nice afternoon,"
"See you Pow-pow," she smiled with tears in her eyes, she knew it too, she'd never called him that in the office.

Powell walked over to her and gently cupped her unresisting head in his hands and kissed her softly on the lips.

"There," he said, "I've always wanted to do that."

And then he disappeared.

Grace locked the office and set the alarm, run-proof mascara staining her cheeks black. She exited the office and listened. When she closed her eyes she couldn't believe she was in the heart of the city, not a car not a person not a siren, not even a bird.

Somehow, she knew she was the last person on Earth.

When she disappeared, it was with the memory of one last, first kiss still lingering on her lips.

And then nothing.

brazil scrub measures

In Lucille's imagination, all daytime drama scenes took place in underlit, windowless rooms. All the characters inhabited a permanent twilight. All silences included meaningful looks with zooming cameras into tightly framed faces in case she needed the hint.

Listening to Darren pour his troubles onto her over their second candlelit dinner at Zorba's she wondered if she'd ever find somebody to listen to her for a change. It all seemed so hard, why had she left Schroeder? She hadn't known it would be this hard to bend herself to a new mould. Hadn't she done it tens of times before she'd gotten married and divorced?

Snatches of her favourite daytime drama dialogues kept intruding in her mind: he's not the father, Danielle is Jared's sister! The babies were switched at the hospital, Francine has amnesia and nobody else knows the password.

Just at the point where she'd lost track of Darren completely he broke into her daydream.

"Lu? are you even listening to me?" said Darren.

She gave him a long meaningful look, she even caught herself imagining the zoom shot before answering.

"Sorry, I...I'm just...please go, I can't do this tonight."

There. She'd said it, the words not cold on her lips before he had grabbed his coat and left without so much as an 'I'll call you.' Thank Gods, she didn't think she couldn've stood another second of his droning on and on about himself and his problems. She didn't even mind paying.

She walked out into the cool December air and bent her head towards home.

Maybe She and Schroeder could work it out. She realized they might have bent themselves to each other too far to fit anyone else. It wasn't daytime drama but at least it was hers?

tingling panelling musket

 Batty Bronson was an android. Batty was eight years old. Batty had the body of a dead child and the brain of a super-scientist. Batty played global thermo-nuclear war in his bedroom. Batty disassembled his dad's Corvette. Batty knew protocols for a thousand and one different cultures. Batty communicated with extra-terrestrials. Batty was a compulsive liar.

Batty had one friend.

"Hey Batty Bronson!" said Josephine Cych, Batty's only friend and a girl.
"Hey Joe!" said Batty Bronson, the super secret combat droid.
"Did you catch Space Rangers on Saturday?" said Josephine Cych.
"Nah, I was at the special school again," said Batty.
"Oh no, not again?" said Josephine.

Batty had to go to a special school on Saturdays when he was bad. Batty went to the special school a lot.

"Maybe you recorded it?" said Batty. Josephine enjoyed the despair in his eyes at missing the Space Rangers a moment longer then flashed the disc out of her pocket.
"Aw Joe, you're the greatest."
"What would a super soldier be without his secret documents?"
"And his super spy," said Batty. She noticed his smile was different than before.

Josephine blushed.

knowing impulses compatible

This was going to be a simple short story but it turned into a manifesto of sorts. If you're not in that mood then skip this one. -B

Johnny Know-it-all was too good for work, so he said, and the truth is that there isn't much room for such people.

Johnny became an English teacher. Teaching something he'd known how to do since he was a baby.

Johnny thought teaching was the same as knowing.

Sometimes Johnny would walk into a class with only a slightly better idea of what was going to happen in the classroom than the students.

Samuel Epimetheus was too good for work, so he said, and the truth is that there isn't much room for such people.

Samuel became an English teacher. Teaching something he'd known how to do since he was a baby. He was a lot like Johnny in the beginning with one small difference:

Samuel worried that knowing wasn't the same as teaching.

So, in his anxiety over how best to teach something he knew automatically how to do, he would spend all his free time rehearsing the whole class front to back and back to front. Every student in his classes knew that he knew exactly what he was doing during every second of the class.

Perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, both Johnny and Samuel produced students with an excellent command of English. Furthermore, as Johnny and Samuel progressed in their careers they began to resemble each other more and more. Johnny became more methodical and Samuel became more spontaneous and to see them in most classes today it would be difficult if not impossible to tell them apart.

Sure Johnny sometimes abandons his plans and Samuel is sometimes distressed if the class goes in an unplanned direction but both have been teaching for over a decade now so they must have been doing something right from the very beginning.

Johnny and Samuel both got lucky, each in his own way. Johnny and Samuel benefitted from great students. Great students made Johnny and Samuel outstanding teachers in the end.

Every English teacher who's ever felt the pull of little Johnny know-it-all and little Samuel Epimetheus in their guts knows this.

Great students make teaching days, evenings and weekends worthwhile.

But in the end, Johnny and Samuel realized something else, in an odd way, they were right.

Great teaching is not work. Great teaching is a mission. Great teaching is a vocation.

Great teaching is painting the Forth bridge. Great teaching is Sisyphean.

Great teaching is never being able to finish teaching nor being able to desist from teaching.

Great teaching is great because it is hard, if it were easy everyone would do it.

Great teaching is:___________________ (complete the sentence with a suitable adjective)

Dedicated to my great teachers. I was fortunate to have so many that the list would be longer than the text. Thanks for the inspirations. B.

hundred studies diplomatic

Vince reached into his sock and pulled out Jackie's pay.
Vince eyed Jackie warily.
"Boss?" she said.
"YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB JACKIE." said Vince.
Vince smoked 2 packs a day and drank 10 espressos a day and everything he said sounded like the bottom of a stainless steel beer barrel being hammered by maniacal monkeys on pharmaceutical-grade amphetamines. Jackie, when she first started at the office, thought the other employees were exaggerating when they warned her about 'The Beast,' managing to pronounce the capitals and everything.
As Vince vibrated away on his black patent leather high heeled elevator shoes she fought to get a grip on herself. She wouldn't let herself panic again, not after last week's embarassing episode where she'd locked herself in the staff lounge and refused to come out.
Even the CEO crossed himself at the mention of Vince.
A short swarthy Sicilian with wiry black hair, a set of arms like steel bridge cables and pupils like pinpoints of blackness and a vicious enthusiasm for his job.
Jackie kept her pay at arm's length until she could put it in a plastic ziplock. Her bank hated her.
Why he kept her pay in his socks was a mystery, why he wore his underarm sweat stains so proudly was another.
Jackie fought the urge to run out of the building. Just a few more paydays, she told herself. Just a few more dollars in the bank and she'd be free forever...

cruel holland bechamel

Cold wet icy rain. A real downpour. A flood. A deluge.

"Quit it, Hopey," said Desormais Chandrelle, a singer.
"I'm sorry Dezie, I just get distracted by such awful weather," Said Hopewell Hudson, a bartender.
"It's not like you're out in it, I love the rain when I'm indoors where it's warm" said Desormais, giving a meaningful nod of her auburn head towards the monumentally sized victorian marble fireplace roaring at the far end of the piano bar's dining room.
"I know, it's just sympathy shivers, that's all," said Hopey, looking glum.
"Let me buy you a drink, cheer up," said Desormais.
"Ah, thanks but you know I'm not allowed to drink when I'm working," said Hopey.
"And you never-"
"I never, but thanks for offering,"
Desormais regarded Hopey's grin and surrendered to it.
"All right Hopey, at least I got a smile out of you," said Desormais.
Hopey's grin widened into a smile. "You always cheer me up Dezie."
"Even singing my sad old songs?" said Desormais.
"Especially when you sing your sad old songs" said Hopey, tilting her face forward conspiratorialy.
Desormais smiled, "We'll have that drink some other time, I've got to get back to work." She glided off the barstool and walked back to the small stage where the pianist was just about finished his smoke. She drew his cigarette from his lips and dragged down hard to the filter and crushed the remains. Then, she sang.

Desormais Chandrelle sang tears and frustrations and lonely nights. She sang heartaches and sorrows and empty rooms. She sang rusted memories and dead friendships. She sang cold wet icy rain. A real downpour. A flood. A deluge.

volcano onion supplanted

Snowflakes like feathers. Welcome to paradise. 

fluent chunk cleans

It was a dastardly day for sales, that's how Mook Mickleman thought about it.
The phones hadn't rung, the door hadn't jangled, the showroom was deserted, the weather beyond the display windows was tuned to a dead channel. Mook mentally credited Bill Gibson, the assistant sales manager, for that metaphor. Bill was a fan of oxymoronic literature.
"Saaay-faaay," drawled Mook affectionately. Bill glanced over.
"So Mook, got time to embellish your monologues I see?" said Bill. Bill was of the journalism school of business; at work, Bill never drawled, cajoled, exclaimed, ejaculated or yelled. Bill said things. Even when he questioned, whether rhetorically or in fact, he never asked, he said. As Mook pondered this facet of Bill's character, he wondered how a man could make a question without inflection, not even a rising intonation, but Bill managed it.
"Bill, I'm having a lousy sales day," complained Mook.
"By that you mean your sales are infested with Lice?" said Bill.
"Ha ha," snided Mook.
"Could be worse," said Bill.
"We could be having a bad sales week?"
"Worse."
"Bad sales month?"
"Worse."
"Bad sales year?"
"Worse."
"What's worse than that!?!"
"No you're right, I can't think of something worse than that."
Bill left Mook fuming and went back to his paperwork, outside, The snow was letting up. Bill allowed himself a quiet whistle.

assure slots truncates

Lord Crystal and Cecilia Socialette were watching a naughty film in Duke Barrington's home theatre. On the screen a large number of athletic and hyperventilating gentlemen and ladies were improvising new and hitherto unforeseen methods of practice procreation.

"God forbid that we should go that far," said Cecilia Socialette, a very important person.
"Lord knows, it's all we can do just to keep up appearances," said Lord Crystal, a gentleman.
"Those people, they...they...they transgress," said Cecilia.
"It's not like we couldn't do that, we could, but why would we?"
"I really think there is some illness that makes people want to do such things."
"Unsatisfied lives is the culprit, unsatisfied lives."

Cecelia and Lord Crystal, feeling very judgemental and satisfied then retired to their private residences and engaged in private debauceries, even cochoneries. There seemed no limit to their individual inventiveness in dreaming up new and blatantly illegal activities with which to pass their evenings with expensively hired help.

Repression made hypocrites of them both.

motor component commisioned

 Grey Suit, a banker, got into his car on Monday morning and waited.

The onboard traffic computer would begin his journey at the precise moment calculated to acheive maximum traffic flowthrough with a minimum of bottlenecks.

In simple English, this meant Grey Suit would sometimes get into his car and wait for up to 15 minutes before the vehicle would begin moving of its own accord into traffic and to his office.

Grey Suit didn't mind. Sitting on the large couch in his car, watching the news and preparing a report on his tablet PC.

Grey Suit didn't know the following words: drive, driver's license, manual transmission, steering wheel.

They appeared occasionally in antique books but Grey Suit didn't read fiction.