So it’s mid-August, and the new semester begins in a little over a week. Which is depressing, sort of. And I was sitting in a concert tonight (Chris Isaak–great show!) and it occurred to me that I haven’t done a giveaway in a while. It’s time!
This summer I took a couple writing workshops in Iowa. One of our assignments was to write as boring a piece as we possibly could–which is harder than it sounds. I wrote a short essay about a strip mall in Bakersfield. It’s definitely the least interesting thing I’ve ever written.
Now it’s your turn! Write the most boring paragraph you can and add it as a comment here. Has to be original work–no copying from textbooks! It has to be narrative, not just a list. But really, suck anything remotely intriguing right out of that thing. My kids will judge–they are experts on booooring. Winner gets a print copy of Buried Bones and a $10 Dreamspinner gift cert. If I get more than 20 entries, I’ll give two sets of prizes away, so go ahead and spread the word. Entries are due August 19 at noon PDT. You can submit up to two entries. Make sure to include your email address so I can contact you if you win.
Good luck!
And here’s Chris Isaak and my husband’s finger:
There are many thoughts and opinions on how best to watch paint dry, or if you should even watch it at all. Paint, as we all know, is any colored substance that is spread over a surface and dries to leave a decorative (or protective) coating. Paint has existed almost as long as human beings. This is especially true if you count chalk as paint, which it is not, but that’s a discussion for another time. (See footnotes for more reading material.) Watching paint dry is often used as an expression of intense boredom, but is that fair? Watching anything that takes a great deal of time to dry would be just as visually unappealing if not more so. After all, paint is available in a wide variety of shades, some of which are quite visually arresting, and would be involving to watch for hours on end, especially if you’re a fan of experimental performance art. So why has paint been singled out in such a negative way? Paint can be used in negative ways as well as positive ways, but how it is used is up to the user. Please turn the page, and read on, as we delve deep into the expression “as dull as a beige room”, and explore what beige is, and why such a neutral tone can have such a negative connotation in today’s beige trending society.
Glad you had a great time at the concert! What a fun contest idea, I tried my hand at it. I started out with the most mundane task I have to do on a regular basis.
Very few people enjoy it, but washing dishes is vital for keeping a clean house. If you are not fortunate enough to own a dishwasher, you will need to wash dishes frequently, preferably directly after using them. Required supplies are a sink with running water, dish soap, a sponge, and either a dish drainer or a towel. If you are less inclined to do housework, you can put your clean dishes in the dish drainer when you are finished washing, otherwise you can take the extra few minutes to dry them with the towel. But first, you need to choose your sponge and actually wash the dishes. You may be best served by a sponge with one soft side and and abrasive side to get off stuck-on food. Turn on the sink, wet the sponge, and pour some soap into the soft side so you can have a good lather. Run the water over the dish you need to clean, and rub the soapy soft side of the sponge over the dish. If the dish is still soiled, use the abrasive side of the sponge for additional scrubbing. Rinse the dish and, as was already mentioned, either dry it with the towel or leave it to dry in the dish drainer. If you have many dishes to wash, you may prefer to set them all in a dish drainer until you have washed them all, even if you plan to dry them by hand.
That was… a little too fun.
sara(dot)bowerman(at)gmail(dot)com
John considered getting out of bed that morning, but really why should he? It was the weekend, so he didn’t have to go to work. He considered mailing his subscription renewal to Readers Digest, but debated it so long that he eventually realized the Post Office was now closed. His mail normally would have been delivered by now, but he hadn’t received anything but Readers Digest since he’d switch all his bills to online bill-pay. Readers Digest hadn’t come in two months, because his subscription had run out. So he just lay there, knowing that there was nothing in his mailbox. Perhaps he should have bought that television after all….
In the scheme of things, the colour beige is probably the least interesting colour out there. Some people could call it dark magnolia, heavy cream, even taupe, but when it actually came down to it, all of those colours were variations on beige. But if all of those colours were merely variations on beige, then could beige be considered to be a boring colour?
Hast thou come for me, at the waning of my twilight? No sound heralded thy approach, save that of my soul’s entreaty. In winter night, at midnight’s call, my bedchamber resounds with sonorousness of thy silent advent to sunder my mortal coils. Fosooth, most merrily dost I greet thee, a fulsome fate to some, but to this wearisome world I bid, not a lament from my lips, but a soft fare thee well.
Why do I always forget my email? Good thing I’d checked back so I could re-blog this!
anordwell (at) live.com
Because of the way his relatives had treated her at the retreat, and the treatment goes back many years too, stemming from their enabling tendencies and ultimately originating from the codependency of the mother, who was so good with her pies and crafts and Easter bunny chocolate and goodnight kisses and so very bad at everything else, she felt so lost. Laura didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she ran them over the smooth mahogany fireplace with reliefs of druids and nymphs that the carver had sprung up from his love of Greek and Celtic mythology, stopping at a wood nymph with berries in her hair and leaves at her feet. There was a scattering of dust and ashes on the fireplace stones — stones that had been brought in from a quarry in the next town over, the proprietor being a man who only kept his quarry open from 3 AM to 10 AM before he started to drink again, and her grandfather-in-law had remarked what an unnaturally good grain those rocks had. Laura cursed her fate, she spat on it, she called upon all the forces of negativity to do away this cruel burden, this insensitive toiling, this twinging lack of self-respect and actualization, this je ne sais pas, this woe, this all encompassing blackness. She tripped her fingers over the frames of the pictures, lightly using the space between her index finger’s fat little tip and the space between the nail and cuticle to pick up the dust from the fake Walmart-bought rectangular housings that held so much pain beneath their smiles. O! Curious muse! O! Wayward dilettante! O! Such philistines and cads! The wrath Laura felt in her heart was full of emptiness, full of raw indecision and nothingness, a void into an endless field of Prozac and Zoloft. Alas, it was time to approach the door, the entry into the maelstrom, the fiery gates of such agonized labor that always kept her from her happiness!
I listened to the meditation tape. Concentrating. Following the serenely given instructions. Empty your mind. Remove all outside thoughts. Imagine your quiet place. Center yourself. Feel your body relax. Breathe deeply. And let it out. Breathe deeply. And slowly let it out. Feel your body slowly relaxing. Let your muscles unwind. Breathe in. And breathe out. Breathe in. And breathe out. Feel yourself getting tired. Breathe in. And breathe out. Feel yourself float. Breathe in. And breathe out. Breathe in. And breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out…
Let us talk about golf. First you need a crazy outfit, probably something paisley or maybe plaid. Polka dots are a good bet too. Make sure you pull your pants or shorts up to your chest.Next you will need clubs and a golf ball to hit with the clubs. Then you will need a grassy area with holes. Then you take the ball and put it on the grass. Then take the club and hit the ball into the hole.
Stacia
ladykatana@gmail.com