Writing Club Week 10

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[The Blogger]

Ira 2 not starting, this, so I starting this!

Readying for week 10... first responder picks topic.

[0whole1]

Ira 2 not starting, this, so I starting this!

Readying for week 10... first responder picks topic.

I feel bad with 2 subjects in a row.....hows about the subject be "fill in the blank"?

[The Blogger]

Okay, we have buffet of topics for writing club pleasures:

• Feeling bad
• Two in a row, or
• Fill in the blank

Your choosings!

[The Blogger]

Where is all the writers?  Off writering, I hoping!

Since none starting yet, I starting off so writing club steel here...


I coming on plane.  Back from the old country over holiday.  And waitress handing out card for costumes.  (Raphael saying that wrong, she now called flight attending and not having to wear same costumes as when she were waitress.)  I looking at card.  Having problem with forms.

It say "Occupation" and have small blank.  I have many sided personality, too large for such a small blank!  Maybe essay.  Maybe book.  But trying to answer.  Is "Bon Vivant" acceptable occupation?  Can "Conoisseur of fine cheeses" counting on form?  (I once paid handsomely with cheddar for such connoisseuring during brief dot-com fromage bubble in 1998.)

Maybe moving on and coming back.

Address.  This one easier, but still difficult.  Where one sleep?  Where one heart longing to be?  Where one getting junk mail?  Or where one spend most time?

Phone.  Yes, I have phone!  I have many phone, actually.  Does they wanting phone number or number of phones I having?  Still confusable.  Skip for now.

Purpose of visit.  Ah, here something that can be exponentially expounding upon!  I start writing, squeezing letters into lineage, making smaller.  Then with only one line left, switching next to Italian, then French to save space.  Writing sideway on form, filling in so much of card!  Perhaps next time not explaining how I lost my pantaloons in Marseilles (although that really set stage for everything what happened in 2003 and 2004!).

Ring call buttons.  Asking for new card.  Continuing story on new card.  Switchings back to English for clearity.

And now onto the Declarations.  Is packaged cookie considering food?  It tasting like cardboard, so maybe not.  Is melted cheese on corner of baggage food or lubricant for broken wheel?  Raphael no helping (and no eating cheese for to make question moot).  Feeling bad, ringing bell again.  So many questions.

Skipping so much for now.  Date?  simple perhaps, but is European method (11/2/09) or American (2/11/09)?  Can account for missing 10 days from Gregory, Pope of Rome in 1582 even though Christopher Clavius taking 800 pages, not 1/3 line on blue card!

How can little card causing so much confusion?  Questions seeming simple, but really complexing!  (Meanwhiles, Raphael all finish with his blue card!  He playing "cute monkey" card so Sports Illustrating Swimsuit Model in First Class help him fill in all blankings.  But when I going to First Class to also get her helpings, I escorted back to seats!)

Finally, something I can answer in space allowment:

Signature:         Alain, the Blogger     !

[TRConnie]

   Alain!

Connie, your number 1 fan

[ira2]

Ohhhhh, what Connie said, Alain!! GREAT writing!!    (And I think we might be related, you and I.)

[0whole1]

One of the things I hate about living in a small town is that you can never get away from your problems -- by which I mean exes.

(Not even girlfriends, really. I mean, does "married woman I slept with once" count as a girlfriend?  We'd been friends.  Then that night. Now -- years now -- not so much. Not so much as a word. For years.)

Unfortunately, in a place with one grocery, faces do pop up.  Even if they don't, you expect that they will, and dread -- or wonder why they haven't, and pine.

I know why, objectively.

(Yeah, objectively.)

Still and all, feelings do get hurt.  For what *that's* worth.

[LettersFromEurope]

Finally, something I can answer in space allowment:

Signature:         Alain, the Blogger     !

I won´t even try!! This is soooo cool. Where else do you publish?

[Forty Watt]

Costume official approaches Alain:

Excuse me, Sir, please step this way,
We have a little problem with what you have to say.

For a Custom Declaration, in its usual form,
Brevity--the soul of wit--tends to be the norm.

Now now now, no need to fret,
Some of us are quite impressed with your novelette.

Bill, the big guy over there, is enamored of the theme,
But Mary, the contrary, eschews the episteme.

Marty, the literary smarty, finds a looseness in the plot,
But Marty is a structuralist, so she’s an expert--NOT!

Hermeneutically speaking, I find richness in the text,
Although the phallocentrism leaves me quite perplexed.

There are binary oppositions I’d like to deconstruct,
Oh, sorry about your pantaloons, that must have really sucked.

We are, however, all agreed our spirits you have lifted,
And phenomenologically speaking, you’re clearly very gifted.

The problem that we have is not with your prose per se,
But rather it’s your signature that’s gone somewhat astray.

See here, your names, the first and last only need be stated.
Your middle name--that would be “the”-- is to be expurgated.

So if you would be good enough and sign for all to see,
First name Alain, last name Blogger, middle initial “T”.

[the problem child]

Yay Forty and Alain! Haven't seen a number of those terms since grad school. Strangely, I miss them not a bit.

[TRConnie]

So, yeah, like, I'm doing the red eye from Rome to JFK with a quickie refueling stop and there's this guy in a coach with a monkey.  No, I am not kidding.  An honest-to-god monkey.  No it didn't have one of those vests on, but it did have these pants-things-on - you know, like pantaloons.  And these little bracelet kind of things with bells on his arms and legs.  I look at Shannon at say WTF and she shrugs and says something about ticketing saying it was easier to just put them on the plane and ignore it.  But I'm PMSing and there's been nothing but weather delays and drunks and screaming kids and what's with all these old women and knitting stuff?  How are they getting past security?

I'm thinking GREAT JUST FREAKING GREAT.  A monkey.

But it was mostly okay.  The monkey kept the kids happy and the guy who owned the monkey was kind of charming, but not that kind of charming.  He seemed bewildered by everything and the knitting freak next to him kept having to explain the call and light buttons.  I really don't know how they get those needles through security.  My mom nags me weekly about how she can't get 6 ounces of hand lotion from Denver to Minneapolis but Grandma got knitting needles as long as swords from Rome to New York. 

So it was all going pretty okay until I started through with drinks and the guy wants wine.  The guy's kind of strange looking...  Well, he looked mostly Italian...no, not sexy Italian.  I keep telling you Johnny Depp is not Italian.  Anyway, the guy wants wine and you can tell he's not got any money, so I make sure he understand $8 dollars WHICH took like forever what with him saying "Scusi" every 12 seconds.  So, finally, he gives me $8 and I hand him the split and the glass.  He looks at the split and shrugs a bit, but the glass UPSET him somehow.  Why?  I don't know why.  It was just a plastic glass like we give everybody.  So he stands up, and bows...I am not making this up.  Anyway, he stands up and bows and says scusi like 9 million times and gives the split and the glass back to me.  Says, "Coca la Cola."  Whatever. 

So, I give him his change and he says, "$2 for Coca la Cola, but $8 for vin mal?"  I think that's what he said.  Yeah, I thought the Coca la Cola was kind of cute, but this guy is not cute.  YOU ARE NOT PICTURING THIS RIGHT.  OK?  Trust me. 

So.  People are starting to nod off and things are finally getting quiet.  The monkey is sitting in his lap and he starts singing to the monkey.  Well, it was kind of a nice voice, but he's waking the kids up and all of a sudden I've got people up and down the aisle taking brats to the bathroom.  I just wanted to relax, you know.

So, finally, everyone including the monkey goes to sleep and it's pretty uneventful until I hand out the customs declaration forms. 

You are not EVEN going to believe this...

============
Connie

[ira2]

GREAT writing!!!    Man, you people are GIFTED!!!

[Forty Watt]

I thought I couldn't laugh any more than I did reading Alain's piece, but you made me Connie.  Very funny stuff. 

[The Blogger]

Oh, Connie! 

I know peoples like the one you describing!!

For moments I thought you were talking about me, but you say not cute, so I know it must to be someone else.

[Sirenoftitan]

Alain & Connie - wonderful writing and a joy to read   

[Irishgirl]

ROFL 

[LettersFromEurope]

The book, the book, who is putting it together?

I am falling off my chair laughing everytime I open Week 10.

 

That is me everytime I open the thread.

[ira2]

I agree, Letters - this one is the ten out of ten!! 

[ira2]

It's Monday, and Writing Club Week 11 is up and waiting for the topic to be set by the first one to respond!

That one will be a challenge, I think, after this one