five minute free write friday 06/17

like the strangers you have met

If you've met them then they're not really strangers, are they? I live amongst familiar strangers. Above me live a man, a woman, and a small child. Next door to me lives Annie, who's hardly ever home. Sharing my back wall is Betty, whose dogs Briggy and Fred had puppies not too long after I moved in. briggy and Fred are Pomeranian mixed with something else and those puppies were incredibly cute, like pointy noised hamsters. A month ago a skinny, nervous looking woman moved into the apartment above Annie's. I've taken to sitting out on the patio of a vmorning, reading a book with the early sun. Three days ago a man came walkking downstairs around 6am. Yesterday a different man came downstairs around 6am. this morning a WOMAN came down stairs around 6am. At first I thought my new neighbor enjoyed male compaionship; now I don't know what to think. Why shoould I think anythingg at all? Why should I concoct scenarios for a person I don't even know? One morning she herslef came home in the early hours. She took a swig of apple juice from a half gallon container then cuahgt sight of me. "I'm sorry." She said. "For what?" said I. "No need to apologize." What was that about?

I've met a nice woman and her two sons. She's divorced and her boys are a bit older than Jack. We all get along well. It's nice to have found someone in the complex I can relate to.

There's a dad I wonder about. He has three children: a girl Jack's age, a girl a little younger, and a 3 year old boy. I've never seen a mother and the kids don't talk about one. I've never talked to the dad but I've invented all sorts of nice things about him. He's tall, which I like, and has a gap-toothed smile, which I also like. He had long wavy brown hair but buzzed it soon after I first saw him. He's quiet and when he speaks to the kids it's in a low voice marked by an indistinct accent or perhaps a speech impediment. Lately I've seen him hanging out with various women in the complex. I suppose one morning he's the one who will be walking downstairs at 6am.

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doesn't take much

This afternoon I went to Starbucks. I don't go often because they're spendy and they've monopolized the coffee business and most of the time I just want black coffee. Part of our Thanksgiving tradition, though, is going to Mom's Target and Starbucks on Black Friday. This year we made it to Target but not to Starbucks, nor did we make it to Starbucks on Saturday, as we said we would on the way to the Deer Valley Goodwill. I have a gift card smoldering in my pocket so today, after buying spray paint and water marbles at JoAnn, I pulled up to the drive-thru at Starbucks. Usually I get some kind of blended iced vanilla chai thing. At the orderboard I was distracted by all the holiday drinks and opted for a white chocolate peppermint mocha, grande. One thing I will say for Starbucks: the employees are always uber-friendly. After ordering from the chirpy counterperson I pulled forward slightly, plugged in my ipod, and started a game of solitaire while listening to the White S...

memory

thrifting: getting good again

The Sunday before Halloween I scored this vintage Fisher Price Barn at Saver's for $2.99. When I was a kid I had this barn, and played with it all the time. At that age I was convinced my dad could fix anything, and I can't remember if it was the Fisher Price Barn or the Weebles Cottage that he fixed up for me, numerous times, beyond any reasonable expectation. Jack's interpretation of how the barn should look on the inside. Retro sticker, clue to the life of the previous owner. I should also mention that I recently found another similar Fisher Price vintage barn at Goodwill, but they had it priced at $19.99! At Goodwill! Crazy. That same thrifting day at Saver's I bought this repro Kewpie for $7.99, which is, for me, quite a lot to dish out for one item. Again, I had a similar one when I was younger, but mine wore yellow/peach flowered coveralls. I remember once learning that Kewpie is a boy, and trying to reconcile that with my own conception of Kewpie as a girl. Clea...

chock-a-blog

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