Prompt Tuesdays: Wallace Stevens Poem . . .

Suddenly, he noticed something gleaming down in the bottom of the sink . . . down inside the disposal, actually, under that rubber, flappy thing. A glow, of sorts, lay beyond. He rested the scrubber against the side of the sink, dropping the glass with its clinging, concupiscent curds, and leaned forward.

It was a spyrograph. And colored pens. And his old rollerskates. Sitting there, untouched, as he remembered them.

Someone was yammering behind him. A voice he heard most nights. Something about spreadsheets and fuel injection and knee braces and insecticide. Something about the second half of that Kerouac book he never finished that sat on the living room shelf, dust blanketing the top edge of the pages. Or was it boxed up in the attic? Or had it been sold for pennies at some yard sale to make room for the annually-grouped Sunset magazine folios. Why hadn’t he finished it? Something about SAT tests, he seemed to remember. And car insurance. And wisdom teeth.

Was he really here now? Had he really wanted this? Had he already called the roller of big cigars? Was he that roller?

He reached deep into the drain, . . . grabbed it by the innards and pulled it inside out, the plumbing slopping out onto the linoleum in globbed intestinal piles . . . the small gear ringlets and pens from the spyograph clattering cleanly to the floor along with the skates, a tablet of Mad Libs, his first velcro wallet. Inside, an ASB card -- the laminated photo showing his hair parted in the middle, . . . his freckles darker, . . . more defined. And there was something in those eyes. Something forward looking. Something he had not seen in the mirror in a long, long time.
He strapped on his roller skates – a tad tight perhaps– stood, and rolled through the dining room, past the open front door, and onto the porch. The queen palms stood silhouetted against the phone lines in the twilight sky, a slightly humid and salty taste to the air.

There was an unread second half of a Kerouac book to find out there somewhere.

Tuesday Writing Prompt: Using Photo

Yet another Tuesday writing prompt from Deb Anderson's Blog. The words I derived from the picture were: Misty, Boat, cold.

Here goes nothing . . . A soft-of How-To Memoir, based on real experience! LOL! :)

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Sleeping in a Hammock
with a Sleeping Bag in the Sierra.

It's not easy, somehow crawing into a sleeping bag in a backpacking hammock, but I've done it many times. It takes dexterity, but is well worth the effort. Sleeping in a hammock is one of life's wonderous experiences, but it can get cold at night in the Sierra Nevada, and so a sleeping bag is mandatory to keep the slumberer warm in those cold, and sometimes misty, evenings.

After first checking my hammock for snags, tears, or rips -- and ensuring the ropes tight and secure -- I tuck the sleeping bag into the hammock end to end, and then gingerly sit in the middle. Next, leaning back, I slowly release pressure on my feet until I am laying sideways in the hammock on top of the sleeping bag. The sleeping bag may slip toward the center, but it is okay to ignore that for now. The important thing is, your ass is holding the sleeping bag in place within the hammock.

I then roll sideways slowly, letting my legs slip up over the edge of the hammock, and pulling the netting back behind my head. The ropes may squeek between the trees at this point, but you can ignore that as, in the first sentence, you've already checked the ropes and are certain that they are tied securely, correct? Pull your shoulder toward the open end of the sleeping bag, and then rock back and forth, like you are in a little boat, until you are laying on your back on extended sleeping bag.

Shit. I forgot. I was supposed to unzip it the sleeping bag first. Well, I can . . . uh . . . reach down here and . . . yes. Now I begin to tuck my feet into the sleeping bag without upsetting the hammock. (If I forgot to untie my shoelaces, I'll need to start the entire process over again.) Now I kick off my shoes, tuck my feet inside, pull the netting of the hammock around my sides, and shift up and down until I'm safe inside. Now, reaching down slowly, without turning too far over (to avoid a spill), grab the zipper handle and pull upward.

Boys, when you have to go to the bathroom at night, simply extend your manhood out of the zippered sleeping bag, stick yourself through the nylon hammock mesh, and squirt the nearest bush. This also comes in handy for marking your territory against racoons and bears. Bears get hungry in the Sierra Nevada, especially with large Sausage-looking human-beings in hammocks dangling between two trees.

Girls, I'm sorry. I guess I forgot to mention, you shouldn't have drank those last two cups of campfire-warmed cocoa! Without the proper "gear" you are shit-outta-luck!

Next Week: The sound of the wind hissing in the pine needles and the gentle glow of the campfire. What could be better?

Tuesday Writing Prompt: "Dear Diary"

“Dear Diary?” he asked. “What? As a title?”

She fumbled with the chromed ashtray lid on her armrest. The Packard was older but well kept – the ashtray lid evidently an exception.

“Chester, I asked you to loosen this lid. Use oil or something on the hinge of it. Today.”

Chester raised a finger to his hat – and nodded slightly.

Unable to budge it, she rolled down the window to the sound of engines humming at the intersection of 49th and 5th outside Rockefeller Center. The rain shot down onto the windows in firm, window-rattling missiles. Her long, ruby fingernails tapped the cigarette holder into the dreary twilight.

“Yes. Dear Diary. I’ve quite made up my mind.”

“But, Darling, last week . . . surely you . . .”

“I won’t have it any other way,” she said, looking down at her skirt for ash and smoothing the green silk. “Chester, cut over on 44th, please. Lunch at the Algonquin today. I wish to sit by the hearth with the firelight behind me. I feel like a wretched, wrinkled, rumpled, dampened mess.”

Chester lifted his right forefinger off the wheel in deferent recognition.

She turned to Robert and lifted her eyebrows. “Need I remind you, dear husband, that you are addressing a Pulitzer Prize–winning, Tony Award–winning author of 17 plays, 8 of which have gone to broadway, 3 of which have become hits, and one of which has been made into a movie for which I also received an Oscar. A shared Oscar, albeit, but I hardly think that . . .”

“Dear Diary it is, then.” He said, slumping down into the seat and watching the rain run down his window in small diverting creeks, the tightness growing in his stomach. Her original title, My Dearest Love Robert, had touched him in a way he hadn’t felt for years – since before the awards and glamour. Since before the limousines and the park-side move.

Somehow he knew it wouldn’t last.