Twitching Blobs

I’m extremely uncomfortable writing this article. I hate confrontation in general and there is nothing more explosive than a political discussion. That’s why most of my life I’ve shied away from talking about presidents and policies. I’m afraid of looking dumb and I don’t like being shouted down.

But I’m ready to be heard. I’m ready to participate even though these discussions are veritable infernos right now. I’m ready to speak up, even if my eyebrows burn off, because it’s the right thing to do.

Because the physical safety and civil rights of my friends and family are being threatened by our president-elect and his proposed team.  >>> Click to read more.

Josiah thought it was damn near impossible. He’d never thought this before; usually standing up from the booth and walking to the bathroom didn’t take much. But now, drunk as he was, drunker than he had ever been, he wasn’t sure his body would do what he wanted. Just standing up was tricky, so he tried to stare at the TV above the bar hoping it would look like he was watching the rodeo.

His tongue sought out the long whiskers on the side of his mouth. A gesture Dot used to say made him look “madder than an Old King Crow”. He never did find out what an Old King Crow was and now Dot was dead so what did it matter anyway?  >>> Click to read more.

I stand on my parents’ back lawn, dead brown grass crunching under my feet, early morning light slithering through the trees and watch through the kitchen window as my father finally chokes my mother to death. Workman’s hands stained brown from years of carpentry clutch my mother’s neck like a child clutches a favorite toy. After all these years, he’s found his strength and it shows in the white half-moons that appear on Momma’s neck underneath the tips of his fingers.  >>> Click to read more.

You push against foot traffic with the same fatalistic aggression you use to push against turning thirty. It’s hopeless, yet you try anyway. Commuters jostle for position like racehorses and for the same disheartening goal: to run in circles just to end up back here at the same time tomorrow, 24 hours older. You run your fingers through your too-thick frizzy hair, trying to tame it, to no avail.

“Jennifer! You should really do something about that hair!”

Without breaking your stride, you look over your shoulder for someone you know. But among the human throng by the green, graffiti-stained newsstand there is no one familiar, save the proprietor making rapid exchanges of magazines for money.  >>> Click to read more.

“Where have you been?!”

My little Twitching Blob Blog was angry. She was spitting and curling her lip and baring her teeth.

“I thought I was your favorite!”

Her claws dug into the computer.

“We were having so much fun and then you left!”

In short, she felt abandoned.

And she was right. My little Twitching Blob Blog and I had explored so much together. We shared our passions, opinions and creative writing. We spoke from the heart, revealed fears and desires, explored satire,  warned readers about temporary assholes and Charlie Sheen, apologized,  questioned, exposed and even cleansed. My creativity was blooming and constant and delicious.  >>> Click to read more.

The request.

“Cleanse with me,” said my live-in lover, Doug. I thought he was offering a sexy middle-of-the-day shower, something we hadn’t done since those blissful first three months of our relationship. That was four years ago in 2002.

I pulled my shirt over my head in record Paris Hilton pout-time.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “I’m trying to talk to you.” He thrust an unassuming little yellow book at me. I sheepishly replaced my shirt while he started in with that crazy Southern California talk. Something about cleaning his digestive system of all the horrible hormone-injected, mucus-filled supposed-food that he’d been shoving into his mouth for most of his adult life. All it would take was ten days and some discipline.  >>> Click to read more.

I once covered my concrete cubicle at a soul-crushing job in red construction paper. The fluorescent lights and white walls were emotionally debilitating. The eternal power point presentations defeated me. Office gossip dulled the once-sharp edges of my brain.

Hence the red construction paper. It was a desperate move in self-stimulation.

Although it paid the bills in between acting gigs, after ten years in the corporate world, and this particular company for four, my general life enjoyment was simply shot.  >>> Click to read more.

It was the biggest decision of my life and I didn’t want to blow it.

I sat cross-legged on the old yellow carpet in my bedroom, surrounded by college applications. Notes were crammed into every margin available in “The College Book,” the bible for high schoolers looking for general outlines of schools across the nation. My father had taken me on several road trips to visit countless schools, during which I had taken more copious notes. Now the applications lurked around me like a sea of sharks and my notes were kelp to my need for a lifeboat.  >>> Click to read more.

Once again, God-fearing patriotic men are fighting to take away women’s rights to abortion and birth control in order to preserve the fabric of America. And as we all know, the fabric of America is woven from our collective ability to get married and procreate.

That’s why they want to abolish anything that could prevent little human beings from being pushed screaming into the world.  >>> Click to read more.