Dear Jornal,

Today is Tuesday, and guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to the dentist to get teeth pulled. Four teeth normally but I lost one of them that was supposed to be pulled! Ha, ha! But I still have three more to go. Thank goodness it’s only baby teeth. Another good thing is that another one that is to be pulled is loose. Well it’s 9:50. I’m at my dad’s right now and I have spent the night . . . WITHOUT PAIGE! Anyway, I leave for the dentist at 10:00. I’ll write back when I return!

Yours truley,
Annie M

About the dentist again! We made it into two trips for getting teeth pulled. Why? Good question.

WARNING do not read if getting teeth pulled again. (Until it says safe!)

O.K. now I’m serious. Don’t read if getting teeth pulled.

O.K. here it is.

It is murder!

SAFE.

Hi again, well I just got out of cleaning up dishes because I’m here in the playhouse! No one knows I’m here!

Annie

p.s. YES!

Dear Jornal,

I have 3 4 exciting things to tell you. 1. We got a new kitten at mom’s house a week ago and named him Copper, because of his eyes. He is about a month old now. VERY CUTE. But . . . he has ear mites. 2. Me and Paige are going up to grandma’s and grandpa’s for an entire THREE AND A HALF DAYS! 3. School ended June 11, and that’s why we are able to go to grandma and grandpa’s for THREE AND A HALF DAYS, and we get a week with dad because . . . 4. Dad and Jan are getting hitched! (married) so we get a week with dad and next week they get married! Then Fathers Day!

One more thing. Jan’s dog Loki got put to sleep. Noooooooooooooo!

(Because of his cancer.)

Your truley,
Annie

Dear Jornal,

There is lots of knews since I wrote in you last. Number one, it’s been the new year now (as you might have already guessed, seeing 1994 on the top!) and we were at mom’s house. We went to a friend of ours named Tom. Tom is sick. He’s got that disease where you lose all your muscles. We cooked for him and he let us take rides in the wheelchairs. It was fun. He luckily has two.

Number two, they cancelled school Tuesday because it was so cold. Today though, the snow is melting.

Number THREE, at dad’s house we got a new puppy. It’s a girl and her name is Bosco. She was named after chocolate. She’s peed on the pink carpet a couple of times.

Number 4, I’ll have to tell you later. Dad wants me to study my homework.

Yours,
Annie

Dear Jornal,

There is no date because it is the same day. Here is number 4 from my last entry. Cliff, Jan’s dad I’m afraid to say died a couple days ago. We didn’t see him in the coffin but we saw his coffin right before it was lowered into the earth. The priest said that prayer, are father, who art in heaven, and he used 3 roses naming them after love and stuff like that. Then we went into the same church dad and Jan were married in. Paige, Stephie, Scooter and I went all around the church exploring!

Yours,
Annie

January 24, 1994

Dear Jornal,

Today I found out something horrible. When I get braces I can’t have popcorn. I love popcorn! At least I can still eat blueberries.

February 20, 1994

Dear Jornal,

Today I’m pretending to be crippled by wearing a cast on my right hand/wrist and a cast-like thing on my left foot/ankle. So when you see 2-20-94 on the heading, I’m pretending to be a girl named Katie who is crippled.

Annie

Dear Jornal,

Exercises went well today. I am writing better with my casted hand all the time, don’t you think? It’s nice to have you around when I’m lonely. But I made a new friend today. She has no legs, but she’s friendly. Bye for now!

Yours,
Katie

Dear Journal,

I have found a perfect hiding spot for writing in you. It is behind the doggie kennel underneath the kitchen table. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE CAN SEE ME! Not even the dog knows where I am.

Anyway, only 3 more years days until my 11th birthday. At mom’s house I’ll have a costume party.

Never mind, the dog just found me.

Yours,
Annie

Dear Journal,

I have a crush on someone. Now don’t laugh, because then you might not hear, and this is VERY rare. Some of my friends have a new crush every day, while I have had two (this is my second one) since 5th grade.

No, not all that cute. At least, that’s what I thought at first. But he is really nice, and I like the way he thinks. We both like a new show that just came out — Mad T.V. (I subscribe to Mad Magazine). He cracks funny jokes and never puts anyone down, and compliments people all the time. He is in my Accelerated Math class, my English class, gym, Geography, and lunch. Now his messed up hair is cute. His crooked smile is sweet. And even his usually dirty hands look . . . well . . . like him, which is cute. The good thing about this crush is that it doesn’t hurt.

Yours,
Annie M.

Dear Journal,

A few days ago it was Thanksgiving. We were with dad this time, and went to a family gathering at Bev’s house. Scott, (my step-uncle) brought 15 pounds of mashed potatoes! I wonder what he’s going to do with all the leftovers. I think he’ll realize he went overboard.

There was turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes (obviously), stuffing, corn stuff (I don’t know what it’s called), orange jell-o with cool-whip on top and pumpkin pie.

Remember when I told you about that “crush”? It ended rather abruptly when I saw how he acted in class. B-O-R-I-N-G! Stupid jokes, tries to be cool when he isn’t.

Yours,
Annie M

1996 note: I was lying. Trying to escape my feelings. STILL CUTE.

Dear Journal,

I went to the last dance with all of my friends yesterday (except Leann – she works at McDonald’s and couldn’t get the time off).

It was a blast! The DJs were horrid, and there were sevies, but out of the approximately twelve songs the DJs played, my friends and I danced to seven of them: the other five were either love songs (“I believe I can fly . . . I believe I can touch the sky” what kind of song is that?) or they were the limbo. I am not good at the limbo.

P had no one to dance with. He still likes S, but she didn’t show. I wanted him to ask me to dance, I’ll admit that. He didn’t, of course. He did watch me though, for about a minute. You know that feeling that someone’s watching you? I felt it, turned around, and met his steady gaze, but we both looked quickly away. Yes, P, I think you used to like me. But I was only a spark of interest; S was a fire.

But let me get off that topic; I had fun at the dance, and that’s all that matters. My heart remained where it was, and didn’t implode or break into small pieces. I even discoed.

Oh ho
please don’t talk about love tonight
please don’t talk about sweeet loove
please don’t talk about bein’ true
and all the trouble
we’ve been through
oh please don’t talk about
all of the plans that we had
for fixin’ this broken romance
I want to go where the people dance, I want some
ACTION: I want to LIIIIVE!
- That “I love the night-life” song

Yes. Well.

Anyway, M cried again because T wouldn’t ask her to dance. “GET OVER IT!” I wanted to shout. “THIS IS A DANCE! WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT A DANCE? COME ON, LET’S DANCE!”

Sheesh. Do you think you’ll feel better when he sees you cry?

Adrianne

“Habit is the chief motive force.”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Want to join us in a collection of stories on habit, loosely or un-loosely based upon the above quotation? It will be digitally hand-stitched into a PDF (aka WIA, aka Wee Internet Anthology) with other habitual stories and posted here later next week. 500 to 2000 words, Doc or plain text file, “due” by noon on Monday. Fun and procrastination are imminent. Email here.

Knitting

When are you coming back to stand in front of the window?
(I heard you whistling last night. Cars pass me by all day,

waves circling the enormous globe.)
So much is left out, I’m knitting a pattern without

stitches, without needles, only long fingerbones
to carry yarn. There was something buried

the night I left Eau Claire for good, and I never knew
how it would grow. Now your childhood friends

are my students, I walk past houses you lived in
without my knowledge and your scent trails

from abandoned bakeries. Whole warehouses
have been invented to catalogue want like this.

I go on knitting night and day because I don’t know
any other thing. All unknits by darkness

into twine birds use piece by piece. What secret
name can I tell you? What adventure are you on tonight?

There is forgetting in the density of raw new wool,
yarn shop one block from your apartment,

the cheap scarf — you don’t value things
because you never make them. Moon over the whitening world

sharpens spindle, windowframe. The sash
is pulled, seam is set: without material, there is no map.

I’ve been trying to discern lately what makes a lovable poem to me, versus what actively irks me. I think the latter is mostly about ego. I have written your bad poetry, I think, and it took me five minutes with a Thesaurus. I don’t like thinking about those careless times. I know my tricks, and I hate to see you using them. Like most prejudices, apparently, it involves accusing you of being just like me.

Lovable, though, I don’t know. Your poem is something I’ll read in the middle of a fight. I will sneak it into malls and bus stops and it will make these places seem lovely, significant, normal, thank god.

On Sunday, I finally finished the poorly-written book I’ve been reading for the past month and a half.

Waiting was something he disliked these days because it made him realize how much time he had on his hands.
– Armand ML Inezian, “See Me”

Want to join us in a wait-y story, based on the above quotation? Could be a paragraph, could be five bajillion paragraphs (read: 500 to 2000 words). Email me a Doc or PDF by Friday evening to be part of a wee internet anthology, going live Monday.

I’ve found that this whole “requiring first publishing rights” concept goes violently against the instincts I’ve honed over the developing years. My first desire when I really like something I’ve done, or if I’m not sure if I really like something I’ve done, is to smear it all over the internet. See what strangers have to say. Instant gratification! Hello, world! “Not cool!” say respectable publishers.

But seriously, I don’t know how I’ll handle that. So how about this: want me to email you a short story? You’d be free to email me back with comments, or say nothing at all. It will be just like a blog post (note to potential publishers: this will not be like a blog post at all): in your inbox. Baby steps. I’d feel so much better just knowing you saw it.

Email me or comment if you’re interested.

Tim,

You do find the most unusual stuff in your voyage thru the net. I liked the office site, but I don’t get the chick writing about the funeral. She must be one of those artsy-fartsy folks I do not relate to particulary [sic] well.

Interesting stuff, that.

What the hell are you doing?

Yeah, seriously! What the hell am I doing? Fiction? Plots? Imaginary . . . characters? What? And this was supposed to be fun and easy! Short and “flash” fiction have always been my favorite formats to read, and what I assumed I’d write, if I only had the time.

And now I have the time! Rejoice, rejoice, Emmaaaaaanuel.

Here’s what I initially hadn’t figured on, and what I promptly figured out a mere few hours after awakening that first blissful, sunny morning of freedom: writing takes practice . . . and I haven’t written any fiction in seven years. Seven years may not sound like so long to the more wizened of us out there, so here’s some perspective: seven years ago is equal, for me, to two life phases ago. That’s pre-post-college working life, pre-college hilarity life, all the way back to mid-high-school omgwtfbbq life when — oh, why pad the truth — I wrote about mermaids.

And cats! The culmination of my fiction-writing career thus far, my epoch, was at the tender age of fourteen, when I realized I could write a story about . . . mercats.

I’d like to think that my brain cells have been about 75% replaced in the past seven years. This would be a pretty convenient philosophy, since beyond freeing me from the embarrassing preoccupations of my former psyche, it could follow that I — as in, my current brain implementation — have never done this fiction-writing thing before. This is certainly what it feels like. I open up a blank TextEdit file, turn off my wireless, and stare blankly, desperately, like someone told to compose an essay in a foreign language.

Because here’s the problem when you’re just making shit up: you can say anything. What. Do. You. Choose?

I realized that I could use some boundaries, and a clear place to begin. I needed to write a lot at first, without getting frustrated with the details or worrying that it sucked a little. I needed to read a lot, and take from other writers, because that’s what everyone tells you.

So, okay. Branches.

I’m not under any illusion that these are great, publishing-house-publishable stories. For both of our sakes, I hope they’re at least somewhat entertaining, worth your time. I would welcome any comments containing criticism, encouragement, violent insults, ambivalent shrugs of doubt, and perplexed questions in regards to my abilities (unless we’re dating — in which case, please say that you love me).

One every two weeks, until I’ve written ten. I have a general rule that I don’t write anything I don’t enjoy writing, because it shows. If I’m still pulling my hair out by assisted-story number ten, I’ll move on.

But let’s give this a go, shall we?