Survive and Thrive Workshop

One of the really good reasons for having a best friend as an English major is that you get invited to join in such things as writing workshops on occasion. This is one of those times.

Our writing prompt for the day was this: What are your two most prevalent inner landscapes and how would you describe them?

My response?

My inner landscapes…. I’m not really sure they can be separated.

After all, can a person separate a piece of themselves from himself? There’s certainly a farm, … although it’s been many many years since I’ve actually spent a goodly amount of time there.

As if that matters.

It is as vivid in my mind as this afternoon’s lunch.

There’s a hill across the gravel road that always seemed huge to me, which in reality is probably much more considered a grassy knoll.

Forgive me. I was small when last I saw it.

A barn, where countless hours were spent shoveling cow manure to the musical ramblings of The Judds and Alan Jackson.

I do wonder now why shoveling shit held such glamorous allure for a ten-year-old. Odd.

Over there, an almost matched pair of classic Chevy trucks are parked, given new life by a cousin I always thought was “the coolest”.

Behind the barn sits a row of pig huts, and beyond that a rather unimpressive cattle pasture seemingly bare of grasses, but still entertaining enough that I spent hours wrestling boulders the size of my head up,catapulting them onto the barely crusted-over cow pies.

What glorious explosions of leafy green poop!

I grin to myself, remembering the thrill.

That was then, a simpler, more innocent time, but it’s still here within me somewhere.

Moving on.

The landscape of now is rife with imagination; mixed, too, with the stress and unease of humdrum, everyday life.

Oz, Neverland, Wonderland, and Willa Wonka’s Chocolate Factory all appear at times, though my yellow-brick road is sometimes blocked with piles of unpaid bills and regrets.

No. No regrets. I must remember there are no regrets, only choices that have taught me more than I might otherwise have known.

To my left is Ireland, because who DOESN’T want to go to Ireland?

It is, after all, the place where all the epic fantasy movies are made.

Alice’s white rabbit runs past, late as always, across the moors of England to my right.

You know- the ones Eustacia Vye spent so much time on.

It depends on which day you are here, what other places you might see.

New York City is never too far, the night lights of which rival Vegas, which is just there.

You see? Don’t mind the mostly nude women walking about- we all need something pretty to look at.

If you prefer, I can point you in the direction of the menagerie.

The unicorns and mermaids will be awake by the time you get there.

Of course, it snows on occasion, because I AM from Minnesota; our weather here can be….fickle. worries. The sun will come out tomorrow.

A little red-headed orphan told me so.

Writing Assignments 101

My friend Delightful takes college classes tirelessly, and mentioned yesterday that she didn’t want to do her latest assignment. I offered to do it for her, but since it was a somewhat personalized assignment, she did it herself. Luckily, having a friend in creative writing gives me great ideas for blog posts!

The assignment: Imagine yourself as a car. What color are you? What’s in the glovebox? What’s in the trunk? What kind of music is playing on the radio?

My response:

I’d love to say that myself as a car would be a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500. Good old-fashioned all- American muscle encased in a body sexy enough to give any guy with half a brain a hard-on. The kind of car a guy can just get in and go 100 miles an hour in.

Sadly, I am not the owner of long, flowing blonde hair,  or legs that go for miles, or capable of causing most guys to rubberneck when I walk down the street. I have curves in all the right places, and a few in the wrong places. It takes a certain kind of man to want to pick me out of all the other cars that are out there. So I would have to say I’m probably a convertible Volkswagon Rabbit. Pretty cute, reminiscent of a better day, sturdy, and better with my top down.

Maybe I don’t have the generic beauty of a Mustang, but I maintain that under my hood lives the engine of such a beast. Fast enough to challenge anything that comes up, (like a new, not-so-sexy Camaro) and strong enough to handle the rough bumps in life.

My adorable Rabbit body would be a bright shimmery fuschia color, which, upon closer inspection, would change to a deep royal blue. A paint job that draws women in immediately, and one that, if they take the time to notice, guys actually think to themselves, “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

In my glovebox? A whole lot of things with words on them. Books, maps, diaries, what have you. A general catch-all for everything that finds it’s way into my innards. There’s probably quite a few receipts from McDonald’s and Victoria’s Secret too.

What’s in the trunk? Heh heh. Junk. Isn’t that what the guys want in the trunk? Of course there would be an umbrella I never use, but for the most part, my trunk would be filled with speakers sufficient to melt the faces off of anybody who turned them up.

As for the radio, it would be a flow of music constantly changing so as to avoid any interruptions like commercials. Rock, country, classic rock, hip-hop, R&B, easy listening on occasion, and little bit of rap thrown in. Rest assured there would be a steady stream of Michael Jackson “Hee-hoo!” ‘s and 80’s music blaring.