Adios, USA

This time tomorrow I'll be in the middle of a two-layover trip to Puerto Vallarta. Gina and I will be there for a week and we are excited.

I have never done the whole beach vacation where you do nothing but spend days reading and laying on a towel. Part of me thinks it sounds little lazy, but the bigger part of me thinks it sounds fantastic. I need a little time to be lazy and not feel guilty about it.

There will also be a few adventures while we are there. Gina has mentioned snorkeling and that sounds like it could be fun. There are also boat trips that we can take. And swim with dolphins. Lots of options.

But one of the things that I think I am looking forward to most is the chance to do nothing, to lay on a beach and do nothing.

Some inspiration

Trying to fight writer's block? Try looking here for a little inspiration. These characters and creations from sculptor Stephane Halleux could spark something. I know they could for me.

Writer's block?

Stumbled across this idea generator on BoingBoing. May work for you. I actually had a few ideas come from this. A few others were completely awful, but some actually worked.

Our next adventure

Gina and I looked at homes this weekend. It was a draining experience. We have a nice Realtor who we are working with, but moving scares us.

We love where we live. The location is great and convenient to everything. But we have neighbors again. We didn't for a few months. No one lived in the unit above us and no one to the side of us. Actually, no one lived across or down the hall either. We were on our own island. It was quiet at night. It was great.

Then in the matter of what seems like a week every unit around us was filled. Now we have someone stomping around in what sounds like lead shoes above us. And we get to hear the chatting in the hall as the new neighbors next to us walk to their new place. And it's fine to have neighbors, but we are a little annoyed now by all the noise.

So, we spent the day in a black car with black interior and near-100 degree temperatures. We drove over what seemed like most of the eastern part of the Metroplex. We we all over Richardson and Garland. We saw some nice houses for nice prices, but I think all-in-all we left the experience a bit overwhelmed.

Moving is going to be a big deal for us. Neither of us are eager to leave where we are at now, but know that eventually we have to.

Flash fiction exercises: Part 7

Another in our occasional series. This one is from January 16, 2006. It has a very similar prompt to our last entry. That's probably why what I wrote is similar. Very.

Here's the prompt:

HE BOOTED UP THE COMPUTER AND CHECKED THE E MAIL, CASUALLY. HE ALMOST MISSED IT, THE SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR HIM THAT WOULD CHANGE HIS LIFE. JUST ANOTHER LINE IN THE WELTER OF E MAILS AND MEANINGLESS MESSAGES. WAS IT REAL. HOW COULD HE FIND OUT" WHAT THE HELL DOES HE DO NOW?

And here's what I did with it. I actually like what I wrote here better. I am very tempted to edit a few of the sentences here, but that's not the spirit of what I am trying to do, so I won't.

It was only supposed to take a minute. He’d check his email then be out the door. The machine said fifteen new messages and he reminded himself that this had to become a much more regular thing. But it was hard to make yourself check your email when most of the messages you are getting are advertising drugs or available singles.

He nearly missed the message with the asterisk in the subject line, but when he saw it he knew exactly what it was. They’d found him again. He thought he’d run far enough and had taken enough turns to be hidden for good.

Hah, he had to dream.

So it was an email this time, just to let him know they’d figured him out. He’d changed his name again and his occupation again, and for nearly a year he had gotten away with it. Hadn’t talked to the wife or the kids that he had left behind in Dallas. That had been the hardest part, but he had chosen to run guns and drugs for the mob and he knew that these were the consequences of choices he made years ago.

No time to think about that now. He had to get to the job site. He was hanging drywall again, working his way up to foreman. The college education he’d picked up in Dallas was paying off here. Fitting, since it was the only thing he got to take with him from that life.

Flash fiction exrecise: Part 6

Here it is -- Part 6 of the long-awaited flash fiction exercises series of posts. This is another form 2006. I could have sworn that I had some exercises that were older. Most of my flash fiction -- like all flash fiction -- is typically just one scene. This one is unusual in that it changes locations. I do have the prompt. Here it is.

IT WAS A PLAIN, NOTE SIZED ENVELOPE HAND ADDRESSED WITH A 2 CENT AND A 27 CENT STAMP IN THE RIGHT HAND CORNER. NO RETURN ADDRESS. WHEN HE OPENED IT, HE FELT A CHILL TO THE BONE. BLOCK LETTERED IT SAID "CHECK THE PERSONALS IN THE TIMES TODAY..." HOLY CHRIST! THAT WAS HOW HE USED TO GET HIS ORDERS A LIFETIME AGO....

Not many ways to go other than adventure when you get something like that as a prompt, so that's what I did.

It was in the middle of a stack of envelopes on the kitchen table. Chances are she never saw it. Well, not chances. Guaranteed she didn’t see it. If she had she would have opened it. She would have opened it and it wouldn’t have made any sense, but she would have asked. And after she asked he would have had to make up some story.

Or she could have just thrown it away because it was just an envelope with a block-print J on the front and a slip of paper with “Post 01/12” written on it. She wouldn’t have had any idea what it meant. But to him it said everything and it represented everything that he didn’t want her to know about him. It was his past, a past that he thought he’d left behind. A past that he was embarrassed by and ashamed of and a past that was everything he no longer wanted to be.

----

Everyone, including Boss, thought his request was funny. He’d asked to be let out and everyone chuckled.

“This is a one way door,” he was told. “ You can stumble into this work, lots of people do, but you can’t stumble out.”

That was a no and it’s what he expected. You don’t get out of this line of work, but he had to ask. But then Boss surprised him.

“But I like you. Always have. So I’ll tell you what. If you can disappear then you’re free to leave. Try to just blend in and fade away. We’ll give you a couple of years to do it. Start over. Get yourself a new name and a new life. But know this, if we find that we need you, we’re going to come looking. And when we find you -- and we will -- there’s no running. No trying to get away. Just recognize that we gave you a chance and you blew it. Agreed?”

Two days later his apartment was bare. He’d started over. He wasn’t Joe. He was Craig, part-time college student and construction worker with a small apartment just outside of downtown Dallas. He was eating tacos from the stand across the street and going to movies and shopping at the mall. And he was meeting people, meeting ladies. He was falling in love and getting married and starting a family and graduating from college and forgetting about his dark past.

Forgetting until he saw the envelope with the J on the front and the letter inside. It was how they used to contact him, a confusing ad in the personals that made sense to no one but him. They found him and he knew he couldn’t run.

Flash fiction reboot

I am realizing that I haven't recently posted any of my flash fiction pieces saved on my hard drive lately. I'll try to put another up later tonight. Not sure what's remaining but I know there are a few. I haven't been putting them up in any order so what's left aren't the dregs of the bunch. So something should be coming later this evening.

Wow. A true Lego Maniac

When I was a kid I liked Legos. Fun to play with. Great for really stretching your imagination. I had a friend who used to make the most awesome creations. He would have rooms with trap doors and little switches on one wall that would make something happen on another wall. Like breaking a branch and causing the net to appear from the jungle floor and scoop up whatever bad guy was standing on it. They were really cool and completely impressed the 12-year-old me. Heck, thinking back on it the 35-year-old me is still impressed.

Then I saw these.

I don't know what to say. I don't think that I could do something like that. The amount of detail and brain power needed to create something like that astounds me. Check out the Flickr pics I linked to. Darn impressive.

Missed deadlines

My wife had given me a goal of submitting a story for publication by March. I missed that and by a mile. She reminded me of that this morning. It was a reminder that I needed.

I haven't been good with the writing lately. I've been meaning too. I've been thinking about quite a bit about a couple of stories, but can't seem to find the time to put those ideas on paper. Or, honestly, I can't seem to make myself do it. I have the time. But like I mentioned in one of my first posts, sometimes after dealing with words all day at work, the last thing I want to do is come home and deal with more words. But I know if writing is something I want to do I have to make myself put those ideas on paper.

So, I am promising to myself -- again -- that I'll be better about writing. I'll make sure I finish something and get it prepped for submission. And this time I'll do it with my own deadline. I am giving myself until September. End of September, just to be safe.

I'm back

Hi, blog. Remember me? I'm Jarrett. It's been too long since I've been here. Way too long. Especially if I am trying to make this a regular habit.

Here is an interesting link to make up for my absence. Three things about the moon.