Maybe

            Picture it. It’s summer, long ago. Or maybe not so long ago. Regardless, it’s summer. It’s hot and dry and Minnesota, so it’s hotter and drier.

            We were just kids. Children. Barely sophisticated enough to maintain acceptable personal hygiene, much less tell right from mostly right from wrong.

            At least that’s what we tell ourselves, to justify what we did to that man that summer.

            It was summer, and we were kids, and naturally we were bored. So I suggested we be Red Riding Hood and the wolf. We both wanted to be the wolf. Normally, I’d give in, because it was hot anyway and being the wolf would make it even hotter. But he always got to be the wolf. We decided to settle it in a fair and civilized manner.

            We wrestled. I won.

            We trekked though the forest. My thick pelt was hot, very. My tongue lolled and dripped drool onto the forest floor. His golden curls shone daintily where the light hit them. His vivid red cloak trailed along the ground, collecting dusty dirty and crushed leaves at its edge.

            We wandered into someone’s yard. A dog was tied up, slender and short-haired and large. I growled at it, threatening, for I was the wolf and the dog was merely a dog.

            But the dog started barking. Stupid dog. Is this normal dog behavior?

            A man came out of the house. “What the dickens is that infernal din for?”

            We stood stock still. We were stiller than we have ever been in our lives. Then, very deep in my throat, I growled. I growled at the man.

            The man stared at me for a quiet second. Then the man growled back. The man growled at me.

            I turned tail and ran. He was hot on my heels. That he didn’t trip over his too-big red cloak was a small miracle. The man watched us flee.

            We got back to where we had started. I collapsed, panting, my tail wagging as if it could somehow push more air into my lungs. He wasn’t much better, gasping for breath, his cherubic porcelain face painted rosy red.

            “Why… did we hafta… run like that?” he asked.

            I thought for a bit. “It seemed appropriate.”

            We sat there for a moment, breathlessly silent. Then I said, “I don’t want to be Red Riding Hood and the wolf anymore.”

            We were ourselves again, and as ourselves we walked inside.

To be continued. Maybe. What do you think? Too confusing? Yeah, maybe.

Summer

            Oh, summer. Summer, summer, summer. How I love thee. Shakespeare, you may think your love was lovelier than a summer’s day. Let me tell you, Mr. William Shakespeare Who Most Likely Made That Name Up And Is Dead Anyway So Whatever. There is nothing – nothing – that can top a summer’s day for me right now.

            Sure, sure. I don’t even like summer. It’s raining right now. I am absolutely covered in mosquito bites.

            So what. Right now, I now bliss. And bliss is summer.

Hmm...

Oh, it was a grand garden, thick with the most wonderful produce imaginable. There were raspberries, plump and dark red, that made your mouth water, first with their unexpected tang and then their soft sweetness. Perfect parsnips, radiant radishes, chives that could make a grown man sing. And the carrots. Oh, the carrots. Mrs. Harrow's carrots were an almost exultant experience - their shy, almost-sweet flavor, their perfect, crisp-but-won't-break-your-teeth crunch, their overall aura of strength. Mrs. Harrow's carrots sent tangible energy shivering down to your toes when you ate one.

Real

I’m not sure if people are very interesting, but that’s what I’m led to believe in the course of my reading. Fictional people are all very interesting. They all have this tough, cool outer shell but really inside they’re smart and nice. I kind of don’t believe that that’s real. In my experience, people who act tough are. Or they’re idiots. And cool people… well, there’s not a lot of actually cool people. Most people just act cool, and really they’re kind of posers.

            Gee, now that I think of it, even realistic fiction isn’t usually so realistic. I’m sure you’ve heard something along the lines of ‘Oh, if only boys in real life were like boys in books…’ from some source. And that basically goes along with my point. Book characters are not like real people. That’d be boring. Real people are all posers.

            NO! I take that back. Some real people are posers. Not all. Not only did the last sentence in the third paragraph make me sound insufferably Holden Caulfield-ish, it was kind of an oxymoron.

            Book characters kind of act more real… they’re fearless and funny and they say whatever they want, because they’re not real and the author is just having fun. You can be anyone you want when you’re writing. Reading is just as good, because it’s less effort, even if there’s less choice involved.

            If I were an author, I’d want to create something completely gorgeous and stunning. Go into it with the intention of making people laugh and cry and feel. Make their hearts stop and their jaws drop. I think that’s the intention of most artists. I will never do so. I’m not going to be a writer, I’m an awful artist, I can’t sing, the instrument I play will never draw tears.

            Everyone wants to be beautiful, to do something beautiful. To make their mark, contribute to the beauty of the world. Which I suppose makes us all realer than we think. I, for example, think of myself as being both real and fake. The things I do never reflect what’s on the inside, but what’s on the inside could be considered reasonably real.

            If I could write myself differently, I would. Knowing that you want to be different and making yourself different are on two completely different levels, however. Everyone wants to be different. There are probably some people who don’t, I guess, but they’ve got it all figured out. Lucky ducks.

            Real is a relative term, I guess. It means different things to different people, and sometimes different things to one person. But real is what we all strive for, right? Even when we're fake, we want to fake being real- we try to make our Botox and lipo look real. 

            The real people are the ones, I guess, who don't try to be anything but what they are.

The Shining

Who doesn't like shiny things? They're flashy. Eye-catching. Brilliant.

Generally, shiny things have no substance. At least shiny people. Some shiny people are wonderful beings who truly shine. But most of the time, people who shine aren't necessarily shiny. 

Shiny is such a ridiculous word. I mean, look at the spelling. You want it to be shinny, but it doesn't have enough Ns.

Shiny makes me think of aluminum foil. Aluminum foil can be attractive and it certainly draws your eye to something, but it's not really practical because it's so fragile. It tears at the slightest pressure. So it's just for storing food really, so it doesn't need to be shiny because who cares how their leftovers look? (Note: Don't put your tomatoes in aluminum foil. Just saying.) I, for one, don't care how my leftovers look. Not that I care how food looks in the first place. It's for eating. It's not art.

Also, while aluminum foil can be very eye-catching, I wouldn't try to make a sign out of it. The shine is so distracting people probably wouldn't even notice what's written on it.

I'm going to pretend this is some metaphor with depth and importance like it started out to be and all the random aluminum foil crap ties together nicely and neatly. That is how I think I'll end it. Leaving my readers to think this is meaningful and not just a weird obsession with aluminum foil.

You're Welcome

I hate the phrase "You're welcome". It's become such a common thing to say. After someone says "Thank you," you say "You're welcome." But does anybody really mean it? Do people honestly mean that a person is welcome to anything that can be done for them? Because that's how often we say it. If it's not something we want to do, after we're done and have been thanked, we grumble "You're welcome." But, in that case at least, we don't mean it. We just say it because that's what our mommies taught us to say after we've been thanked. Please and thank you I can understand, but in its use for courtesy "You're welcome" has lost its meaning. It bugs me when people say things they don't mean. And that is one phrase that is not often- in my experience- meant. It's just ridiculous what manners have done to feelings.

Words

Words, words. Words. So much you can do with them, in so many different ways. Sticks and stones my foot. Words can hurt people so badly they’re crippled for life. Words can change people. Words can change the world.

            That’s what I want to do with words: change the world. I want everybody to hear my words, and for everybody to have the way they think forever changed by hearing a little bit of what’s in my mind. I want them to listen, and at first think Wow. And then I want them to go home and go about their lives and then go to bed. And then they’ll lie in bed and think. Think about my words. Consider my words. And when they eventually fall asleep, I want them to wake up and get out there and change their lives, and change the lives of other, based on my words.

            I want to make people think, and then change and be changed. I want so much that will never happen, but maybe this dream will. It’s very ambitious, I know. But I think if I have a chance of changing the world, somehow, it’s going to be with words. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll keep all these words bottled up inside me, because I never have a chance to speak them. I’m too busy doing what I’m supposed to, not changing a thing about me, to change the world. So maybe I’ll get used to this, keeping my words inside me. Eventually, if I keep them in, never to say what I truly think, I’ll go insane.

            I won’t, I know. I get to speak. It may not be the unrefined, raw, and intensely wonderful words I wish to speak; but I don’t think the world’s ready for that yet. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. But I will be. And my words will change the world, someday.