|
As I lie upon my back Ceiling tiles speckled black Impress their patterns on my eye Just as the carpet on which I lie Molds red ridges lined with white On my shoulder blades fading bright Ideas Nickname I never get nicknames given to me--well, not too often. Nothing about me really stands out as a Defining Characteristic that somebody could use for a nickname. I have to make them up for myself. Like Me-at-Six, who called herself Sparklegain. Or Me-in-Junior-High...she wore a feather in her ponytail, Pocahontas-style, and occasionally tried to get people to call her Featherlady. Me-the-Freshman painted a huge dragon mural, and some of her friends called her Dragonlady--the first outwardly-imposed nickname I can remember having. Me-of-Now has discovered the great land of Internet aliases and calls herself SquidLady (and Argente, and Muurala, and a couple of other random NetNames) My most recent nickname, Monkeylady, evolved from that little incident with the principal...when I sat on top of a vending machine, doing my calculus homework, never guessing the Superintendent was taking his tour of the school. Gravestone Here she lies, Regina Carns Painter of pictures and spinner of yarns Actor in plays and prolific romancer Laughter-inciter and jazzish dancer Maker of science experiment theory Sometimes annoying but usually cheery Failure at many a science and art Maker of errors and not few false starts Lover of change and lover of learning Lover of loving and lover of burning Lover of silliness, humor and laughter Observer of during, before and of after. And though many know little of what she did They all remember--she seemed to like squid. There’s a thing so many people scorn, and perhaps sometimes it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. After all, there must be a modicum of decisiveness in an argument or nothing gets done. Yet a system that flips like a switch has only two possible states--it’s inflexible and hard to move. Yes, I am running out of ideas. Perhgaps I shal write nonsense until some kind of story comes out. Do you realize how irritating writer’s block gets? Really darn irritating. Reeeeelly pretty bleeping annoying. Ah well, I got a few reasonable bits of work in first. I allowed as how, yes, it would probably work if you had a chainsaw. "But really, Ms... I don’t believe I caught your name..." "Sliver," she said, twitching. "Madeline Sliver." "But really, Ms. Sliver, whyever would anyone want to put an entire human body in an underwear drawer?" "I don’t know. I don’t know! I do not have any idea! But I’ve been wearing the same hose for three days," her voice began to rise in agitation, "and I would like you to come and take care of it for me so I can use my bureau again!" "Calm, please," I said. "If you believe there is a body in your drawers, why didn’t you call the police?" She drew herself up in her chair, primly. "Because they would strew nasty yellow tape all over my room, and I would be completely unable to use my bureau for weeks." |