(Submitted to really small talk, 2003)

… Two kids, and me, in a borrowed one-bedroom apartment. We take a fire-engine red elevator down to M and play outside with black squirrels. The air is 70 degrees warm, no wind. Gianna falls asleep in the stroller, Anthony and I walk to Pommes Frites on Second Avenue. We sit on stools at the sidewalk counter (our cone of frites wedged in a hole) and watch the city roll by. I buy a Sprite from the deli next door because the woman with no accent who takes our money tells me slowly, “You can get something to drink from the deli next door”.

[Archives: May 2, 2003] Sometimes I feel overwhelming bursts of love for my husband, like while I watched him shoot baskets outside last night on the Fisher Price hoop with A. That said, here’s something completely unrelated.

Helen, the Mermaid and Her Dentures

I used a story generator to give me the following ingredients for a story:

• Main character is a female security guard
• Her nemesis is a mermaid
• A key object or symbol in the story is a set of dentures
• It is set in the time of the Great Depression
• It is a story about rejection

Here’s how it turned out:

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[from September 4, 2003]

Other Make-out Ideas for Awards Shows:

Grammys
Santana / Keith Richards
Aretha Franklin / Barbara Streisand
Snoop Dog / Keith Richards

Emmys
Susan Lucci / Star Jones
The Guy Who Plays Victor on Y&R / Pat Sajak
Rob Lowe / The Mom on Everybody Loves Raymond
Phoebe from Friends / the Chick Who Played Her Twin Sister on Mad About You

Oscars
Kevin Costner / Charlton Heston
Ellen / Lauren Bacall
Kathy Bates / Lara Flynn Boyle
Bennifer / Babe the Pig
Julia Roberts / Keifer Sutherland

This day in history: 9 years ago Oscar was found in a closet. A week too late.

Ode to Oscar

Graceful scaly neck
You held it elegantly
You died in your shell

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Things to do before I turn 40:

1. Swear that they’re real 
2. Refute allegations
3. Refuse to testify
4. Press charges
5. Drop charges
6. Sue for my nude pictures back
7. Be taken out of context
8. Be misquoted
9. Not Write That Blog!
10. Fire my publicist
11. Tell all
12. Decline to comment 
13. Threaten action
14. Resign amid controversy
15. Arouse suspicion
16. Have my reality show cancelled
17. Deny my eating disorder 
18. Stand behind my earlier statement

[from April 23, 2004: teresadifalco.com]

Augusto Monterroso was a Guatamalan writer, known among other things, for the world’s shortest story of one sentence:

“When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.”
(The Dinosaur by Augusto Monterroso, tr. From the original Spanish)

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