Essay #4: Process Essay

I’ve never been a strictly right or wrong way of doing things kind of girl. I think there’s a lot of gray that can live between and on the edges of right and wrong. Sometimes it’s clear cut. Usually it’s hazy and a bit distorted. I have unequivocally determined, however that in any attempt I make at writing an essay, there are some things that are absolutely, positively wrong.

Night 1 of writing cause essay attempt I sat at the computer staring at that frappin’ cursor waiting for brilliance to blind me with the light of knowing. Nothing came. I tried setting the mood. Lit my candle, started the tunes and fluffed the pillows behind my back. Nothing. Ah ha! What I needed was a glass of wine. Something to settle the nerves and bring the ideas a flowing. No. Not a good idea. One glass turned into two turned into three while the blinking cursor and I fought over what should be written. Night 1; Lesson 1: Alcohol does not a good written piece make. It made me stupid, drunk and hung over the next morning. Moreover, it left me intro-less.

Night 2. Again, the blank white of forever nothing blinks like an accusation. My eyes are heavy. It’s late. Physics equations are tormenting my tired brain. What I need to de-stress is a good night of writing. Coffee pot spits out half decaf/half leaded liquid inspiration. An hour later and an empty pot and inspiration has spit out 3 or 4 intros of blah flavor. Midnight: I’m too tired to write but instead of opting for sleep and a fresh view in the morning I head for the kitchen. ¼ decaf this time. I need the juice is my reasoning. My writing after that second pot is like listening to a 33 LP played on 78 rpm’s. There’s another 7 intros that have absolutely no chance of a second paragraph and it’s 4 am. Morning finds me hazy and with a terrible taste in my mouth. Night 2; Lesson 2: More coffee at midnight leads not to inspiration. It leads to 400,000 trips to the bathroom and a worthless next day.

The third night of my attempt was 2 nights later. I sat down at the computer with a vengeance. I was determined that THIS was the night of genius. I opened the document titled “really bad intros”. Edit, Select All, Delete. I didn’t need those bastard children anymore. Nope. Tonight I’m going to make amends to all of the writing angels and write the whole shebang. The essay would be posted before nights end. No wine, no coffee, just me and the word fairies. Yep. Any minute now. *blink *blink *blink. Okay…any minute now then. Has it really been an hour? Oh, God why did I delete those 11 intros?? One of them would have worked. I could have made it work. I got so wrapped up in what I threw away that Night 3 was a bust. Total bust. I sat in that chair for 3 hours cursing my deletion, the fairies, the man (it just HAD to be a man that invented essays) and John A. Goldfine. Night 3: Lesson 3: Really a bad idea to toss out the drafts until a final cut has been posted.

I’m not saying that I’ve figured out this whole essay writing process. I do know that each step of the way I’ve learned some really valuable lessons that, for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, I’m happy to share with you.

Essay #3: Contrast Essay

I am blessed with two beautiful boys, intensely rich with humor and vitality. You’d recognize each as being mine and, after seeing them together even for a split second, you’d know that they belonged to each other as well. That’s where the similarity ends. From the point of conception on, they have been completely different.

Aska didn’t move much in my belly. I used to get scared that something was wrong. He’d go for days hardly moving at all. When he did, it was big, stretching movements that rolled across my distended belly. Hagen didn’t stop moving. He found more nooks and crannies in me than I ever dreamed I had. Aska easily turned for his arrival into the world. Hagen refused. Nope, he was standing straight up, thank you very much and would come in his own time. Aska was a normal birth, 6 hours of one long contraction and there he was. Hagen had to be cut out. He was too busy practicing his dance moves to be bothered with the birth canal.

They learn differently as well. Aska came out of me asking for a book. Hagen thinks books are for stacking, little portable ladders that lead to what is “no”. Aska knew his ABC’s long before his 3^rd birthday. Hagen knows his way around a computer like nobody’s business but has no interest what so ever in the alphabet. Everything that I thought I knew about the “time-line” for babies was thrown overboard when Hagen came. They both know so much but about such different things.

The differences don’t end there. Emotionally, Aska is sensitive with a quiet subdued strength. He is easily affected but not so easily persuaded. He’s not afraid to cry or laugh or bend himself around the mood of a room. He will as quickly retreat into his own mood without asking that anyone join him. Hagen’s strength is different. He is boisterous and adamantly concerned with mood. He insists that there be no anger directed at him or at anyone that he loves. He can’t stand to cry but will always laugh along. He, too is affected by the mood of the room but insists that it pay heed if not attend to his mood first and foremost. I’d have neither be any other way.

I celebrate my boys’ differences; strengths and weaknesses equally embraced. They are both perfectly themselves, perfectly suited to their mother and perfectly different from one another.

Graf # 14: Sample Contrast Essays Reaction

I didn't realize that I hadn't posted this. So sorry.

I have to tell you, it's hard for me to get into this essay. Comparison seems to insinuate that there's one of two that's better than the other one of two. People seem to be the most logical to compare but I can't imagine doing that and posting it for the world to see. My comparisons of people, when they happen at all are personal -- mental notes that get filed away, not essays. That's a very personal feeling based on my very personal experience. It is in no way a judgement, just good risk management for me.

So, I read the essays trying only to regard the writing, leaving the opinion out of it. I never know how you want me to respond to these things. Am I meant to comment on the writing or on the written word? What is my opinion? It's nothing. Would I read it if it weren't assigned? Most, likely not. The subject matter has to be of interest or the writing so fired up strong that it livens the subject. But my opinion is nothing. Even when I like the writing I can't analyze why. Either it touches or it doesn't.

I liked the dancing words of the Swanville meeting people. I could see the characters and it had a taste of Maine, which, to someone "from away", is most delectable.

Now, let's go attact that contrast, shall we?

Prompt Week 9

Pick a prompt from http://onemillionfootnotes.blogspot.com/. Tell us what it is and run with it.

Side by side, the words mocked her treatment of them.

The envelope sat on the counter unopened. It would be weeks before she had the nerve.

No one ventured a guess as to what the iron was doing on the grill. For a month it was silently accepted and then one day, it just disappeared.

He wore his emotions like a hat over his eyes.

He loved her madly, insanely, and deliciously right up until he didn’t love her at all.

A piece of the pottery that she used when she flung the ashes sits in the little green bowl like a reminder.

She could skim the pages of her F & W for a year and not find the word she needed to fill that silence.

He left the opened milk on the table like a challenge.

The frog didn’t mind so much that there wasn’t a lot of water but did she have to fill the bottom with cacti?

He was the exact opposite of every clichéd thing said about him.

She fell asleep reluctantly, the remnants of her possessions cradled in her arms.

The train whistle answered the call of the mourning dove and it was Sunday afternoon.

The rain ignored the burning question.

I couldn’t pick a prompt. I love a line that hangs in the mass of the space that surrounds it- alone and complete. And there were just so many.

Freestyle Week #8

Fridays are mine. Well, not entirely. Actually, not much at all because they’re filled with all of the laundry that’s piled up, the gunk on the floor that hasn’t been swept into the corners, a bathroom that almost scares me, the changing of the sheets, the watering of the plants – general scrub down. But Fridays are still mine. I take this one day to not think about school work and to spend as little time on the computer as possible. My nice purple chair seat is worn in the middle now from all of the hours I spend here. Not on Fridays, though. Nope. No sir. Fridays are mine. Thursday night when I got home from algebra, test nicely put me behind me, I sat in the chair and started my mental list of all the things that I would do. What is that they say about the best laid plans…

The morning started before the coffee was even brewed. Phone rings and my son’s brother is begging for some computer time. An hour is all he needs, he assures me. Reluctantly I agreed. The thing I like most about Fridays is that I don’t have to entertain. If I want to walk around in my jamas until 5 I can. Having him around, and in the center of my universe was going to put a real damper on my morning. I talked myself through it and worked around him as much as I could. Half of the laundry that I was doing was his. He showed up at 9 and plopped himself down until 11:30. I could feel myself getting irritable. I kept asking “How much longer?” “A few more minutes.” was the constant reply. Finally, at quarter after 12 he was printing and getting ready to leave…FINALLY! Not two minutes after he was out the door, Keith pulled in…home for lunch. Another distraction. I guess since he lives here and fathered my youngest I should be more amiable. But dammit! It’s FRIDAY!! My day!

After a 45 minute break, I had to take him back to work and then go fight the crowd (why was there a crowd?) at Doug’s. Took twice as long to get through the store. Hagen is at the very social age and wanted to talk to everyone. He’s also at the question age. “How he do that, Momma?” “Why you do that, Momma.” Endlessly, relentlessly. From the minute that he wakes until just a few minutes ago when he closed his eyes. I love that age, don’t misunderstand, but IT’S FRIDAY!!! It’s MY day!!! We came home, unloaded the groceries and home comes Aska. Report card day. We love report card day. Always A’s maybe a B or two. We sit down together and he talks to me about all the things he likes about his classes etc. etc. Oh, by the way there’s a dance tonight. He needs to eat and you know it’s pizza night, Mom. Pepperoni, please and could you put alfredo sauce on half of it? I glanced at the clock. 3:30. Laundry needs an update, grocery bags are all over the floor and I have to pick Keith up in an hour. Time to make the pizzas.

Pizzas out of the oven, time to go get Keith. By the time Hagen runs around the office sufficiently disrupting the workplace on a FRIDAY afternoon, gets locked back up in his seat and we make the drive home, it’s nearly 5:15. I sat and visited with Keith until he went next door, got Hagen fed and washed up and it was time to take Aska to the dance. 7:00 on the way home. Well, at least I’ll have a couple of hours when I get home. Hagen didn’t nap so he should sleep early. I can just relax and…dreaming. All of it a madcap dream.

Hagen wasn’t the least bit into sleep until 9:00 which just happened to be right before his father came home. I gave up at 10:00 and went to bed.

Saturdays are mine…

Prompt Week 8

If you have to push a lifetime of happiness, woe, memories, and dreams whose mass weighs in at 45 kilograms up a slope with an incline of 45 degrees and the friction coefficient is 17 gpsi, how much energy will you need to supply to get a liftoff velocity of .5 kilometers per hour?

Fsumy = Fn = (45kg)(9.81 m/s^2)(cos 45) = 312 N
(I’m going to assume that the coefficient of friction is .17 as it is always less than 1.)

a = .5 km/hr = 1000m/1km * 1 hr/3600s = .139 m/s
fk = μk – Fn = 53.0 N

Fsumx = Fcos 45 – fk = ma
Fcos 45/cos45 = ma + fk/cos45
F = ma + fk/cos 45
F = (45 kg)(.139 m/s) + 53.0 N/cos45
F = 59.255/cos45

Fapp = 84 N

Answer: It takes 84 N of applied force to get a liftoff velocity of .5 km/hr.

It also requires a belief in the impossible and a dream that would rather kill you than die.

Freestyle Week # 7

Sex. Lust. Passion. Romance. Attraction. Like. Love. Respect. Trust. A swarming mass of hormonal tomfoolery. Too many drinks on an empty heart. Too much longing that has no name. Mistaken identities revealed by a cruel light coming through an opened window. Touch that turns to sour before it hits the skin. Dark paths in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night in the middle of an hour of fear. An empty house in the center of a field charred and marred by years of neglect. Too much time to think. Too little action.

Sex. Lust. Passion. Romance. Attraction. Like. Love. Respect. Trust. The same swarming mass of hormonal tomfoolery. Too many drinks on a full life. Mistaken identities that bring comfort in the cool light of the moon. Longing waits just outside the door but loses interest. Touch that soothes and sweeps away the cobwebs. Paths in the middle of a dark forest in the middle of night in the middle of an hour of hope. A house in the center of town painted anew. Not enough time to think. So much action.

Prompt Week 7:

C. Sit down by the campfire with the Wise One: listen, then speak.

“A whole Life can be lived in a moment but a moment loses a bit of its magic in the retelling. The stories convey an idea that only the shared memory can comprehend completely. I’ll tell you my stories for as long as you want to listen. Your part will be to catch the memory in the tear that spills in remembering a word or a motion.

I was a young girl. Life took unexpected turns and found me angry on the tiled floor of the institution. I had a child that the state deemed I could not care for and a husband abusive and drunk. I tried to pacify the injury that would not heal with my own drug of depression. I took the path that led to the sanatorium. That’s what they were called in those days. That sanatorium became my path out of the life that led me there. That’s how I learned about the circuitous nature of life. What kills us gives birth to us as well.

The sadness isn’t in the facts. Sadness isn’t even in the feelings of the facts. A sadness that has no roots has no wings either.

Me sitting in this chair. You crossed legged in front of me…these are the moments that eat up the sadness. We share them so casually in the light of this fire but they leave their impressions and leave less space for the sadness. Did I ever tell you my recipe for miracle whip salad?”

Nikki always spoke in riddles, giving only hints, bits, and pieces. As suddenly as she’d begin to tell her “stories” she’d as abruptly change the tone and tell me how to make a really good salad out of just lettuce and mayo. It was part of the story. Something was missing if it didn’t end in the middle with a simple recipe.

We talked about sadness that night. I was very sad. My body ached with it and it wouldn’t stop dripping from my eyes. I didn’t think that I would ever heal or trust the life again. Nikki made it her mission that I would.

"What is your first memory, Cinnamon?"

I remember the bushes under the kitchen window at my grandmother’s house. I remember hiding deep in their secrets and listening to the adults talk. I was wearing the yellow dress that used to be my sister’s and thinking that mom was going to be mad that it was covered with leaves and dirt and clumps of sticky sap from the bushes. I was thinking about that because I couldn’t understand what the adults were talking about but it scared me. I don’t know why.

I wondered if I should have ended with a recipe so that she would know I was done.

After a little while, the crackling of the fire the only sound filling the space between, she turned to me and said that she thought it might be time for her to head back into town if I didn’t mind taking her.

We got in the old truck and she touched my hand as I was turning the key.

“Sadness is like those bushes at your grandmother's house. It’s like the sap that collected on your pretty yellow dress. Sadness is the secrets that you heard and the ones that you kept in those bushes. Sadness is as light as a feather or as heavy as an elephant, Cinnamon. It’s a tiled floor of a sanatorium or the window that looks out beyond it. It’s that fire, it’s you and it’s me. Do you understand?”

Somehow I did. I smiled at her. The first in many days and then I started the truck.

Graf # 13: Research (2)

Researcher of life questions and issues. That sounds like a good title. Second door on the right, just past Department of Wonder. The whole reason for my being here in this class, in this position, in this life is research. I research constantly. What is research if not the pursuit of knowledge? My life is my research outside of academia. Every step is research. Every time I pause to think. Even the times that I don't - it's all research. The direction, the focus - those are only variables. Life is the topic. The choices are the research.

Graf # 13: Research

I've never really thought about how a school should run. Especially a community college. All of my exposure has been uneventful - not worth a thought. My experience since fall of 2005 has changed all of that. My research delves into the state website, other colleges administrators and my fellow students. I am privvy to some documents that also afford research material. I have note on scraps of paper piled up on my desk. When I read something in the paper about the community college system (why are there so many articles all of a sudden?) I cut out the article and add it to the pile. I'm organizing, reading, researching and just generally paying attention. All part of the Isearch, the goal, the letter in the end.

Essay # 2: Classification Essay

I have always been a wordy girl. Journals fill boxes that fill closets in my home. Poetry leaks from their bindings, lists fill many of their pages. Since I have returned to school I've discovered that there are different writers living in me now - three versions of the wordy girl. Dancing poet girl writer has an achy wrist from dipping and dancing with the pencil across the white ice of empty paper. It is her natural instinct to communicate the feeling not only in the words but also with the flourish in the letters themselves. The studious girl writer watches and sticks her nose in the air at the dancing poet girl. Where is her form? Her classification – what of the assignment? What of the straight letters so bold and true? Meanwhile, practical, organized girl writer is thinking in terms of to do’s and to don’t forgets. She makes menus and lists, meals and doctor appointments. She remembers to complete applications and doodles in the moments between items. Each version of the wordy girl brings her own strengths and weaknesses to each of the pages.

Dancing poet girl writer is an acrobat. She jumps from line to line and thought to thought hanging precariously in the wordlessness between with subtle moves meant only to extol a quick breath of “ahhh” from her own self, alone as director, audience, and critic. Her words are viewed through the curves and imperfections, the soft, round tones and the sharpened points. Naked, they tease the eyes and scatter the lines. They break the margins and forget the spacing. It isn’t rebellion that moves her. It is rather the freedom of flow to follow form and disregard function. When she writes of passion, eroticism is reflected in the movements of the slant. The words make love to each other when she closes the journal until the white is shadowed with careless movements. The graphite of their merging darkens her right hand.

Strictly studious girl writer gives her words precise spacing and segregated constraints. She is professional and her curves are more pronounced and piercing. There is no gray, only more definition. She wonders after grammar and readability. The only dancing is incidental - keystrokes moving with their red and green squiggly lines commanding correction and clarification. She fancies the letters in terms of GPA’s and merits and, once upon a time, in terms of salary. She writes the proposals and the important business letters. She worries over accuracy and clarity. Her function is to follow form with structure and balance. She will write the Isearch.

Practically organized girl writer puts classification somewhere between the items. Her dreams are not of form or function but only of the flow that cannot be confined to paper. She wishes in three words or less. Her beauty hides between watering the plants and changing the oil. She is neither the sensualist nor the minimalist. She is the keeper of the list and the recorder of the needs. She writes the research and walks the dog. In between, she writes the warnings and sometimes the options. She packs the bags and empties the trash. She remembers the fruit and forgets the past. She sets the pace and rearranges the space and draws the out the meaning.

Tidily, they make their places in me. I am the passion, the precision and the reminder. I am the poet, the student and the organizer. Sometimes the poet sits to write the classification or the student begins the list. Sometimes the student forces a reluctant pen across the bored paper and the list maker tries her hand at my studies. Sometimes it works and sometimes it’s another take on disaster…another 3am bedtime fighting wordy me.

Introduction # 2: Classification Essay

Writing has always been more than a hobby or a desire for me. Writing is like breathing. I’ve kept a journal since I was very young. The entries are reflections, guideposts and landmarks along my journey. I’ve gone back through my journals every time I feel that I’m on the verge of making the same mistake, or to remind myself that a feeling can pass as quickly as it comes. I go back through my journals sometimes just to mark my progress through this life. Since I’ve returned to school I find that my writing now fills three very distinct and separate places in my life. There’s the writing that I do for school; the creative lists that I keep and sometimes, though not very often there is still the writing that I do for me.

Introduction # 1: Classification Essay

My writing used to be something very personal to me. It was a release and a way that I managed my life. I’ve kept a journal to mark my progress, to remind me should I forget the consequences of choice and to ease whatever troubled. Some periods of my life were filled with so many words and so much meaning that it was hard to contain the pages. They fill boxes in my closet. Some periods were quiet and filled more with thought than explanation or definition. Since I’ve started school, my writing has taken on three very distinct purposes. I write for school. I write lists and sometimes,though not very often I write for me.

Prompt Week # 6:

The keys were tossed on the table like an invitation.

I knew that he had just tossed the keys on the kitchen table after his shift because he was too tired to lock them in the cabinet with his gun and badge. It was just after 7am. He had parked behind the ’73 Pinto that I was driving. I thought about waking him. Took one look at the clock and decided what the hell, I’d move the car myself.

I fired up the Crown Victoria (1979) and revved the engine. Just to see what it would sound like. She purred like the first born kitten. I put it in reverse, backed it out of the driveway and was going to park it on the street in front of the house. I glanced over to the front door and saw Bob standing there in his boxers; a look of sheer dread and terror on his sleepy face. Well what could I do then but rev her a few more times and take off sirens aflashin!

Bob was my stepfather. A 6’7” 280 lb North Carolina State Trooper. Let me tell you, I didn’t get a lot of second dates in those days. He’d conveniently be at home and in his uniform before each of my dates. He’d clean his gun or repack the rifles in his car just as my date was pulling in. Way I saw it that morning; he had it coming…fair and square.

I smiled that smile, flipped on the siren and squealed away from the house before he could take step one towards me. I took a quick trip around the block (totally illegal) and pulled back into the driveway. He was sitting at the kitchen table when I came in. I threw the keys on the table, like an invitation and left for school.

He got me back that day. Sent a couple of his buddies in to the school in uniform and hauled me out in handcuffs. They didn’t take me far, just far enough for an uncomfortable walk back home but I didn’t mind. It was totally worth it just to see that look on his face as I drove away. He didn’t leave his keys on the table after that. Otherwise, I’d have considered it an invitation.