The Featured Post Blog

A collection of the featured posts as they appeared on mo'time

by: MintBloodflower

On Tuesday my parents got divorced. I wasn't really upset about it but, I suppose, I made an effort not to think about it much.

Yesterday I was sitting upstairs, reading Don Quixote, when I heard someone knock at the door of the room next to me, my bedroom. I imagined the worst-case-scenario; a member of my family walking in to speak to me. Soon after that the door of the room I was in opened. It was my father; smiling, laughing and yelling out my name. I freaked out. I screamed out "NO" and curled up into a ball.
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posted by: howard at 09:23 | link | comments |

by: bashyrhead

so apparently i am producing some strange pheromones. have a sparkling magnetic quality. am astrologically something or other. or am being too nice and making too much eye contact. or eating healthily has made my hair look healthy and robust--you know, like a dog's shining coat.

i imagine there are other things i might write. but. i should go to bed. my normalcy is killing me. i am sleeping like a lady early to bed and rise. damned be the morning darkness. it kills me too.
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posted by: howard at 07:20 | link | comments |

by: rustymadgal

Actually no, I didnt smell the burning, my dog once again was skunked this week. So between that and the citrus sage candle I was burning to try to cover up the scent , no I did not notice it. Nothing like kicking a girl when shes down and her stomach is still grumbling. Let me say for the record about Mr Perfect Roomie, at least I didnt date someone who had to be treated for rabies.
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posted by: howard at 13:25 | link | comments |

by: DJGroovySlug

Everything was going fine, I mean, as fine as you can get when it's 60 degrees and pouring rain. Waking up: uneventful. Metro ride: uneventful. But as soon as I get to the office building, everything just sort of crumbles around me.

They have these umbrella bags in the lobby, positioned with a sign admonishing us to help keep the lobby floors dry. I'm a good sport, so I grab one and try to put my umbrella in. But the bags were designed for long slender golf umbrellas and my squat little umbrella would not fit. It turned into a struggle and I'm sure the security guards had a good laugh watching me get insanely frustrated over the bag to umbrella size ratio. Eventually I let the umbrella win this one and I got on the elevator with my half assed umbrella bagging effort (with the umbrella sort of dangling out of the bag).

So one of our lawyers happens to get on the elevator at the same time as me and we're standing there, obeying the code of elevators.
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posted by: howard at 19:15 | link | comments |

by: alohalani

My mother once dreamt of bones that were buried beneath one of the mango trees in our yard. Each night she dreamt of these bones, they were closer to the surface. She believed that if in her dreams the bones finally rose to the surface and broke through the ground that something horrible would happen so she called a priest to bless our house and the yard. She never dreamt of the bones again.
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posted by: howard at 07:18 | link | comments |

by: mictlantecuhtli

(Somewhere on a balcony, A. and I count crows on telephone wires. We argue about how many crows it takes to make a murder. He says that anything less than five crows can't be anything more than assault, or maybe even just harassment. I say that a crow, alone, is just a crow.) I try to listen when the words come out of my mouth, I try to write it all down. I have many books and many pens to contain the torrent. My fingers are stained with ink at the end of the day, and my throat rough and ragged. I try, every day, to spend an hour in silence.
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posted by: howard at 19:50 | link | comments |

by: EmmaPele

There is a ghost tour in this town of which I speak.  After dark, I climbed the stairs to the monument, where the actor was standing.  He had a straw hat to cover his bald spot, baggy pants, a vest.   I suspect ghost tours employ many actors across the English-speaking world in towns where tourism and history intersect, the best probably being in London where mayhem defines the tourist experience.
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posted by: howard at 14:20 | link | comments |

by: Calgal

You know the kind of person I'm talking about. A book is never just a good read, it has complexities and nuances that beg for analysis. And if these folks were ever to comment on something they've read without doing it in such a way that forces us to remember that they were, after all, literature majors in an earlier life, well, then they just haven't done their job.

Not that it is their job.

I'm guessing it is a matter of soul, or heart, or maybe insecurity, that whole self-esteem thing.

I sometimes write about serious topics. And I tend to do it in a fairly serious way. I don't fool myself into believing that other people find what I am saying to be very important, much less the definitive word on any given topic. I don't pretend to be even a minor pundit. I choose my topics solely for my own enjoyment, and while I hope that some of my personality shows though as I do it, and other people might find it interesting, mostly I write for my own enjoyment.

I hope that part shows.
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posted by: howard at 19:46 | link | comments |

by: Giuli

Salt, acid, heat

My love affair with this trinity of flavors, of course, did not end there. At lunchtimes I’d fish for the finger chili in the steaming pot of sinigang, squish it in savory patis, and drop the concoction by the rough quarter teaspoon on each mouthful of boiled rice bathed in sinigang broth.

Bored and penniless in mid-afternoons, I would snack on Cornbits swimming in vinegar bleeding red chilies; scoop the soaked saltiness by the spoonful; fume after the tingle after the crunch; fight the urge to sip the sourness afterward. I could live with just these if I had to.
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posted by: howard at 21:58 | link | comments |

by: InMyLife

Writing is my skill, my craft, my occupation, my means of coping, of understanding, of getting up each morning and facing a new day. Through writing, I sometimes feel as if I have helped someone or made some small difference in the world.
 
What happens when writing fails? When sorrow is so profound that no words will help, what do you write? For you have to write. You have to try to help, even though you know there is no help.

Life makes no sense. The age-old question haunts us all: why do bad things happen to good people? Why does one child live and another die? Why does one person prosper while another fails? Life is sometimes so unfair, it sucks the breath right out of us.
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posted by: howard at 21:34 | link | comments |