Thursday, March 17, 2016

Prompt: the toe nails of the yoga girl

I sat on the low wall and watched the circus of humanity. I was waiting for Zen so we could get lunch. Beautiful spring days like this tend to bring out even the most domestic. Take for example the couple at the table adjacent to me. They were arguing about the most insipid things, but they were doing so sublimely.

"Your socks," she began, "I really wouldn't have thought to wear them with that tie."

"Really?" he mused. "I hadn't considered color so much. You know I'd rather we used a fragrance free detergent."

We three continued facing the green. On it could be seen a stay-at-home daddy group, most of whom romped on the grass with their charges who screamed excitedly at being chased by the bearded zombies. Students commandeered the patio furniture, their textbooks splayed beside them as they smiled or scowled into their phones.

Off to the side and in the shade, I noticed a yoga girl. She was balancing on a bright pink mat in a "tree" pose and looked terribly serene, except for her toenails, which clashed with the mat. I was just pondering what the couple next to me may have had to say about her unfortunate polish choice, but just as they began to discuss it, Zen came round.

"How 'bout hotdogs?" Zen said. "I'm in the mood."

Prompt: with one computer click

WIth one computer click one can send an emoji or two or three emojis strung together like a sentence.

With one computer click one can find out that the reason one's toes often experience an electric-like shock is because they are suffering from Morton's Neuropathy.

With one computer click, an exotic vacation awaits, as does an exotic plant or dancer.

With one computer click one is not far from potential financial gain or possible ruin.

With one computer click one can become immersed in an intangible world, lost idly for hours clicking from one site to another like Tarzan swinging from vine to vine.

With one computer click, there is also the option of turning off, getting up, going out before it's too late.

Watch out for that tree.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Prompt: Idioms: To pull the wool over one's eyes

Note: You don't quite realize how full of strange little sayings our everyday speech is until someone very very young or very very foreign interrupts you in mid-sentence, or perhaps a few moments into your monologue, to clarify what sleeping dogs have to do with lying or what eyes have to do with catching a thing.

When the wool was, for the very first time, pulled over someone's eyes, I imagine it must've been winter. I'm envisioning a stocking cap, two friends, maybe siblings, a hill and a fast sled. The duo might've been piled, one on top of the other, and the upper one, as a joke, pulled the stocking cap over the eyes of the one beneath, the one steering the conveyance, as it sped between trees toward the bottom of a snow blanketed hill. I can't decide if the wearer of the cap yelled, "don't pull the wool over my eyes!" or if it makes more sense that one of their mothers spontaneously barked it out as she looked on from a safe distance, quickly assessing that the small gesture, innocent enough in almost any other context, was not exactly conducive to best sledding practices. This same matronly figure, after having convinced said sledders of the dangers of hat misplacement, might later have seen the benefits of recycling her extemporaneous phrase and consequently applied it to other potential tragedies in the making.

And now, in looking this little ditty over, I don't think I've hit the nail on the head with this short exposition on idiom because I seem to have run out of time. Or maybe, is it possible that I have succeeded and am completely pulling the wool over your eyes with my literary prowess?