Writers Workshop

Isa: "How to give your nanna lasers and bat wings"

Step #1
Catch and bat and slice its wings off.
Step #2
Buy lasers on Amazon
Step #3
Attach bat wings to lasers
Step #4
Attach them to your nanna and watch her fly.
Step #5
Enjoy!


Isa's Action Scene:

Skylar was standing there in front of the creature. His mouth  dripped with blood from his recent attacks. His body bore scars from spears and arrows. She stared right into the creatures yellow eyes with pupils like slits and black like tar. She wasn't armed, she just had her wits and smarts. All at once she was feeling scared and brave. The monster was bigger and faster, but she was smarter. Without hesitation, she runs toward the entrance to a nearby cave. Though the labyrinth she takes twists and turns confusing the creature. She escaped back to her house. She grabs a net from the garage but then she pauses and thinks. "What shall we call it?" I know!  The night lurker. She goes back to getting the net and returns to the cave where the creature is sleeping since it is still daytime. She sets up her trap careful to make sure the sun isn't setting. Finally she is ready. At the perfect time, as the sun is setting, she wakes the monster saying, "Come here monster, monster, follow me!" The monster of course follows her as the sun begins to set. They swerve through the trees. Finally they come to the place where she has set up her trap. She jumps over the net but the monster doesn't' He gets trapped in the net, but before he gives her a scar on her leg before he goes into the net. She runs home and bandages up her leg then she comes back with a sword and finishes the monster off once and for all. 


Belen's Action Scene:
One day a little girl went to her grandmas house. Suddenly, a robber broke in. The girl was scared. She didn't see anything that happened to her nanna. But, she saw one thing. It was really bad. It was a potion. She saw the sign on it. It said -Zombie Potion: must obey robber- . She heard the robber say something. The robber said Ha Ha Ha. Nobody will find the secret formula to make it stop. She ran to her parents house. She told her parents that the thing did something to her grandma. The parents didn't' believe. She had to do this by herself. She had to go on a journey across the world. She had to go to Antarctica because he dressed up as a polar bear and he had his formula in his hand. So she went. Suddenly, a penguin spoke to her. It was a magical world. she had never seen before. She saw the formula in his hand. Then she had to go all the way back to her house to get a net. When she got to the airplane she got her tickets. This is what she said, "I'll have the ticket please." Then she went on the airplane and saw the polar bear with the secret formula and then she got it. How rude! said the polar bear. I'm so sorry she said. I thought you were the robber I was looking for. He was doing something to my nanna and he was dressed up like a polar bear. So she flew to Antarctica. She saw the polar bear. She went to him. How rude! she said. I'm so sorry. I thought you were the robber. I am a penguin. I was just dressed as a polar bear so the polar bears won't eat me. Now she finally saw the real formula. She grabbed it and the robber is like "hey, I thought you couldn't find it, your a poo poo head" She went back home and she found her grandma in her house. The grandma drank the formula and what happened was she said, "Oh my little baby. Back to unwrapping your presents" 

Camila's Action Scene:
ONce there was a kid who was named Lenny Esquire poo poo head who said "how rude" all the time. One day he went on a plane with his parents and then it crashed into the ocean. He was the only survivor. He accidentally got mutated with bat wings. He kept jumping onto all the ships saying "how rude" and eating everything. And I mean everything. So, once all the ships were gone he went on with the whole world. Five years later he was floating in space with an astronaut suit and it exploded because he was so fat eating the whole world. Oh, and did I mention, he ate the whole universe too.  

3 Birds Coffee Roasting: Day 1

Jan 31, 2018

10 Cleftridge Ct

Day 1 with the Gene Cafe.
Warmed up machine for 15 minutes at 300 degrees based on web advice.
Beans: Colombia Narino Galleras from Sagebrush Unroasted.

Batch 1:
Roast time: 17 min
Temp: 480 for 11min, then 440 for 6 min
Cooling: collander cooled

Batch 2:
Roast time: 17 min
Temp: 480 for 15 min, then 440 for 2 min
Cooling: machine cooled then colander cooled

Batch 3:
Roast time: 17 min
Temp: 450
Cooling: collander cooled

3 Birds/Ethiopian

Feb 3, 2018
2 Roasts


Ethiopian Yirgachefe Idido
1. Temp: 420, Time: 12, collander cooled
2. Temp 420, Time 14, collander cooled

story

The cruel early morning light penetrates the tattered and bent mini-blinds of the studio skewering the thin and veined eyelids of the sleeper, the light moving methodically across the landscape of his face like an eclipse slowly raising him from unconsciousness in a tug-of-war of light and dark. His mind a waterlogged ship being hauled reluctantly from some dark abyss.  He stirs and shifts just enough to evade the light, a fleeting reprieve if only for a moment. His mind creaks and grinds to life as digitized images of the prior evening flash before him between the pulses of a malevolent headache.  A grainy reel of super 8 images, poorly edited, whole scenes deleted.  He regards them dispassionately in a bleary fugue of semi-consciousness and reaches for a pack of Camels strategically placed on the cheap bedside bureau but his hand can find no purchase.   He rights himself to his elbow cautiously feeling a wave of nausea and disequilibrium cracking one eye to assess the situation. An empty pack of cigarettes.

"Fuck!"

He contemplates next steps making critical calculations in attempts to compensate for his badly damaged internal gyroscope.   Uncertain if standing will evoke involuntary vomiting, he returns again to repose, takes a deep breath and glances through the tattered blinds absently. Kudzu blankets the hillside overgrowing and suffocating everything   He can't recall its advent,  so insidious. How long ago had he looked through this same window and seen grass? This organic juggernaut of destruction was once praised as an anodyne, growing now out of control like some mutated virus run amok, it is cursed. The analogy to his current circumstance hits hard and sticks in the mud of his poisoned mind.  Mustering some hidden internal reserve of strength,  he rocks and heaves himself to an upright attitude with a guttural grunt, standing and swaying slowly and circadian as a drunken seaman, awash with nausea and regret.  He pauses a few moments to achieve sufficient sea legs and starts the journey across the threadbare dwelling. Slow and Parkinsonian he proceeds across the domicile to the head. Standing over the porcelain appliance he feels the beautiful and primal warmth of urine welling within his pelvis and staring its rivulet journey downward, its commencement sending  a shutter of warmth and adrenaline up his spine. He exhales a soothing moan as urine trickles into the basin, an anemic and forked stream slowly misting his thigh with a pungent sprinkle. The adrenaline warmth another fleeting moment of reprieve from the suffering.

The telephone shrieks to life and shatters the silence. He stands frozen, eyes closed,  unmoved, and counts its rings waiting excruciatingly for the caller to give up and move on. They do not. 12,13,14,15...Are you fucking kidding me? He begrudgingly finishes the business at hand and moves toward the cacophony.

"Hello?"
"Mark? What the fuck? Where are you?"
"Nadine?"
"Yes it's Nadine you fucking asshole! Where the hell are you?"
"Home. Feeling a bit rough this morning. What time is it?"
"What time is it? It's 9:30 you fucking drunk! Get your ass in here!"
"Babe, I'm pretty banged up over here. Not gonna make it this morning."
"Mark. You know if you miss work they will drug test you. You do remember that right?"
"Ya. I know. I've got it covered."
"You've got it covered?"
"Ya, I got it covered."
"You're an idiot!"
"Love you too babe."

He returns the phone carefully down to the receiver as if nitroglycerin, a decrescendo of yelling barely audible on the other end before finding purchase.

"Well, I suppose I should get my fat ass to work" he says to no one followed by one last cleansing procrastinative sigh.

He commences with an all too familiar routine. First to the shower.  He steps into the steaming water allowing  the hot water to flow over his head and then melodically and meditatively moves his head in small circles. "Allow it to ease your pain", an inner voice implores. Time is short and he is already an hour late but he knows this step in vital in his process. Another bolus of adrenaline enters his bloodstream sending a shudder up his back and erupting his back in goose flesh.   He washes his weathered body. More nausea moves through him. A burp bubbles up from some deep-seated toxic cauldron burning his throat.  Finishing, he towels off and dresses quickly gaining some momentum finally.  This ritual his only anodyne to a self-imposed toxicity. He makes a frenetic last push, fighting the overwhelming inertia to simply say fuck it and quit, but rent needs to be paid, bourbon needs to be bought, and cocaine isn't cheap.  Perhaps just an hour late won't gett him fired. The morning light is intense and unforgiving. No shade of sunglass adequate. Still delirious, probably still drunk, he hurries into work tucking his shirt in as the sensor whooshes open the doors. The Home Depot consists on two types of people: retirees who want the benefits and losers who accept  this was the best things were going to get, or more likely, just don't care. He scans the store locating the blue vest of the floor manager. The din of the room piques his headache and he realizes he has forgotten to take aspirin. The crosses the vast gulf of a store and makes a B line for Carl. 


He enters the break room briskly and enters a  chaotic scene of arguing and histrionic hand gesturing. The Puerto Ricans have assembled to have their mid-morning cafe-con-leche and talk politics.  The room smells on stinky socks, cigarettes, and body odor. He is  pretty sure someone has just taken a dump in the tiny, poorly ventilated toilet room at the end of the break hall. A malodorous cacophony piquing his hangover once more. A few more sighs for good measure.

Creature of The Ramble Wood

The Ramble wood stood as a bastion of nature against the relentless urban encroachment of the city of Adalaine.  Designated as a wildlife refuge by the Vanderbilt family, the great wood was cordoned off for preservation.  The family commissioned the construction of a great fence to encapsulate the wood and resist urban invasion.  Human entry was forbidden.  Nature was left to its own devices. 

Farmland, once serving as a buffer between the wood and the urban populous, had been largely eliminated as farmers, on-by-one, sold out to developers bringing the neighborhoods to the very doorstep of the wood.  Relentless pressure mounted on the great wood and the creatures who dwelled within. 

Once abundant with wildlife, the population of rabbits, deer, bear, and bats in the wood had fallen precipitously. Local experts blamed habit loss while others theorized a new predator was afoot. Ecologists of international merit were brought in by the Vanderbilt family at great expense. Extensive surveys and investigation by the experts could find no cause for the sudden decline. The animals had simply vanished.

Legend grew of a strange creature that inhabited the wood. Stories of sightings were sporadic and inconsistent in description.  Some described a human-like creature, walking upright, while others claimed it lumbered about on all fours. The Mexican work-hands spoke of a Chupacabra.  A hideous creature rumored to steal small children from their homes in the night.  Many refused to work near the fenced perimeter of the wood for fear of an encounter. Tales of the creature became a favorite pastime at the neighborhood clubhouse, often during evenings of over-imbibement, serving to cloud their veracity. The legend reached a fever-pitch when WLOS broadcast a grainy cell phone video that claimed to be the creature retreating into the dense brush beyond the wood. Being of low quality it was quickly written off. The affluent residents of the neighborhood rimming the wood would laugh the stories off as good fun akin to the tales of a giant catfish lurking in the community lake.  Their refined intellect could obviously not accept such a ridiculous legend. A few residents, however, felt differently, if only in private. These were the few whose homes backed up directly to the fenced wood.  Because on some moonlit nights, as their dogs stood barking viciously at the darkened wood beyond the fence, they would feel a chill up their spine and a creeping feeling something was watching them. Something medieval. Something dangerous. 

The shrill ring of the rotary phone cut through the air like a knife shattering the peaceful early morning quiet and awakening Grady VanZandt with a gasp. 2:04am.  Grady lifted the receiver and in a moment the world came back into focus. "This is Grady". The voice on the other end was frantic, a patchwork of spanglish and incomplete sentences interrupted by a staccato of exasperated breathing. "Ok, Ok, tranquilo, tranquilo amigo". Grady tried to calm the chicano across the land line. "What did you see? Que paso?". "Ok, ok, I'm coming. Me voy!" Grady glanced outside the bedroom window for a moment.  The full moon cast an eerie pale white light on the lawn beyond the louvered bedroom window.  Grady regarded the thought and rolled out of bed bracing his hand on the bedside mahogany table. Carol VanZandt stirred and rolled part way over regarding her husband. "What was that all about?" "Chicano worker says he seen some kind of creature along the fence line near the workers quarters. You know, them trailers in the back quarter. Got himself all worked up about it. Probably drunk at this hour. Or worse still.  Maybe a cyote or bobcat. Plenty of them roud'. I'm up now. Might as well check it out" "Ok, be careful" 
"Moon like this. A man hardly needs a flashlight." "You're bringing your flashlight" "I'm bringing my flashlight darlin'"

Case of the sound in the night

I don't sleep. I mean, of course I sleep, everyone does. Even those self-proclaimed insomniacs who wear their lack of sleep like a God-damn badge of honor eventually succumb.  It's simple biology. The reticular activating system of the brain eventually gives out, and then almost imperceptibly, poof!, the lights go out and you find yourself starring at your alarm clock annoyed.  So here I am again, lying in bed, not sleeping. The gears in my head turning and turning and turning and turning.  The inertia such that only a great force applied in the exact opposite direction can cease the incessant motion.  Hashing and rehashing events past and present in rapid fire succession. Things that have happened, are happening, will happen, are somewhat likely to happen, and that are unliklely to happen, are generally negative, but I am still decidedly concerned about. Anxiety's voice, it is,  this constant chatter. It wasn't always this way. My mind wasn't always some out of control short-circuited mechanical bull. I remember a time not being so constantly burdened by thought , then at some point in college formal operational thinking kicked in, and it all went to shit. Like a God-damn nuclear explosion, I lost innocence and beautiful oblivion and my existence was forever changed.  Enter stage right your current basket case of anxiety and rumination.

Sometimes I sweat incessantly for weeks at a time.  Inexplicable this sweating.  And voluminous.  It's my nerves I'm certain. There is a malignant tumor in my brain (my doctor denies this) that acts as the command center for my anxiety, and by some yet undescribed mechanism, this command center sends neural signals that open the valves under my arms. What then ensues is a two to three week sweat cycle, during which I walk around all day trying not to lift my arms and reveal my soiled underarms. I've tried everything: cold showers, hot showers, ice baths, every deodorant known to man in varying quantities, botox, tea tree oil, meditation, yoga, psychotherapy, even scream therapy.  All to no effect. Week before last I was showing a beautiful Mediterranian on a cool, breezy morning to a Puerto Rican couple of some affluence.  I believe the husband was a neurologist.  I was in the middle of a speech espousing  the virtues of  the eat-in kitchen when the couple abruptly stopped and asked me if I was feeling ok.  Looking down, I realized to my horror there were clear sweat rings reaching nearly to my nipples in the front and bisecting my wing bones in the back. I had sweat through my suit. Despite repeated assurances, I was clear they were concerned.  Perhaps they thought I was in some kind of withdrawl.  "Did somebody have a big night out last night?" They did not buy.


This process is all subliminal.  I have no awareness of this nerve center is running amok. It acts with free will. Then one day, it just stops, as abruptly as it began, and I can wear my dark blue shits again.  Remember your training man. Just focus on your breath and all this falderall will fly away. But now I'm thinking about my lungs. The alveoli to be precise. Am I short of breath? I may be short of breath I think.

Study for magic suit (name undecided)

to build the neighborhood
where his house would sit
a giant hole
for all the rain to gather
the crane's that dug it
so deep and tall
could not be gathered or salvaged
abandoned in that great hole
they hit a giant spring
and hole filled right up
with crystal clear water
crane in a watery grave
from our dock it could be seen quite clear
30 feet below the surface
once old enough to swim
would swim down toward the great beast
just to touch the tip was the dare
then we became older and more bold
and stronger and we swam deeper
a deeper plunge to touch the cabin
where the worker once sat
and deeper still
to momentarily peer through the window
noticed something left behind
appeared to be a briefcase
left behind by the crew
had to abandon the crane quite quick
training every day
improve breath holding
efforts to oepn the cab door
final effort to grab the case
almost passing out
bringing the case to the surface
open on the dock.