My Cardboard Balcony

Remnants of the Individual by Belinda Roddie Hot-fingered and cold-hearted, lingering over bottles and bowls of shriveled pistachios, the eight o'clock stragglers watch the baseball game go awry for the home team. I drink whiskey and soda and my own curdled spit just to add some sort of flavor to my everyday existence. I straddle the line between sin and self-loathing, remembering the days when I was nestled against a warm body, belonging to someone cold-fingered and hot-hearted, lingering between sheets and on pillows full of dying feathers, clinging to my hips as the lights went out all over the whole damn crazy town.

I wanted to make a cake, but we were out of flour. I went to the grocery store, but the store was closed for cleaning purposes. I thought I'd drive my car to the next available store, but my automobile just wouldn't start. So I started to walk. Only I bore a whole in my shoe, faceplanted after tripping over a bump in the sidewalk, and wound up just having my girlfriend buy a cake on her way home from work.

Two purses had been stolen from the back room of our store, and of course, we were furious. It turned out that the thief hadn't wandered very far; in fact, he was caught in an alleyway, dumping things out of the purses themselves and rummaging through them for goodies. By the time the cops brought back all the clerks' belongings, they couldn't have been more apologetic. "Guy's an outright kleptomaniac," one officer explained to the store manager, sighing and shaking her head. "Been in jail a couple of times, but he doesn't learn."

by Belinda Roddie Grandpa's attempt at mashed potatoes could only be described as "enraged." Where parts of it sagged into mush, others rose in angry starch mountains and volcanoes on my plate. With butter, the whole thing turned into a battlefield. And in my mouth, it tasted like the end of a long and bitter war. My mother managed to swallow a lumpy wad without gagging, though my sister wasn't so skilled at masking her disdain. After the first nibble, she reached for her glass of wine and drank a good third of it before apparently her palate was at last cleansed. Grandpa, as always, sat at the head of the table. His face was still red and veiny, his fists trembling as his fingers nearly bent the fork and knife in his grip. "Well," he barked at my sister, "can you at least eat the meatloaf?" My sister raised her head from her plate - most likely, she had been scrutinizing the dinner as if wrinkling her nose at a "modern" work of a...

Roger Marvin Smith was completely inept at anything technological. When asked by someone if he used a wireless mouse for his computer, his response was, "Aren't all mouses wireless?" After his own mother had gotten a tablet and become very accustomed to it, she was the one teaching her son how to swipe left or right. And once, during a family outing, Roger was punching at his brand new smartphone angrily, wondering why he couldn't simply attach typewriter keys to the darn thing and remain perfectly old-fashioned.

So is it possible for me to resort to a cop-out again for this introspection because it's sort of same old, same old right now? Because it really is. I'm sure within the next couple of weeks, it'll be more exciting, since I'll actually be restarting my teaching credential program, and I'm sure I'll have a lot more to chew on. For now, however, it's my teaching job and my bookstore job and my blog writing. Not doing a whole lot of other writing at the moment; no projects that I'm really hellbent on finishing. But that's to be expected. I've been doing a lot of reading, though. One of my reviews of a new debut novel actually got published. Pretty awesome. All right, I'm tired. I really didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

No Regrets by Belinda Roddie This time, I let the bullet hit home. Dead center.