Do something special for your writing and yourself. Go to the Writing Pad High Desert Retreat on the weekend of Oct. 22-24! There are only 2 spots left--call 323-333-2954 to sign up before it's full.
It's 2 nights/2 days of relaxation, top notch writing classes, one-on-one consultations, gourmet food, and fun! Make some significant progress on a writing project or get your writing practice going!
Also, we have some fantastic classes coming up this fall. They are:
- Mini Writing Pad Bootcamp. . .With Dessert (Sun., Sept. 19)
- So You Want To Be A Writer (Wed.'s, Starts Oct. 6)
- Finishing School (Wed.'s, Starts Oct. 6)
Writing Prompt:
What comes to mind when I say, "best friend"? Make a list of your 5 adventures/experiences that you had with a best friend. Pick one and add two sensory details to it (smell, taste, sound, touch, sight). Write for 10 minutes about that adventures/experience. Make sure to include at least one of your sensory details in your piece and post your results in comments of this blog!
Comment on this blog! Write about an adventure or experience you had with a best friend. The best mini-story of August/September will win a free class!
Posts
5 comments:
One summer when I was 17, my best friend Hope and I made the journey from the suburbs to Downtown Chicago to go shopping and escape from our families. I was low on cash, and I had asked Hope if I could borrow some money for the train. She said yes. But when we stepped onto the “L”, Hope’s heavy shopping bags cutting lines into our palms, she realized that she didn't have enough cash for both of us.
“Hide in the bathroom while the conductor collects the money for tickets,” she whispered, shoving me into the train’s tiny bathroom. As a card carrying member of the goody two shoes club, this was really scary for me. My heart did the samba against my chest. I breathed in the toxic fumes of the industrial strength soap that frothed in foamy bubbles in the sink drain. The minutes ticked by slowly as I heard, “tickets, tickets?” After what seemed like a year, Hope let me out of the bathroom. The conductor had gone to the next car and hadn’t noticed me.
Hope and I giggled at our successful rebellious and illegal act as we pulled our plaid shorts encased thighs off the hard plastic of the train seats. But as I left her palatial sized mansion that night to return to my much smaller house in a less affluent suburb of Chicago, I felt like I had just received an enema of shame. Why did Hope make me hide in the bathroom instead of her? What if I had gotten caught? I didn’t feel triumphant against authority at all. I felt dirty.
Marilyn
Our charge was simple: drop off Jennifer's 16-year-old daughter, Christy, at camp one Sunday afternoon. The drive to Lake Arrowhead passed quickly enough, a stop at Chick-Fil-A already making the trip worthwhile for me.
After leaving Christy and 2 weeks worth of luggage in the care of a ridiculously expensive sleepaway camp where all the male counselors had tattoos and accents(umm, can I go to sleepaway camp? pretty please?), Jen and I decided to explore Lake Arrowhead with the rest of our day.
"I'd like to be home by dinner," I said, and as the words left my mouth, I could practically hear the final nail being hammered into my coffin.
As a woman in my 30's, I have several friends named Jennifer - a posse of Jens, if you will. There is high school Jennifer, Jesus Jennifer, shopping Jennifer... on this summer Sunday I was with Bad Jennifer - so named not because she is in fact evil, but because when she and I get together and alcohol is added to the equation, bad things tend to happen. Maybe not"bad"...."questionable". "Naughty".
We conservatively sampled a wine flight at the resort, gazing out at the lake, which then led us into the Village to browse the Coach outlet. Hey- a wine bar! Flights were ordered in celebration of Jennifer's birthday the previous weekend. Down the path a bit, a cantina provided margaritas and tacos in the shade. This is where things start to get fuzzy, for in short order we found ourselves at a table with mostly men, and tequila shots. At one point I sang "Bobby McGee" with the band that was playing, and within hours I was in the wine cellar of a mansion, drinking a bottle of wine which probably cost as much as my car payment. Two butterscotch-colored pitbulls sat panting contentedly at the door.
"Should we take the Opus one to dinner, what do you think, Diana?" asked the owner of the wine cellar, the house, the dogs. His name was G6. Oh yes, we should definitely take the Opus One. He put 4 bottles into a LV attache'."I'm not dressed for dinner," I said. He regarded my faded jeans and plaid top."You'll be fine," he said, "You're with me," Jennifer and some guy met us down at the dock - and now things are getting verrrry sketchy - with about 10 other people, and then we took. A boat. To dinner.
After a multi-course dinner of Osso Bucco and lobster ravioli, I got cozy on a leather sofa,and Jennifer got busy with her fella in one of the 6 bedrooms.
When she tapped me on the foot at 5 am, she said "Let's go. I have a budget meeting at 8:30."
As we made our way down the mountain, we looked at each other and said the same thing: "Did that really happen?"
Diana,
I love this story. What a great adventure! I love the comment about the narrator wanting to go to sleepaway camp because of the tattooed male counselors. I love the series of Jennifers in the narrator's life, especially bad Jennifer and how she got her name. I love the wine that cost as much as the narrator's car payment and the friend getting busy in one of 6 bedrooms.
Fabulous!
Marilyn
We sipped mint juleps for the first time, wearing huge floppy red and blue hats. She wore a Marc Jacobs quilted patchwork knee length dress, donning blue vintage Feragamos. Only she could pull of the red hat. Her style screamed hotness. I wore a Betsy Johnson strappy dress. Small white flowers covered the blue fabric, and pale pink pumps carried me through the grass, horse tracks, and bleachers. I owned the baby blue hat. Subtle yet inviting. This warm southern day opened us up to walks of life from New York, Peru, even Florida. I'd never actually met anyone from Florida, and I'd always thought that when I did, I'd run. All the creepy murder news stories came out of Flordia. I know this because I keep a notepad in my car of all of the strange murder cases that occur, generally from Florida, but this woman seemed friendly. We argued over whether or not Kentucky was an eastern or southern state. I told her that there's no way in hell I'm wearing this ridiculous hat and pearls if I thought I was going to the derby in the East, and that my best friend and I keenly picked our threads to impress the South.
Post a Comment