They Begin Again: The First of Many

Solitaire

He sat in a courtroom playing solitaire
as verdicts sent people off to unpleasant company,
relishing the fact that he was no longer packed
between bars. Between people who smelled like urine
and those who reeked of cruelty,
fists constantly clenched, bodies bunched,
bruises appearing mysteriously as soon as backs were turned.

He sucked at solitaire.
The old lady sitting next to him wept as her son was convicted,
her wrinkled face capturing some tears for later
and her classical lavender perfume
reaching out in one last attempt
to convince the judge “He was a nice boy, really.”

She stood to leave, a little more hunched
than when she entered. He remained,
remembering the empty courtroom which had bid him farewell
and lost another game of solitaire unable to think far enough ahead

to remember which cards were coming
and which ones he needed to move
to get at the aces
so he started over.

Poem:
There's nothing quite like necessity to serve as inspiration. I got back from my trip on Monday, slept through most of that day, got caught up on stuff Tuesday, and then Wednesday realized I needed a poem for class. I was just laying in bed playing solitaire, and I was trying to think of something interesting to write about. Then I just thought "what if I took what I was doing and changed the setting?" I thought a courtroom would be a pretty strange location, and briefly debated having it be one of the attorneys playing, but decided to go with this idea instead (obviously). So I created the characters as I went along, and I kind of like how it turned out. I guess it's kind of depressing in points, but I thought it concluded with a bit of an uplifting note, like the guy, despite being alone and sort of at a loss regarding what to do, at least has a chance to start over and do something decent with his life.

Observation:
I guess there's no real way for me to avoid procrastinating. I have a lot of little notes jotted down to write about in the upcoming entries, and I've had this particular entry plotted out in my head for a couple of days now. You'd think that would make it easy to get started. But somehow, knowing what I want to write meant that, since it was going to be easy, I could do it in a small amount of time, which meant I kept saying to myself "Nah, I already know what I want to say, so I can just do it before I go to sleep. Just a few more video games (or iPhone dalliances, or minutes of doing nothing particular at all)." And what resulted was this waiting to be published for quite a while. So this has encouraged me to renew my resolve, make time for writing again, and actually churn out some more entries. I might try blaming my procrastination on my tournament, saying something like "I was out of town and busy, and then it took a while to get back into the swing of things" but really, I just used the tournament as an excuse to not update. Which is sad, since it's not like this is some obligation I have to a huge fan base or my living or something. This is what I want to be doing. So I'll try to remember that in the future.

Exercise:
I recently received the following message, so I decided to use it: I was walking to class and overheard this snippet between two people. I wanted to hear what the rest of their conversation was about but also kind of not, because I'm afraid it's much less exciting than what I imagine. Anyway, it reminded me of your 5-min writing exercises. Here it is:
1: "I'm not trying to scare you-
2: "No, no, no!"
1: "but I think they get their...

"I'm not trying to scare you-"
"No, no, no!"
"but I think they get their ingredients from the same places other stores do," Colin finished.
"But their an exotic french restaurant! Don't ruin this for me!" Elizabeth seemed on the verge of tears. Evidently, she quite enjoyed her french food.
"Their a restaurant in Iowa. It's not like their clientele are going to know the difference between French cuisine and potash anyway." Colin felt he was being quite reasonable. Plus, his dish had looked remarkably similar to the frozen food he occasionally purchased at Sam's Club in bulk.
Elizabeth was desperate. "But you can't KNOW! Sure, it's not likely, but you can't know it's not flown in or something. I've been going there and shelling out money like every month for this stuff!"
Realizing this might be something more serious than he thought, Colin backed off. Some people's twilight-zone-style-revelations were a little less extreme. "No, of course I can't know. I'm sorry. It just looked familiar." And they kept walking, Elizabeth's shaking subsiding gradually as she began to rationalize her way back into her fantasy. They probably have a secret tunnel.

Me:
Ah, where to begin? I participated in the National Collegiate Handball Tournament last week. I took my iPhone, but realized it wasn't ideal for updating this. I could have used one of my dad's laptops, so I'm just making excuses, but it was certainly interesting to note there's no good way to write anything of length on it. It was awesome to have, though. It entertained me, kept me informed with email, news, etc, and, best of all, I used it to skype to people in Ames. So some people actually got to watch my games live, which was pretty cool. It was heartening to know I had an audience, even if they weren't there or audible. As for the tournament itself, things went pretty well in general. Sure, I dislocated a finger and was in a lot of pain for a while, but I still won the Intermediate division title, and the whole experience was great. (For those who want a bit more on the whole "dislocated my finger story, I dove for a ball, slid into a wall, and came up with my finger bent backward, the tip pointing at me.) My finger is recovering well, and I'm happy with the trophy. Also, my philosophy professor told me I could rework and expand my paper and maybe submit it for publication, which would be pretty cool. Then I would have a national championship, a patent, and a journal publication. Quite a good school year. Now if I could just get into a grad school, things would be ideal.