I can read, yet illiteracy fills my life. Reading is what gave me joy and happiness. This everyday ability changed my life. It gave me hope in a time of fear. It gave me fear. A knock on our door in the Paris slums didn’t bring me out of my absorption in my new book. My siblings can’t read, I was the only one that bothered to pay attention in school. I only went to school for three years, since I was not the eldest child and a girl. Yet, I was the only one of my six siblings that enjoyed school. For my birthday each year, my siblings saved their measly salaries that they earned working at the hardware store and went to the bookstore. They picked out a book in which they liked the picture on the cover. An odd assortment of novels have flowed through our small cardboard box home as a result. Nevertheless, I have devoured each one. My mother yelled from outside “GENEVIÈVE, GET YOUR SKINNY REAR OUT HERE, NOW!”
Still stuck in gracefully strung words, I dawdled out to the front. A tall, well dressed man stood amidst broken beer bottle and my dwarfish mother in her worn light pink floral night dress. A beer battle identical to the product of the pieces on the ground was in my mother’s hand, nearly drained. The visitor’s appearance is not what made him stick out, it was his smell. He smelled of premium liquor, a smell I would grow to hate, while everything else reeked of cheap gas station beer. My mother finished off her beer with unusual vigor. Lacking her normal lethargic, slurred speech, she proudly announced that I was getting married to the sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb man. I didn’t learn his name until our wedding night two weeks later.
Jack Lire was a prominent socialite who attended party after party, drank drink after drink, schmoozing with different important people, one after another. All of his money had come from inheritance after his father died. His father, Bartholomew Lire, had founded a motor company. Being a smart business man with a lot of luck, he sold the business right before it crashed, and ran off with the money. One year later, he was found dead, a bullet through his heart. Jack got the money and the story never hit the news stands. There was no semblance of my former life after I was thrown into the life of Jack Lire, the eccentric alcoholic. My family made of with a little money, which invariably went towards alcohol.
Jack didn’t just smell like liquor the day he came to claim me. He smelled like liquor every hour of everyday. Anger was the married companion to Jack’s drunken behavior. Alcohol and abuse were nothing new the elite class of Parisians. The people in Jack’s circle claimed to have never seen Jack without a mistress. He had been married five times; each wife had come to a mysterious fate. Their deaths never made it to the newspapers stands. Jack’s friends convince themselves that the five victims left Jack because of his drinking. Everyone knew that was not option. I looked at pictures that lined the house. Different women, different hair colors, different eye colors, all had the same desolate expression in their eyes. Stricken with fear, I retreated to my bed chamber, which was the size of my gloriously small home in the slums which I missed dearly now, to live in a fictional story.
Minutes later, Jack pushed through the door. His eyes were bloodshot, veins protruding from his forehead and balding head. “You can read?” he bellowed, words tinted with alcohol. Shaking under the comforter, I felt cemented to the bed. A chair hit the wall. The pieces lay on the floor, like the pieces to a child’s jigsaw. For fear I might end up like the chair and the previous five wives I simply nodded. As if an ice storm had come, the raging mania that had caused Jack to succumb to violence diminished. Suddenly serene, he sat down on the bed next to me. “Will you read to me?” he whispered so quietly I wasn’t sure if I had understood him. “I do not think you will like my book. It’s Little Women.” “Read anyway.” I feared another outburst, so I flipped the tired pages back to the beginning and read the story of the four sisters.
I would like to think that reading was the answer to everybody’s problems, just as it had been for me. Alcohol and violence still lingered in the mansion. The couple never left, but gradually became less and less intrusive. We still went to parties constantly, but they too became less of shock than the first few. Yet, I always felt out of place, even at the mansion. I never called it home and still occasionally yearned for the slums and my family, who I hadn’t seen in years. The books were the only semblance I had of my previous life. Whenever Jack would get the protruding veins and bloodshot eyes, I would quickly retreat to the comforters like a mouse and place a book at the foot of the bed. As a one person war slowly demolished everything in the house, the only peace treaty was fiction.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Picture Story- Draft 1
I can read, yet illiteracy fills my life. Reading is what gave me joy and happiness. This everyday ability changed my life. It gave me hope in a time of fear. It gave me fear. A knock on our door in the Paris slums didn’t bring me out of my absorption in my new book. My siblings can’t read, I was the only one that bothered to pay attention in school. I only went to school for three years, since I was not the eldest child and a girl. Yet, I was the only one of my six siblings that enjoyed school. For my birthday each year, my siblings saved their measly salaries that they earned working at the hardware store and went to the bookstore. They picked out a book in which they liked the picture on the cover. An odd assortment of novels have flowed through our small cardboard box home as a result. Nevertheless, I have devoured each one. My mother yelled from outside “ELIZA, GET YOUR SKINNY REAR OUT HERE, NOW!”
Still stuck in gracefully strung words, I dawdled out to the front. A tall, well dressed man stood amidst broken beer battles and my dwarfish mother in her worn light pink floral night dress. A beer battle identical to the product of the pieces on the ground was in my mother’s hand, nearly drained. The visitor’s appearance is not what made him stick out, it was his smell. He smelled of premium liquor, a smell I would grow to hate, while everything else reeked of cheap gas station beer. My mother finished off her beer with unusual vigor. Lacking her normal lethargic, slurred speech, she proudly announced that I was getting married to the sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb man. I didn’t learn his name until our wedding night two weeks later.
Jack Lire was a prominent socialite who attended party after party, drank drink after drink, schmoozing with different important people, one after another. All of his money had come from inheritance after his father died. His father, Bartholomew Lire, had founded an electrical company. Being a smart business man with a lot of luck, he sold the business right before it crashed, and ran off with the money. One year later, he was found dead, a bullet through his heart. Jack got the money and the story never hit the news stands. Now, feeling like Eliza Doolittle, I thrown from the slums to the famous Parisian lifestyle. My family made off with a little money, which went towards beer for all, not just my mother.
Jack didn’t just smell like liquor the day he came to claim me. He smelled like liquor every hour of everyday. Anger was the married companion to Jack’s drunken behavior. Alcohol and abuse were nothing new the elite class of Parisians. The people in Jack’s circle claimed to have never seen Jack without a mistress. He had been married five times as well as different dates to each party, sometimes more than one in a night. Each wife had come to a mysterious fate. Their deaths never made it to the newspapers stands. Jack’s friends convince themselves that the five victims left Jack because of his drinking. Everyone knew that women were never given that opportunity in the late 19th century. I looked at pictures that lined the house. Different women, different hair colors, different eye colors, all had the same desolate expression in their eyes. Stricken with fear, I retreated to my bed chamber, which was the size of my gloriously small home in the slums which I missed dearly now, to live in a fictional story. Minutes later, Jack pushed through the door. His eyes were bloodshot, veins protruding from his forehead and balding head. “You can read?” he cried, words tinted with alcohol. Shaking under the comforter, I felt cemented to the bed. A chair hit the wall. The pieces lay on the floor, like the pieces to a child’s jigsaw. For fear I might end up like the chair and the previous five wives I simply nodded. As if an ice storm had come, the raging mania that had caused Jack to succumb to violence diminished. Suddenly serene, he sat down on the bed next to me. “Will you read to me?” he asked so quietly I wasn’t sure if I had understood him. “I do not think you will like my book. It’s Little Women.” “Read anyway.” I feared another outburst, so I flipped the tired pages back to the beginning and read the story of the four sisters.
I would like to think that reading was the answer to everybody’s problems, just as it had been for me. Alcohol and violence still lingered in the mansion. The couple never left, but gradually became less and less intrusive. We still went to parties constantly, but they too became less of shock than the first few. Yet, I always felt out of place, even at the mansion. I never called it home and still occasionally yearned for the slums and my family, who I hadn’t seen in years. The books were the only semblance I had of my previous life. Whenever Jack would get the protruding veins and bloodshot eyes, I would quickly retreat to the comforters like a mouse and place a book at the foot of the bed. As a one person war slowly demolished everything in the house, the only peace treaty was fiction.
Still stuck in gracefully strung words, I dawdled out to the front. A tall, well dressed man stood amidst broken beer battles and my dwarfish mother in her worn light pink floral night dress. A beer battle identical to the product of the pieces on the ground was in my mother’s hand, nearly drained. The visitor’s appearance is not what made him stick out, it was his smell. He smelled of premium liquor, a smell I would grow to hate, while everything else reeked of cheap gas station beer. My mother finished off her beer with unusual vigor. Lacking her normal lethargic, slurred speech, she proudly announced that I was getting married to the sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb man. I didn’t learn his name until our wedding night two weeks later.
Jack Lire was a prominent socialite who attended party after party, drank drink after drink, schmoozing with different important people, one after another. All of his money had come from inheritance after his father died. His father, Bartholomew Lire, had founded an electrical company. Being a smart business man with a lot of luck, he sold the business right before it crashed, and ran off with the money. One year later, he was found dead, a bullet through his heart. Jack got the money and the story never hit the news stands. Now, feeling like Eliza Doolittle, I thrown from the slums to the famous Parisian lifestyle. My family made off with a little money, which went towards beer for all, not just my mother.
Jack didn’t just smell like liquor the day he came to claim me. He smelled like liquor every hour of everyday. Anger was the married companion to Jack’s drunken behavior. Alcohol and abuse were nothing new the elite class of Parisians. The people in Jack’s circle claimed to have never seen Jack without a mistress. He had been married five times as well as different dates to each party, sometimes more than one in a night. Each wife had come to a mysterious fate. Their deaths never made it to the newspapers stands. Jack’s friends convince themselves that the five victims left Jack because of his drinking. Everyone knew that women were never given that opportunity in the late 19th century. I looked at pictures that lined the house. Different women, different hair colors, different eye colors, all had the same desolate expression in their eyes. Stricken with fear, I retreated to my bed chamber, which was the size of my gloriously small home in the slums which I missed dearly now, to live in a fictional story. Minutes later, Jack pushed through the door. His eyes were bloodshot, veins protruding from his forehead and balding head. “You can read?” he cried, words tinted with alcohol. Shaking under the comforter, I felt cemented to the bed. A chair hit the wall. The pieces lay on the floor, like the pieces to a child’s jigsaw. For fear I might end up like the chair and the previous five wives I simply nodded. As if an ice storm had come, the raging mania that had caused Jack to succumb to violence diminished. Suddenly serene, he sat down on the bed next to me. “Will you read to me?” he asked so quietly I wasn’t sure if I had understood him. “I do not think you will like my book. It’s Little Women.” “Read anyway.” I feared another outburst, so I flipped the tired pages back to the beginning and read the story of the four sisters.
I would like to think that reading was the answer to everybody’s problems, just as it had been for me. Alcohol and violence still lingered in the mansion. The couple never left, but gradually became less and less intrusive. We still went to parties constantly, but they too became less of shock than the first few. Yet, I always felt out of place, even at the mansion. I never called it home and still occasionally yearned for the slums and my family, who I hadn’t seen in years. The books were the only semblance I had of my previous life. Whenever Jack would get the protruding veins and bloodshot eyes, I would quickly retreat to the comforters like a mouse and place a book at the foot of the bed. As a one person war slowly demolished everything in the house, the only peace treaty was fiction.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Wedding Paper- WA 5- Final Draft
The setting was lovely. The wedding was set under a flowered canopy along the Seine, facing the Eiffel Tower at sunset. Two hundred and fifty guests gazed lovingly at me in the night I have dreamed about for years. The ceremony was flawless. I couldn’t be happier. Throughout the ceremony, I fantasized about the beautiful cake that would be awaiting the boat on which our reception was being held. This was how I always imagined it.
Everyone is at the ceremony. A quiet blanket of love covered the wide, varied patchwork of the friends and family. The ceremony kindled fond memories for the to- be newly- weds. While serenity coats the party at the banks of the Seine, chaos is wired throughout the kitchen. As the caterer, we get the length of the wedding to set up. My staff is obediently following my commands. The food was prepared ahead of time, but it has to be finalized and made presentable. The life of a caterer is hectic- the available resources at different venues are unknown until our arrival, so we hope the kitchen will have what we need.
As smoothly as the wedding was going, all I was focused on was the cake. I dreamt about the cake since I was little girl. I had hired the best chef in Paris, who also happened to be a great caterer in general. Throughout the ceremony, the cake is all I could think about.
The soufflé burnt. Each oven’s internal temperature is different, even when it reads the same. Unknowingly, the once beautifully crafted soufflé is now a horrendously tragic pile of ash. As the caterer, it is my responsibility to make sure that the wedding party never finds out about all of the inevitable mishaps that occur in the kitchen as the reception looms. In forty-five minutes, I must recreate a major dish with what was in the kitchen. The smells of the different dishes being heated are vigorously swirling around the little kitchen with such force that I was worried that it might knock over the pièce- de- resistance: the four tiered, alternating chocolate- vanilla level wedding cake.
I managed to create chicken morengo with ingredients I found in the pantry. As the timer approaches single digits, the waitressing staff frantically lines up the appetizer plates, yelling and screaming for the lack of certain plates distracted me from the real issue at hand until the reception was already underway.
The ride along the Seine was smooth and peaceful. The sun had set. In its place was a luminous moon. The Eiffel Tower slowly tiptoed towards the awed guests. The dinner had been brilliant.
The meal had gone smoothly, regardless of the different setbacks along the way. When it was time for me to bring out my prized wedding cake, I noticed a broken snowflake lying in the middle of a trail of white icing leading in no particular direction other than disaster. I followed the path away from the now dilapidated cake on the counter to a corner of the kitchen. At the end of the path, I found a waiter nursing one mother mouse and five, furless, pink baby mice. The mice were sitting in a pile of icing and crumbs.
Determined screaming came from the kitchen where all of the delicious food has been streaming out consistently for the past two hours. Suddenly, all two hundred and fifty heads turned, five hundred eyes glazed over in amazement.
‘Sir, look at these adorable baby mice I found. They can’t be more than six hours old! I’ve already named them. Tears began flowing like a sink faucet.
All five hundred ears heard:
‘Do you realize what these mice have done? My cake is ruined.’
It was then I started to cry, tears flowing down my face, my makeup ruined. I looked at the caterer, anguish his over ruined creation filled the worn creases around his eyes.
The guests quickly lost interest, hoping for more food by the fantastic chef.
The ceremony finished without any further dilemmas. In the same spirit as the chicken dish was made, the catering staff and I whipped together some more minor desserts. The guests seemed pleased.
And desserts they got. While the wedding’s end was not the one I had anticipated, nor the I had dreamed about. In the end, the guests seemed to enjoy themselves anyways. In the end, that’s better than the perfect wedding cake.
Everyone is at the ceremony. A quiet blanket of love covered the wide, varied patchwork of the friends and family. The ceremony kindled fond memories for the to- be newly- weds. While serenity coats the party at the banks of the Seine, chaos is wired throughout the kitchen. As the caterer, we get the length of the wedding to set up. My staff is obediently following my commands. The food was prepared ahead of time, but it has to be finalized and made presentable. The life of a caterer is hectic- the available resources at different venues are unknown until our arrival, so we hope the kitchen will have what we need.
As smoothly as the wedding was going, all I was focused on was the cake. I dreamt about the cake since I was little girl. I had hired the best chef in Paris, who also happened to be a great caterer in general. Throughout the ceremony, the cake is all I could think about.
The soufflé burnt. Each oven’s internal temperature is different, even when it reads the same. Unknowingly, the once beautifully crafted soufflé is now a horrendously tragic pile of ash. As the caterer, it is my responsibility to make sure that the wedding party never finds out about all of the inevitable mishaps that occur in the kitchen as the reception looms. In forty-five minutes, I must recreate a major dish with what was in the kitchen. The smells of the different dishes being heated are vigorously swirling around the little kitchen with such force that I was worried that it might knock over the pièce- de- resistance: the four tiered, alternating chocolate- vanilla level wedding cake.
I managed to create chicken morengo with ingredients I found in the pantry. As the timer approaches single digits, the waitressing staff frantically lines up the appetizer plates, yelling and screaming for the lack of certain plates distracted me from the real issue at hand until the reception was already underway.
The ride along the Seine was smooth and peaceful. The sun had set. In its place was a luminous moon. The Eiffel Tower slowly tiptoed towards the awed guests. The dinner had been brilliant.
The meal had gone smoothly, regardless of the different setbacks along the way. When it was time for me to bring out my prized wedding cake, I noticed a broken snowflake lying in the middle of a trail of white icing leading in no particular direction other than disaster. I followed the path away from the now dilapidated cake on the counter to a corner of the kitchen. At the end of the path, I found a waiter nursing one mother mouse and five, furless, pink baby mice. The mice were sitting in a pile of icing and crumbs.
Determined screaming came from the kitchen where all of the delicious food has been streaming out consistently for the past two hours. Suddenly, all two hundred and fifty heads turned, five hundred eyes glazed over in amazement.
‘Sir, look at these adorable baby mice I found. They can’t be more than six hours old! I’ve already named them. Tears began flowing like a sink faucet.
All five hundred ears heard:
‘Do you realize what these mice have done? My cake is ruined.’
It was then I started to cry, tears flowing down my face, my makeup ruined. I looked at the caterer, anguish his over ruined creation filled the worn creases around his eyes.
The guests quickly lost interest, hoping for more food by the fantastic chef.
The ceremony finished without any further dilemmas. In the same spirit as the chicken dish was made, the catering staff and I whipped together some more minor desserts. The guests seemed pleased.
And desserts they got. While the wedding’s end was not the one I had anticipated, nor the I had dreamed about. In the end, the guests seemed to enjoy themselves anyways. In the end, that’s better than the perfect wedding cake.
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