Week Three Prompts

9. Writers have to listen to themselves; writers ought to always be talking to themselves. Try a conversation between you and yourself. Sometimes arguments are fun.


"You know, you don't take enough chances." I told myself, as I looked into the mirror at my boring hair color.
"How so?" I asked, pushing some of my hair behind my ear. A nervous habit. 
"I know for a fact you've always wanted to dye your hair purple." 
I furrowed my brow, "I could never do that. I wouldn't be able to find a job. My parents would murder me." 
"So?" I shrugged, "You're almost 20. You can legally do whatever you want." 
"No one can ever really do whatever they want. Do you know how selfish that is?" 
"How is that selfish at all?" I replied with a challenging tone. 
"I also want a lip piercing or an eyebrow piercing. If I were to do that, i'd personally insult my grandparents. They'd be hurt. It'd be as if I'd betrayed them." 
"If you want to do it, do it." 
"I can't possibly be that selfish. I can't only think of myself that way." 
I stared at myself, the haze from my mother's cigarette traveled behind me in the mirror. The smell burnt my nostrils; I could tell I'd smell like it later, and that bothered me. 
Could she hear me talking to myself? 
"Maybe you should be selfish more often. What do you ever do that's selfish?" 
"Selfishness isn't a redeeming quality." I replied hotly, "I know selfish people. I don't like them."
"It's not like you like yourself all hat much either." I said, deliberately stretching out my words. 
I crossed my arms, "What's that supposed to mean?" 
"If you liked yourself more, you'd act differently. Why do you care so much what your grandparents think? Or your parents?" 
"Because they're my family," I replied angrily, "My family." 
"So? Your mother smokes all the time and you hate that. You have to constantly worry about your hair smelling like smoke when you're around her. Don't you hate that?" 
"Yes, I don't like that. She knows that though." I replied quietly. 
"And yet she still does it. Even though she knows you don't like it." 
I hated the fact that I was right. Why did it matter? I can go through life without my eyebrow pierced. I don't need purple hair. But what bothered me was that maybe I really didn't take enough chances. Chances that meant more then unnatural hair color or holes in my face. 
"Look at you." I continued with a cold, hard tone, "You've got your nose pierced as if you honestly don't care about what anyone thinks. You care a lot more then you know. Do something honestly reckless for once." 
I clenched my fists, my heart beating faster, "Mistakes like that aren't cute anymore. I'm an adult. I have too much hanging over my head to go out and act like an idiot all the time. I wanna be a teacher. If I act like an idiot and get into trouble, that'll affect my chances of getting a job later in life. I don't want that." 
I half-smiled, "Things might turn out perfectly fine. Have you ever considered that?" 
I looked behind me again at my mother. She hadn't moved from her computer game. Obviously she can't hear me talking to myself. 
"I'm not arrogant enough to believe that for some strange reason I'd be lucky. I'm not a lucky person. Things almost never go according to plan for me." 
"Maybe things aren't supposed to go according to plan. Plans are made to be broken." 
I rolled my eyes. This was going nowhere. I wish I could just agree to disagree, but I was being tugged in so many directions that I didn't know what I should settle on. 
I narrowed my eyes and pointed at myself, "You're a coward." 
I drew back as if I had been slapped, "A coward? How can you possibly say that? You don't know me." 
I raised my eyebrows and got closer, smiling very slowly, "I don't?" 
Suddenly, I realized what just happened. I stepped away from the mirror and ran outside, kicking my shoes off as I left. I bolted out the door and went for a run through the woods, replaying the realization in my mind. 


10. Go to a crowded public place (not one of your classrooms, though) and be a fly on the wall. Just listen. Can you pick out conversations? Write down a little of what you hear, maybe as dialog (he said--,she said--)



"Why am I even here?" The woman asked her friend. The hallway was busy and crowded, but these two stood still as the people passed them from either sides, "I don't want an education. I don't want to go to school." 
"Don't you want a career?" The friend replied. 
"I have money. I've got plenty of money. I don't need to be here. So why am I here?' 
The friend awkwardly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, "Because you want to meet new people?" 
"No again," The woman replied sternly, "I have plenty of people in my life that I care about. I don't want to sit in classrooms with all these young kids with popped-up collars and annoying attitudes." The woman eyeballed a kid who fit the description of who she just described.
The friend didn't say anything. She seemed to realize that all the woman wanted was an ear to listen. 
"I'm here because it's what's socially acceptable. It's what people expect from me. All I really want to do is be home with my children and my husband, spending time with them. But I'm here, wasting hundreds of dollars on books and tuition, when all I want to do is be a stay at home mom. Fifty years ago, it was unheard of for a woman to go to college. Especially a mother and a wife. This is what society has come to." 
The friend shrugged, "Why did you come to school, then, if that's how you feel?" 
"Because I have so many outside forces telling me that it's what I should do. My father tells me he wished I would've done it before having children. My mother tells me that she wishes I was more like my sister; the dental hygienist. Most of my friends are college-educated people who tell me I don't know what I'm missing." 
The friend didn't say anything, she just nodded as the woman continued. 
"So here I am. Wasting money that I could spend on something I care about. It's infuriating. I'm too old to be here; I'm too stubborn to sit in a classroom when there are a million different places I'd rather be. I don't think school is for everyone. It's not for me. I know I'm a good mom, and that's all I want to do with my life. This place isn't for me." 
The woman sighed and took out her cell phone to check the time. "Well, I've got to go to class now. A class that I don't care about to go towards a degree I don't care about. Sorry for ranting your ear off." 
"It's okay," The friend laughed, "My ears are free to rant off anytime." 




2. Go to a crowded public place (not one of your classrooms, though) and be a fly on the wall. Just watch. What's going on? Set that scene.


"I'm done with him," The girl said, waving her hands dismissively, "He's done using me."
"Good for you, Amy!" Her friend said, patting her on the leg, "It's about time. Did you kick him out?"
Amy smiled, "I changed all the locks. I put all his shit in bags and tossed them in the garage. He's out."
"What about your car?" The friend asked, sipping her coffee, "Didn't you give it to him?"
Amy ran a hand through her long, brown hair, "It's not like I signed him over the papers or anything. I just lent it to him. I stole the keys out of his pocket while he was sleeping."
"Wow," Her friend replied, "You're gutsy. Do you think you'll get back together?"
Amy made a face, "You know what they say. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..." Amy didn't finish, "You know the rest. I ain't putting myself in that situation again. I'm 37 years old and I need to find a real man."
The diner was crowded that day. Amy and her friend were sitting together at a small table. Each one had a coffee and a slice of pie.
"Have you talked to him?" The friend asked, taking her fork to the pie.
"Nope," Amy said bluntly, "He doesn't have a cell phone. How could I talk to him even if I wanted to? I haven't seen him in days."
"What will he do? Go back to Connecticut?"
"You know, I don't know and I don't care."
The friend made a face at Amy's response. She started to say something but closed her mouth. Amy noticed this and narrowed eyes, "Do you have something you want to say?"
The friend pursed her lips, "This time you should be... positive about it. Like, don't give him another chance. Make it a clean break. I know you have a hard time doing that."
Amy sighed loudly, "I know I've had problems with it... but I know I deserve better then how he's treating me! He uses my car, my house, and even me. He puts gas in my car but doesn't pay rent. He's sending money to some girl back in Connecticut. I let him live with me and didn't ask for a single dime. It's over."
The friend took another sip of her coffee, seemingly to pause her comment even longer. She pushed some of her short blonde hair behind her ear, "Do you still love him?"
Amy drew back at the question; she clearly wasn't expecting it and didn't know what to say, "Of course I do. I probably always will care about him. But he can't live with me and say he 'doesn't want a relationship'. I'm obviously emotionally attached to him, but he keeps stringing me along. Or maybe I'm doing this to myself. Either way, this is a new start for me. I've gone through so many jerks in the past few years that I have go to find a nice guy or else I'm gunna go crazy."
The friend nodded, "That's what you deserve."
After that, they went back to normal conversation. Amy self-consciously kept checking her phone, as if she was expecting a phone call from somebody. Then, Amy's phone did ring, and she put a finger up and answered it.
The friend watched as Amy walked outside with her phone attached to her ear. She sighed as if to say, 'Maybe it isn't a clean break at all'.