Tag: 100Words

Love

Round, frozen, hard, white. Watery now, shedding your ice. Patting, drying, there-there. (Heating butter, adding garlic, a dash of oil.) Take a teriyaki bath, there you go. Scrubba dubba. Time to come out now! Lift you, Sea Scallops, gently out of your tub. Thrust you into the searing, flashing, firework pan. Scorch your edges. Throw… Continue reading Love

Little

[audio:http://www.julieduffy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Little2.mp3|titles=Little] When I was 15 I worked in a bar for three hours each Sunday, clearing glasses and making coffee, for 1.25 an hour. I had a boyfriend and I used to meet him on Saturday afternoons. I would catch a red council bus (0.45 each way), all diesel fumes, red vinyl seats and poor… Continue reading Little

Snow Delay

[audio:http://www.julieduffy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/snowdelay.mp3|titles=Snow Delay] Snow delay for the kids today. It was barely worth it for a dusting. There was no policy for this when I grew up. Here, now, everyone knows that a delay means the day starts two hours late, A snow day means everything is canceled but work. Growing up, there was just snow,… Continue reading Snow Delay

Back In The 1980s, Kids…

[audio:http://www.julieduffy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/legwarmers.mp3|titles=Legwarmers] Yesterday I bent down and slid legwarmers over my feet for the first time since 1985. Instantly, I was 13 again; in my bedroom in my parents’ house, faintly worried. Will I look stupid? Is my hair right? Will he notice me? Where’s my electric-blue eyeliner? But these were a modest brown, not the… Continue reading Back In The 1980s, Kids…

Conflicted

I want a fresh start. Isn’t that what the New Year is supposed to be all about? But it’s not. It’s half way through the school year. It’s a third of the way into a work commitment. It’s almost seven years into one son’s life, five for the other. It’s us on the way to… Continue reading Conflicted

Where’s My Vertiport?!

At the Helicopter Museum today, saw a diorama all about ‘vertiports’ and how, in The Future helicopters would ferry everyone from the city out to the airports or nearby cities. The skyline behind the artist’s rendering of the Heliport was New York pre-Twin-Towers. So where’s my vertiport? Where’s my hover car? And where the hell… Continue reading Where’s My Vertiport?!

Happy New Year At Last

So here we are on a cold and mercilessly bright New Year’s morning. I kind of hate New Year’s Eve, but as soon as midnight rolls around I have the happy, fresh-slate feeling that comes as a surprise every time. I’m always very pessimistic, fatalistic, on Hogmanay, which is not like me. But maybe I’m… Continue reading Happy New Year At Last

100 Words

One hundred words. One hundred ways to catch a day and frame it. I grab a moment, bruise its wings and pin it, still struggling, to the page. If I do my job well, an observer in one hundred years will still hear the echo of the moment, still see the smudge of colour; breathe… Continue reading 100 Words