Writing Prompt #1 - What's in the Barn?

I found this very cool writing prompt website that I’m going to start using, both to generate blog posts and to continue flexing my writerly muscles. You can check it out for yourself here: Creative Writing Prompts

Prompt - Late at night you awake to find your wife/husband out of bed. Exploring the farmhouse, you find no lights on and the kids are still sound asleep. Past the fields, you see light shining out of the barn. When you walk out there and open the door, what do you find?

I’m expecting to see Francis sitting at his workbench, putting lacquer on the bookshelf or fixing the riding mower. But he’s nowhere to be found. Who turned the light on then?

I pull my robe around me tightly and take a few steps inside. “Honey? Are you in here?” No answer. But then I notice something shift at the back, behind a large curtain that covers an old mirror we’ve been meaning to restore for ages. “Hello?” I pause, getting the sense that I’m not the one in danger here. “It’s okay, you can come out.”

Holding my breath and waiting, I eventually see a small child emerge from the shadows. A girl, probably the same age as my little Myriam. Same dark hair and dark eyes as my daughter too, but the way her cheekbones stick out, the angles of her shoulders and elbows, the too-large dress draped over her thin frame... she clearly isn’t well.

My voice is barely a whisper as I try to coax her forward. “Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing in here?”

She looks past me with a scared expression. “He said he’d bring me a surprise.”

“Who said that?”

A low voice replies from behind me. “I did.” Francis walks past me and I can see relief in the girl’s eyes. He’s carrying a giant bag of candy, the kind that we keep hidden in basement cellar so that the kids can’t get their hands on them whenever they want. I silently watch as the girl creeps forward and sits on the floor of the barn with my husband, the two of them pouring through the bag of candy and selecting which ones they want. Kids always like Francis, mostly because he gives them exactly what they want. As he sits there wolfing down candy with her, my mind is whirring down a different course. This girl doesn’t look like any of the neighbouring kids, and whoever was caring for her wasn’t doing a well enough job. Where did she come from?

Without warning, the girl freezes with a look of panic on her face. “They’re coming for me.”

Francis gives me a brief look. “Don’t worry, we’re going to make sure you’re fi-“

A deafening boom echoes outside, like fighter jets are flying low and just broke the sound barrier. The girl screams, high-pitched and terrified. I try to grab both her and my husband at the same time but a blinding flash suddenly illuminates everything. I fumble, my fingers graze someone’s sleeve but I’m not sure whose, and I trip forward and land on the soft hay floor. The roar continues to split my head, making it impossible to speak over the noise, but then I feel the girl’s small hand on my shoulder. I feel a strange tug in the air, like a wave of pressure is pulling me towards some mysterious centre. I want to ask what’s going on, my eyes are beginning to recover from the flash of light. But the most I can do is turn back to look at Francis, who is sitting behind me with a handful of my bathrobe held tight in his fist. Then there’s a second wave, stronger than the first, and pricks of darkness crowd my vision. I’m falling, passing out, and I can only hope that I will wake up soon.

Pursuing The Dream: Hair & Nails Edition

For a little more than over a year now, I’ve noticed that my hair is no longer the hair I’ve been accustomed to. At first I thought it was because I was growing my hair out instead of keeping my usual bob, but it’s more than that. I also think hormones might have something to do with it; my nails aren’t doing so well either, and I thought maybe it was just that I was using nail polish more but I’m starting to think this is a keratin problem. :P

So I’ve developed a loose plan of attack to address some of my issues:

1. Stop combing my hair when it’s wet. This used to never be an issue because the comb would glide through my hair without stopping. But lately my head is just tangle central, even at the roots! So it’s not just #longhairproblems unfortunately.
2. Find a good leave-in treatment. Because if I’m not going to comb my hair after a shower, I need some way for it to be manageable! Friends have suggested that VO5 hot oil treatment but I will go for something more authentic like coconut oil. Desi stylez y’all!
3. Stop touching my hair or poking at my scalp all the time, which just makes my hair oily when I don’t want it to be. Hard habit to break, it’s a mindless tic I have.
4. Buy Bautiste, which is a dry shampoo. Dry shampoos are these sprays you can use in-between showers to maintain your hair’s volume and freshness, and to reduce that gross oily look hair can get.
5. Maybe – buy biotin, which supposedly enhances the look of hair and nails. Double bonus! But I hear that stuff is expensive, so we’ll see.
6. Maybe – get a satin scarf or pillowcase, because apparently cotton sheets can be abrasive to hair. But as a tried and true skeptic, especially when it comes to beauty and fashion, I might pass on it. Seems excessive, like sleeping in an oxygen casket to prolong your life. ;)

While I’m at it, I think I will try to improve things on the nail front as well. In addition to potential biotin use mentioned above, I will try to -

1. Consistently moisturize. I already have the right tools in place, I just ain’t doin’ it right. I have The Body Shop’s Hemp Hand Cream underneath my kitchen sink (because I wash my dishes by hand, OLD SCHOOL Y’ALL) and it’s super nourishing. I just need to remember to use it more often. I also have Burt’s Bees Cuticle Balm right on my night table, but I don’t use it before bed like I should.
2. Improve my diet/nutrients. Sigh, this is always a struggle. I’m lucky if I manage to eat actual meal food for my meals, as opposed to cake or Ringolos. (Side note: hell yeah Ringolos!) If I’m eating lasagne for dinner, I’m just proud of myself for eating a Real Dinner. I’m not concerned with salt intake or fat content. I’m concerned with “what is easy to make and won’t make me hate the kitchen?”

Not So Strong and Free

Most of the time I am a very proud Canadian. Today is not one of those days. What’s gotten under my skin? Well, Canada’s treatment of First Nations people has always left a bad taste in my mouth but a recent study demonstrates that the government actively allowed children and adults starving on reserves to continue to starve, so that they could use them as test subjects in nutritional studies.

Listen, this is beyond mind-boggling. Imagine for a second you’re at home, enjoying the comfort and normalcy of your modest house, when some strange dude walks through the door, declares that the house and everything inside it now belongs to him and his family, but don’t worry, you can still stay in the unfinished basement cellar, there’s a window for light and you’re protected from the elements, you should be grateful he didn’t just, like, shoot you or something when he came in. But he’s a pretty awesome dude, and because he cares he’s giving you some space and for their own good, he’s taking your kids to live with his cousin 500km away, she’ll take care of them properly. So don’t be so noisy down there, don’t try to hold on to any of the life you had before he took over everything you knew and loved, you’re free to leave and walk away whenever you want, or if you pay him a fee you could totally rent out a room upstairs instead. But it’ll be hard to come up with the extra money, because totally awesome dudes just like him have taken over your neighbourhood and have nothing but disdain for your modest ways and strange language and clearly inferior beliefs.

And then a hundred years later, when your children's children's children are still trying to recover from being ripped away from their way of life, everyone blames them for not being as awesome as the dudes living in houses. Go figure.

Freedomland

When I was a kid/teen, I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of moving to America. Not only cause all my stuff was here in the great white north, but because I found their gun laws completely terrifying. That so called land of opportunity down south was also a land of terrible violence.

When I was officially an adult and went off to university, I added another factor to my “I Don’t Want To Move To America” list: lack of universal healthcare. Since I was finally living away from home, I was facing the new experiences of visiting campus health centres and getting my own prescriptions. At first I grumbled about having to fork out any sort of money for medication, until I realized how lucky I was that it was the only thing I paid for, and that at a discount. I don’t pay for doctor’s visits or exams or routine tests, even during the times I was without employee benefits.

My twenties and teens are now long behind me and I’m seeing the world from a much more adult perspective. And add to the list another reason why moving to America terrifies me: anti-abortion laws. I just can’t fathom that a nation and the people (let’s be real, the MEN) who govern it could be so hostile to truth and agency and compassion towards half the population. I want no part of that! In fact I wish I could do more to change things down south but hey, I’m not USian.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to move and live someplace else in the world but I know it’ll never stick. For what it’s worth, my heart is stuck in Canada. :)

#cornproblems

I’ve got some serious business to discuss today: corn on the cob. Shout out to @chotirani for forcing my hand on this issue. ;)

For as long as I can remember, I have always eaten corn on the cob one way and one way only: row by row. By which I mean horizontally. I have a very specific system.

1. To start, I pick a spot in the middle of the cob and take a bite that encompasses 4 rows of kernels, no more and no less.
2. Following the first bite, I eat the rest of the rows to the right of the initial bite, then the rows to the left of the initial bite.
3. Then I rotate the cob clockwise and take another bite from the middle (again 4 rows wide) and repeat step 2.
4. I repeat step 3 two more times and always just two more times because for some reason, all corn is made equal. By which I mean there is always 4 × 4 rows of corn kernels in a cob. My method for eating corn is mathematically sound.

So there you have it, my efficient and logical methodology for eating corn on the cob. You should all use it and if you’re not, rethink your corn eating lifestyle.

(I also probably eat corn the way I do partially because of a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw as a very young child, where he ate his corn like he was a typewriter. Television, y’all. Just as influential as you imagined.)