Reading Response to "The Pain of Pink Evenings" by Rosemary Moore

     I really enjoyed reading this play. Moore uses interesting details and lots of specificity to breathe life into the story of a timid, mousey woman in her forties.  Tracy was emotionally paralyzed and unable to move on since her husband's death ten years ago.  He comes to her in a dream and tells her what to do to move on with her life.  She reluctantly begins the process by finally selecting a pretty white sweater with pearl buttons to dispose of as a symbol for moving on.
     The dream served as a catalyst to propel Tracy to move out of her depression.  The fact that she made her bed on the morning she got the sweater out suggests that her energy was beginning to return.  When she laid it on the bed, she felt that it glowed with radioactivity.  When she tried it on, she felt a pain in her chest, and a button just fell off.
     As she dealt with the sweater, she felt her father's presence and allowed herself to remember her evenings with him before he died.  That she sat there folding, unfolding, and refolding her napkin as he talked revealed that she was even timid around her own father.
     Before going down to the Potomac, she lay on the ground in the median in a futile attempt to contact Henry again.  Her strange behavior attracted a Japanese couple who wanted to photograph her.  This interruption served to let her know that she was the star of her life and that it was time for the action to begin.  She finally got up, tore the bag open, and threw the beloved old sweater into the Potomac River.  She watched as it slowly sank.  Hopefully, now she will begin to move on with her own life.

Junkyard Quote # 4 - Week 5

"The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak."
_____ Friedrich Nietzche

Response to Kay's Journal - Week 5

Kay, I thought you did a good job of showing the boredom, frustration, and pain of being ignored while your boyfriend lived in his virtual world playing a video game. Focusing on the uneven stripes of the sofa and removing a layer from your back molars are such good descriptions of ways you manage to keep your mouth shut. How would he react if you told him that you could not visit next time because you cannot afford $3.42 a gallon for gasoline to watch him play video games? Or what would he do if you decided to move away from him, clearly in his line of vision,and lose yourself in a good book wearing only some very sexy lingerie?

Calisthenics - Dialogue that Shows Instead of Tells - Week 5

     "I'm getting vanilla.  I don't see how you can stand chocolate!"

     "Well, I love it, and it contains powerful antioxidants!"  I smiled at the clerk and paid for my one scoop of chocolate in a cup.

     She made a face at my chocolate.  "Antioxidants?  Are you afraid you're going to rust?"

     I could see that she thought her comment was funny.  I glanced at her with a hint of amusement in my eyes.  "Maybe your joints wouldn't be so stiff if you'd eat chocolate."

     She scrunched up her face.  "No, thanks!  I much prefer vanilla laced with Advil."

     "Let's walk to Macy*s while we eat."

     "Okay."  She took one glorious lick from the triple scoop vanilla ice cream cone, and then the whole thing just toppled to the floor.  "Well, I wasn't really hungry anyway.  And you shouldn't be eating ice cream either if you ever expect to lose that weight."

     Her comment really pissed me off.  She was a skinny blonde bitch with an adolescent waistline.  Her rib cage had never been permanently stretched out by a growing fetus.  I looked at her with a mixture of pity and anger.  I would take my child and my slightly larger waist any day over her tiny waist.  That is when I decided that she was just too vanilla for me.  Next time, I'd ask Helen to go shopping with me.  She loves chocolate!

Calisthenics - Dialogue that Shows Instead of Tells - Week 5

     "I like all genres of music except rap.  Actually, I think rap music is an oxymoron."  She stuck her finger in her mouth and made a gagging sound.

     "I can understand how you feel, but Cam 's managed to teach me a little rap appreciation."  I kept both hands on the wheel and focused on driving.

     Glenda stared at me.  "You mean you permit him to listen to that crap with you?  Are you crazy?"

     "Yes, a little, but at least I'm in therapy.  I do it because of my mother.  She hated my rock music and always made me turn it down.  I swore I'd never be like her.  So, yes, Cam and I listen to rap in the car.  It's a bonding thing.  And we play it as loud as he wants it!"  I turned and gave Glenda a brilliant smile.

     "You'll be wearing hearing aids before you're out of your forties.  Did you see that hideous thing in Catherine's ear at church yesterday?"  She squirmed, rubbed her ear, and slumped further in her seat.

     I shook my head.  "No, I don't think I even saw Catherine.  Just listen to this one song by Tupac."  I pressed number one for his CD, but the volume was too low.  When I reached to turn it up, the whole knob fell off, and I said, "Damn!"

     Glenda gave me a smug look.  "See, God doesn't even want to hear it.

Junkyard Quote # 3 - week 5

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible."
_____ Doug Larson

Junkyard Quote # 2 - Week 5

     "When we walked in, the smell of flowers was overpowering.  Funeral flowers have a different smell than wedding flowers.  Like if I walked into a church blindfolded, I could tell if it was a wedding or a funeral about to take place just by the smell of the flowers."
____ excerpt from a memoir by Beverly Smith