Plaid flannel: Field & Stream via Costco. T-shirt: Target + DIY. Floral slip: secondhand. Tights: generic. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.This is the space where I typed something out but have apparently grown up enough to not post it because I don't want to remember it.
As an aside, I feel obligated to inform you that my fingers and wrists are still in intermittent pain, so I'm just going to swan off on a blogging hiatus, but you'll probably catch me aggravating my tendinitis typing out rambling tag commentary on tumblr (where, incidentally, I actually do a lot less typing than when I'm blogging on blogger), so if you feel like popping into my Ask box, don't be a stranger (Hermione Granger).
W1L 028: Write one leaf about your favorite fruit.
PERSONAL CHALLENGE #3: Don't use lists.
This is an unedited version of my original response to this prompt, which, in my lack of creativity, was based on Wendy Cope's "The Orange," below:
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled and shared it with Robert and Dave —
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.
There are few things in life I find as sweet as sour oranges.
So at lunchtime I pluck my leftover burrito from the fridge and my umbrella from the tall wastebasket by the doorway and try but mostly fail to direct the beans and rice toward the general vicinity of my mouth rather than my raincoat or the ground as I squelch in a manner of or relating to tentacles the three and a half blocks to the corner store. I look down at my front and am greeted with cheery flecks of rice and the small trail on which one smushed bean has ventured forth alongside my zipper. I laugh out loud and stuff the remaining crush of soggy tortilla into my mouth, chewing.
I crumple the aluminum foil and relegate it to my left pocket by my used tissues as I back into the glass door closing my umbrella. I give it one forceful shake as the sensor chimes my entrance and the balding Chinese man at the counter looks up from his newspaper, raising his imperious eyebrows in recognition of The Orange Girl. The oranges are piled in a display along the far wall. I pick the biggest one because it reminds me of the fat kid picked last in gym class. I pay, throwing the cashier a smile, and walk back to the office, exhaling through my nose too hard trying not to laugh because the orange is too big to even fit in my pocket.
Robert and Dave are eating out of takeout boxes and poring over a piece of paper covered in little boxes and arrows with “DREAM TEAM 2010” underlined in a squiggle across the top. They look up as I approach, enormous orange in hand. We look at each other then at the orange and pause, stony-faced, before Dave snorts.
“That is ridiculously big.”
“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!”
Dave throws a pen at Robert’s head, but Robert catches it midair with his chopsticks and places it back on the table before returning to his food. Dave gawks at him.
“How’d you do that?”
“When do you not throw office supplies at me?”
“Yeah, but how can you even grip it? You actually saw it coming?”
“That’s definitely what she said.”
I sit down with them and peel the orange. They each eat a quarter, Robert with his steamed tofu, at which Dave pretends to gag, and I eat the half. It is sour.
I chew and grin, snatching the piece of paper. “Neither of you are taking Johnson?”
There are few things in life I find as sweet as sour oranges, but you are, undoubtedly, one of them.
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