Death and Politics at the end of the world

I was hoping to get a bit of feedback on my WIP from my blogging friends. On Sunday evenings I will post a page or two of Death and Politics at the End of the World and I'd like to hear what you all have to say! (I will make one disclaimer: the formatting that I use does not translate on blogger. In Word I use Fonts and WordArt in order to achieve a certain effect which you will not have the benefits of. Hopefully you will enjoy it anyway...)

The air envelops, vacuum-sealing the skin with moisture, ill-fitting and alien. Clothes react to the alteration in the physique, ironed pleats melting. Tendrils of mouse brown bangs cling- cooked spaghetti in a pan. It isn’t until the Ft. Lauderdale airport fades from view and the Florida toll road that the air conditioning in the rental beats back the sullen mid-afternoon July heat.

            Palm trees and sprouting developments dapple the landscape, the tropical foliage out of place among the hastily built habitations, dubitable monuments to William Levitt. The loosely coiled expressway through Miami is pleasant: Toll booths unfortunate dams in the Gulf Stream’s trafficked flow. I cynically wonder if the state doesn’t encourage rental agencies to recommend the “road less traveled” to ensure the population of their taxable byways. With Christmas morning anticipation, I strain to get my first glimpse of the exit to Homestead and Highway One, the expectancy of arrival heightens as I contemplate the solitary dime jingling in my pocketbook. They can pave the everglades on someone else’s penny. They’ll have to.

            I tuck my wallet away, relax into the leather of the import and set the cruise control, realizing even as I take my foot off the accelerator that the stop-and-go flow of the mostly one-lane highway will make cruising superfluous. I gaze off to the side, anxiously awaiting my first blush of the ocean… new time, new place. Key West is a different world—anything is possible; the real world, paradoxically, is the unwanted dream. The carbon dioxide in the back and deepest section of my airway passage loosens, releases…

At last…

Blue, turquoise, green, indigo, cyan, white surf spraying, rolling, pulling, dragging out… nothingness.

Sailing away to Key Largo

Here’s looking at you, kid…

 Buccaneer Drive… hey there Buccaneer!

                         

               Stomach’s rumbling…

won’t starve, lardo…

Key Lardo…

   hate McDonald’s.

Key West,

97 miles

            two hours    tops . . . 

Captain Jim’s Diving and Shoveling

… shoveling? …

fish?

Pay to shovel fish?

Snorkeling! More like it. 

Ann’s Beach… sand, warm water, sinking, drifting, kelp anklets, slimy, green things… used to hate it-

grew on me.

Wonder if he’s heard anything. . .

                       Surely has-          

                                                                        happens all the time. . .

misunderstanding, miscommunication, misplaced, missing, mistake… 

Poisonwood Road. 

One mile to Islamorada—Ila,

or Eeesla?

Yzma!

What poison… poison for Cusco? Yes, that poison… wood.  Bible. King --  who???                     . . . solvent?                             solver! 

Hey! C’mon, move it! Want to be there before the sunset… or sunrise at this rate! Need to get around this beat up bug, long-haired potsmoking lib--- “Oh look honey, another pro-lifer for war”... hilarious! 

Squinting.

Glare is horrible…

beautiful.

Just like Bogey and Bacall…

starring in my own late, late show…

I told it all.

Deer Key

deer crossing-

drive slow- or… speed up

deer burger.

L              o              n              g                                      Key.

          --ish

Houses with legs -- 

elevators for handicapped? Water would swirl…

 a personal Jacuzzi…

worry it would crash—

                        debris,

swirling waters,

sharks,

I—

can’t sw-

sssswiii-

ssswiiiiimmm!

Theater of the Sea      Catchy!

Servile sea-life:

And Now Ladies and Gentlemen… for your viewing pleasure.

And next door: Sea-food Buffet. That makes it easy: A retirement center- Flipper in a whole new show!

Ladies and gentlemen… now for your dining pleasure.

                                        Dolphin Preserve...

  ...Dolphin Exploitation! 

Following your bliss

It's week two of the re-re-re-re-running of Mo and my favorite series Key West (isn't it a coincidence that I love Key West and the show is called Key West???... not so much!! :) Our hero, Seamus, has lost all his money and has spent some hilarious moments on the show trying to make a living at various careers at which he... well, bungles is too gentle a term. He is now in a quandary about what to do in order to fulfill his dream of being a writer and make a living while living on the same island that Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams (and other writers actually!) had gotten their creative juices from. After a visit to the recentering program with the town's sheriff, Cody tells Seamus about his vast experience in living a life of bliss wherein he became "a lion, manifested" while Seamus sits beside him, ostensibly meditating. But the sheriff realizes he can't live his life that way. They'd put him in a zoo. So he had to "learn how to do his karma dance with the physical thing." 

   

So my favorite quote is the one that has gotten me through the darker moments of my work related life in the past five to six years, like when I was working a second job at the local grocery store as a Courtesy Clerk (a.k.a. Bagger). I had to go out on some of the coldest nights of the year-- well, correction they were actually record cold temperatures that year--  to bring in the grocery carts... and I was already so tired and weary after having worked at my other job all day and I wondered why I was out there schlepping metal carts around on the pavement in between the poorly parked cars for people who were too lazy to even put them somewhere that I could get to easily... Why was I doing this again? I was often in tears (or had icicles on my cheeks that wanted to be tears) as I shoved the carts through the snow angrily. 

And the answer would inevitably come that I left my old life in order to be a writer. I NEEDED to be a writer--- and I couldn't be a writer and be on my own without money...I needed as Cody put it "The green energy" So...         

My favorite quote from the show for this week and the question to ponder...

“How do you live in this world and follow your bliss?"

Favorite Mug

Erica and Christy are hosting the HOTNESS on Thursdays Blogfest and while I have a busy day and wasn't sure I would have the time to participate my morning was freed up I think I'll have time to get to see many of your entries today and what I don't get to today I will come to see tomorrow!! So without further ado! My favorite mug which I actually do not drink out of because I do not want to ruin it with dishwashings, etc. 

It's an Ann Taintor mug. Ann Taintor, if you are unfamiliar, uses actual pictures from the 50s and puts hilarious  quotes next to them. If your wondering why this particular one caught my eye, you can read more about my history here, otherwise, take my word for it, it was what life was like for me at one time.

Another favorite:

And I do drink a lot of hot tea out of this one... so there you have it. 

My favorite mugs!  

Chasing the skies

Ordinary day, driving the kid to school and we're late. I'm rushing, pushing, passing cars, edging ahead of traffic. Seconds tick and I feel the day's urgency, an invisible hand on the small of my back, nudging me ever forward. Conversation is short and clipped, my focus on the lights ahead pulls my son's gaze into the race, his urgings -come on car, come on- only adds to my anxiety. Leaning back in his seat, his relaxed angle allows him to see what I in my urgency would have otherwise missed... 

Ballooners taking advantage of the cool morning air and blue skies, soaring just overhead, so close that it seems that we might be able to hitch a ride if we were able to catch up. My path briefly follows theirs and I am torn, longing to shed the mornings duties and follow the balloon, wind, blue skies and whim or turn the car and carry on with duty and responsibility. I pause, considering...

But the balloon takes a turn that has him gliding over treetops and rooftops, past stream and ravine, on a path where my car could not follow, too swift for my feet to pursue... 

I was left in it's wake with the hope that I too would have days to chase the skies and sail off into the blue.