With A Little Help From My Friends

I only wrote 1,000 words yesterday because I went and played beer pong instead. So, I am going to try to write 3,000 words today. I have not written anything good, and it is getting depressing.

I really liked Indigo's idea of writing multiple letters and ending up with one, so I tried that. Brett's friends came into Mike's Pastry on the day where she looked like Freddy Krueger, and it was somewhat implied that something is going on with Brett that they wouldn't share. Sadie decided to e-mail Brett and ask him about it. I know that it's kind of mean, but the first e-mail was inspired (and some was cut-and-pasted) from a friend's Facebook.


To: bootylicious_brett@gmail.com
From: sexy_sadie13@hotmail.com

Hi Brett,
How are things? How did your internship go? I hope that school and soccer are going well :) My life is none other than hectic, but I've gotta pay for school somehow and Mike’s Pastry jobs is the way! :P :S :O But my class schedule may kill me in the process... :P I've been trying to have fun too! :P Have you had any fun this summer? I’m seeing someone. His name is Paul. We were at a restaurant the other day, and there were some mix-and-match napkins that really added some variety to the summer party table. These left over paper napkins were spruced up with white doily bands. The hodgepodge looked both festive and coordinated.

I ran into your friends the other day at work and they gave me the impression that something is going on with you. We may have broken up, but I still care about you and I want you to be happy. Is everything okay?

Maybe we can meet up and talk? I know that we’re not dating anymore, but I hope that we can still be friends. Let me know :) :P :O :S :*G

Sadie

After Sadie wrote this e-mail, she was immediately disgusted with herself. She had decided to use the emoticons so that her e-mail could come across as carefree and nonchalant, but the final result was that she sounded like a moron. She wasn’t even sure that some of the things that she was typing were actual faces. Even more, she wasn’t sure that she even wanted to be friends with Brett. They had never been friends, not for a second, so why should they start now? She could never feel anything even remotely platonic towards him, this she knew. She quickly deleted the e-mail, made a decision that she would never use emoticons again, and began drafting another.

To: bootylicious_brett@gmail.com
From: sexy_sadie@hotmail.com
It’s the Brett-meister!
Sorry.

I just thought that I would drop you a quick line to let you know that I am seeing someone. I ran into your friends today and I told them about it, and I would hate for you to find out from them instead of me. But then again, you don’t really seem to feel anything, so you would probably be largely unaffected. Just like you always are.

His name is Paul, he goes to Boston College, and he is an English major. I know that you think that English majors are morons, but not everyone can major in stealing other people’s money like you do. He’s a really great guy, I’m sure that you would like him. Everyone does. What he lacks in attractiveness he makes up for by not being a total douchebag. Kidding!

Are you dating anybody? Your stupid friends came by the bakery today and they suggested via gormless stares that something is going on with you. Are you doing alright?

I am doing so fucking well it would make a fetus’ head spin off.

Sadie

Even Sadie knew that at best, this e-mail would make her seem insane and pathetic. But there was no best-case scenario when it came to sending that e-mail. She deleted it, and decided that perhaps e-mailing Brett wasn’t such a good idea. In a way, she didn’t really care what was going on with him. He was out of her life.
In the meantime, she decided to send an e-mail that she had been meaning to send for some time.

To: drunk_and_sans_pants@jackiesplace.com
From: sexy_sadie@hotmail.com

Hi Kiefer,

I gathered that you want me to write to you. You and I are not friends and I don’t have any responsibility towards you. But I can write to you occasionally, I guess.

I would have sent you this letter on the beautiful rose stationary that I recently made, where I used the base of a leafy vegetable to create beautiful rose-like prints. Leafy vegetables make great-tasting salads -- and sumptuous floral-shaped stamps, too. But unfortunately, the drunk tank doesn’t have an address.

While I enjoy seeing you at Jackie’s Place, I really think that you need to change your behaviour. Some people may think that it’s really funny when you get drunk and take off your pants, but it’s really starting to make me uncomfortable. And that time that you started urinating on everyone else’s socks and trying to lift their legs to their noses was off-putting, to say the least. But even that strange and somewhat frightening incident couldn’t distract the crowd from the sheer goodness of the music. I know that I say this all of the time, but Jackie’s Place sure has the best music.

However, I should thank you for inspiring me to make the rose stationary when you wore a carnation in your pants while shirtless. The overall effect was more than pleasing. Soon enough, all of those shitsters that are taking over Jackie’s Place like a rat king (when a bunch of rats are crammed into a tiny space and their tails get all tangled up, and they can't even pull apart. Eventually, their bodies fuse together and they form a multi-headed live rat king) will start wearing carnations in their waistbands!

Please do let me know when you find another muse. I’m sure it won’t be long… forgive me if it sounds rude, but it seems to me that your search for a muse is much more about YOU than it is about ME. When you find another muse, I’ll be happy to just fade into the background again.

See you at Jackie’s Place,
Sadie

Double Dipping

So I actually stayed up until 3 am last night, and reached my daily word count quota. I really want you guys to read this part, because it's pretty important to the plot.


Sadie examines herself in the mirror one last time before leaving for an event that in no way could she afford, and in no way did she belong. The Resolutions Ball is for “young professionals,” so to speak; Sadie is not one of them. Nor is she someone that believes in resolutions. Sadie doesn’t believe that she can change anything about herself, whether it’s the first day of the year or not. She is set in her ways. She is gathering moss.

Her black strapless dress emphasizes the weight that she has lost; it isn’t quite right to say that she lost it intentionally, but it wasn’t all an accident either. The pressure to fit in inside Brett’s world and her perceived inability to be herself around him has made her eat less and less. To Brett, she wants to seem better than real. Eating in front of him makes her nervous; she doesn’t want to seem imperfect or fat or emphasize the 3:1 chin to Sadie ratio. Weight loss doesn’t look good on Sadie; it mostly makes her look tired and sad.

Brett picks her up in his truck but he barely speaks to her as they drive to the waterfront. Does he forget that they haven’t seen each other in two weeks? Did he even notice? Sadie’s frustration is increasing. The sacrifices that she has made for him are not only visible in her slumped and shapeless dress, but she is starting to feel them. The unreasonable amount of time that she has spent thinking about him, worrying about him, and loving him, has made so many other things in her life fall away. So much of her has been hopelessly devoted to him for almost nothing in return. A ticket to a New Year’s Eve party. Weekends in his cold and loveless home. A goal celebration.

At this point in the story, or perhaps at several points already, you may be starting to think that Sadie is a doormat. Well, she isn’t. Love makes us act in ways that we never thought that we normally would, could, or would want to. It makes us desperate.

After two lonely weeks without Brett, and an unceremonious reunion that confirms to Sadie her darkest thoughts, she is soon furious with grief. The scenarios that play out in her mind are becoming more and more real; she has been clinging to her fantasies, which are turning into smoke.

“Didn’t you miss me?” she asks him angrily. He seems startled by this tone that is so unfamiliar to him. Being angry with someone takes comfort and trust; Brett has neither of those from Sadie.

“Yeah,” he still says distractedly.

“I wouldn’t have ever guessed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you don’t seem to care whether I am here or whether I am gone. You don’t do anything that shows you want to be with me.”

“What do you want me to do, then? Invite you to meet my family? Include you with my friends? Celebrate a goal for you?”

“You do these things, but they don’t mean anything to you. Every part of you has always been fenced in, and I’m on the outside looking in.”

“I have a lot going on, Sadie. Do you really need to act this crazy right now?”

“I have a lot going on too! Why is it always about you? Why do I always have to fit into your life? What about me and the things that I want?”

“Well what do you want, then? Fuck if I know!”

“I want you to want me! I want you to miss when we’re apart! I want you to feel something, anything! I want a thousand things and I don’t know whether you can do any of them.”

Brett swore as he pulled over abruptly, scaring Sadie. As if she had ever forgotten, this served as a reminder: Brett has all of the power, at least in her eyes.

“You want to know why I didn’t call you every say over Christmas? Why I don’t seem to ‘feel’ anything?” Brett spat.

“Yes, I do. I want to know something real about you, since all I seem to know is what you want to show.”

“Alright, Sadie. Guess what my brother accidentally told me, thinking that I knew already. My dad is having an affair. A fucking affair. That’s why he never comes home, and that’s why he doesn’t come to any of my games. He cares more about some whore that he has in the city than his goddamned family.”

Sadie was speechless.

“So, Sadie, what do ‘real’ people like you do in situations like this? What should I do? What should I do?” Brett’s anger was beginning to waver, and making way for something that Sadie had only caught glimpses of in the past: vulnerability. Most things that she knew about Brett she had figured out, rather than him opening up. Compared to everything before this night, Brett was a chasm.

She realized then that he may not love her yet, but he sure as hell needed her. Everything about Brett made him unable to deal with this news. He had always had a difficult relationship with his father, but now he felt fully abandoned. Feeling is something that Brett has always tried to avoid; she was sure that if he could, he would do away with the concept completely. But when he was forced to feel something, it was disarming in every sense of the word. The armour that Brett had always covered himself with had cracked, leaving him exposed. Sadie knew her role: to replace that armour. To protect him, herself.

Shit Is Getting Real

I hate myself. It is 2 am and I failed to complete my daily word quota of 2,000 words. I only wrote 1,000, but I will try to make up for it tomorrow. We're almost done week two, folks! I'm at 19,051 wordskies.

Getting over a break-up is obviously not something that can be done all at once, nor is it always linear and moving forward. Most people would use a “two steps forward, one step back” analogy, whereby any progress is often followed by defeat. Or, one would compare break-ups to the range of emotions that one experiences during the course of a “Model Behavior” viewing: depression when you realize that the two main roles are played by the same girl who can’t act, ecstasy when Justin Timberlake makes his first appearance, horror when Kathy Lee Gifford is shown, and more depression when the movie is over. Finally there is a sad acceptance, when you accept that no sequel has ever been produced. Similarly, watching “The Covenant” produces similar results: one is upset, angry, and offended while watching the entire movie, except for a few moments when the main actors are wearing children’s Speedos.

At first, the pain of lost love is searing, acute and constant, never with any respite. But with time, the pain slowly becomes less and less. It becomes a dull pain, always below the surface but still there. Some days you feel okay, others you lay in bed and cry. There is no logical order to when these days will be. The crying days become further and further apart, while the okay days happen more and more. You start to feel like yourself again, when before you felt like nobody. The reality of why the break-up happened in the first place pushes aside the fantasies of getting back together. You get your life back.
Finding someone new may speed up the moving on process, but it does so in complicated ways. You may feel a little less lonely, but the ghosts of your old relationship still haunt you. Everything in your new relationship is endlessly compared to your old one.

With Brett, every part of their relationship happened because they thought that it should, rather than Brett specifically wanting it to be that way. It felt like it was time to start dating. It felt like it was time for Sadie to meet his parents. It felt like it was time to say “I love you.”

Sadie doesn’t know what it’s like to feel secure, or even sure of anything. Her sisters and her were always competing for attention in the family, making her position uncertain. The world certainly isn’t short on left-leaning political science majors who hope to one day go to law school; standing out and making herself into something that she can be proud of seems to have as much chance as anything being over before Axl Rose says its over. Case and point: the last two minutes of “Paradise City.” Since moving away from Toronto three years ago she can’t exactly consider it home, but Boston doesn’t feel like hers either. The place that she held in Brett’s life was always tentative, something that she knew she would lose if she started to take up too much space.

Paul makes room for her. He returns her calls and he texts her dirty inside jokes that make her laugh. When they talk, his mind is there. She doesn’t feel as if she has to win him over or convince him that she is worth something; for reasons that she still doesn’t understand because no one has ever felt this way about her, he has always wanted her. She had him at hello.
If this is ever made into a movie (and by if, I of course mean when) this is where a wonderful montage would be inserted. Potential songs for the montage include “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows and “I’m a Believer” (obviously by the Monkees), and “Take My Breath Away (I’m British)” by Berlin—but the clear winner is “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack. Scenes in the montage would include biking together, sharing a milkshake, Sadie and Paul playing tic-tac-toe on a tic-tac-towel whilst laughing uproariously, Paul presenting Sadie with shell-covered pot earring and her delight in that she can now carry some spare change, maybe a lipstick or lip gloss, some id, whatever you need on a casual walk about town, Sadie teaching Paul how to eat oatmeal with a spoon, and that time that a strange man named Kiefer (who was even more strangely sans pants) warned them that a deadly gas had been released during an Aerosmith cover band performance at Jackie’s Place (it appears as someone did want to miss a thing) and Paul urinated on a sock for Sadie to cover her mouth with because it’s the polite and manly thing to do.

When peeing on socks comes into play, you know that shit is getting real.

Being with Paul feels good. Initially she had to force herself to give him a chance, but more and more she is giving in. He makes her laugh, he understands her, and he cares for her the way that she needs him to. He may not be able to buy her a house in Nantucket, or make her feel starved because she is so hungry for him, but he has one undeniable advantage over Brett: he is here. With Paul she knows where she stands; it’s solid and real.

Some people have sex to remember; others have sex to forget. Somehow, Sadie is doing both.

Brett is just a memory—a vague one—that is becoming more of a concept than anything else. He exists only in scenes in her memory, but they are vivid. But at a certain point, the memory of Brett stopped accompanying her wherever she went. He stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It’s there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back to make sure of it. But why would you?

Wow, that was brilliant. And completely ripped off from "The Reader."

That Wasn't Hay You Were Throwing!

It's the day of the Stag and Doe, so I had to get my writing done earlier today so that I could clear my schedule for the hoedown that will commence at 8 o'clock tonight. The World Cup final is tomorrow, so I likely will be facedown in an alley somewhere clutching my Dutch flag. This isn't conducive to writing.

Before my excerpt, I guess I should point out that Sadie and Paul have kissed in the present. While Sadie is nervous about starting something new, she is very happy.


Sadie is at home in Toronto for Christmas, basking in the glory of her fellow Desmans. Her cousin Shawn is performing a special Christmas concert for them, peppered with his own hits. Amazingly, he manages to sing the same Christmas medley that the Hanson brothers made famous, but single-handedly. The overall effect was more than pleasing. Sadie’s mother passes around the room offering cheery fruit cups made out of glassine and parchment paper. While Sadie thinks that these easy paper fruit pouches may have been more perfect for a summer gathering, the honeydew and watermelon balls are just too delightful to resist.

In a less appropriate turn of events, Shawn launched into a rendition of a song off of his latest album, titled ‘Sexy’:

“She was unlike anything I've ever seen.
Body so phat so I said,
‘I got to be that one man leaving tonight with your hand in mine.’
Oh whats your name, push up on me, do your thang.
I love that you have no shame,
So sexy I feel your game.”

The family was visibly uncomfortable, like the time that they had been forced to watch The Barry Manilow Christmas Special. No amount of alcohol should make anyone comfortable with that much crushed velvet, or his spiky bottle blonde hair.

Sadie misses Brett, and worries about him alone with his family. Sadie discerns that relations have been even more strained in the Hall household since Thanksgiving, but of course, not from anything that Brett has said; he never overtly tells her how he feels about anything. It’s more what he doesn’t say that tells Sadie when something is wrong. He has spoken about his family less than he used to, particularly regarding his father.

She also misses Brett considerably more than she would like. By winter, Sadie and Brett had fallen into a pattern of seeing each other almost every day. Not seeing him for the three weeks of Christmas vacation has been hard on her. She knows that she shouldn’t be thinking about him, or checking the Greyhound schedule to see how long it would take her to get to Portland, Maine. She can feel it in her bones that Brett does not miss her the way that she misses him, and she makes a conscious effort to hide this from him. Sadie is tiring herself out, putting up the appearance of the carefree and casual girlfriend. It’s a strange state for her, since she has never been carefree or casual about anything. Brett should know better.

In any case, she continues to worry and miss him, and calls him every few days with some kind of weak excuse. It may have been a little unnecessary when she called him to find out if he knew where her “Zack Attack” CD was, since she has it on her computer, on her iPod, and “Friends Forever” as her ring tone. No, she probably doesn’t need to call him to ask if she had left her copy of “Model Behavior,” Justin Timberlake’s incomparable acting debut, in the bro-mansion. Of course she didn’t, since Brett has his own copy.

That is actually untrue.

She is counting down the days until they can see each other again, but it is still days away. They are both planning on returning to the city for New Year’s Eve to ring in the New Year together. Actually, Brett had been planning on returning for a party at his friend’s house, and Sadie decided to join him. They didn’t exactly make plans together; as usual, Sadie changed her schedule to accommodate him and to spend time with him. They are like pieces of a puzzle that were ever meant to interlock, but can if you force them to. Sadie just hasn’t quite realized how pointless of an exercise this is.

She doesn’t call him on Christmas Eve. She sits alone in her room after her family has gone to bed hoping that he will call to wish her a Merry Christmas, but of course, he doesn’t. And from her experience at his home in Maine, she knows that it isn’t because he is having too much fun with his family. On Christmas Day she waits for him to call again, but by 7 pm she just gives up and calls. Perhaps he is distracted, she tells herself. Maybe I told him that I would call, and he is waiting for me. He is probably worried that I am ignoring him. Perhaps he is travelling or snowboarding or there was a storm in Maine and the phone lines are down.

None of these things even sound true in her head, but what else can she do? These are the lies that get her through the day. She needs to believe that there is a reason that Brett seems to be indifferent to their separation, and that he actually loves her and misses her.

When she finally does call, she doesn’t confront him. What is she, a girl? She’s carefree, remember? She puts on the best front that she can, with the tone of someone who hasn’t really noticed that her boyfriend doesn’t seem to miss her in the slightest. She sounds like someone who is just too busy having fun to even think about Brett. Those voices in her head that tell her that something is wrong are pushed to the side, as she does her best to silence them.

As she watches the Bing Crosby classic “Holiday Inn” with her family, she prays that what Bing sings is true.

How can our love go wrong if we start the New Year right?

A Telling Google Result

Smart Throb

Had another fruitful writing session with Jill, Sam, Scott, and the wonderful addition of Heather. Heather brought wine, and we welcomed her with open arms. Dad came in part way through, and hilarity inadvertently ensued. He is quoted directly, and about half of my daily quota came from something that he said. You will know it when you see it. I am just going to post everything that I wrote today, because it's too awesome for everyone to not read.


After several horrific experiences involving men (and vampyres), Sadie feels about ready to swear off of men for good. She works on her graduate school applications. She re-connects with her friends that she saw less and less of as her relationship with Brett became worse and worse. She makes her way through her summer reading list, which includes such gems as “The Reluctant Bride,” “Under an Orange Sky,” “Soldiers of Misfortune,” “The Nine Biggest Myths About Grief” and “Marcus and Gordon Toodie’s Excellent Adventure.” The novels seem connected in some way, and it isn’t just through the inordinate number of mustached butterflies and Emilio Estevez references. A thesis for another grad student, she thinks to herself.

She takes on extra shifts at Mike’s Pastry not just for the distraction, but also for the privilege of seeing the parade of Guidos that come through the door. She really enjoys their marvelous outfits, and wonders how so little fabric can stretch so much to cover their outrageously large biceps. She then decides that it is one of those things that when you think about it too much, it is ruined. For the millionth time in her life, she decides to stop wondering how so little fabric can cover a grown a man, and simply delights in the fact that it does.

After a particularly sleepless night, Sadie is not pleased with the rush of customers during closing at Mike’s Pastry. She was pleased, however, when her tween crush Jonathan Taylor Thomas walked through the doors. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was best known not for his role in the cult classic “Man of the House,” in which he co-starred alongside the inimitable Chevy Chase, but for the other career-ending incident in which this “smart throb” got a little too drunk at a Harvard frat party when he was visiting the campus, and stated that the giant bottle of Grey Goose was like a baby, but better, “because it doesn’t squeal and poop, but you will after you drink this.” Everyone at the party knew this all too well by the end of the night.

“How’s it goin’, eh?” Sadie asks Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Before he has the chance to respond and say something intellectual about Napoleon (he did tour several Ivy League campuses, after all) Sadie interrupts by squealing, making a farting noise with her mouth, and winking as she points her finger gun at him and fires. He storms out angrily, revealing to an embarrassed Sadie that Paul had been there all along, and has taken in the whole scene.

“Going for employee of the month, are we?” Paul asks, giggling girlishly at Sadie.

“Please don’t tell my boss about this. That was the third time I’ve done that this week.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, as long as you assure me that you don’t greet every customer that way.”

“No, it’s the Jonathan Taylor Thomas special. For more information, please see the September 21st , 2000 issue of People Magazine.”

“My back issues of People Magazine only go back to 2001. Do you think that it’s online, or do you have a spare copy?”

“Dear God, I hope so. To both. Or, we could just take a trip to Harvard. I hear that they still have the stain on the carpet in the frat house, and that one of the Harvard libraries has multiple copies of the People Magazine article in their stacks. Thousands make the pilgrimage every year, to lay flowers on that fateful carpet stain. Some are mourning the end of Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ career. Others are still doing their part to mask the smell.”

“Do I really want to visit this place?” He pauses for only a brief second. “Wait, never mind, of course I do! By any chance, have you ever seen Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ underrated Christmas flick, ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’? And what about ‘Wild America,’ the tale of three brothers—Marshall, Marty and Mark—who dream of becoming naturalists and portraying animal life of America. One summer their dream comes true, they travel through America, filming alligators, bears and moose!”

“Check and check. You don’t want to know how many posters of him that I cut out of Tiger Beat in my youth, and a little later than my youth. Those teen heart throbs today are nothing compared to the smart throbs of my day. Justin Bieber is no Devon Sawa.”

“You still subscribe to Tiger Beat, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s okay, I seem to be keeping all of your secrets lately, what’s one more?”

“That, or I kill you. No one else needs to know about my Jonas Brothers obsession.”

“I didn’t need to know that either.”

“Damn it.”

“Don’t worry, the overall effect is quite pleasing.”

* * *

Brett has invited Sadie to his house in Maine for American Thanksgiving. This is the first time that she has celebrated American Thanksgiving, being Canadian and all. Sadie’s simultaneously treasured and horrifying memory of Canadian Thanksgiving involved her mother dressing in an American flag bikini (everyone knew not to ask any questions about this) and throwing up into a Zehrs bag at the dinner table. If you remember one thing from what you have read so far, let it be this: a meal isn’t a meal in the Desman home if no one throws up in a Zehrs bag part way through. Sadie is planning on breaking the ice with this story if necessary, but as Brett’s Ford truck pulls into the two-story white colonial home at the end of a winding road with aging trees, Sadie knows that neither her nor her story are welcome.

“Is Dad home? I don’t see his car,” Brett remarks as he hugs his mother and kisses her on the cheek like the Maine WASP that he is.

“Not yet, dear. He’s still in the city, but he should be home in time for dinner.”

Sadie is introduced to Brett’s older brother Jake, who is taller and even more handsome. His girlfriend Minka looks like a model, and talks like one, too. Next to this group, she looks like Leather Face from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” but less endearing, and a little more menacing and deranged. However, she finds the overall effect to be pleasing.

Sadie pushes the Zehrs bags that she packed along as a joke further into her bag so that they can avoid detection. She wishes that she could do the same; his family makes her feel insanely inadequate and clown-like.

They spend the afternoon drinking inordinate amounts of wine, yet somehow, none of the Halls seem to be drunk. Sadie, however, took a few too many slugs from the mug, and is almost loaded like a freight train. She hopes that no one notices. But then again, even if they do, she knows that they won’t say anything.

At four o’clock exactly, the five of them sit down to a meal that anyone would argue was fit for a king, in a room where it appears that every Martha Stewart craft of the day from the past three years is stored. Of course, as any Marth-aficianada knows, crafts are recycled every week or so. Therefore, there are seven crafts, six of them being beach-themed. Mustard yellow linen pillows printed with three different-sized anthurium leaves really brighten up the room.

Sadie notes that the table is only set for five; there is no place setting for Jerry. Of course, no one mentions this. It is almost as if Brett’s father’s absence has escaped everyone’s attention. They probably had never really expected him to show up in the first place.

True to form, the Halls discuss nothing of substance for the entire meal. Jake is enjoying his internship in New York very much, Minka is taking a delightful cooking class (they all laugh politely at Jake’s joke about Minka’s cooking), and Susan has taken up cross-stitching. She is currently working on a pillow featuring Emilio Estevez in profile, circa carb bloat face, post-singed eyebrows- 2010. Sadie tries to come up with a neat and tidy summary of her fall semester, but she figures that the family will not be appreciative of her essay with a Marxist interpretation of Joss Whedon’s classic series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Instead, she lies and tells them that she has recently taken up yoga. Everyone is delighted except for Brett, who gives her a quizzical look.

When Brett asks his mother if she had told his Dad about his goal against Holy Cross, and she shakes her head sadly. “You know how busy he is,” she laments. “This merger is really hard on him,” she says mechanically. Everyone nods as if they believe this.

But as Sadie and Brett lay in bed at night, she can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t. The burden of knowing that his father doesn’t care weighs on him heavily. The photos that line the walls of his royal blue room tell the story of a proud father as he stands beside his son and all of his achievements. Jerry grins happily beside his son who is holding the state championship varsity soccer trophy. Jerry and Brett stand together again, with Brett holding a medal for outstanding achievement in his high school business class. As fathers go, all appearances point to Jerry as one of the best. But this isn’t what Sadie sees; she sees a father who is only there to bask in his son’s glory. He is there when it is convenient, when it is easy, and when it is congratulatory. He is too disinterested to be there at any other time.

Sadie holds him closely, as if she can absorb some of his pain. She wants to take it on for herself, to ease his burden. Brett is too proud to ask for her help or for her comfort, but from the way that he sinks into her body, she knows how much he is beginning to need it.

Note: “Sinks into her body” is not a euphemism for anything. Or is it?

I'll Steal Yo' Honey Like I Stole Yo' Bike

The girls of summer are back again with some amazing excerpts to bring something cool to his heat wave. Or, you know, to write something really stupid and embarrassing. Either way.

Some odd circumstances have brought me to Barrie Ontario, where Jill and I had another amazing writing session. Jill made me watch "Summer Girls" by LFO several times, and even rewound the video a few times so I could really capture the essence of the creepy guy in the band that looks like a vampire. She also made me watch the "Step By Step" video by New Kids on the Block, which is an insult to any human with eyes. At least Marky Mark is in it.

Here is an excerpt that brings shame to the entire family:

Sadie needs to get away from the city, where everywhere she goes and everything she sees only serves as a reminder of Brett and her loneliness. Her friend Maggie has a cottage on Jones Beach just outside of Ipswich, which will serve as the perfect weekend getaway from the city that is heavy with memories. But as she enters Ipswich she feels a chill that she can’t explain; she quickly tries to shake it off, judging it to be nothing. She should have known better.

Sadie is quietly lying on the beach, enjoying her summer playlist while wearing flip flops, a half shirt, short shorts, and a mini skirt. Please do not ask why she is wearing so much clothing; she can’t really remember herself. It seems as if she got dressed in a daze.

Suddenly, she spots something ominous in the distance. As the dark crowd comes closer, she is able to discern the exact identity of the ill-omened crew. Leading the pack is a short man in a vampire cape, flanked by three other men. The vampyre was unattractive and pimply, with bushy eyebrows and wild, tangled hair. His teeth were yellow, dull and to be honest, he had a bit of a gap tooth. She quickly recognizes one of the other members of the group as Rich Cronin, the leader of the late 90’s band, LFO. She assumes that the other two are the remaining members of the musical trio, but no one ever really knew who they were anyway, so she spends no more time thinking about it.

Sadie was never really one to trust her gut, but in this case, she has no choice. She knows that there is no possible positive outcome to this situation.

“You looking for a man?” the vampyre calls out to her as she is attempting to hastily gather her belongings and book it to Maggie’s cottage.

“No,” she says firmly.

“That’s okay. Just wait ‘til you see me in the sand. I make the best sandcastles, and I dug a really deep hole yesterday,” the vampyre brags. Sadie chooses not to respond.

“I’m Gordon, this is Rich, Devin, and Brad.”

Now that the quartet was uncomfortably close, Sadie could make out the writing on their t-shirts. One t-shirt said “Lyte,” the second said “Funky,” and the third said “Ones.” She couldn’t even venture a guess as to why anyone would want to brag that they were a member of LFO.

“Hey girl, can I get your number?” Gordon forges on. “Can I call you after ten tonight?”

“No. Please go.”

“The water may be cool, but the feeling is hot!”

“Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Gordon, stop buggin’. Watch me steal your honey like I stole your bike!”

“That was you! I thought that it was Donnie Wahlberg!”

“Chinese food makes me sick!” one of the other remaining members whose name doesn’t matter anyway said, before running away to throw up on some rocks.

“My name is Rich. You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch.”

“We all know that isn’t true. Maggie, please help me.”

“I see you baby, in that strapless sundress, kickin’ back, no stress!” Gordon pipes up again, not letting Rich steal the show.

“How about we swim around naked, like two dolphins in the ocean of our hearts?” Rich throws out there. Sadie wishes that he hadn’t.

“Has that ever worked?” Maggie asks.

“Not really,” Rich looks sad. The other member of LFO doesn’t appear to be very engaged; he is listening to the New Kids on the Block “Bunch of Hits” CD on his iPod.

At this point, Sadie and Maggie are basically sprinting towards the cottage, but the three members of the crew that aren’t vomiting are gaining on them. It seemed that Gordon’s cape only served to make him more wind resistant, as he was moving at an inhuman pace. He is going after them with a fervour they have only seen once before, when a certain physiotherapist dove into a pile of jock straps with Cheese Whiz in them.

“How about we get together later in da club? You look like the kind of girl who likes to shake and wiggle to a hip hop song.” It doesn’t matter who said it.

“Please leave me alone. I’m not interested.”

“If you want, you can come by and see us in our shop. We work at the 24 Hour Belt Emporium in town. Your short shorts and miniskirt look like they’re a little loose, are you sure that you couldn’t use a belt or two?”

“Yes. I am sure. And who wears two belts, anyway?” Maggie shoots back.

“I wear three!” shouts the guy who was throwing up from eating too much Chinese food, or at least we hope. At one point, Sadie was sure that she had heard him say that “Chinese girls make me sick” which is a pretty awful thing to say, to be sure.

The pair is able to move out of earshot of LFO and Gordon the Vampyre, and after a quick conference they decide that it would be best if the boys didn’t know where they were staying. Maggie suggests that they stop by the local watering hole that is affectionately known as Jackie’s Place. Not only is it close to the beach making it the perfect place to scope out cute surfers, Maggie promises, but Jackie’s Place always has the best music.

Upon passing through the heavy wooden doors of Jackie’s Place, Sadie is happy to see that the bar delivers on both promises. A lively version of “Summertime” by New Kids on the Block is playing loudly over the speakers, and a group of four men in what must be children’s Speedos is dancing to the music. Sadie briefly wonders if this is a gay bar, but then quickly decides that she doesn’t care.

The first, and the clear leader of the pack, is tall with a medium-build with chocolately brown eyes and short, somewhat curly air. Beside him, shaking his booty with the fervour that we are all too familiar with, is a blonde bad-boy with an impish grin and a problem with authority. You could just tell. The next son, oh, what a treat. He had shoulder-length light brown hair, and he was wearing only a tiny speedo that Sadie suspects was actually a young boy’s size. Sadie didn’t know that they made clothing that small. But boy, is she glad that they do. The last one is standing beside the hottest one, and next to him he looks kind of fat, to be honest. Apparently Sadie wasn’t the only one to notice the disparity between the two, as he seemed self-conscious also. It looked like he was trying to flex his abs so as to look super-fit, but it really only made him look even more fat.

Sadie doesn’t know who this mysterious group of four boys is, but she is eager to find out. Maggie already seems to be finding out a little too much about them, as she is grabbing the blonde’s butt and saying, “Toot, toot!”


I just want to include this last part, to shed some light on why Sadie dated Brett for so long. Sorry this post is so long, thanks for staying with me.

Naturally, passionate love for rivaling clubs is inconvenient in any relationship, to say the least. Not only was Brett’s support of Chelsea an issue, but no one would have ever recommended getting Sadie started on his love of the Boston Bruins. When Chelsea’s Ashley Cole—who is the biggest dick bag anyone could ever imagine—scored the winning goal against Liverpool in injury time with a very controversial offside/handball of a goal, Sadie became so angry that she almost broke up with Brett on the spot. And by almost, I mean that she did, but Brett didn’t really take it seriously. Sadie wasn’t serious about it either, but she wanted to wipe that smug and douchey look off of his face. She did not succeed, and after that moment, she knew that it was a permanent fixture on his arrogant mug.

After Sadie had cooled down and realized the error in her ways, she showed up late to his match against their biggest rivals, Yale. She meekly sat in the stands, taking in the 2-2 score and hoping for another one of Brett’s miracles. Brett sees her there and smiles right before he accepts a pass from the right back and heads up on the flank. He steps over the ball to beat the defender, and places it perfectly to the top left corner. His team goes wild, chasing after him as the runs the length of the pitch. He looks directly at Sadie, and places his hands over his chest in the shape of a heart. He is telling her that he is sorry.

Everyone turns to stare at her, and the looks on their faces reflect the slow realization that she is his. Most are shocked, probably thinking “her?” and wondering how long it would take to get her glittered up for Easter. But Sadie has the last laugh; she is the one that gets to go home with the winning goal scorer. This feeling that she has at this very moment will stay in her mind for years to come; this, she knows, is the feeling one gets when they have something that everyone else wants.