Response to "Emergency"

“Emergency” is a short story about the misadventures of a hospital clerk, known as “Fuckhead”, and an orderly named Georgie. In this story, Georgie steals medications from the hospital supply closet. Georgie seems to be spaced out throughout the entire story. Fuckhead has a tendency to wander around when he feels there is nothing to do. Tonight while working the overnight shift in the emergency room, a man comes in with a knife in his eye. Put there by his wife after he gets caught watching his neighbor sunbathe. The on duty doctor is adamant about having the surgeon and anesthesiologist on duty for the surgery because it is over his head. While supposedly prepping the man for surgery, Georgie returns to the front desk with the knife that was once embedded in the man’s eye in his hand.

For most of this story, I felt as though I was on one of Georgie’s supply closet drug trips. There was a certain disjuncture that somewhat confused me. In some instances, I failed to see what one story had to do with the other. The part that brought it together for me was when Georgie made sure Hardee made it to Canada.  That was the connecting factor to me, but to a certain extent I wondered why the other section was important. I understood where Georgie trying to save the bunnies supports that he “saves lives” but, it seems like Johnson took the long way around making his point.

For the most part, I liked the characters. Johnson provides us with necessary characters (Terrence Weber, Nurse, the doctor) but does not waste time trying to make them all major characters. He just gives everyone distinguishing personalities and let the dialogue support the characters. I also like that he doesn’t spend a lot of time describing the setting since pretty much all people are familiar with the way a hospital looks. He instead describes the aspects that aren’t in every hospital (i.e: the scripture quoting intercom).

Response to "Television" by Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis “Television” is a short-short about her family’s nightly television routine. From channel surfing to games shows and tv movies, Davis’s television ritual is about the same as everyone else in the world. I liked that it is not over done and writery. Davis simply writes about what she sees and likes on TV, which make the story more relatable to me. Particularly the section about made for tv movies. Davis sounds like an “LMN” and “ABC Family” watching woman to me. The fast paced story plot with impossible circumstances and Disney-esque happy endings. I also liked her saying she wanted her life to be more like a movie. Mainly because I think in some instances everyone does it. I think there are those occasions where we would hope to look back and see the camera staring at us whether it be because we are searching for out 15 minutes of fame or because we are hoping somewhere along the lines, someone is going to yell cut and separate us from whatever awkward or miserable situation we may be in.

            Davis “Television” is my first experience with short-short fiction so I really didn’t know what to expect. For me, it started off kind of slow. In the first section I really had no idea where she could possibly be going with it and didn’t think she was going to be able to establish any kind of point. For someone reason, the mentioning of her mother suddenly had me thinking she was telling the story at a young age until she mentioned her husband. I don’t know why I was slightly thrown off by that. The section about the game show and the boy’s parents seems irrelevant to me. I failed to see how this section helped the story any. Maybe she was trying to show how TV watchers as an audience pass judgment on people through their actions on TV. I did however, think the first and third sections were very well done and relatable. Perhaps Davis could have expounded on either of these two sections and created a bit more cohesion than was presented with the presence of the second section. 

Close F.R.I.E.N.D.S (Short-short exercise)

“I think I’m Phoebe”, Sydney said, interrupting the silence we had while watching Friends (a nightly ritual we’d started in college).

“How do you figure? If anything, you’re Rachel.” Dana said, “I’m Phoebe.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m the pretty one?”

I laughed. “Not a chance. She’s saying you’re Rachel because you’re spoiled and selfish.”

“I disagree”, she said from her seat on the couch. Dana and I were always forced to share the loveseat so she could stretch out. “At least Rachel is pretty. You’re Ross, Kira”

“Hardly,” Dana said in my defense. If anything she’s Monica. ‘A place for everything and everything in it’s place.” Okay, so maybe she wasn’t coming to my defense.”

“That is true. I say she’s like Ross because she’s always in love.”

“I do not.” Since Dana was being of no help I guess I would defend myself.”

“You do, Kira. You don’t just date, you’re over the moon by date 3. If you could afford it, you probably would have been married three times by now.”

“When have I ever claimed to have loved anyone enough to get married? I bet you can’t name three.”

“Ace Braxton.”

“Chris Jefferson”

“Daniel Henderson”

“Okay. You got me there. But technically, I only brought up marrying Ace because he brought it up.

“He asked if you liked Bridezilla. Where did you dig an open proposal out of that?” Sydney said.

I rolled my eyes and hit the outsides of my fists together. The traditional Friends method of flipping someone off. “As far as the two of you are concerned, Dana, you’re Joey and Syd, you’re Chandler.”

“And you arrived at that conclusion how?” Dana said.

“Dana, when was the last time you had a real job?” I asked. “You just borrow money from which ever of us can afford to give it to you. You just float through life waiting for some big opportunity, which you know is not coming, to knock on your door and hopefully you’re not taking one of your many daily naps and miss it. Sydney, you’re Chandler because while you’re are somewhat funny and quick witted, the reality of it is, no one really likes you.” Silence. I looked back and forth between the two of them though neither of them ever said anything or returned there glances back to the TV. Okay, so maybe I had gone to far, but they were talking about my bad qualities like it was okay, but when I do the same, suddenly everyone wants to become sensitive. So in the spirit of friendship I guess I could offer up some kind of apology.

“I’m Pheobe.” Or maybe not.  

Response to Everette

This was an essay about Everette growing up. It begins with his mother being deployed to Desert Storm and him living with his grandparents. She eventually comes back and they move to Auburn where Everette develops a love for running and joins a track team. I thought the essay was good. We learned a lot about Everette and how his love for running helped develop who he is now.

*To me, the story of your developing a passion for running and running track is really the heart of this essay I think for this piece to be a bit stronger, consider beginning it when you first moved to Auburn and realized you liked to run and use the part about your mother being in the military and you living with your grandparents as backstory.

*Proofread. The majority of your revision is mainly grammatical errors. Be mindful of capitalizing the first letters of sentences, misused words, missed quotations and proper punctuation. There were several misuses of periods, commas, and semi-colons.

*There were some areas I found to be kind vague and could have been enhanced with a few small descriptions:

On page three, it is said “cry my last tear”. Why was that your last tear? You had never established whether or not were a crier.

On page 4, who is “Ms Laretta”? Was she your coach? Another teammate’s mother? It looks like the fact that she gave you your first pair of spikes is a very big deal so maybe elaborate on her as a person a little bit more. Maybe even talk about the day she gave them to you. Since track is such a big part of your life, I think you should mention more about your meets particularly the first race you lost and the junior high championship.

On page 5, you said you were two time All American. Explain what that is, what it means, and how you got it both times.

*Two parts I have questions about:

What does “get in the plan” on page 4 mean?

Did you runt track at Wallace State? If you did, talk about it. If you didn’t, still talk about why you decided to go to a junior college that didn’t offer track what it did to help/hinder your running track at Auburn.

Be careful about overusing words like “that”, “at all”, and “by the time” and beginning sentences with “so”

*The two clichés

“Not my cup of tea” I suggest you use “not my plate of collard greens” you said it was one of the things you loved the most. It could be a way to omit the cliché and make it something new and unique by including something you like.

“If she was a snake….”  Perhaps use something to credit your mother’s military training to change this one (ex. stealth, camouflage, sneak attack). 

Response to Tracey

First of all, LOL!!!! Only Tracey could pull off something this hilarious. I thought this was very funny and well written. I loved how open and honest Tracey is and I thought the use of profanity made it that much more realistic. I thought Tracey painted the scenery for each story very vividly. It was very easy to get sucked into Tracy's stories and see yourself right there when it happened. I could even hear Tracey narrating each part. This should be a TV show.
Some of my favorites are "bars", "Owen", "panties", and "quiet". I laughed out loud on the transit while reading "bars". The last thing I was expecting to be said was she passed gas. I thought she was going to say she fell. In "owen", I never pegged Tracey for an arsonist but the Hello Kitty toaster seems right up her alley. I could relate very well to 'panties'. I think everyone at some time or another has fallen victim to a runaway piece of underwear only to have it found by someone you don't want to see it, though I'm not sure how many of us have dropped our drawers in front of a whole team.....I found myself able to relate to 'quiet' as well. It was another story with a surprise ending for me. I thought Tracey's minister was going to ask her to pray and Tracey couldn't think of anything to say. Dropping the collection plate came out of left field for me. I loved the part about her parents being "proud". I've had those embarrassing moments in church and I can see my mother vividly sitting low in the pew, with her hands covering her face and shaking her head.
I really couldn't find anything to suggest should be considered for revision. If there were any typos or grammatical errors I failed to catch them.

"Son of Mr Green Jeans" "Me Talk Pretty One Day" "Contributor's Note"

These essays were a little different from the ones we read in the past assignments. "Son of Mr Green Jeans" was the most uniquely written and easily became one of my favorites. Though it is written as a personal essay, it didn't load me down with facts that made me feel like I was in a marine biology lecture like Human Road did. Organizing the information alphabetically was also a very creative idea. It helped to make the essay interesting. Though research is just as present here as it is in other personal essays the use of the alphabet made me want to read more to see how he was going to deliver his point and keep the essay fluid.
Contributor's Note pissed me off. Plain and simple. I was so confused by all the names and nicknames, I was unable to enjoy it or understand it. I really only finished reading it because it was an assignment. The fact that Michael Martone probably wrote this essay was the show the evolution he went through growing up and how he had some nickname to accompany each period in his life yet when he finally got married, he no did not know who he wanted to be. Then again, this may be the furthest thing from what Martone was hoping to convey in this essay but all the names (especially in the beginning with all the fathers and grandfathers) confused me. I spent so much time trying to distinguish one person from another on page one, by page two I was drained. Maybe it was a bad idea on my part to read this one after "Mr Green Jeans". Maybe part of the reason I didn't like it is because i was disappointed in it.
"Me Talk Pretty One Day" was different from the essays in this one involves the speaker reflection of a negative situation that turned into a positive one. I think this one is a memoir. The other memoirs were written about what Balakain and Hiestand experienced as children and how the situation resonated with them now as adults. Sadaris talks about his experience about his French class in France and his revelation occurred right in the moment and not years later.

Response to "Old Country" and "Hose"

"Hose" and "The Old Country" are examples of memoirs. Each of these is about a memory each of the writers had as youth and each end with a sort of reflection or revelation. These differ from "Capital Realism", "Semi-Colon", etc in that these ARE about a particular even and tho there is a larger perspective gained at the end it is still about this particular topic and is inspired by the events written about. 

In "Hose" the author talks about wetting the dress of an elderly neighbor three times as she is on her way to the market. Even after being sprayed with the hose twice, she still continued to walk in front of the author's house. The author found this memorable because it was the first time she had experimented with testing boundaries (as children often do). Even though the author's mother had never verbally told her not to spray passers by with the hose, the rule was implied. But we all know that 'implied' rules are the first to be broken. When forced to apologize, the author said she felt no remorse then but some 40 years later she came to appreciate the lesson she was able to learn from it.

In "The Old Country" the author talks about his close baseball watching relationship with his grandmother. Until he became older and started listening to the radio with his friends. Then when the Cuban Missile Crisis became a threat, the author found himself on the couch with his grandmother again, watching the late night news. One night, the author comes downstairs to see his grandmother light up a long pipe and smoke it while praying in Armenian (the language of her home country). This is when the author realizes that his grandmother is the only connection to his past roots he has because for some reason, the old country isn't there anymore. In this, the author learns to have a greater appreciation for his grandmother.