Thursday, April 24, 2008

Not Brooke Shields, Not Gwyneth Paltrow

So here's the thing.
I don't exactly have an edited 'Ditz gets it done excerpt ready. Darn the #$%&!!! printer, but I do have two shorts from my new Work In Progress 'Thintentions'
About a young girl with body issues and six perfect sisters who are marrying at an alarming rate.
First excerpt is today and I'll hopefully get the second one up this weekend sometime.
And BTW, have you noticed that Brooke Shields is like the new poster girl for good parenting? she's in no less than three ads in Parents this month. UMM, no offense, but when did celebrities with endless supplies of nannies and income get to tell me how to effectively parent?

Thintentions excerpt #1 Enjoy! and Share!


I have six sisters.
That’s right, six. I am one of seven girls. Eventually, my parents gave up on trying to have a boy and started marrying their daughters off. I have been a bridesmaid and/or maid of honor in three weddings. The fourth is all set to go in two months and while I try to be happy for my sisters and I am, happy, but sometimes I feel like the most unmarriable girl on the planet. My sisters are graceful gazelles, and I am a galumphing walrus. They’ve all floated through life dancing, cheerleading, singing like an angel, or other equally feminine pursuits. While I, on the other hand, am a proud trumpet player and crackerjack chess player, and have never ever in my whole life worn a tutu. Nor do I have any sort of perverse desire to do so now that my days of possible cute ballerina are over.
In every photo of my painful and restless childhood, I am squeezed in a corner of the picture, looking miserable and well, fat. Not that I was, or am, really, truly fat. I’m just not as thin as Missy, Chrissy, Candy, Penelope, Sandra or Constance. They are thin as whips and tall as the father who checked out mentally, economically and socially when Missy, the youngest, turned two. I topped out at five three and hover in the young double digits, which makes me look like the ball to my sisters’ bats.
It only got worse after high school. I stopped being athletic in any way. No more softball picnics, no more marching band camps, bring on the freshman fifteen for me and for my rail thin sister Penelope who was born a mere eleven months after me, and by default became my roommate. Penny was content to listen to pan flute music and do Pilates while I scared our mothers’ homemade care packages and lay in bed moaning about Luke. The boy who got away. Isn’t there always a boy who got away? I try to make myself feel better about Luke by telling myself that he really is a boy and not a man, and even though I deluded myself about our relationship, it was nonetheless devastating when I walked into his dorm with a bag of cool Ranch Doritos and a six-pack, hollering about the futurama marathon, only to see him with his face buried in the crotch of Tami or Toni something or other. I really thought I could wear Luke down. He totally got me, and I got him, or so I thought. We had started out studying together, one of the mindless freshman classes that you’re forced to take to assimilate to college life. He was cute in a messy not-quite-grown-up-yet sort of way and I loved that. He seemed not averse to my relative short and chubbiness, and so we forged a friendship built on comfort and overt desire on my part. Looking back it may have been free adoration, beer and chips on his part. But we pressed forward, and even when our class ended, we continued to hang out, that is until I caught the up close and personal fellatio show in his dorm, then I ran back to my dorm, where Penny patted my back and tried not to say I told you so. Just a thought.

Thintentions excerpt #1

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