Samples, Writing

The Old Garage – Sour Milk 1

Chrys Buckley

pt1wjpu1apqfnlpn_580 “It’s weird,” I say. I look around me. I’m sitting on an old couch, long worn out and starting to tear, that my parents got before I was born. Across the back part of the large driveway that has seen countless games of rollerblade hockey and an abundance of chalk drawings, sits my bluish gray house. There are angles and lines everywhere, a window now and then. I used to think it looked unfriendly, kind of aloof, but then was when I had an imagination and houses had personalities.

Inside the garage, the one my dad and his friend built that one summer that I thought I discovered who I was, are so many scattered things a cyclone may as well have hit. My sister’s rollerblades and a pile of bike helmets in one corner, a table covered with pieces of different puzzles in another. The telescope that broke the first time I used it is against the back wall, in a jungle of bikes and scooters. The windows have collected dust, so much so that it’s hard to see through them to the green house with that cute boy my friend May was always chasing after. The walls are unpainted and a bit uneven. The two small lights on the ceiling, which is also unfinished, still work, and that is a good thing.

~~~

This is the first section of a story I wrote during my first semester away at college. It’s sort of autobiographical fiction and was probably the first thing I wrote that wasn’t sci-fi or other-worldly in some way.

Next Installment: Only Happy When it Rains

~Chrys

Samples, Writing

End-of-School-Year Fire Drills – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 17

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade. This is final episode, I mean installment for this chapter (which is way too long and needs some epic editing sessions). This story comes to a close.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

End of the Year 3Late in the school year we took another musical instrument test. I didn’t even look at my grade, just filed the paper deep in one of my black folders with the neon pink and yellow squiggles. The folder was so full now that it was starting to tear at the crease. Mom would have to look through a lot of dittos to find it. I would find this folder years later in the basement of our new house in New Jersey. I’d gotten a D. Mom had never found it, or never said anything.

In the last week of class, we had a lot of fire drills, to meet some regulation. One time, Matt Peer was behind me in line as the class filed in and used the water fountain on our way back inside. Matt Peer, my 107 true love. I drank some water then swirled away in what I imagined was a supremely flirty move.

Continue reading “End-of-School-Year Fire Drills – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 17” →

Samples, Writing

On the Move – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 16

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade. This is the penultimate installment–only one more to go!

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

jupiter-altairOn the afternoon of May tenth, when my dad got home from work, he and Mom sat me, Randy and June down in the living room. What could it be this time? Though it had subsided for awhile, the way light fell on the wall when I walked in from school was creeping me out again. The light was yellower, more spring-like, and it reminded me of something else I couldn’t remember and it made me feel like something terrible was imminent.

Dad spoke first this time. “The Bureau has transferred me,” he said. “To Newark, New Jersey.”

“Well not exactly Newark,” Mom corrected as if we, at ten, eight and three had ever heard of that city and its reputation for dirt, drugs and crime.

“Right,” Dad agreed. “A field office outside Newark called West Paterson. We’ll be looking for a house in one of the nearby small towns.”

“We’re moving,” I said.

Continue reading “On the Move – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 16” →

Samples, Writing

Close Only Counts in Horseshoes – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 15

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

3438674887_9328b393ecIn class I overheard some of the more popular girls, Katie and Ann Marie, talking about the Baby-Sitters Club. Ann Marie told everyone she had called the 555 number in the books for Mary Anne and asked for her. “And the guy goes, ‘hold on, just a minute,’ and I got so nervous I hung up!” We all looked at her. I wasn’t part of the conversation but we were into the same books, and she wasn’t making fun of me. That was something. I could almost pretend this made us official friends.

But close only counts in horseshoes as my dad liked to quip, and Mom was back on her favorite train, the “you need to make more effort to make friends” express.

“Why don’t you invite someone over?” Mom asked. “Someone other than Maya.”

Continue reading “Close Only Counts in Horseshoes – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 15” →

TV

Breaking Bad: Pictures from Halloween

Chrys Buckley

It was fun to be Walter White for a day. I even got to go to my workplace where I tutor chemistry in costume for a little bit. In fact the next day, someone who had seen me in costume the day before, said, “Oh, you’re the crystal meth girl!”

So here are some fun pictures:

Taking a break while cooking that sweet baby blue:

IMG_4264Back to work cooking that good shit:

IMG_9250 IMG_9229 IMG_6201

The final product:

IMG_9930

By the way, this is totally misleading. We did not actually cook the blue stuff. We tried. To make rock candy, I mean, not meth, but two chemists had a pretty epic chemistry fail and didn’t realize how f’ing long sugar takes to crystallize and tried to cook the stuff at the last minute using the principles of basic recrystallization that we’d learned in organic chem lab. We ended up with blue syrup. But luckily I had ordered some rock candy as a backup.

When we were carrying the little baggies around we got some great comments. One person said, “They have blue rocks! That makes me so happy!”

Oh and here is another attempt at that iconic Walt and Jesse shot with beer and popcorn, with our suits halfway unzipped but this one doesn’t work quite so well. Mostly my fault.

IMG_7441

What were you, if anything, for Halloween?

~Chrys

Writing

Point-of-View Poll Results and Story Update

Chrys Buckley

Green_Eye_by_sdy284A few months ago, before the start and end of Breaking Bad‘s final season, I wrote a post on here about this really odd story I was conceiving at the time, and asked for some input on point-of-view. I wanted to create a feeling in the reader of almost being too close, too intimate with the two main characters in the story. Usually the way to create that sense of closeness is achieved through using first person, and certainly one approach would be to write from one of the character’s own perspectives, put the reader in her head, in her sensation of the situation being painfully awkward too close for comfort.

But I was a little burnt out on first person and thought there might be other ways to go. When I pictured writing the story in my mind, I saw it as third person, he, she and all that.

Continue reading “Point-of-View Poll Results and Story Update” →

Samples, Writing

A Sorta Secret Passage – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 14

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

dscf2688_lOne night, in my room early as usual, I was laying in bed, trying to sleep, trying not to sleep. My light was still on and I looked at my big red numbers on my large-print alarm clock, doing math problems with the numbers as always. It was 8:17. One and seven made eight. 8:24. Twenty-four divided by eight was three. Two times four made eight. Suddenly I remembered something. It came to me out of nothing. A long time ago, maybe when we first moved in to our house four years ago, Dad had said something about a crawl space or something in our basement. It might be almost like a secret passage.

Continue reading “A Sorta Secret Passage – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 14” →

Samples, Writing

Aftermath – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 13

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

tlww13imagesLater that day, after Dad got home from work, Mom and Dad sat me down. It was in the kitchen this time, at our big white oval kitchen table. Mom wasn’t saying anything, which I realized was way worse. Screaming would’ve been comfortable in its familiarity but this was something else. Across the stable, she looked still but I could feel her vibrating with rage.

“I just don’t know what to do with you anymore,” Mom said, “I just don’t know what to do.” She wasn’t resigned or sad. She was on some edge, like she might crack and get stuck, just repeat this sentence over and over and star pounding on the walls or the table or me, lie she could barely keep crazy away. I knew then that though she hadn’t said anything to me, Mrs. Domaracki called my mom.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a pathetic, pleading voice, and started to cry. This time was too different. I knew better than to argue.

Continue reading “Aftermath – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 13” →

Samples, Writing

Lost Keys – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 12

Chrys Buckley

tlww12indexThis is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

I thought about it all morning, trying to imagine how Mom would explode if she asked for the key back and he didn’t have it. If I could endure it in my head, maybe I could endure it in real life. If I imagined it all in exquisite detail, maybe the key wouldn’t be his and he would have our key tucked safely in his backpack. But I just couldn’t imagine it. I hit a wall once I imagined her finding out. I couldn’t go past it. I still felt like I might puke.

Continue reading “Lost Keys – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 12” →

Samples, Writing

Walking Home and Crossing Streets – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 11

Chrys Buckley

This is another installment of a rough draft of a memoir chapter that covers fourth grade.

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

tlww11imagesIt was March when Mom gave Randy the house key for a day. One day we had to walk home together, not go to Centerstream, and let ourselves in. Just this once. My little eight-year-old brother got the key, not me. I walked home with him like it was a regular day, Randy leading the way, and nothing disastrous happened.

The next day, Mom picked us up from Centerstream as usual after she got done with work or therapy or whatever. The sky was dark when we left around five-thirty, a deep cerulean blue, just the tiniest twinge of dusk left in the sky. We got to a crosswalk on our way to the parking lot and Randy started crossing the street.

“Randall James Jordan!” My mom’s voice screeched, “How dare you?” I froze, her voice higher and more hysterical than maybe ever. What was going on?

Continue reading “Walking Home and Crossing Streets – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 11” →