Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Jane Eyre fill in the blank quizlet



Part One: Fill in the blank. Write 1-10 on your paper. There are twelve words and eleven blanks.

consecration, zealous, extricate, fervent, Gambol, evince, virile, eschew, coquettish,  admonition, petulance, Skeptic

Helmholtz watched the soccer game with a mixture of disgust and amusement. His disgust was directed toward the 1_________ boys who ran in circles and 2________ed about the field similar to monkeys, running over one another, with 3________ cries encouraging one another to continue to run hard and meaninglessly. The 4____________ girls who sat by him on the bench cried their names, blinking their eyes, and flouncing their various body parts. Normally, Helmholtz 5________ed such athletic contests, and the 6__________ fans who screamed their encouragements form the sideline.
Then Central scored, and three excited moms, seated about him, hugged one another, pinning him in the middle. He 7____________d himself.  “Don’t hug me,” he said, displeased to hear a note of 8___________ in his voice. As if he didn’t feel immature enough already at this event.
The reason why he was there, he knew, was that Alize was there. Though she had 9_________d not the slightest concern for him since the break-up, not re-tweeting one of his tweets, he still held out hope. As Romeo had said of Juliet’s lips, “It is a 10________________ devoutly to be wished . . .” Yet deep in him a voice spoke in 11_______________. It told him that he had to stop his stalkerish moping.

Part II: Fill in the blank. Write 11-20 on your paper. There are eleven words and ten blanks.

ascetic, corpulent, arid, debauchery, despotic, epicure, Emulous, stringent, vicinage, deviate, indelibly,

Helmholtz stalked off, leaving the 1___________ of his ex-girl-friend, daring to walk across three feet of the corner of the field. No one noticed his protest. He then planned a night of 2___________, involving many bottles of ginger bee, licorice sticks, and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He deserved to live like an 3___________ he thought, after the 4___________ life style he had practiced pursuing Alize, similar to a Buddhist monk pursuing Nirvana. He had forced himself to follow 5_____________ rules about diet. He had grown thin under her 6_____________ insistence on vegetables. He had once been 7_______________, but after dating her he was rail thin. He had followed her rules even after she left, 8_____________ of her thin figure, fashionably detailed. He was still hoping in some strange benighted corner of his brain to impress her.
In his room, he promised himself that he would no longer 9__________ from his prescribed day. He would go the library at lunch, and read Jane Austen novels, and at three oh four he would walk out of school. He would wear black and keep his hair short and if anybody didn’t like it he wouldn’t know. Yet, he knew that the memory of jokes told on a porch in the September breeze was 10___________ inscribed in him, and that he would need to replace that. Alone had become lonely.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

For Me and Mine



What follows is the beginning of my first completed novel. I was reading it, and thinking that I was very proud of it, which was a surprise to me. I figured I'd post it here for your amusement. 

For Me and Mine
by J. Shepard Trott
(c) 2005


Chapter One

            I said, “Are you TNT?”
            He shouted, “The fuck you think?”
            “I have the thing for you.”
            “Put it on the fucking table.”
            His muscles stood out round and hard, his boots were big, and scuffed, and I did not
doubt that he had kicked people with them before.  Still I had a question.
            “Don’t you think I should give it to you inside?”
            “Motherfucker.  This is my block, do what the fuck I say.” 
            I put the package on the plastic table.  I turned and walked off the porch, noticing the
litter: potato chip bags, candy wrappers, soda bottles and hoagie wrappings coiled in every
corner of the sidewalk.  The various young black men, who sat on the steps to the street, looked
at me, withdrawn and disinterested.  I asked myself, “How does a college educated son of the
suburbs end up in this business?  Do I really think I have what it takes?  Just to survive?”

My eyes glazed over the third sheet of columns, item id, subject code, answer key, test id
and state code.  The columns blurred; I put my head down on my hands and waited for five
seconds.  I figured I needed a break.  I stood up and looked across the cubicles, which formed a
maze of lines, little squares, avenues, and dead ends.  I walked slowly to the coffee room and
poured a cup.  I made a face after sipping the coffee, and poured it into the sink.  GuaranCore
provided the coffee free.  I filled my mug with tap water instead.  John, who lived two cubicles
down, walked into the break room. 
“Getting a cup, Sam?  Some company fuel?” 
I nodded. 
“How is the editing going?”
“Fine.”
“Thanks for doing them.  I know they’re tedious but GuaranCore needs them done.  I am
trying to get the client manager for Texas to call them for me, we need a meeting.  Honestly, I
don’t know what they do over there.  I mean, this is supposed to be their primary responsibility.”
I looked over his shoulder, at the cubicles.  Maybe I could go talk to Jenny.  Jenny was
our office hot girl, and she and I flirted every so often.  But I did not want to talk to her.  I
wanted to go home and get a drink. 
I trudged back to my cubicle.  The walls of the cubicle were off white; the rug was a
multi-colored gray, ideal for subsuming stains.  The corners of the cubicles were rounded. They
rounded them for safety reasons.  The idea was that if you tripped like a clumsy idiot, and
banged your head, you might get a concussion, but no permanent damage.  They should have left
them sharp.  They should have fixed knives to them.  Then I might fall, and the knife would
penetrate my eyes, and go straight to my brain.  I wouldn’t have to work anymore.  I would be
dead.  It would be like winning the lotto.
I looked back at the third sheet of columns.  I took the skin of my left forearm in my
fingers, and pinched.  I kept pinching harder, and then started twisting.  Then I released, and
looked back at the columns.  Both forearms sported a series of  purple and blue bruises.

Why does this feel so awful, so fucking soul crushing?  I work three, maybe four hours in
a forty hour work week.  I make forty five a year.  Yet I hate this worse than my worst night
waiting tables.  Or the longest practice I ever had, when we showed up still hung-over for a
game, and the next day, he ran us into the ground, so that we threw up again.  Dad, was this your
whole life?  For what?  A Toyota, and then finally the Lexus?  For me Dad?  So I could do it
too? 

That was not the whole job.  Sometimes I got to travel.  I got to develop new test
questions for the databases; I would go visit someplace, bumble fuck Arizona, and talk to boring
people trying to pretend they were interesting, and stay in motel rooms where the white walls
had been stained yellow by the years of lonely bachelor’s smoking while they watched cable
pornography.  Then we would go eat out at Sizzler or some other chain restaurant.
            College was great.  I found some professors who were interesting, continued to study the
Then it was over.  I said to myself, “I’ve finished college.  Now I will work in order to be a man,
a good American, like my dad before me.  I will pay rent, phone bill, gas, electric,”  Work wasn’t
like that, it wasn’t becoming a man.  Instead it was like my manhood was being ripped out from
under my pelvis, a dedicking effected not by cutting but by a simple grip and pull- the balls were
next.  I wanted to do something, with who I am- I worked out, because there was no other part of
my day that involved my body, I looked at my massing muscles, and saw artificial.   Muscles
acquired for form’s sake.  Men used to acquire muscles despite themselves, to survive. 
            I didn’t care that I made forty thousand, while the CEO made probably twenty times that. 
I hated that that meant he was better than me.  And it was true, because I was there for only one
reason, and it was money.  If he managed to get more than me, then he was better.  If I hated
myself, I must be a fucking loser.  I hated the cheery way the life employees believed that the
company did not want to get what it could out of them, before spitting them out, even when they
had seen it happen. 
            A few days before that I had gone down to South Street for a few drinks.  I was walking
home, when I saw three black guys walking toward me.  I wasn’t scared, I didn’t cross the street
or anything.  When I went to walk by, one of them says, “Yo, buddy, you got the time?”
            I paused to look at my watch.  I gave them the time.  They had surrounded me. 
            One said, “Give me my money, white boy.”
            I said, “Your money?”
His fist crashed into my face, and I sat down on the pavement.  A big face was up close to
mine, “You think we playin?” I gave my wallet to him.  Then I got kicked in the head and lay
down while they walked away.  I heard one say, “White boy, you a pussy.”  I wished I had a gun. 
I would have killed all three right then.  I should have fought back.  I mean, how bad would they
have hurt me before someone saw it?  At least then I would have had my self respect.  And how
stupid was I to just walk into it?  They were right.  I was a pussy.  I did nothing to make a living,
except for run a few file cabinets in the whole bureaucracy. 
I stayed at work, because of money.  Go ahead, someday, go around, ask people if they
like their job.  Ask them if they think their job has any meaning to them beside producing
money.  They will all say no.  I knew I was supposed to buy a house, though with what I made,
all I could afford would be a house in the ghetto.  I had bills to pay, there was the phone bill, the
cellular phone bill, the car payment, the car insurance, the rent, and the retirement fund, and the
house I wanted to buy.  I had one picked out at 5th and Diamond, so then I could buy marijuana
off my front porch. 
I looked across the cubicles, and I thought, what’s the worse that can happen?  I could be
poor.  I could starve.  Starving would be better.  So I walked out of the office.  I slouched quietly
through the doors, waving at a few co-workers. 
I had a couple of speeches planned for my supervisor, and my boss.  I was going to point
out the repeated incompetence of my supervisor.  I would tell my boss, “Josh is great.  He comes
into my cubicle, and tells me to check his work.  I go onto the server, and what he has given me
is so much shit.  I just delete it and start over.  And you have been paying this motherfucker
twice what I make.” 
Then I was going to tell my boss how they were going to crash and burn with out me, and
lose a couple of good clients.  I was going to criticize how they had compensated me, just as a
business decision. 
Another option was to put a couple questions in the database that ran like this:

You are taking this boring ass test because:
A.  you want to become a slave to the man
B.  you are a fucking idiot
C.  you like taking tests
D. you just decided to stop taking this bull shit test

            People would be quietly taking their test in bumblefuck Arizona, and all the sudden they
would say, “What?  This question is really hard.  I don’t know?  Who is the man anyway?  This
must be a trick question.”  I didn’t do it.  I was scared of going to jail or something. 

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Superhero Mantle: Chapter Six B: Relationships are Responsibility?



There was only one drawback to being in a relationship. It turns out that you’re not supposed to look at other girls. Now in general it’s understood that you’re not supposed to stare at girls. It’s weird and stalker-ish, so the challenge guys normally face is checking them out without quite staring.
            I didn’t know that there is another way to be. But now, walking with Jean through the halls, I wasn’t supposed to check out any girls. Kyana had told me this at some point. I found the easiest way to do this was to stare into Jean’s eyes the whole time we were together, but I bumped into a lot of people, especially during the period changes when the halls were full.
            And then one time I caught a glimpse of a behind in front of us, and next thing I knew I was staring at it, its rolling tic-toc was a hypnotist’s watch, and I couldn’t look away. The owner of the magnificent behind turned into her class, and I snapped out of it, to look over at Jean, hoping she wasn’t watching. She was glaring at me.
            She shook her head, a slow small shake, and said nothing. I said, “Sorry about that.”
            Still nothing.
            “I just got hypnotized. I couldn’t help it.” Rather than answer me, she turned a one eighty, and walked the other way. The maneuver caught me off guard, and I just watched her behind sashay away. “Nice ass,” I remarked. I figured Miss Farr would say it was the wrong time for humor, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I told Mike and Kyana at lunch. Kyana said, “Was it my ass? I should get a license.”
Mike said, “You’ve got to control yourself, man. Girls deserve respect; she deserves it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Yoda says, ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’” Star Wars trumped everything.
“What do I do now?”
Kyana had that one. “You got to do something nice for her. Buy her flowers, write her an apology and talk about how much you like her. Can you write poems?”
Mike said, “He can write shitty ones.”
“Well, get Mike to write you one. His are pretty good.”
“Would you?”
“You’ve got to pay me ten bucks.”
“Kay.”
Mike’s poem wasn’t bad. I’ve included it here.

Upon looking away from where I want to look

I have seen a lot of things, and some of them are asses,
I have dreamed a lot of things, some with long lashes,
But you still surprise me when your beauty flashes.
Without you, I’m a drunk driver, I caroom crashes.
Sorry, whip me forty lashes, slice me with tongue slashes,
But talk to me, cause you’re still my only boo-smashes.
I re-wrote the poem in my handwriting and slipped it into her locker. She texted me, “Its OK- but if u do it again L”.
We met before practice and I told her how much I liked her and it should have been nice but I felt a little fake. I liked looking at that other butt. I didn’t like that she didn’t like it, so now I pretended something else.
I realized that a relationship was a responsibility, even if it involved kissing, which was really nice.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Kisses? Chapter Six, A



           
Chapter Six: Kisses?

I was late to practice on Monday. When I rounded the corner to my locker I saw her, standing by my locker. She was in a yellow skirt printed with fun flowers. She smiled big and I felt a stirring. We wandered back to the terrace, but a couple groups of kids were smoking cigarettes and some other stuff. Miss Farr says you’ve got to be stupid to risk expulsion by having drugs on school property, and that your education is worth more than looking cool or getting high. I never even thought about it, since my dad would kill me if I got caught smoking weed on school grounds. Some kids still do it. Even Central has idiots.
I’d given myself a lot of pep talks about having the balls to make the first move, so when we got outside I took her hand in mine. I was kind of figuring she’d slap it away, but she held hands back, and ran her fingernails along the inside of my fingers. I was surprised how good it felt. I led her to the South Lawn. She told me about her day, complained that nobody she liked had her lunch. I told her I sat with Mike, but I was thinking about joining the soccer players.
“Why leave Mike?”
“He really hates soccer.”
“You’re not just a soccer player, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Alex said you’re a big nerd.”
“What?” I was stalling while I figured out the way to answer this.
“She says you and Mike are really into Hamlet and you always talk the most in class.”
I shrugged. “I like it. Yeah, I guess that makes me a nerd.”
She said, “It’s okay. I’m a nerd too. Just don’t tell anyone.”
By then we’d walked under the spreading boughs of an oak tree, its green leaves tinged with copper. It felt like we were alone. She turned to me and leaned in and kissed me. I responded with the best imitation of the movies I had. This included throwing my arms around her and mashing my face into hers. She pulled away after a second.
“Doogie?”
“What?”
“Relax. Slow down. It’s more fun if you’re gentle.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I felt kind of dumb.
She had her arms around me, and she pecked the corner of my lips, right where the lower and upper lip meet. She said, “First kiss?”
I looked around. I was a nerd; I’d never kissed a girl. She knew too much, too fast.
She laughed. “That’s good. I get to teach you.”
More kisses. This time I tried to go slow and follow her lead. I liked it a lot. Being super-powered was an awesome feeling. When I went on those runs out the R8 tracks, my feet drumming the railroad ties, throwing wind-wounding punches, I was strong against the world, and that made me feel alive. This was different, the beginning of a togetherness that was just as vibrant, but calming in this deep and sexy way. She said, “I like kissing you.”
“Thanks.”
Time passed
Later she said, “The team is running laps.”
I looked over and saw practice had started. I kissed her one last time, and took off down the hill. I shouted, “See you tomorrow.”
“Call me,” she yelled.
The next day I stopped by the soccer table, where Aiden was. He congratulated me on making out with Jean. The other guys said similar things. It was fun to be there but eventually I peeled off and made for our corner table, where Mike was working a lunchroom hoagie like it was his first meal in forty days.
He said, “You see these Primo Grand commercials?”
            “Yeah.”
            “They freak me out.”
            “Why?”
            “All the kids in the commercials, they have this weird look. They look mindless.”
            Mike could be weird himself, “That’s just commercials, man. Don’t be crazy.”
            “No, watch them when you go home. It’s like Barbie heads or something. A nonstop smile, almost plastic, and nothing behind it.”
            “Why do you think they all look like that?”
            “I don’t know. Something is going on at that mall. There is something rotten in the city of Philadelphia, and it’s Primo’s Grand. That place is up to no good, trust me. We should go investigate it.”
He could be such a dork. I pictured us with magnifying glasses and notebooks, wandering through a mall full of kids who were cool and attractive, like Encyclopedia Brown apprentices. I couldn’t get my head around that idea.
“You serious?”
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
“I don’t know, man. I’m kind of busy. Looks like I got a girlfriend!”
            “Fine, I’ll investigate myself.”
            “Alright, just don’t get spotted by the evil Primo.”
            “I’m serious.” While he spoke, his square fingers ground his hoody into the glass.