Little Blue Notebook, Part 1

I always have a pen and notebook with me. Even though I don't really write anymore, and I haven't sat down and read a book through for months, I still keep a little notebook in my purse because I always have ideas in my head for poems, stories, names, novels, I also see things that amuse me, hear phrases or quotes I want to remember, a good song that I want to find out the name of, you get the idea.
And thus starts the first part in a series, in which I will write out for your amusement (and my own) excerpts from my little blue notebook. There are some poems, some quotes, some random observations, it's a little stewpot of literary shenanigans. Everything will be written out exactly as I scribbled it down, in the moment (line breaks, punctuation or lack thereof), even though it will take everything in my power not to edit myself. Seriously. I typed out the poems below and literally had to stop myself about 9 times from editing them! I can't help it, it's a compulsion. That is not to say that I won't use the same writing later on and edit it, but you have been warned! oh, and all writings are the copyright of Carla Langley, of course.
Enjoy!

Coffeehouse

The girl beside me
is journaling to her heart's content
Out the window in front of me
a man in a Lexus picks
his nose
Ella Fitzgerald and Macy Gray
play back to back
while a two-year old stares at me
shoving her straw under her top lip
so it sticks out like a bad bee sting
An ambulance sirens by
while a line forms
for the caffeine
the hiss of the steamer
nozzle drowns out Enya
as Martha informs
her clan that Shelly got
another divorce
and the girl in the
green apron smiles
"and will that be all
for today?"

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Neverending Story

in the middle of the book
if I have to put it down
I am unsettled
impatient
to finish the story
left hanging
like General Lee
before a commercial break

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When I was little, my imagination took over everything. Whatever it took to keep me occupied. I'd go walking through our woods in a storm and I was Molly Catherine Shanahan, the beautiful widow mourning for her husband, for he'd recently been lost in a storm at sea.
Riding in the car with my mother I would stare out my window and there beside me was myself, galloping across the hills and fields on a gleaming red stallion, melting into the horse as we thundered through front yards, clopped across intersections, and sloshed through kiddie pools, stopping to catch our breath only when the van stopped. When we ran out of field we veered onto the road, sparks sizzling from Stardust's hooves in our frantic race to outpace a 1992 Dodge Chrysler minivan.
When we got to the grocery store I became Princess Allessandra, in disguise with my head Lady in Waiting as we desperately tried to lead a normal life away from the castle. Princess Allessandra's Will was thwarted when she chose delectable Oreos and was sternly advised by Lady Carol to put them back or else. Being born into a life of privilege does have its downside.
At home I clicked my plastic horses along the countertops, pausing to snort nervously as ants the size of my hoof skittered past. I wheeled on the formica, tearing away towards the pink ceramic watering hole where I could take refuge behind Hippopotamus Bob, Guardian of the Lake (or, a plastic hippo sitting at the bottom of our kitchen sink in 1/2 inch of water). I would sail majestically through the air as I leaped over saucers and forks and climbed mountains of dishtowel. I was no longer a 4 foot tall freckled girl holding a black plastic horse and talking to herself, I became the racing sensation and National Champion of Kitchentopia, testing my skills against the tricky terrain of the Plains of Counter and the Hills of Dishrack. My skills were further tested when my highly trained and free-spirited self was ordered to wash the dishes, "since you're in there".

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