Three-Sentence Fragments

1. I've been given good advice to combat feelings of intimidation and inadequacy. "It's precisely because you are who you are that they want to listen to you. Speak from that place."

2. My new room (which used to be the house's dining room) has three doors: one separating it from another bedroom (which used to be the living room), a frosted one leading into the hallway, and one opening out to the kitchen. This last door has been boarded up and covered with a curtain. What would feng shui experts say about having a sealed door in your bedroom?

3. I've heard people speaking in Chinese, Iranian, Korean, Polish, and Spanish on crowded subway trains and streetcars. The feeling's similar to passing by a frosted glass door. You can see people inside but you're shut out and can't decipher the contours and details.

4. I used to dislike Hopper when I was younger, puzzled by his un-pretty people and the way he positioned his subjects to convey a sense of emptiness in space, of loneliness-es overlapping. Now I think I get him, and have posters of his work on my walls. Plus they work with my color sceme: pale yellow, sage green, brown, with blue and orange accents.

5. I've heard of schoolgirls who've been taught Spanish for years. But they can't speak it fluently nor hold entire conversations. To pretend, they recite prayers to each other.

6. In this city, there's a pub called The James Joyce. And another pub called Molly Bloom. And a HOTDOG STAND called Mrs. Dalloway's, with a portly black woman minding it.

7. I woke up at 5 a.m. with a brilliant aha! understanding of Lillian Hellman's second memoir, Pentimento (a painting term which literally means "repentance," to explain how, when some paintings age, it becomes possible to see the original images the artist eventually decided to paint over). It just became clear to me who the real stars of the memoir were: neither Hellman nor her past or present written portraits of other people -- but time, that old artist and exposer, and the writing process itself. Now if only I'd get awakened that forcefully with a poem.