Posted to Stories on the topic of Autobiographies on
5 April 2008, with no comments so far.
by Annabel—Age 24—Edinburgh, Scotland
Mom was a conceptual artist and Dad a drummer in punk bands. Once he played a gig dressed only in boxers and tinfoil, which fell off as he played. He stopped playing when I was two, and started taking me to social work school with him on the Green Line. Mom stopped doing art before I was born. When I was two she got chronic fatigue syndrome and spent much of the next four years sleeping. Other times she threw coffee cups, forgot me at school in the snow, loved me, painted with me, was scary and unpredictable. We had the same first grade teacher; both of us were her favorites.
Sister born when I was five and a half; Mom’s immune system revived, cured by pregnancy. A symbiotic relationship was formed. On being parted one time, sister said enigmatically of herself/mom, “Bubba doesn’t want Bubba to go!”
Dad and I were allies and best friends. There are no words for it. We moved to a boarding school and lived in an apartment in one of the dorms. Dad worked too much. Mom cut herself with razors and wouldn’t cook for me. One Thanksgiving she left the family because I had worn my new slippers out in the dorm hallway. She came back five hours later and we all went to my dad’s brother’s house for dinner.
Dad’s family were “hard core New Englanders.” The family business is psychiatry; until a hundred years ago it was the Calvinist ministry. Mom’s family were from the South. In 1900 her granddaddy was living off squirrel meat on a farm in South Carolina. That same year Dad’s great-grandmother was giving tea parties for the glitterati in her Boston salon. She would always invite in her brother when he would ride into the Harbor on his yacht, manic, shooting off a pistol; he spent half his life in a hospital and the other half teaching at Harvard. Mom’s granddaddy was illiterate. In 2003 I went to South Carolina and stood on his land and shot his pistol at a log.
When I was 19 I moved to Scotland and studied history at university. My boyfriend is from Mexico City. I’m not sure I ever want to live in the United States again, but maybe I will. I miss my family.
(repost)
Posted to Stories on the topic of Autobiographies on
3 April 2008, with no comments so far.
From 400 Words, Issue 1
by Derek—Age 33—Portland, OR
I now reside in Portland, Oregon. I arrived here two years ago in a beat-up truck with everything I owned crammed into the bed and cab. I was fleeing Lee’s Summit, Missouri, where I had worked for a shady sub-contractor for the Justice Department—blowing the whistle led to my termination. I lived with a woman in Blue Springs who was 15 years older than me for a while before that. We ended up having an affair (she had a boyfriend), things ended badly, and I moved out. See, I didn’t even want to go to Missouri, but I needed to attend the main campus of Park University to finish my bachelor’s degree, which I did. But before I could do that I had to travel from North Carolina on four bald tires, after I quit my job working for a strange electrician. I spent hours crawling under houses pulling wires for him because I needed the money to keep from losing my house. See, I’d quit my high-paying job at the cryogenic plant, and times were tough. I was a cryogenics mechanic in the Marines a couple years before, that’s how I landed the job; those were some strange days, especially the six months I spent in Italy. I blame my decision to enlist on the poor job market in Waterville, Maine (the geographical opposite of where I live now). I learned how to wire houses at a tech college in a neighboring town just a few months after graduating high school; I still had long hair and wore an earring. I was what many considered a ‘strange bird’ in those days. They should have seen me as a small boy, acting out scenes in the back yard by myself, playing with small cars and talking to myself, kissing a girl on the mouth when I was only two years old. Maybe it’s not so strange. But when I was born, the doctor did tell my mom, “This one’s a whole other breed of cats.”
(Repost)
Posted to 400 Words News on
20 March 2008, with 3 comments so far.
1. Daffodil shoots
2. Less-expensive asparagus spotted at the fruit stand
3. Stirrings of life at 400 Words
It’s been a long and restful sleep, but 400 Words is getting ready to come back to life. The first step: a fresh coat of paint. I wish I were a real web designer, but I’m not, so I’ve been searching for a new WordPress template that will liven up the place. Something simple, but a little brighter and more cheerful. I will be trying things out over the next couple of weeks, so please excuse intermittent upheavals in the site’s appearance.
If you want to buy a copy of the Compulsions issue, the store will remain open. The Work issue is coming soon!
Update, 3/30: I’m tinkering around with Derek Powazek’s DePo Skinny theme, which I love love love. Tinkering is fun and slow going, I’m definitely still playing around with colors etc. Next stop: sidebars, and a custom header image.
Posted to 400 Words News on
6 January 2008, with 8 comments so far.
As you may have noticed if you follow this site, 400 Words is taking a bit of a sabbattical. We’ll be back soon with more new stuff, including print issue #3. In the meantime, hang out, peruse the archives, send in a 400-word autobiography if you want. Copies of print issue #2 are still for sale, and people who see the cute little books still can’t keep their hands off them. Get yours here.
Thanks for reading, and see you soon.
