Some things I've learned:
(gleaned from personal experience and watching other people do stupid things)
1. Do not climb down tall ladders quickly.
2. Do not ever buy a hermit crab without your parents' permission. Don't even contemplate it.
3. If you are in a car, and decide to do something that would look cool, make sure you don't get distracted and run up on the curb. Then you just look like an idiot.
4. Don't place wake-up calls at 12:00 at night. Even if it is your birthday.
5. If you are at someone's funeral find something better to say about them than, "I have never seen her hair look so good." And if you must say this, do not say it repeatedly-- seriously, find something to say about their characer or something.
6. When you are mad at someone, pretending to jump off a balcony in order to get them to feel remorseful is not a good idea.
7. When you are little and ask your grandfather to play with you and he says, "Just as soon as this cloud goes over the house." he probably doesn't want to play with you.
8. If you are working as a waitress and you ask if you can clear away someone's dessert plate and he responds with, "If you so much as touch this plate, I will bite your hand off." let him keep his plate. And you keep your hand, too.
9. Cats should not be used as batons, or accordions, or wheelbarrows.
10. Toilet brushes are not the same thing as feather dusters, and should not be used in place of them.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
the red swing
You know how everyone has one of those places that they go to think? I've noticed lately how they vary from person to person just due to individual preferences. I have friends that can think clearly in the middle of total chaos. I have friends that have to shut doors and have absolute silence to think clearly. You can tell a lot about a person by the place that he or she likes to think.
I have several conclusions about the environments that I think best in:
1. I cannot think well in places that are really loud. Like the kitchen. This is where I do all my school. I wonder if I would get more done if I moved to a different spot...
2. I cannot think well in really messy places-- messes distract me almost as much as noises. Guess what room is really messy? The kitchen.
3. I can think well in my room whether it is clean or messy. For some reason, it doesn't really matter.
4. Thinking in the car is very easy. I have the best conversations with myself in the car.
5. It is easier for me to think outside than it is inside.
I have lots of wonderful places to think, but by far, the best one is the red swing.
The red swing is always there when we go up to the mountains. It is between two trees on a hill, so when you swing on it, you are launched out over the hill and you can see everything. It is very peaceful. It doesn't matter whether you just sit on the swing, or whether you swing really high-- it is really easy to think with a cool breeze on your face and the sun on your back. I'm not sure what makes it so easy to think there, but I'm almost convinced that has a lot to do with the fact that the swing is red. A brown swing just doesn't seem to be as conducive to thinking...
I have several conclusions about the environments that I think best in:
1. I cannot think well in places that are really loud. Like the kitchen. This is where I do all my school. I wonder if I would get more done if I moved to a different spot...
2. I cannot think well in really messy places-- messes distract me almost as much as noises. Guess what room is really messy? The kitchen.
3. I can think well in my room whether it is clean or messy. For some reason, it doesn't really matter.
4. Thinking in the car is very easy. I have the best conversations with myself in the car.
5. It is easier for me to think outside than it is inside.
I have lots of wonderful places to think, but by far, the best one is the red swing.
The red swing is always there when we go up to the mountains. It is between two trees on a hill, so when you swing on it, you are launched out over the hill and you can see everything. It is very peaceful. It doesn't matter whether you just sit on the swing, or whether you swing really high-- it is really easy to think with a cool breeze on your face and the sun on your back. I'm not sure what makes it so easy to think there, but I'm almost convinced that has a lot to do with the fact that the swing is red. A brown swing just doesn't seem to be as conducive to thinking...
Sunday, April 1, 2007
ticonderoga
For years I have looked for the perfect pencil. I have found very good ones but never the perfect one. And all the time it was not the pencils but me. A pencil that is all right some days is no good another day. -- John Steinbeck
I have lately become aware that the world has this unspoken disdain of pencils. Honestly, when was the last time you were asked if you had a pen to be borrowed? Maybe yesterday. What about a pencil to be borrowed? Maybe in third grade.
When I was little, I used pencils all the time. I loved pencils. I loved to open a new box of pencils-- to see all of those clean pink erasers and all the unchipped yellow paint just waiting to be used. And then there was always the time right after I sharpened a brand new pencil for the first time-- for just a moment, I held the epitome of writing perfection in my hand. It was all slightly magical...
I even had a favorite kind of pencil-- Ticonderoga-- these pencils had lead that wrote smoothly, soft, velvety erasers, and their wood was hard and durable...all this as compared to Eagle pencils whose lead breaks at the slightest inclination, and whose erasers are hard. When your pencil has a hard eraser, it smears what you are trying to erase all over the page. You might as well get a large neon sign that says, 'Hey look-- I made a mistake right here!!' Soft erasers obliterate mistakes quickly and completely and are thus necessary to any good pencil experience.
So, I loved pencils. But then something awful happened. When I got to be a certain age, the school I was at made me start writing with these wretched, wretched things called pens. Pens are not submissive and useful like pencils. They have minds of their own. You can be taking a History test in pen, and on the essay question the pen will suddenly decide that it doesn't want to write anymore and will then simply quit. You cannot take it and sharpen it and begin again. You have to shake it, scribble with it, throw it. But nothing can induce the pen to change its mind. You are stuck. Pencils are so much better, you can erase things with them (rather than slashing through things and then making your error completely obvious with Wite-Out. ), you can re-sharpen them, they are more fun to draw with, and plus have you ever felt excited when opening a box of pens?
My love of pencils was forgotten, while I struggled write with pens. I put up with them for years, but just yesterday after my pen had quit in the middle of an essay question I walked into the supply closet for a replacement pen. I was looking for the box, and I knocked something off the shelf onto the floor. I stopped to pick it up. A box of Ticonderoga pencils. Unopened and slightly dusty. I opened the box and was greeted with a faint smell of cedar and two rows of pink erasers. Magical, I tell you.
I finished my essay question in pencil that day.
I have lately become aware that the world has this unspoken disdain of pencils. Honestly, when was the last time you were asked if you had a pen to be borrowed? Maybe yesterday. What about a pencil to be borrowed? Maybe in third grade.
When I was little, I used pencils all the time. I loved pencils. I loved to open a new box of pencils-- to see all of those clean pink erasers and all the unchipped yellow paint just waiting to be used. And then there was always the time right after I sharpened a brand new pencil for the first time-- for just a moment, I held the epitome of writing perfection in my hand. It was all slightly magical...
I even had a favorite kind of pencil-- Ticonderoga-- these pencils had lead that wrote smoothly, soft, velvety erasers, and their wood was hard and durable...all this as compared to Eagle pencils whose lead breaks at the slightest inclination, and whose erasers are hard. When your pencil has a hard eraser, it smears what you are trying to erase all over the page. You might as well get a large neon sign that says, 'Hey look-- I made a mistake right here!!' Soft erasers obliterate mistakes quickly and completely and are thus necessary to any good pencil experience.
So, I loved pencils. But then something awful happened. When I got to be a certain age, the school I was at made me start writing with these wretched, wretched things called pens. Pens are not submissive and useful like pencils. They have minds of their own. You can be taking a History test in pen, and on the essay question the pen will suddenly decide that it doesn't want to write anymore and will then simply quit. You cannot take it and sharpen it and begin again. You have to shake it, scribble with it, throw it. But nothing can induce the pen to change its mind. You are stuck. Pencils are so much better, you can erase things with them (rather than slashing through things and then making your error completely obvious with Wite-Out. ), you can re-sharpen them, they are more fun to draw with, and plus have you ever felt excited when opening a box of pens?
My love of pencils was forgotten, while I struggled write with pens. I put up with them for years, but just yesterday after my pen had quit in the middle of an essay question I walked into the supply closet for a replacement pen. I was looking for the box, and I knocked something off the shelf onto the floor. I stopped to pick it up. A box of Ticonderoga pencils. Unopened and slightly dusty. I opened the box and was greeted with a faint smell of cedar and two rows of pink erasers. Magical, I tell you.
I finished my essay question in pencil that day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)