"Emo" is a new word, popularized like everything is, through the internet. It's a derogatory, short for "emotional", and characterizes people (usually teens) who claim to be all in touch with their emotions. This really means that they cry and write things about how sad they are. They're also usually antisocial and often dye their hair odd colors and get their lips pierced. They seem to blog a lot, since they're introspective and mostly just use the internet a lot with their door closed, and seem to only blog about things that make them sad. I've noticed that over the last few posts I've strayed almost into emo territory in my blog. This is merely a statistical fluke. I write funny and pointed posts in somewhat equal measure; recently, I've had several pointed ones in a row, which, devoid of much humor, may change my reputation from somewhat a wisecracker to somewhat an emo social commentator. Well, I'm not, so don't worry yeself about me.
However!
This post is another one fitting the foregoing description. Note: it is excerpted directly from my paper journal.
(This disclaimer provided by Danforth Disclaimer Doing)
Holy crap, I wasted the day. Last night, Micah kept waking me up for various crap reasons, and then I got a touch of insomnia, so I woke up today, again, after 1300. Why is it so bad to wake up after 1200? you may ask. Well, it isn't inherently. But it means I went to bed really late and wasted half the day sleeping. I sleep for about 8, 8½ hours in any case, but if I put those hours after about 0300, it's doubtful I've done anything with most of my day. And that's because I very seldom do anything worthwhile after about 2300. It's always just internet browsing. The internet eats my life after 2300. I could do stuff, but really there's not much to do. Go to Warder? But it's dark out. Read a book? But the internet is right there. Spend quality time with the folks? They're always just watching TV. Or in Micah's case, playing RuneScape. The daytime is a much better time to be active. After I get a third-shift job, if I do, I'll be waking up at, oh, 1500. But I'll be able to do stuff until 2100. Hopefully, I can even wake up earlier - 1300 or 1400, say. And I'll have weekends. I want to not waste my life. [Note: for this paragraph I was mostly rambling, so the sentences aren't in a logical progression to a conclusion sentence.]
-Well, let's get past talking about my wake-up time. I sat around and did nothing. Picked up puzzle books and didn't solve any puzzles. Walked outside pointlessly, then after a few seconds, walked back in. Examined and re-examined a font I've drawn. Stared into empty space. Looked at internet places I've already looked at, checking forums for new posts minutes after visiting them and finding no new posts. Ate pizza, looked in the cupboards for more food even though I wasn't hungry and had no intention of eating. Looking back, I almost want to cry. I write in my journal, Never again. [I've written that never again will I waste my time like that.] And then after accumulating a series of Never agains, I write: time to stop saying Never again, and time to start actually using my time like I say I'm going to. A charming sentiment, but though I try to do it, I always fail in one way or another without thinking about it. All day, I suppose, I had a subconscious urge screaming, "You're doing NOTHING!" But it never surfaced onto my awareness. And thus, without even realizing it, I sat down to watch two episodes of Stargate. I knew I was wtching them, and I knew I didn't want to be watching them, but I didn't do anything about it. The same for all the rest of the day. I seemed to be waiting for something. But there was nothing coming, and so nothing came, but I kept waiting. Taking a look at the half-built deck slicked by drizzle out the back door, then turning around and looking out the front door. Well, I'm fed up with that shit. Now I'm going to be consciously aware of when I'm collecting my time and flushing it down the toilet. I'm not going to do it anymore. This is the last time I'm going to say that, and now I'm going to start living it instead. I'm slowly killing myself by gnawing off the end of the string of my life. Here's where that stops for good. This summer will now get a whole lot better, because I made it.
Regulars will notice that I have said a cuss, something I very seldom do, and some might even chastise me for it. Well, I decided to let my thoughts go uncensored, because I really couldn't think of a word that had the same power and meaning without making the sentence longer, rendering it weak. Also, while I was writing it, I was thinking of this.
-Next post, something will be funny, and you'll also get to know what's happening in my life, assuming something has happened by then.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Why
Why do craneflies suck so bad?
They're not good at anything. Most of them don't even have six legs anymore. I'm glad I'm not a cranefly.
Today's Stream of Consciousness sponsored by The Hartford
They're not good at anything. Most of them don't even have six legs anymore. I'm glad I'm not a cranefly.
Today's Stream of Consciousness sponsored by The Hartford
Thursday, June 21, 2007
A change
We've long been working on getting ready to move into a new house. A few months ago, Mom found a house she really likes; Dad likes it too. Recently, we've started getting ready to put our current house on the market. On Monday, Mom told me, "We're moving in about two weeks."
-I knew we were moving, but I expected to know farther ahead of time. I didn't realize it until I heard we were moving, but I actually kind of like this house. Well, that's misleading. What I like is a couple things peripheral to the house. One is our backyard, which is the best sledding hill in the near vicinity (not opinion, but a verifiable fact, considering steepness and lack of fences). The new house has a flat backyard. And the other thing I like is Warder. Warder is not, actually, a great park. It has woods, but the woods are mostly composed of shrubs and very difficult to walk around in: you have to bushwhack to get anywhere, pratically have to crawl. And there's a pond, but it's a very small pond and the water is definitely not the kind of water you go swimming in. I'm don't even wade in it unless I'm trying to catch a frog. But it's the closest park to me, and I've spent many happy hours there. It does have some good aspects. The first one that leaps to mind is the Ivory Tower. This is the name that Micah and I have come up with for a towering old pine tree that resides in a mostly unvisited part of the park. It has its share of dead branches, but an accomplished climber won't be daunted. There are more dead branches now than there have been for a long time. This is because last winter there was an ice storm. Several of the larger limbs snapped off. One is still suspended by the branches below it, and I don't know when it might hit the ground. All these broken branches have left stumps, and the stumps have oozed a prodigious amount of sap. I think they've healed over somewhat now, but the climbing branches are still covered with pine tar that leaked onto them - I think the rain just can't wash it away. I walked up to Warder yesterday without direction and ended up at the Ivory Tower. I climbed up it and watched the sun going down. Silhouettes of pine needles and far-off trees on a background that blended from a deep, jolly orange at teh horizon to an unassuming blue to an encompassing indigo that was night but still trying to be day. I sat in the tree. I thought, but then decided not to, and just sat in the tree watching the orange turn to red and then magenta, watching occasional lightning bugs, and listening to the nature around me: an unchanging hum of crickets, the occasional snapping noise of some other insect, wind going through the trees. Cat Stevens's "The Wind":
"I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul.
"Where I'll end up well I think, only God really knows.
"I sat upon the setting sun
"But never never never never,
"I never wanted water once;
"No never never never."
I enjoy that song. I got a Cat Stevens CD recently. I noticed that while most songwriters' lyrics read like, well, like song lyrics, his read like poetry. I don't know much about poetry, but some of the Nobel writers were poets rather than novelists, so I guess I'll be reading some in the not-too-distant future.
-I checked Google Maps on 31 Sherry. It's mostly suburban around there, as here, though the houses are bigger; but I noticed that there isn't a park right nearby. There's a woods, but I haven't been to it: it might not be accessible (private property), and it might not be very good, and in any case it's not very big. So it looks like if I want to go recreate in someplace that's not a building or a road, I'll have to bike there. I could reach Warder in about 15 or 20 minutes, and Winton Woods in 20 or 30. I'll see what there is more immediately nearby, too.
-I'll be using these last two or three weeks (Uncle Dan, the House Professional Person, came by and he says it'll be more like three, probably) to say a hearty farewell to old Warder. (I can't really bid farewell to the sledding hill in fitting style in June, but maybe I'll roll down it once or twice for old time's sake.) I plan to sleep out there sometime in the next couple weeks with Micah in his tent, and I'll take more excursions like that sunset one. I've mostly finished my font, which was eating up several hours of most of my days. So now I'll have more time to go outside.
-I applied for many jobs: Borders, Walgreens, CVS, Panera, Hader Hardware, Graeter's, Bruegger's Bagels, Skyline, Winton Woods, Gear's Nursery, Blockbuster, The Hillman Group (where Mom works). Most managers said they were flush with summer workers already. I biked up to Bruegger's five times on five different days before finally coming into contact with the manager, who told me that. But today I finally got a call back. It was from Hillman. I applied there as a warehouse worker. I'm not sure quite what that entails yet, but I'm going in for an interview tomorrow at 1400. I expressed interest in any of the three shifts, knowing that they're always shortstaffed on 3rd. Sure enough, the hiring manager, Alethea (note: Greek word for absolute truth, though missing an i - Aletheia / Αλήθεια) seemed interest in having me work 3rd. I don't mind, actually. Often I've toyed with the idea of becoming nocturnal during the summer, but I've always had too many obligations (band camp and subsequent twice-weekly practices) to try it. Now that I've washed my hands of marching band for good and I'm (probably) getting a 3rd-shift job, I can actually try it. Too hot during the day anyhow in the summer. Only thing I can think of that would keep me from getting the job is my limited time frame. I'm leaving for Grinnell on the 14th or 15th. Crowduck is from the 16th to the somethingth. There's a family reunion this weekend - I just heard about that one today. Still, that leaves about a month and a half for me to package widgets in the mysterious Hillman warehouse. And better to have an employee who works for a month and a half than to have no employee at all in that space and leave critical widgets unpackaged.
-I predict that once Google discovers this page in a few days it will remain forevermore the only hit for the phrase "critical widgets unpackaged".
-I knew we were moving, but I expected to know farther ahead of time. I didn't realize it until I heard we were moving, but I actually kind of like this house. Well, that's misleading. What I like is a couple things peripheral to the house. One is our backyard, which is the best sledding hill in the near vicinity (not opinion, but a verifiable fact, considering steepness and lack of fences). The new house has a flat backyard. And the other thing I like is Warder. Warder is not, actually, a great park. It has woods, but the woods are mostly composed of shrubs and very difficult to walk around in: you have to bushwhack to get anywhere, pratically have to crawl. And there's a pond, but it's a very small pond and the water is definitely not the kind of water you go swimming in. I'm don't even wade in it unless I'm trying to catch a frog. But it's the closest park to me, and I've spent many happy hours there. It does have some good aspects. The first one that leaps to mind is the Ivory Tower. This is the name that Micah and I have come up with for a towering old pine tree that resides in a mostly unvisited part of the park. It has its share of dead branches, but an accomplished climber won't be daunted. There are more dead branches now than there have been for a long time. This is because last winter there was an ice storm. Several of the larger limbs snapped off. One is still suspended by the branches below it, and I don't know when it might hit the ground. All these broken branches have left stumps, and the stumps have oozed a prodigious amount of sap. I think they've healed over somewhat now, but the climbing branches are still covered with pine tar that leaked onto them - I think the rain just can't wash it away. I walked up to Warder yesterday without direction and ended up at the Ivory Tower. I climbed up it and watched the sun going down. Silhouettes of pine needles and far-off trees on a background that blended from a deep, jolly orange at teh horizon to an unassuming blue to an encompassing indigo that was night but still trying to be day. I sat in the tree. I thought, but then decided not to, and just sat in the tree watching the orange turn to red and then magenta, watching occasional lightning bugs, and listening to the nature around me: an unchanging hum of crickets, the occasional snapping noise of some other insect, wind going through the trees. Cat Stevens's "The Wind":
"I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul.
"Where I'll end up well I think, only God really knows.
"I sat upon the setting sun
"But never never never never,
"I never wanted water once;
"No never never never."
I enjoy that song. I got a Cat Stevens CD recently. I noticed that while most songwriters' lyrics read like, well, like song lyrics, his read like poetry. I don't know much about poetry, but some of the Nobel writers were poets rather than novelists, so I guess I'll be reading some in the not-too-distant future.
-I checked Google Maps on 31 Sherry. It's mostly suburban around there, as here, though the houses are bigger; but I noticed that there isn't a park right nearby. There's a woods, but I haven't been to it: it might not be accessible (private property), and it might not be very good, and in any case it's not very big. So it looks like if I want to go recreate in someplace that's not a building or a road, I'll have to bike there. I could reach Warder in about 15 or 20 minutes, and Winton Woods in 20 or 30. I'll see what there is more immediately nearby, too.
-I'll be using these last two or three weeks (Uncle Dan, the House Professional Person, came by and he says it'll be more like three, probably) to say a hearty farewell to old Warder. (I can't really bid farewell to the sledding hill in fitting style in June, but maybe I'll roll down it once or twice for old time's sake.) I plan to sleep out there sometime in the next couple weeks with Micah in his tent, and I'll take more excursions like that sunset one. I've mostly finished my font, which was eating up several hours of most of my days. So now I'll have more time to go outside.
-I applied for many jobs: Borders, Walgreens, CVS, Panera, Hader Hardware, Graeter's, Bruegger's Bagels, Skyline, Winton Woods, Gear's Nursery, Blockbuster, The Hillman Group (where Mom works). Most managers said they were flush with summer workers already. I biked up to Bruegger's five times on five different days before finally coming into contact with the manager, who told me that. But today I finally got a call back. It was from Hillman. I applied there as a warehouse worker. I'm not sure quite what that entails yet, but I'm going in for an interview tomorrow at 1400. I expressed interest in any of the three shifts, knowing that they're always shortstaffed on 3rd. Sure enough, the hiring manager, Alethea (note: Greek word for absolute truth, though missing an i - Aletheia / Αλήθεια) seemed interest in having me work 3rd. I don't mind, actually. Often I've toyed with the idea of becoming nocturnal during the summer, but I've always had too many obligations (band camp and subsequent twice-weekly practices) to try it. Now that I've washed my hands of marching band for good and I'm (probably) getting a 3rd-shift job, I can actually try it. Too hot during the day anyhow in the summer. Only thing I can think of that would keep me from getting the job is my limited time frame. I'm leaving for Grinnell on the 14th or 15th. Crowduck is from the 16th to the somethingth. There's a family reunion this weekend - I just heard about that one today. Still, that leaves about a month and a half for me to package widgets in the mysterious Hillman warehouse. And better to have an employee who works for a month and a half than to have no employee at all in that space and leave critical widgets unpackaged.
-I predict that once Google discovers this page in a few days it will remain forevermore the only hit for the phrase "critical widgets unpackaged".
Friday, June 15, 2007
Went frogging
Micah and I went frogging last night and took some pictures. Here they come.
First catch
Burke's pond has some very deep and rich mud. Smells sulfurous. For all this, I still didn't catch the frog I was going after.
First catch
A big one
Underside. He looks like he's terrified, but somewhere deep down, having fun a little bit.
"Whatever. Just put me back when you're finished, okay?" The hand is Micah's.
Burke's pond has some very deep and rich mud. Smells sulfurous. For all this, I still didn't catch the frog I was going after.Frogging is fun. We plan to go many more times this summer.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Graduation and Such
We were instructed to arrive at eight in the morning for graduation practice. There were people around that I haven't seen for years, for one reason or another. One of the main reasons was that a lot of people took Finneytown's vocational school program, at the Oaks campuses: Diamond Oaks, Scarlet Oaks, Laurel Oaks, and Live Oaks - but somehow I doubt there are many oaks around. Incidentally, the laurel oak is the same species as the diamond oak. Other people I hadn't seen because they were not so bright, and I hadn't had any classes with them for a long time. And in at least one case, a guy was taking classes at a college. Most of these people I didn't really care about seeing; they were nondescript and unexceptional - that's why they were in trade school or lower-level classes. However, the college guy, Caleb Combs, was interesting; he had gained a full growth of beard since I last saw him, and he had always been a Nice Kid. Anyhow, we practiced graduation, which was a pretty stupid process. We lined up in an order that was rigidly enforced yet, as far as I could tell, random. Then we sat in the absurd heat and waited for our names to be called. Ms Owen was doing the name reading; she has no classes for seniors, and is our class advisor because, I'm told, she has been since we were in about seventh grade and no one thought to change it. She was practicing pronouncing our names. She said this was our one chance to correct her before she read it out loud to the audience later tonight, so everyone whose name she fumbled made sure to set her straight. After that, we had a big sweaty group photo, and then went home. More precisely, Aaron took me to his house, and then his dad took us to Chipotle. Then I went home.
-We all met up back at the Compound at 1815, I think. We got on our robes and mortarboards. They lined us up, and then gave us about fifteen minutes to scatter throughout the gym before lining back up. It was still butt-hot as we walked out to the football field. But at least there were nice white chairs for us to sit on. Several people made speeches of varying lengths and topics. Mrs Solomon, a retiring librarian, spoke for at least ten minutes on the subject of being a good person. Dr White, my biology teacher this year, who's also retiring, talked too, but kept it briefer. We also had the class president (Dave Steel), the valedictorian (Rosie), and the salutatorian (Kristen). Kristen's speech was memorable; I think her opening was her senior prank: "What do you do when you're on a canoe in the middle of a mangrove swamp and you have to go to the bathroom? The only thing you can do: you pee over the side of the boat." It was a metaphor, but I have no clue what for. Rosie's and Kristen's speeches were both subtly sarcastic; I don't know if they wrote them that way consciously, or if the utter badness of our school offered no other alternative and it just came out that way from their subconsciouses. For example, Rosie said that she was able to compete in track and swimming, which she couldn't have done in a better school because she wouldn't have made the teams. On the face of it, it's a compliment, but without too much digging, it's also a deeper-reaching insult.
-Ms Owen read all of our names, and it became abundantly clear that she hadn't taken in a thing when we corrected her pronunciation. My name wasn't hard, so she got it right. But there were several mistakes.
•She pronounced "Bascombe" with a long a.
•She pronounced "Wergers" with a soft g and "Sturgill" with a hard one.
•Rosie's middle name is Rabayev. Ms Owen confidently called, "Rosie Rebmanov Korman." I think Matt Rebman was amused.
•Ms Owen just gave up when she came to Yana Andreevna Demyanova. It's not hard if you sound it out, especially if you've been instructed beforehand how it's pronounced: /'Ya•na An•dre•'yev•na Dem•'ya•no•va/. Phonetic! Well, she called /'Ya•na An•'drēv•na De•vi•'yav•no•va/. Pathetic! Andreevna I can understand, but how do you add two extra v's and an extra syllable to Demyanova?
We all got our diplomas despite her. (I think Yana should have waited for here to get it right before walking out to the front.) Actually, we didn't get our diplomas: we got the covers for them. This is a really rotten thing the Compound does at graduation - instead of getting your diploma, you get the cover, and that way, if you decide to do anything at graduation that would indicate you have a sense of humor or are an interesting human, the school can make you do some type of community service before they'll give you your real diploma. For this reason, we did not toss our hats. I still don't know why they told us not to throw them - what possible reason could there be? But Mr Fisher warned us that he would review the tape if he saw any flying hats and we'd be really easy to pick out. Yet another reason that I hate the Compound.
-And now, I've been searching for a job. I think I started too late, though. I've put in about ten applications all across town, and nobody's really hiring. Bruegger's Bagels and Panera both say they're looking for someone who can stay for the fall and winter. I was pretty disappointed when Bruegger's said that, because I'd biked up there on Monday to find the hiring manager gone, Tuesday to find her still gone but confidently predicted to be in tomorrow, Wednesday to find that she'd left hours ago, and finally met her on Thursday, when she told me. In any case, I've put in an application with Hillman, where Mom works, to work in the warehouse for the summer. Mom says I've got a good chance of getting the job, but to still bike around looking for more applications. Applying for work sucks.
-Finally, I'll note that I've been doing a blitzkrieg of work on my font Newt, and I hope to have all the weights ready for selling sometime this summer; maybe I can at least make some money before I go to Iowa.
-We all met up back at the Compound at 1815, I think. We got on our robes and mortarboards. They lined us up, and then gave us about fifteen minutes to scatter throughout the gym before lining back up. It was still butt-hot as we walked out to the football field. But at least there were nice white chairs for us to sit on. Several people made speeches of varying lengths and topics. Mrs Solomon, a retiring librarian, spoke for at least ten minutes on the subject of being a good person. Dr White, my biology teacher this year, who's also retiring, talked too, but kept it briefer. We also had the class president (Dave Steel), the valedictorian (Rosie), and the salutatorian (Kristen). Kristen's speech was memorable; I think her opening was her senior prank: "What do you do when you're on a canoe in the middle of a mangrove swamp and you have to go to the bathroom? The only thing you can do: you pee over the side of the boat." It was a metaphor, but I have no clue what for. Rosie's and Kristen's speeches were both subtly sarcastic; I don't know if they wrote them that way consciously, or if the utter badness of our school offered no other alternative and it just came out that way from their subconsciouses. For example, Rosie said that she was able to compete in track and swimming, which she couldn't have done in a better school because she wouldn't have made the teams. On the face of it, it's a compliment, but without too much digging, it's also a deeper-reaching insult.
-Ms Owen read all of our names, and it became abundantly clear that she hadn't taken in a thing when we corrected her pronunciation. My name wasn't hard, so she got it right. But there were several mistakes.
•She pronounced "Bascombe" with a long a.
•She pronounced "Wergers" with a soft g and "Sturgill" with a hard one.
•Rosie's middle name is Rabayev. Ms Owen confidently called, "Rosie Rebmanov Korman." I think Matt Rebman was amused.
•Ms Owen just gave up when she came to Yana Andreevna Demyanova. It's not hard if you sound it out, especially if you've been instructed beforehand how it's pronounced: /'Ya•na An•dre•'yev•na Dem•'ya•no•va/. Phonetic! Well, she called /'Ya•na An•'drēv•na De•vi•'yav•no•va/. Pathetic! Andreevna I can understand, but how do you add two extra v's and an extra syllable to Demyanova?
We all got our diplomas despite her. (I think Yana should have waited for here to get it right before walking out to the front.) Actually, we didn't get our diplomas: we got the covers for them. This is a really rotten thing the Compound does at graduation - instead of getting your diploma, you get the cover, and that way, if you decide to do anything at graduation that would indicate you have a sense of humor or are an interesting human, the school can make you do some type of community service before they'll give you your real diploma. For this reason, we did not toss our hats. I still don't know why they told us not to throw them - what possible reason could there be? But Mr Fisher warned us that he would review the tape if he saw any flying hats and we'd be really easy to pick out. Yet another reason that I hate the Compound.
-And now, I've been searching for a job. I think I started too late, though. I've put in about ten applications all across town, and nobody's really hiring. Bruegger's Bagels and Panera both say they're looking for someone who can stay for the fall and winter. I was pretty disappointed when Bruegger's said that, because I'd biked up there on Monday to find the hiring manager gone, Tuesday to find her still gone but confidently predicted to be in tomorrow, Wednesday to find that she'd left hours ago, and finally met her on Thursday, when she told me. In any case, I've put in an application with Hillman, where Mom works, to work in the warehouse for the summer. Mom says I've got a good chance of getting the job, but to still bike around looking for more applications. Applying for work sucks.
-Finally, I'll note that I've been doing a blitzkrieg of work on my font Newt, and I hope to have all the weights ready for selling sometime this summer; maybe I can at least make some money before I go to Iowa.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I need to write this, real quick
There's something that's been hanging around my computer area for a few weeks. It's a brochure from the National Guard, inviting me to join. On the front, it has a big picture of a race car driver. The caption says,
Other captions say,
and
This guy has a trademark sign after his name. As soon as I saw his name, I hated him. I will never have a favorable opinion of anyone who trademarks his name. Now, I'm informed, he's taken up a partnership with the National Guard. ("Hendrick Motor Sports is proud to announce its newest winning partnership - the Army National Guard and Casey Mears™.") Inside the brochure, there's a picture of three National Guard soldiers gathered around Casey Mears™, standing in front of his car. Casey™, in full racing regalia, carrying his helmet, is beaming radiantly, and the three soldiers are gazing sycophantically into his magical aura while simultaneously putting up their smarmiest front for the beneficent and infallible National Guard. All the writing in the brochure gives the impression that if I don't think Casey Mears™ is a god among men, then I'm tragically deprived and I should immediately remedy the situation by enlisting in the Guard and joining this loving and devoted fan club.
-The National Guard thinks this will get me to join in? I guess that tells me what they think about teenagers: they're obsessed with sports and famous people, and they'll join a fan club at a moment's notice without regard for other responsibilities entailed, as long as their sportsperson of choice is sure to notice them and be their friend. I was never going to enlist in the Guard anyhow, but if there had been any chance beforehand that I might, this brochure would have immediately let me know never to even consider it. Amazing that in just one brochure, while trying to do the exact opposite, the Guard has made me hate them with such a passion. I suppose that's an accomplishment in itself.
-Sorry. I just noticed that brochure on the floor and realized I had to get this off my chest. Thank you for paying attention during my rant; I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. Sometime later, possibly today or tomorrow, I'll write about graduation and such.
CASEY MEARS™ NEEDS
A FEW NEW DRIVERS
ON HIS TEAM.
A FEW NEW DRIVERS
ON HIS TEAM.
Other captions say,
AS A TEAM, WE BRING POWER,
SPEED, AND VICTORY TO AMERICA.
SPEED, AND VICTORY TO AMERICA.
and
Love racing? Want to keep up with Casey Mears™? Join Casey's Platoon, a unique fan club devoted to the National Guard's official NASCAR driver and renowned racing hero.
This guy has a trademark sign after his name. As soon as I saw his name, I hated him. I will never have a favorable opinion of anyone who trademarks his name. Now, I'm informed, he's taken up a partnership with the National Guard. ("Hendrick Motor Sports is proud to announce its newest winning partnership - the Army National Guard and Casey Mears™.") Inside the brochure, there's a picture of three National Guard soldiers gathered around Casey Mears™, standing in front of his car. Casey™, in full racing regalia, carrying his helmet, is beaming radiantly, and the three soldiers are gazing sycophantically into his magical aura while simultaneously putting up their smarmiest front for the beneficent and infallible National Guard. All the writing in the brochure gives the impression that if I don't think Casey Mears™ is a god among men, then I'm tragically deprived and I should immediately remedy the situation by enlisting in the Guard and joining this loving and devoted fan club.
-The National Guard thinks this will get me to join in? I guess that tells me what they think about teenagers: they're obsessed with sports and famous people, and they'll join a fan club at a moment's notice without regard for other responsibilities entailed, as long as their sportsperson of choice is sure to notice them and be their friend. I was never going to enlist in the Guard anyhow, but if there had been any chance beforehand that I might, this brochure would have immediately let me know never to even consider it. Amazing that in just one brochure, while trying to do the exact opposite, the Guard has made me hate them with such a passion. I suppose that's an accomplishment in itself.
-Sorry. I just noticed that brochure on the floor and realized I had to get this off my chest. Thank you for paying attention during my rant; I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. Sometime later, possibly today or tomorrow, I'll write about graduation and such.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
That's all
Before I start here, I would like you all to note - shoot, I'm going to write this later. Pfffft. I'm taking a walk.
I wrote that a couple days ago. I seriously needed a break from the internet. I think I'm ready to write now, right now. What I wanted you to note was that this is my one-hundredth post. Even were it not, it would be a significant milestone.
-Today, class, we're going to talk about my graduation party. There were two parts to it. The first part was a krokay party. I invited my friends Tara, Matt, Keith, and Aaron. I sent instructions to meet at an obscure turnout off a road in Winton Woods. I showed up a while ahead of time and hiked into the woods to set up the course - a twelve-wicket course this time, instead of a regular nine-wicket course. Here are handy diagrams, for no especially good reason:
Dots are stakes. Little lines are wickets. The captions are the names of the various wickets and stakes. Arrows indicate direction of travel. Duh. The "POISON" at the end means that now, you've finished the course, and you're poison, as will be described forthwith.
When I came back to the turnout at noon, I found Tara wandering around in a dry creekbed. She said she'd gotten there really early and seen me plunge into the woods, but hadn't gotten out of her car quick enough to catch up to me before I disappeared, so she'd just kind of wandered aimlessly around the creekbed for a while. I walked up to the turnout; she elected to stay behind and wander a while longer. No one showed up for about fifteen minutes, so I walked down and asked to borrow Tara's cell phone. I called Matt, Aaron, and Keith: Matt was on his way; Aaron had completely forgotten; Keith had completely forgotten and was, additionally, at work. I walked back up and found Matt arriving, so we had a three-person game, in anticipation of a four-person game later, upon Aaron calling back, which he said he would do.
-The course was truly something spectacular. This course is situated at the top of a lovely hill deep in the forest about 150 yards from a trail. The hilltop is flat and strewn with a luxurious collection of fallen trees, standing trees, divots, bumps, stumps, and sticks. It's all covered with a light, unintrusive layer of dead leaves to set the mood. We each picked out a ball and put it through the starting wicket to begin. And then we took off. Tara gained an early lead when she made it through both starting wickets in one shot, which Matt and I failed at; as such, she was able to knock her ball halfway to the first right wicket in her first turn. We soon caught up, though, and all proceeded to get lost in the complex structure of sticks and logs in which I had placed that wicket. We moved on, some of us faster than others, to the first center wicket, for which you have to hit your ball under a log. This shouldn't've been too challenging, but Matt had difficulty. The next wicket, the second right wicket, wasn't too challenging, nestled against a long log. I like the second center wicket: it's right between a big tree and a little tree, and there's almost a little pathway leading to it. The third right wicket was difficult simply because it was tough to find where it was. I realized too late that I'd been hitting my ball in a totally wrong direction. Near this wicket, there was a fallen tree that, if you looked at it from the right angle, looked eerily like a giant moray eel in full ambush posture. No lives were lost, however, as we moved on to the turn wickets. I had thoughtfully left the turn stake directly in front of a dark, forbidding hole in the base of a tall tree, but nobody managed to get their ball into it, which frankly is a shame, because it would have been pretty funny to watch someone try to get their ball out of a tree using the end of their mallet. Around this time Aaron called and asked for directions. We pointed him to the turnout. The leaders at the time - I think they were Matt and me - pushed forward to the first left wicket, while Tara stayed behind, not having gotten past the turn stake. Aaron called a few more times. When he called us for the final time, he was already in deep woods, and told us he was going to find us by echolocation. So he yelled, and then I did. Amazingly, we only had to do this about three times before he came brushing through the undergrowth from a completely different angle than I expected. He couldn't join in the game, but he did start refereeing for us. We came back through the second center wicket, and found the second left wicket underneath a folded tree, and then came back through the first center wicket. When we play here, I like to perch the third left on the edge of the flat part of the hill, so that if you miss it, your ball will roll all the way down and you'll have to spend several turns knocking it back up to the top. I approached it first, and managed to get through it unscathed. While I headed off to the exit wickets with sinister ambitions of becoming poison, Tara fell down the hill. Matt didn't, and came hot on my heels, but I drove through the exit wickets, finishing the course and becoming a poison free agent. Matt was nearby, so I immediately hit his ball and knocked him out of the game. He was less than pleased, but accepted it as a tragic turn of fate. Aaron provided a running commentary as I looked for Tara, who was still coming back up the hill. Things took a turn for the ugly when she slipped back down and I followed her. Suddenly, she had poison prospects. It was a race back up to the top. If she made it to the exit wickets, we would have a double poison game that could potentially go anywhere in the park. She made it uphill just a turn before me, but before she could get to the finish line, I stopped her and won the game by knocking her out.
-Unfortunately, we had heard thunder, so we had to go without a second game, which left Aaron feeling sleighted by nature. We headed back to my house for phase two of the party. This was a traditional "party" party. Most of you reading this blog were there, so I don't need to elaborate much. Karl was over laboriously making enough food to feed a reasonably sized army, except that Karl's food would make an army man, accustomed to MREs, weep with pleasure. Ribs, chicken, grilled corn on the cob, all in almost obscene quantities. We still have plenty of leftovers in the freezer; we won't need to go out to eat for a while. I just want to note that, over the course of the day, we had this many people:
Mom Dad Micah Me Matt Aaron Tara Kristen Rosie Bryce Grandma Grandpa Dave Sierra Hayden Jazmin Dan Tracy Mike Tami Jackie Nana Papaw Martha Jeff Tawnya Kyle Karl Lt.-Taylor James James Arianna. I think there may be a few more that I'm missing. That there is 32.
-In addition to several hilarious or sentimental cards (Dan, Rosie, Dave, Grandma and Grandpa) I got gifts. Martha gave me a handy MiniMaglite. Mike and Tami gave me a Grinnell hoodie. Jeff and Tawnya gave me a Wal*Mart gift card. Dave gave me some money. Grandma and Grandpa gave me a handwritten coupon good for one free computer, which I really need to get around to deciding what computer I want to get. I'll do that by Friday, Grandma and Grandpa. And Nana and Papaw gave me a spectacular quilt that Nana sewed for me out of a bunch of different plaids. I love plaids. The quilt is flannel and it'll be really warm and great on cold Iowa nights.
-And finally, I played a bunch of games of krokay in our backyard, which, though not quite as extreme as the hilltop earlier, was fairly extreme, because it's a hill. Aaron got to play, and I've also gotten Bryce hooked on the fine sport that is krokay. I won a game, Dan won two, and I don't remember who won the fourth. People gradually left. Finally, it was just Matt and Bryce left. We watched some comedians, and then they left too, and we the residents, too lethargic from all the food to do much cleaning, mostly sat around or went to bed. It was pretty much the best party ever.
-I should have written about graduation here, before writing about the party, but I didn't, and now I'm not going to, so I'll save it for another post. I'll also post some pictures of stuff that happened. Now, I'm-a go to bed.
I wrote that a couple days ago. I seriously needed a break from the internet. I think I'm ready to write now, right now. What I wanted you to note was that this is my one-hundredth post. Even were it not, it would be a significant milestone.
-Today, class, we're going to talk about my graduation party. There were two parts to it. The first part was a krokay party. I invited my friends Tara, Matt, Keith, and Aaron. I sent instructions to meet at an obscure turnout off a road in Winton Woods. I showed up a while ahead of time and hiked into the woods to set up the course - a twelve-wicket course this time, instead of a regular nine-wicket course. Here are handy diagrams, for no especially good reason:
Dots are stakes. Little lines are wickets. The captions are the names of the various wickets and stakes. Arrows indicate direction of travel. Duh. The "POISON" at the end means that now, you've finished the course, and you're poison, as will be described forthwith.When I came back to the turnout at noon, I found Tara wandering around in a dry creekbed. She said she'd gotten there really early and seen me plunge into the woods, but hadn't gotten out of her car quick enough to catch up to me before I disappeared, so she'd just kind of wandered aimlessly around the creekbed for a while. I walked up to the turnout; she elected to stay behind and wander a while longer. No one showed up for about fifteen minutes, so I walked down and asked to borrow Tara's cell phone. I called Matt, Aaron, and Keith: Matt was on his way; Aaron had completely forgotten; Keith had completely forgotten and was, additionally, at work. I walked back up and found Matt arriving, so we had a three-person game, in anticipation of a four-person game later, upon Aaron calling back, which he said he would do.
-The course was truly something spectacular. This course is situated at the top of a lovely hill deep in the forest about 150 yards from a trail. The hilltop is flat and strewn with a luxurious collection of fallen trees, standing trees, divots, bumps, stumps, and sticks. It's all covered with a light, unintrusive layer of dead leaves to set the mood. We each picked out a ball and put it through the starting wicket to begin. And then we took off. Tara gained an early lead when she made it through both starting wickets in one shot, which Matt and I failed at; as such, she was able to knock her ball halfway to the first right wicket in her first turn. We soon caught up, though, and all proceeded to get lost in the complex structure of sticks and logs in which I had placed that wicket. We moved on, some of us faster than others, to the first center wicket, for which you have to hit your ball under a log. This shouldn't've been too challenging, but Matt had difficulty. The next wicket, the second right wicket, wasn't too challenging, nestled against a long log. I like the second center wicket: it's right between a big tree and a little tree, and there's almost a little pathway leading to it. The third right wicket was difficult simply because it was tough to find where it was. I realized too late that I'd been hitting my ball in a totally wrong direction. Near this wicket, there was a fallen tree that, if you looked at it from the right angle, looked eerily like a giant moray eel in full ambush posture. No lives were lost, however, as we moved on to the turn wickets. I had thoughtfully left the turn stake directly in front of a dark, forbidding hole in the base of a tall tree, but nobody managed to get their ball into it, which frankly is a shame, because it would have been pretty funny to watch someone try to get their ball out of a tree using the end of their mallet. Around this time Aaron called and asked for directions. We pointed him to the turnout. The leaders at the time - I think they were Matt and me - pushed forward to the first left wicket, while Tara stayed behind, not having gotten past the turn stake. Aaron called a few more times. When he called us for the final time, he was already in deep woods, and told us he was going to find us by echolocation. So he yelled, and then I did. Amazingly, we only had to do this about three times before he came brushing through the undergrowth from a completely different angle than I expected. He couldn't join in the game, but he did start refereeing for us. We came back through the second center wicket, and found the second left wicket underneath a folded tree, and then came back through the first center wicket. When we play here, I like to perch the third left on the edge of the flat part of the hill, so that if you miss it, your ball will roll all the way down and you'll have to spend several turns knocking it back up to the top. I approached it first, and managed to get through it unscathed. While I headed off to the exit wickets with sinister ambitions of becoming poison, Tara fell down the hill. Matt didn't, and came hot on my heels, but I drove through the exit wickets, finishing the course and becoming a poison free agent. Matt was nearby, so I immediately hit his ball and knocked him out of the game. He was less than pleased, but accepted it as a tragic turn of fate. Aaron provided a running commentary as I looked for Tara, who was still coming back up the hill. Things took a turn for the ugly when she slipped back down and I followed her. Suddenly, she had poison prospects. It was a race back up to the top. If she made it to the exit wickets, we would have a double poison game that could potentially go anywhere in the park. She made it uphill just a turn before me, but before she could get to the finish line, I stopped her and won the game by knocking her out.
-Unfortunately, we had heard thunder, so we had to go without a second game, which left Aaron feeling sleighted by nature. We headed back to my house for phase two of the party. This was a traditional "party" party. Most of you reading this blog were there, so I don't need to elaborate much. Karl was over laboriously making enough food to feed a reasonably sized army, except that Karl's food would make an army man, accustomed to MREs, weep with pleasure. Ribs, chicken, grilled corn on the cob, all in almost obscene quantities. We still have plenty of leftovers in the freezer; we won't need to go out to eat for a while. I just want to note that, over the course of the day, we had this many people:
Mom Dad Micah Me Matt Aaron Tara Kristen Rosie Bryce Grandma Grandpa Dave Sierra Hayden Jazmin Dan Tracy Mike Tami Jackie Nana Papaw Martha Jeff Tawnya Kyle Karl Lt.-Taylor James James Arianna. I think there may be a few more that I'm missing. That there is 32.
-In addition to several hilarious or sentimental cards (Dan, Rosie, Dave, Grandma and Grandpa) I got gifts. Martha gave me a handy MiniMaglite. Mike and Tami gave me a Grinnell hoodie. Jeff and Tawnya gave me a Wal*Mart gift card. Dave gave me some money. Grandma and Grandpa gave me a handwritten coupon good for one free computer, which I really need to get around to deciding what computer I want to get. I'll do that by Friday, Grandma and Grandpa. And Nana and Papaw gave me a spectacular quilt that Nana sewed for me out of a bunch of different plaids. I love plaids. The quilt is flannel and it'll be really warm and great on cold Iowa nights.
-And finally, I played a bunch of games of krokay in our backyard, which, though not quite as extreme as the hilltop earlier, was fairly extreme, because it's a hill. Aaron got to play, and I've also gotten Bryce hooked on the fine sport that is krokay. I won a game, Dan won two, and I don't remember who won the fourth. People gradually left. Finally, it was just Matt and Bryce left. We watched some comedians, and then they left too, and we the residents, too lethargic from all the food to do much cleaning, mostly sat around or went to bed. It was pretty much the best party ever.
-I should have written about graduation here, before writing about the party, but I didn't, and now I'm not going to, so I'll save it for another post. I'll also post some pictures of stuff that happened. Now, I'm-a go to bed.
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