Elmer: "Oh no! The staple came out of my Taylor Swift songbook!"
Sally: "Just re-staple it."
Elmer: "I can't just RE-staple it. Do you know how hard it would be to get it exactly centered?!"
Sally: "Good point...I know! You could get a new one!" :D
Elmer: -_- "No. This one's special."
Sally: "Okay I'll go get my compass..."
Monday, October 29, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
*A SNOWBALL FIGHT*
Book club was canceled today, so I kind of just waited around the school with the gang until they stopped messing around and got in their cars and went home. Then I saw Lafflin (who draws the pictures who I am creepy to) walking with a few friends, talking and laughing.
I walked a little behind them, and watched.
Lafflin hung a little behind the small group for a second, reached down and scooped up some snow. I smiled. I knew what was coming.
He held it in his hands, patting it, compacting it, making it perfect, tripping over himself as he tried to keep up with his small little legs. Then, he swug back a little, sideways, and tossed it perfectly through the air. His friend turned and moved the back of his head, just a little, just a tad, and the snowball went cutting through the air and exploding to a stop in the rode. Lafflin's friend turned and looked at him, but said nothing else.
So he made another one, just as perfect, as the other boys left, until it was just Lafflin and his friend. The air was cold but the sun was warm, and the trees were drooling onto them as they fought. The sky was a perfect wool gray blanket, the trees black skeletons, the snow soft and white, with the yellow of autumn peeping under them. It was such a perfect shot, if I had my camera, to watch them play like that. Spinning, bending, scraping up melting snow, pffffft, pfffft....pfffft. They laughed half-way broken laughs, laughs of an unforgotten childhood, running sideways in the sun.
I stopped at the stop sign I usually wait at when I saw Jake.
"Jake!" I said.
He was walking his slow Jake walk, holding a poster board from History. "Shady...!" he said.
"Jake!" I tend to be more enthusiastic than Jake is. "Come with me and throw snowballs at Lafflin and his friend!!"
"...I have a poster board..." he said.
"Oh come on," I said.
We walked for a couple blocks or so, just talking, and then I ran a little ahead, and then he started running, and then we raced - the first race I've had in a long, long time - until we finally caught up with the two kids.
Lafflin saw me coming, as the fight was heating up with his friend. His smile and easy, doe-eyed gaze caught me, and his braces made a rare occurrence as he opened his mouth, panting in the polluted, frosty air. I reached down and took up a snowball, and Jake consented to do the same.
Lafflin's a shy kid. I don't talk much either. He doesn't really try to avoid me, but I yell hi whenever I see him, and he smiles back. Not in a forced, polite way. In a raw way. Like he can't help himself.
Today was what made it official.
I threw.
He dodged.
I missed.
Lafflin threw.
I dodged.
He missed.
I threw again, and got him on the shoulder, and then Jake threw an easy one at Lafflin's buddy, and then, just then, the four of us were an unspoken friendship in the afternoon autumn air. We made our way down the quiet, abandoned rows of houses, laughing and choking, the snow biting into us, down our collars, cutting into the ground, soft pats of frozen butter softly spreading the silence out with little snowball sounds.
Lafflin threw again, and this time I misjudged it, and he got me in the hood. I turned back, looking for more snow, as all I heard behind me was an unsure laughter as the kid pumped his fists into the sky and quietly shouted, "Ten points for Gryffindor!!"
I almost said something. Then I just stopped and turned back around and laughed, and thought about it, and laughed some more.
Footsteps, shuffling across the rode: two quick and soft paddings, two slow and solid footfalls.
Out-of-breath, hustling across the wet roads, dirt on our knees and sun on our faces.
One was a cartoonist.
One was a writer.
One played football.
One played lacrosse.
Something about the snow, maybe. Something about the accidental and yet purposeful companionship made with no words. Something about the air we were breathing, the numb fingers, the gray-blanket sky. But whatever it was, when I had to run back, I felt like screaming, and fist-pumping on the top of a mountain.
Five minutes of victory.
Victory over the bad.
Victory over the stuff that makes you want to die.
Victory over test scores, and future, and death, and longing, and over-dosing on gummy vitamins and wishing you could understand Shakespeare.
Victory over thinking too much.
Victory over the big things, the bad things, the hurt and the pain and the putting a razor blade in your pocket that morning 'just in case.'
I remembered as I turned the corner. The other guys were far behind me. I reached in and pulled it out and laughed. I laughed loud.
I ran up to some muddy bark dust and dropped to my knees. I found a stick and dug a few inches, and placed the blade cleanly in the dirt hole, and covered it over. A truck drove up as I made one last perfect snowball and set it on top of the little grave.
A little grave of the bad, for the victory of a five-minute snowball fight.
I walked a little behind them, and watched.
Lafflin hung a little behind the small group for a second, reached down and scooped up some snow. I smiled. I knew what was coming.
He held it in his hands, patting it, compacting it, making it perfect, tripping over himself as he tried to keep up with his small little legs. Then, he swug back a little, sideways, and tossed it perfectly through the air. His friend turned and moved the back of his head, just a little, just a tad, and the snowball went cutting through the air and exploding to a stop in the rode. Lafflin's friend turned and looked at him, but said nothing else.
So he made another one, just as perfect, as the other boys left, until it was just Lafflin and his friend. The air was cold but the sun was warm, and the trees were drooling onto them as they fought. The sky was a perfect wool gray blanket, the trees black skeletons, the snow soft and white, with the yellow of autumn peeping under them. It was such a perfect shot, if I had my camera, to watch them play like that. Spinning, bending, scraping up melting snow, pffffft, pfffft....pfffft. They laughed half-way broken laughs, laughs of an unforgotten childhood, running sideways in the sun.
I stopped at the stop sign I usually wait at when I saw Jake.
"Jake!" I said.
He was walking his slow Jake walk, holding a poster board from History. "Shady...!" he said.
"Jake!" I tend to be more enthusiastic than Jake is. "Come with me and throw snowballs at Lafflin and his friend!!"
"...I have a poster board..." he said.
"Oh come on," I said.
We walked for a couple blocks or so, just talking, and then I ran a little ahead, and then he started running, and then we raced - the first race I've had in a long, long time - until we finally caught up with the two kids.
Lafflin saw me coming, as the fight was heating up with his friend. His smile and easy, doe-eyed gaze caught me, and his braces made a rare occurrence as he opened his mouth, panting in the polluted, frosty air. I reached down and took up a snowball, and Jake consented to do the same.
Lafflin's a shy kid. I don't talk much either. He doesn't really try to avoid me, but I yell hi whenever I see him, and he smiles back. Not in a forced, polite way. In a raw way. Like he can't help himself.
Today was what made it official.
I threw.
He dodged.
I missed.
Lafflin threw.
I dodged.
He missed.
I threw again, and got him on the shoulder, and then Jake threw an easy one at Lafflin's buddy, and then, just then, the four of us were an unspoken friendship in the afternoon autumn air. We made our way down the quiet, abandoned rows of houses, laughing and choking, the snow biting into us, down our collars, cutting into the ground, soft pats of frozen butter softly spreading the silence out with little snowball sounds.
Lafflin threw again, and this time I misjudged it, and he got me in the hood. I turned back, looking for more snow, as all I heard behind me was an unsure laughter as the kid pumped his fists into the sky and quietly shouted, "Ten points for Gryffindor!!"
I almost said something. Then I just stopped and turned back around and laughed, and thought about it, and laughed some more.
Footsteps, shuffling across the rode: two quick and soft paddings, two slow and solid footfalls.
Out-of-breath, hustling across the wet roads, dirt on our knees and sun on our faces.
One was a cartoonist.
One was a writer.
One played football.
One played lacrosse.
Something about the snow, maybe. Something about the accidental and yet purposeful companionship made with no words. Something about the air we were breathing, the numb fingers, the gray-blanket sky. But whatever it was, when I had to run back, I felt like screaming, and fist-pumping on the top of a mountain.
Five minutes of victory.
Victory over the bad.
Victory over the stuff that makes you want to die.
Victory over test scores, and future, and death, and longing, and over-dosing on gummy vitamins and wishing you could understand Shakespeare.
Victory over thinking too much.
Victory over the big things, the bad things, the hurt and the pain and the putting a razor blade in your pocket that morning 'just in case.'
I remembered as I turned the corner. The other guys were far behind me. I reached in and pulled it out and laughed. I laughed loud.
I ran up to some muddy bark dust and dropped to my knees. I found a stick and dug a few inches, and placed the blade cleanly in the dirt hole, and covered it over. A truck drove up as I made one last perfect snowball and set it on top of the little grave.
A little grave of the bad, for the victory of a five-minute snowball fight.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
If you touch him, you die.
Did I tell you about my comic board at school?
No?
Well I have a comic board at school.
I've had it since last year. It moved downstairs when I did.
So anyways, Mr. Wood told me there was this sevie that wanted to draw for it every week like I had done last year, which nobody else had been doing so far, and I was all, "okay!" And then the kid showed up and suddenly it was like I had never met a cooler person in my life.
Mr. Wood brought him up to me at my locker during passing period. He's like so small and has brown eyes and dark blonde hair, and it grows down over his eyes and is kind of messy, not because it looks cool but because he doesn't have the time to worry about it. He stood as if he wasn't sure whether or not he was there, or wanted to be, and was kind of shy and had a pencil in his hand. And he really wanted to draw for my Board.
I was so excited.
It was like a Martian seeing a Martian for the very first time, and suddenly realizing it wasn't alone on this earth full of non-cartoonist humans.
Not many kids answer when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, 'cartoonist.' So I was considerably happy. In a fangirly sort of way.
The next day Ms. Comma gave me a pass to go to her class the period he was in it.
I walked in and came up behind him. He was reading Calvin and Hobbes. (egads!!)
Then he turned around and looked up and Ms. Comma told him to go out and talk to me for a second.
"Were you expecting this?" I asked worriedly. I understood how scary I was. I didn't want to freak anybody out.
He stood his ground in a strange way, quiet and dignified and I guess just chill.
"No," he said with a small smile.
"Oh haha I'm sorry," I said. "So um...about the comic board."
"Yeah?"
"Have you drawn anything for it yet?"
"Um yeah, I have."
"Oh! Awesome! Do you um, do you have it with you?"
"Yeah in my locker."
"Oh! Do you- c- can I see it?"
"Sure."
He walked me down to his locker.
It was really messy, as I had expected, and took a while for him to find it.
When he came back with the paper and handed it to me I smiled. It was a pencil drawing of an angry Pacman yelling at a ghost that had a fork and a knife in its hands and a napkin around its neck, and Pacman was saying "No You will not eat me!", and the ghost was making a :o face and saying "Okay." He had the bestest freaking handwriting ever.
I asked him if he ever colored them, and he said he didn't, and seemed a little embarrassed. I told him, a little too enthusiastically, that that was okay and we were really glad to have his comics on our board. Then I told him I should probably get back to class and he said he did too and I didn't walk him back to class even though I really thought I should because he is so tiny and just little and somebody could have hurt him. He could have fell down.
The next day, Mr. Wood called me up to his class and gave his drawing to me, this time cut out into a strip and colored. I went downstairs and hung it up with four complete staples.
If it was ripped off, somebody was gonna die. -,-
Soo...I guess I'm writing this so that I don't post something on facebook like "there is a cute little tiny sevie child who is drawing for the comic board now and if you touch him you die", because that would be hard to explain.
As it is now...
Well anyways, he is my hero because he reads Calvin and Hobbes, his hair is messy, his locker is messy, and his lines are straight. Also he is a beautiful person and I love him. And if you hurt him, I will find you and kill you and no one will ever remember you. And also we will dance on your grave.
No?
Well I have a comic board at school.
I've had it since last year. It moved downstairs when I did.
So anyways, Mr. Wood told me there was this sevie that wanted to draw for it every week like I had done last year, which nobody else had been doing so far, and I was all, "okay!" And then the kid showed up and suddenly it was like I had never met a cooler person in my life.
Mr. Wood brought him up to me at my locker during passing period. He's like so small and has brown eyes and dark blonde hair, and it grows down over his eyes and is kind of messy, not because it looks cool but because he doesn't have the time to worry about it. He stood as if he wasn't sure whether or not he was there, or wanted to be, and was kind of shy and had a pencil in his hand. And he really wanted to draw for my Board.
I was so excited.
It was like a Martian seeing a Martian for the very first time, and suddenly realizing it wasn't alone on this earth full of non-cartoonist humans.
Not many kids answer when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, 'cartoonist.' So I was considerably happy. In a fangirly sort of way.
The next day Ms. Comma gave me a pass to go to her class the period he was in it.
I walked in and came up behind him. He was reading Calvin and Hobbes. (egads!!)
Then he turned around and looked up and Ms. Comma told him to go out and talk to me for a second.
"Were you expecting this?" I asked worriedly. I understood how scary I was. I didn't want to freak anybody out.
He stood his ground in a strange way, quiet and dignified and I guess just chill.
"No," he said with a small smile.
"Oh haha I'm sorry," I said. "So um...about the comic board."
"Yeah?"
"Have you drawn anything for it yet?"
"Um yeah, I have."
"Oh! Awesome! Do you um, do you have it with you?"
"Yeah in my locker."
"Oh! Do you- c- can I see it?"
"Sure."
He walked me down to his locker.
It was really messy, as I had expected, and took a while for him to find it.
When he came back with the paper and handed it to me I smiled. It was a pencil drawing of an angry Pacman yelling at a ghost that had a fork and a knife in its hands and a napkin around its neck, and Pacman was saying "No You will not eat me!", and the ghost was making a :o face and saying "Okay." He had the bestest freaking handwriting ever.
I asked him if he ever colored them, and he said he didn't, and seemed a little embarrassed. I told him, a little too enthusiastically, that that was okay and we were really glad to have his comics on our board. Then I told him I should probably get back to class and he said he did too and I didn't walk him back to class even though I really thought I should because he is so tiny and just little and somebody could have hurt him. He could have fell down.
The next day, Mr. Wood called me up to his class and gave his drawing to me, this time cut out into a strip and colored. I went downstairs and hung it up with four complete staples.
If it was ripped off, somebody was gonna die. -,-
Soo...I guess I'm writing this so that I don't post something on facebook like "there is a cute little tiny sevie child who is drawing for the comic board now and if you touch him you die", because that would be hard to explain.
As it is now...
Well anyways, he is my hero because he reads Calvin and Hobbes, his hair is messy, his locker is messy, and his lines are straight. Also he is a beautiful person and I love him. And if you hurt him, I will find you and kill you and no one will ever remember you. And also we will dance on your grave.
CARTOONISTS UNITE!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)