oops

I don't think I have ever once spelled right what I had meant to spell right while writing in permanent marker.

But then again, I kind of like it. Skethbook. I think I'll add it to my favorite words list.

If I'd forgotten the K too it'd be Sethbook. And Seth is a pretty name, don't you think, Elmer? Yeah. Haha. Sketh.

Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to handle permanent markers.

Maybe I'd spell everyone's name wrong. Lafflin always said that spelling someone's name wrong is like spelling their soul wrong, like you can't understand who they are, or care enough to try. Nobody likes when parents name their kids with those stupid, exactly-how-you-wouldn't-spell-it-or-pronounce-it names.

But I don't know.

Maybe he's got a point.

Then again, maybe the doctor just screwed up Lafflin's birth certificate. Added an extra letter on accident or something. And his parents felt bad, so they told him it they meant to give him a dumb name. Names don't define lives though, not until lives define names.

I'd like to think there's a lot more accidents going on than one might assume. That maybe what was supposed to happen wasn't supposed to happen at all, that maybe time isn't meant to be faltered and skewed by our perception of "supposed to".

Maybe we're all just stuff spelled wrong in permanent marker.

And maybe it's okay that it doesn't erase.

photographs of lonely

I think he's dead

There's some shady junk on my camera, let me tell you.

Tire Swings (part two) - Last Day of Summer

I have a cold.

Thanks to sunshine and festivities and pizza and promises and laughter and secrets and the nudgey-winky kid in Biology who totally got me sick.

Winking is contagious.

Watch out, boys.

But I walked to the park today because there was this gathering thing. And I'm really bad at gathering things because I always either accidentally join the wrong gathering or leave to purposely join another gathering or lie on the concrete laughing and crying and wondering aloud why I am there.

And today I ended up at the playground. By the tire swings.

There are two tire swings.

One of them was occupied by three little mexican boys with spiked hair and snapbacks, and the other was occupied by three little black boys in button-up polos and sketchers. And so I asked them if they wanted me to push them (because this is the kind of park where there aren't any parents anywhere) and the one set of boys very politely said "Well I oughta ask my brother first, and Cody doesn't wanna go too fast, hold on a second..." and the other boys fist-pumped a "YEAH!!!" and made me spin them faster and faster and faster until I was just running back and forth between these two tire swings trying to spin them as fast as I could for as long as I could. Only I'm kind of not very strong and also really sick and after a while I was panting and coughing and tripping and just felt like such an awful disappointment to them and everyone else in my life that I lied down in the bark dust and stayed there.

They asked me if I was going to push them anymore and I said no.

Then they asked me if I wanted some cake and I said I should probably go home.