It's amazing what some people consider entertaining. I knew a guy that would bet on dog races and not the ones at the track. He had three dogs, all muts. One was half schnauzer-half beagle, another was half pointer-half lab and the last was half chihuawa-half shitzu. The little dog would never race, but instead would bark continuously as the other dogs raced. The two bigger dogs were the sources of entertainment. He would have people over to his basement frequently on the weekends. During those drunken nights he would call the dogs over and then blare his referee whistle. The dogs would twirl like mad at the first sound. Everyone in the room would crack up and make bets on which dog would stop first. Often the losing dog would spin into a piece of furniture or the wall. Their heads would smack hard, but they would just shake it off and get back to spinning. Besides a loss from interference the two dogs were pretty much equals. If the race lasted too long the owner would blow his whistle again and they'd stop. The crowd would quiet down and once again we'd hear that little dog yapping under a couch.
I dropped Missy off at the train station this morning. We got there early so that we could grab a cup of coffee and talk a while before she left for school. We were sitting in my car, sipping a couple lattes, and watching the people running past us in a frenzy. Their eyes would be bulging if they weren't swollen near shut from exhaustion. The women's cheeks were often flushed and the men needed to shave, both had dishevelled hair.
The commuters were running through the rain to catch an express train headed for Chicago. Missy told me that another train would arrive five minutes later, but, since it wasn't an express it would arrive at the Chicago station fifteen minutes after the first. I watched them pack into the train cars-- there were no seats available.
Missy said that the people still racing to the platform were probably once the kids that would always miss the bus. She said and kissed me good-bye and left the car. I pulled out of the parking space and onto the street. Off in the distance, the second train was slowly gliding down the rails toward the station.
As the engine whirred past me about three blocks from where I dropped Missy off, I saw a man running on the sidewalk that bordered the tracks. He was watching the large steel wheels passing him by. He was carrying a brief case and wore an expensive looking overcoat-- I figured him a lawyer. The train was quickly at the station loading up with passengers, Missy among them, and the man still had a couple blocks to go. There was no way he would make it in the couple minutes before the train set back off down the tracks. But he kept on running. Hope is a wonderful part of the human spirit, but I think that it should be subject to general reason.
I drove straight to work after that and didn't think about those poor frenzied commuters again. That is until I picked up Missy. She was unloaded with a score of extremely drained men and women in conservative, yet frazzled business attire.
Missy got into the car and I kissed her hello. I asked her how the commute was and she said that she discovered that wet people smell no different that wet dogs. We passed a man who was highly upset about having a ticket on the windshield of his car. I saw him tear the ticket and throw it to the ground. It was only fitting.
When asked who he would choose, if he had the pick of anyone in the world, to spend the rest of his life with, he replaied by asking if he could choose himself.
-JVS
Writing Rule #1: Avoid being direct as much as possible. For every point describe the situation and the key items of the periphery and leave the interpretation up to the reader. If you describe it well enough the reader will be able to grasp the message being indirectly transmitted. By directly stating the points you risk sounding preachy and contrived. Write as though you are circling a point and then leave a meandering line to the next point, and so on... Remember that deliberation is deplorable! God speed my good man, age 25 is approaching.*
It is the responsibility of the child not to take on the bad habits of the parent.
My father has an annoying tendency to introduce chaos to every tabletop in the house. The coffee, kitchen, dining room and end tables are all frequent victims of his disorderly wrath. My mother spends a great deal of her time at home cleaning up the disarray left in his wake. He would chide her that he left those miscellaneous piles so that he could come back and organize them later. Over 20 years at the house and he has yet to organize any of many piles in his garage.
His primary means of creating a jumble in the home is what the siblings call the "nuts and bolts" method. He has about 20 or so peanutbutter jars, that have been cleansed and filled with nuts and bolts- he keeps them in the garage. Every so often, especially if my mother just finished making the house presentable, he develops an urge to find one particular nut or bolt of indeterminant size within his many jars. He is never precisely sure what it looks like but assures us that he'll know it when he sees it. He may not need the item for any particular reason-- most often he just wants to ensure that he still has it.
My mother will watch in pity as he brings the jars into the kitchen, lining them up in a neat row along the perimeter of his "work" area. Then once all the jars are present, he'll unscrew them one by one and dump the contents onto the tabletop. The falling nuts and bolts sound like the rapid firing of a machine gun until no more table space is uncovered. He would sift through the items from each jar and if the nut or bolt is not found he moves on to the next jar.
If the mess consumed the entire tabletop he would move to the diningroom, then to the coffee table and finally the end table. During dinner the nuts and bolts took priority and we would often use our laps as our personal tables. If we would bump the table accidentally spilling some valuable nut or bolt to the floor, he would condemn us and go about "reorganizing" his mess.
Once he would finally fing that elusive nut or bolt, he may put it to use in some nick-nack or other trivial trinket that would never be of use. Sometimes he wouldn't remember the reason for the search and he'd drop it back in the jar and go watch the news, Jeopardy or Jenny Jones, leaving the clean up to his wife an children.
* I was 24 then. I promised myself that I'd have a novel written by 25. I'm almost 26 now, and no novel, just a collection of sprawling notes and ideas.
I dropped Missy off at the train station this morning. We got there early so that we could grab a cup of coffee and talk a while before she left for school. We were sitting in my car, sipping a couple lattes, and watching the people running past us in a frenzy. Their eyes would be bulging if they weren't swollen near shut from exhaustion. The women's cheeks were often flushed and the men needed to shave, both had dishevelled hair.
The commuters were running through the rain to catch an express train headed for Chicago. Missy told me that another train would arrive five minutes later, but, since it wasn't an express it would arrive at the Chicago station fifteen minutes after the first. I watched them pack into the train cars-- there were no seats available.
Missy said that the people still racing to the platform were probably once the kids that would always miss the bus. She said and kissed me good-bye and left the car. I pulled out of the parking space and onto the street. Off in the distance, the second train was slowly gliding down the rails toward the station.
As the engine whirred past me about three blocks from where I dropped Missy off, I saw a man running on the sidewalk that bordered the tracks. He was watching the large steel wheels passing him by. He was carrying a brief case and wore an expensive looking overcoat-- I figured him a lawyer. The train was quickly at the station loading up with passengers, Missy among them, and the man still had a couple blocks to go. There was no way he would make it in the couple minutes before the train set back off down the tracks. But he kept on running. Hope is a wonderful part of the human spirit, but I think that it should be subject to general reason.
I drove straight to work after that and didn't think about those poor frenzied commuters again. That is until I picked up Missy. She was unloaded with a score of extremely drained men and women in conservative, yet frazzled business attire.
Missy got into the car and I kissed her hello. I asked her how the commute was and she said that she discovered that wet people smell no different that wet dogs. We passed a man who was highly upset about having a ticket on the windshield of his car. I saw him tear the ticket and throw it to the ground. It was only fitting.
When asked who he would choose, if he had the pick of anyone in the world, to spend the rest of his life with, he replaied by asking if he could choose himself.
-JVS
Writing Rule #1: Avoid being direct as much as possible. For every point describe the situation and the key items of the periphery and leave the interpretation up to the reader. If you describe it well enough the reader will be able to grasp the message being indirectly transmitted. By directly stating the points you risk sounding preachy and contrived. Write as though you are circling a point and then leave a meandering line to the next point, and so on... Remember that deliberation is deplorable! God speed my good man, age 25 is approaching.*
It is the responsibility of the child not to take on the bad habits of the parent.
My father has an annoying tendency to introduce chaos to every tabletop in the house. The coffee, kitchen, dining room and end tables are all frequent victims of his disorderly wrath. My mother spends a great deal of her time at home cleaning up the disarray left in his wake. He would chide her that he left those miscellaneous piles so that he could come back and organize them later. Over 20 years at the house and he has yet to organize any of many piles in his garage.
His primary means of creating a jumble in the home is what the siblings call the "nuts and bolts" method. He has about 20 or so peanutbutter jars, that have been cleansed and filled with nuts and bolts- he keeps them in the garage. Every so often, especially if my mother just finished making the house presentable, he develops an urge to find one particular nut or bolt of indeterminant size within his many jars. He is never precisely sure what it looks like but assures us that he'll know it when he sees it. He may not need the item for any particular reason-- most often he just wants to ensure that he still has it.
My mother will watch in pity as he brings the jars into the kitchen, lining them up in a neat row along the perimeter of his "work" area. Then once all the jars are present, he'll unscrew them one by one and dump the contents onto the tabletop. The falling nuts and bolts sound like the rapid firing of a machine gun until no more table space is uncovered. He would sift through the items from each jar and if the nut or bolt is not found he moves on to the next jar.
If the mess consumed the entire tabletop he would move to the diningroom, then to the coffee table and finally the end table. During dinner the nuts and bolts took priority and we would often use our laps as our personal tables. If we would bump the table accidentally spilling some valuable nut or bolt to the floor, he would condemn us and go about "reorganizing" his mess.
Once he would finally fing that elusive nut or bolt, he may put it to use in some nick-nack or other trivial trinket that would never be of use. Sometimes he wouldn't remember the reason for the search and he'd drop it back in the jar and go watch the news, Jeopardy or Jenny Jones, leaving the clean up to his wife an children.
* I was 24 then. I promised myself that I'd have a novel written by 25. I'm almost 26 now, and no novel, just a collection of sprawling notes and ideas.
posted by T.S. Idiot at 3:14 PM
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