whiteboards get harder to erase, over time.

Senior week at Vassar, culminating in a fabulous graduation ceremony I didn't see. Here's the quick rundown, for those who weren't there and for me, later in life when I look back (from my yacht) and read over my youthful foolishness:

The week was scattered; there was no set place or group of people that was Home. One night was in Kingston, one was in the main suite, a few in the THs, a few in the TAs. One splendid afternoon was palooza'd away at Chuck E Cheese's, where a kid can be a kid and a wandering twenty-something can steal pizza, break the whack-a-mole machine, and climb inside the soccer game questing after wayward sandals. They sell beer there. We didn't buy any. I must have been ill in the mind.

I went to the bonfire, in a semi-impromptu disguise of a wig and empty-frame glasses. While there, I also discovered that cardboard serves as remarkable heat protection. Strap a tiny piece to your forearm and hold it up in front of your face like a 300 extra, and you can get within a few steps of a raging Vassar bonfire. I had no idea. It really works; powerful voodoo. Powerful voodoo a smart man would not have attempted while trying to keep a low profile. Oh well. Fuck em.

Life really does improve if you leave your laptop at home for a few days and just go find something to do. The computer is a vicious virtual novelty pit, and I'm seriously considering a shock collar for myself, to be activated every time I sit down in front of it. The part of senior week when I didn't have the computer turned out a lot more memorable than the first part. Forcing the issue of "and now we find something else to do" is incredibly important, as I'm sure we all know.

And now it's over, and people have moved on. Some will be seen again, others will not. All will spread through the world and find places to go and things to do. And I shall try to keep in touch. There are now more couches to be crashed on throughout the country. And now there's a horrible noise coming from below the apartment in Kingston, as though someone is sawing through the support pillars holding up my house. It really is worrisome.

It is late. I wish to orlop down to sea level and delicately consume a platter of jello jigglers by dangling them above my mouth and dropping them, shape by delicious shape, into my waiting maw of obesity.

expensive whiskey doesn't taste any different.

There once was a baker from Boston
who found kids in his shop quite exhausting
so he baked up with glee
a pink cake that said "FREE!"
and had cyanide baked in the frosting.

Stacey and I made a dollar store board game about frogs. They need to enlist the aid of Community Helpers like firemen, nurses, and telephone repairmen (from a Community Helper hearts deck) to overcome challenges like Ravening Hobos, Travis Craw, and Grandpa's War Stories and win gold coins. These challenges are hidden deep within five thematic zones on the board: the City, the Sea, Space, the Volcano, and Inside a Third Grader. It's a spectacular drinking game of absolute nonsense. I just wish I had a constant posse of people to help play, make, and test games. Board games, RPGs, Flash games... I want to try the Alternate Reality Game thing, fishing around in the web and across cities to find clues and race other players to uncover something that doesn't actually exist. Except that it does.

Forgive my nonsense; I haven't had a vegetable today.

more whining

On break for 2 weeks after an incredibly intense NCP program. Getting a show together involving 190 children, including two special ed classes, takes the life out of you. But on the other hand, getting it done and emerging the other side left me with a vibrant energy and a feeling of competence and purpose. But I let myself slide back to a few days of doing nothing and lounging around on the computer, and now it's gone. It's hard to even force myself to spend 30 seconds drawing something and write a paragraph or two for the bloggums. Being entertaining is out of the question for now.

There are some shoes in the world that look like they could serve as excellent vehicles . In the sprawling fourth grade games of action figure capture-the-flag shoes were always tanks, capable of mighty airborne leaps and crushingly awesome landings. How they were propelled or why they were stylized with laces and logos was irrelevant. They were powerful machines of terror on the battlefield. Those were the goddamn days.

he doesn't even need a suit.

For the past two days I've come home from work and not been productive, so today I promised it wouldn't happen again. And so I give you the result of approximately 200 minutes of work, and exactly zero minutes of rational thought.

Enjoy.

The truth is, I just wanted an excuse to meow into my computer microphone.

pots and pants and blowsifh

In space, as it turns out, popsicles don't taste as good.

The boy was afraid to leave his house. Without clean socks, it couldn't be done. He wasn't about to put on the dirty, crusty ones, and walking barefoot was out of the question. And so he starved.

Kangaroo pouches are not warm and fuzzy. They are external incarnations of the womb. They are sticky and amniotic. You'll never look at Kanga the same.

If confronted with all the cardboard we have consumed in our lives, we could produce extremely functional shelters, sprawling and leaning in a corrugated shanty town. If confronted with all the plastic we have consumed, we could waterproof it.

If confronted with all the dogs we have ever seen, we would be buried in dogs.

What did chickens look like before we domesticated them? Were they bigger? Are they a species new to the world and created by humanity, like Dachshunds and Furby™s?

When she made him the scarf, she had been afraid he wouldn't like it. Or that he would say his proper thank yous and give her a hug, then leave it in an unceremonious heap in the back of the closet. She wasn't sure if men wore scarves, or at least, if he did. She still knitted it though, and every hour she worked she held him in her mind. The scarf she gave him was warm and wooly, and full of life.

A single toaster strudel, left unattended, is capable of burning down your entire block.

the novelty of this is wearing off.

Again with the computer. As real life picks up, my need for blogging drops down. I do like the image-a-day (that I haven't been doing), forcing oneself to be productive. I miss webcomic format though, having something almost continuous, drawing and text bubbling and building on itself episode after episode. I just have limited need of Bloggery anymore. I want to move on and create instead of just recording. The blog was about a transitional period. Everyone knows what I'm doing with my life. Everyone knows how I generally feel about things, and how I generally work. I want to move away from the blogging and toward the creative output. Vaguely Amazing 2.0?