Meanwhile, longtime favourite Torrez makes my life easier … and i don’t usually go for this oversimplification bullshit, either. Also, Josi has hilarious taste in Enron articles.
by krisis
The whole point of the Crushed sidebar is to link people that i read multiple times a day, every day. Sometimes it surprises me. It definitely surprised me when occasionally surfing through Bloggie-Nominee Daily Sardonicism turned into a daily ritual; ditto on My Blue House, which even returned my link (twice!). My latest surprise is Six Foot 6′, a log i’ve always been peripherally aware of but have never really read. Following a discussion of design on GangBang i visited for the first time in a long time a couple of weeks ago, and tonight it occurred to me that i had been clicking through to Ryan from Alison every day since then with more regularity than i read some of the blogs on my own sidebar. So, on he goes. Also, the return of Not So Soft, because i really love to read Meg at least once a day and i tend to forget otherwise.
I’d also like to note that if you aren’t on the sidebar it doesn’t mean i don’t love or read you… it’s honestly just for people who either update more than daily, or who i don’t ever remember to surf to otherwise. So, much love to all of my various other daily reads, including Re, Ernie, Kevin, Benjy, Eve, Brendan, Kat, ClosetBoy, Glacier, Wrong, CityStories, & Verdezza. Despite sidebar indications to the contrary, you are all still very much being crushed upon ;)
Point being, do not expect me to post any hearts hidden in trees. Or, um… yeah. I’m going to go do some actual work now. Right. No more crushing. For, like, twenty minutes, at least.
My whole life has been about crushing.
In first grade i had a crush on a girl named Jamie. Even with fifteen years of retrospect it still seems as real as any other crush i’ve had since then, despite my tender age at the time: they were the same butterflies. The only difference was that at the time i didn’t have many people to confide in (and, lamentably, no blog), so my mother was the person i turned to with all of my feelings. Yes, she agreed that Jamie was pretty. No, it wasn’t fair the she didn’t like me back. Yes, she knew that i only pulled the drawstring out of her jacket at recess because i was flustered and didn’t know what else to say to her.
Sometime in the winter of first grade was Jamie’s birthday, and our entire class was invited to her birthday bowling party, which i have entirely no recollection of whatsoever. What i do remember is her present. My mother and i had just finished wrapping it, and we were sitting at our creaky kitchen table together in silence when we both noticed we were staring at the same thing.
The toaster.
“Do you want to?”
“I’ll get the shrinky-dink paper, you get the colored pencils!”
Yes, shrinky-dinks… art you could make and then cook until it became entirely indestructible. After a few failed creations, my mother and i settled upon an apple tree, because Jamie liked green. Or red. Or apples. I don’t remember. Anyway, we had finished rendering it in all of its colored-pencil beauty, and i was about to stick it in the toaster.
“Are you done?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh…”
“Why, what do i need to do?”
“Well, i was thinking that you could turn one of the apples into a heart!”
As soon as she said it she knew she had me hooked, despite my feeble protests to the contrary. Out came the red colored pencil, and we meticulously rounded up the curves of one of the apples until it was a heart, stemmed and leafed. Away went the pencils. On went the toaster. In went the tree. The two of us sat with our chins cupped in our hands, watching the edges up it turn up in the heat.
“Do you think she’ll like it?”
“I think so.”
It was a few days after her party that Jamie came up to me before recess, bookbag in hand. Dangling from one tiny black zipper was my tree, on a shiny gold dog tag.
“Peter?”
“Yes?”
“Why is there a heart on my apple tree?”
I learned some important lessons early in life. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Never take romantic advice from your mother.
But, really, wouldn’t you love to read a blog from when i was six?
Just so you don’t get the idea that this whole blogging thing is an exercise in spontaneity: i scrapped three different posts before deciding on that one, and i had to consult a dictionary five times for spelling and meaning while writing it. I don’t know if that makes me more or less of a geek, though…