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I was tagged by Lucky to do this Meme approximately 10 years ago, and I haven’t gotten around to it. What can I say? In my last post I gave my short sob story, which does indeed have an impact on my blogging —but also, it’s Spring, and the opportunity to be out & about under blue skies can’t be shunned. None of you are blogging much either, so I don’t feel so bad about it.
FIVE Things In My Purse/Bag/Briefcase
Books!
“Why the bad back?” you might ask… Truly, I carry more books in my backpack than is humanly reasonable. Books I’m reading, books I reference, books I read a long time ago, but love dearly and peruse often…
Origami Papers
Because you never want to be unprepared when there’s a need for a bouquet of paper flowers or a demand for an impromptu crane.
Tobacco, pipe & accessories
Ahhhhh… the glorious deliciousness of a good vice.
Various flash drives
How did I ever get by without these? They’re an IT person’s dream. I have installation files, log files, and hours of music on these little beauties. I love them!
Games Cards/Chess
Actually, I don’t think these have ever been used… It seemed like a good idea when I stuffed them in there, but now I think it’s taking up valuable room for more books.
FIVE Things In My Room
Chest
A wooden tool-chest I received for Christmas —I kept it in my room instead to keep myself organized. It turned out to just be a place to collect more clutter, but I love it anyway.
Bookshelf
—because there’s never quite enough room in my backpack.
Watercolor paintings
I can’t afford art, so my halls are decked with the artwork of family. My daughter Rose painted that pear… not bad for a 7 year old, is it?
Hats
I love old hats. Fedoras, bowlers, porkpies— so sad they went out of style. They’re great accessories, and wonderful for covering up receding hairlines.
Dust bunnies the size of Volkswagens
I refuse to feel ashamed by this. If you live in a house with hardwood floors and a dog, you’re bound to end up with these critters. The house is swept all the time, but still they breed like —well— bunnies.
Free to a good home.
FIVE Things I Am Into
Reading
I bet you haven’t guessed this by now, have you? I love both non-fiction as well as fiction. I love history, particularly about central Europe, for reasons I can’t explain. I also love histories about circuses & sideshows (again, I can’t tell you why, clowns freak me out… maybe it’s a morbid curiousity).
For contemporary authors I like David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, Sarah Vowell, Nick Hornby… for the great authors of yesterday, I like Steinbeck, Austen, Tolkein… there’s not enough room to name them all.
Writing
You wouldn’t know it to look at the frequency of my blog posts lately, but writing is essential to my soul.
Origami/Kirigami
The arts of paper folding & paper cutting…
Music
Also essential to my soul. I can’t live without it. If music isn’t on, something is wrong.
Old movies
Black & White— Silver Screen— See previous posts to hear more of this…
FIVE Things I Have Always Wanted To Do
Travel the world
London, Paris & Venice are great, but I’d really like to see Romania, where Gypsies still roam the land and villagers still hang garlic cloves in their doorways to ward of vampires. Northern Africa would be really cool too. Odd choices, I know, but these are the places that call to me.
Of course I can’t even afford a day-trip to Portland, so there may be a bit of a wait.
Become a roaming street-performer
Not a clown mind you, they’re freaky. And mimes are just annoying. But actually, the main problems that I’m facing are: I have virtually no acrobatic talent, and I can’t stand balloon animals.
Take up woodworking
I get the chance to build a rabbit hutch now & then, but what I really want to do is build beautiful armoires & bookshelves. Unfortunately, I’m also a conservationist & can’t bring myself to use all that beautiful & rare wood.
Become financially solvent
Strike three against the street-performer dream. Damn.
Find balance in life
I know life is a journey and not a destination, but enough is enough already! I want the meaning of life & happily ever after, and I want it now!
I encountered my co-worker Devvi as I got back to my desk. “What are you doing with a bunch of rocks?” she asked.
“Oh, I was running low” I explained, opening the lid to a box on my desk and putting the several stones in my hand into the box with the others.
“Yeah,” she replied, watching as I removed the ones in my pockets and added them to the collective. “You’re running low alright.”
Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m really mother-fucking good at skipping stones, probably better than you. Ever since I learned as a child, that’s simply what I do at a shoreline. It’s very relaxing, and I use it to unwind. The rocky banks of the two creeks nearby work are one of my favorite benefits of the job. I don’t know if I would have made it as long as I have if I didn’t spend my break times at the water.
Forget about the serenity of the rippling brook. The peaceful tranquility of the whirling eddies mean nothing to me. I can’t see them, I spend almost my entire time with my neck craned downward looking at the rocks along the shore, searching for the roundest, flattest rocks I can find. Though the larger ones usually skip more dramatically, I prefer stones that fit in my palm. And the search for these extend far beyond the shoreline. I’ll steal these from construction sites, driveways or gravel roads when no one is looking and quietly slip them into my lumpy pockets and carry them with me until I get an opportunity to skip them along a small Parisian canal like the one where my goldfish was liberated when I was a child.
No wait… that’s not me, that’s Amélie. But I do grab stones wherever I find them.
My children know of my love for the art of stone-skipping, and even used the theme for a Father’s Day gift a few years ago. They collected dozens of great skipping stones and put them in a hand-decorated box. This is the box I keep on my desk at work. It’s wonderful for grabbing a couple rocks and going down to the pond on those days that I’m too busy to make it to the creek. It’s also nice just to open the box from time to time on a particularly stressful day, and look at the beautiful, round, smooth stones and feel better about the world in general.
And so I make sure to keep the box well-stocked. People look at me like I’m crazy… walking around the office with a bunch of rocks, looking at the stones and sighing peacefully.
…the freaks.
The two top movies of early summer are about a penguin surfer and about a silver surfer… so the joke is inevitable, right?
Adam
