I found a penny in my bed one day.
John Sparks, a willowy ESL Professor in one of the classes I take notes for said, "... And another thing I want to talk about is email," he intoned this in sinister tones for someone with consideration draped around every syllable he utters, "now some of you are familiar with a sort of internet english that you use in emails and well, maybe that's okay for when you're among your friends," he continued as he turned his back and picked up a piece of chalk, "but, for instance, when you're writing an English teacher, you may want to change this sentence," He scritched on the board in a neat and measured hand, inconsistent with 'itz OK, u dont haf 2...lol', and looked over his shoulder, probably at the guilty culprit, "into this," and wrote again: 'It is okay. You do not have to. Although, I would be amused if you did.'
A girl in orange and black striped stalkings with fishnets on over those and a faux furlined jacket got out of the honda accord in front of the bus station at PCC and said a few passing words to her mother, the last of which were "Okay, I love you."
I smiled at the thought of how many guns and piranhas my mom would have to be holding to elicit that phrase from me in public and decided that I liked this girl. She had short cropped and gelled hair that matched her stalkings' orange and black and lots of black mascara and eyeliner she stood next to me while checking the schedule and smelled like cloves... I knew I was no match, my brain was disengaging as quickly as I could come to that realization. I was being infused with hormonally charged courage.
This doesn't happen often and when it does it usually burns fast (think rocketing up from the floor where I had been playing with a dart gun, sweeping a hand through my hair and saying as deeply as possible, "Heeey.", and seconds later being back on the floor with only Bryan and Jordan's laughter to keep me company) and almost always ends with disappointment or laughter (and usually both: one for me and another for any bystanders). Cutting to the chase: I got off the bus a little before my stop, because my adrenaline was starting to fade and I had just been struck with the realization that I'm not the funniest man on Earth (close.), and she smiled, waved and said "bye, max."
I forgot her name and "smiled" a smile that probably looked more like a grimace of someone who is about to vomit from nervousness, because, let's face it, I have a very expressive face.
Getting on a bus that goes to a veterans' hospital is always good fun. As soon as those doors open, the come hobbling in like a tide that retreats three feet for every one it gains. Then, almost in unison, they settle into the priority seating at the front of the bus. Their bodies are like waves crashing into colorfully upholstered beaches and they murmur like the sea: "urggggh, ohhhhh, unnnnf"
Also, they're all extremely chivalrous, a middle aged white woman dropped her shopping bag and my seat mate, with prowess not belied by his bent stance shot out an arm and caught the bag with one finger through both loops. As he lifted it back to the woman, he said, "I'm a little closer to the ground, I figured I'd get that for you." Five other potential gentlemen untensed in their seats and leaned away from the leaps for the bag they'd been planning. One offered to hold her groceries for her.
Then a black woman's newspaper hit the ground, the sections being slightly scattered and the ads falling out of the center. They all stared at her. I stared at all of them. Unbelievable.
I realized something today taking notes in an ESL writing class. The teacher was imparting to the class that if you start a paragraph with a fact, it will be pretty hard to extrapolate opinions out of it, which will make you paper boring. Suddenly, my writers' block for the final essay in 121 melted away; I didn't need to actually try to propose reasoned out fact based arguments for something that I thought would make the world a better place. Who would read that? What I had to do was represent the extreme possibilities of my ideas as though they were the best case scenario! So, I've come up with a title at least: SECULAR SOCIALISM: AN AGENDA FOR 21ST CENTURY AMERICA.
Now I have to go, so I don't miss my bus and end up having to take a 6:45 greyhound to salem.
A girl in orange and black striped stalkings with fishnets on over those and a faux furlined jacket got out of the honda accord in front of the bus station at PCC and said a few passing words to her mother, the last of which were "Okay, I love you."
I smiled at the thought of how many guns and piranhas my mom would have to be holding to elicit that phrase from me in public and decided that I liked this girl. She had short cropped and gelled hair that matched her stalkings' orange and black and lots of black mascara and eyeliner she stood next to me while checking the schedule and smelled like cloves... I knew I was no match, my brain was disengaging as quickly as I could come to that realization. I was being infused with hormonally charged courage.
This doesn't happen often and when it does it usually burns fast (think rocketing up from the floor where I had been playing with a dart gun, sweeping a hand through my hair and saying as deeply as possible, "Heeey.", and seconds later being back on the floor with only Bryan and Jordan's laughter to keep me company) and almost always ends with disappointment or laughter (and usually both: one for me and another for any bystanders). Cutting to the chase: I got off the bus a little before my stop, because my adrenaline was starting to fade and I had just been struck with the realization that I'm not the funniest man on Earth (close.), and she smiled, waved and said "bye, max."
I forgot her name and "smiled" a smile that probably looked more like a grimace of someone who is about to vomit from nervousness, because, let's face it, I have a very expressive face.
Getting on a bus that goes to a veterans' hospital is always good fun. As soon as those doors open, the come hobbling in like a tide that retreats three feet for every one it gains. Then, almost in unison, they settle into the priority seating at the front of the bus. Their bodies are like waves crashing into colorfully upholstered beaches and they murmur like the sea: "urggggh, ohhhhh, unnnnf"
Also, they're all extremely chivalrous, a middle aged white woman dropped her shopping bag and my seat mate, with prowess not belied by his bent stance shot out an arm and caught the bag with one finger through both loops. As he lifted it back to the woman, he said, "I'm a little closer to the ground, I figured I'd get that for you." Five other potential gentlemen untensed in their seats and leaned away from the leaps for the bag they'd been planning. One offered to hold her groceries for her.
Then a black woman's newspaper hit the ground, the sections being slightly scattered and the ads falling out of the center. They all stared at her. I stared at all of them. Unbelievable.
I realized something today taking notes in an ESL writing class. The teacher was imparting to the class that if you start a paragraph with a fact, it will be pretty hard to extrapolate opinions out of it, which will make you paper boring. Suddenly, my writers' block for the final essay in 121 melted away; I didn't need to actually try to propose reasoned out fact based arguments for something that I thought would make the world a better place. Who would read that? What I had to do was represent the extreme possibilities of my ideas as though they were the best case scenario! So, I've come up with a title at least: SECULAR SOCIALISM: AN AGENDA FOR 21ST CENTURY AMERICA.
Now I have to go, so I don't miss my bus and end up having to take a 6:45 greyhound to salem.