My first NaNoism!
I had my first good NaNoism of the year! Yay!
For those who don't know, a NaNoism is a hilarious typo/mis-type that tend to pop up during the marathon of NaNo writing.
Here's the first good one of '08:
"So, the cement ledge that lined the stairs became my new purse."
Yay!
Heh. Anyway, I guess I'll go post the next chunk. There was some embarrassingly awful wordpadding in this excerpt, so I docked a few parts to make it more tolerable.
It's short, but enjoy it. It's the last bit from this part of Blue's happy little life, heh.
My birthday is my favorite day, even over Christmas and Easter. I remember what day it is as soon as I wake up-a day just for me. Today Hannah tells me happy birthday first, which Paula and Julia echo, even though I am pretty sure that Julia doesn’t even understand what that means.
I am nine years old today. Just a few more years until Dad will get me a pocket knife just like his. Just a few more years until I might be able to get a pet of my own. I don’t know what I’m going to get for my birthday this year, but I am excited. I do know that I’m going to have chocolate cake, maybe even an icecream cake, and that green mint icecream with the chocolate chips in it.
Dad had already gone to work by the time I woke up, but knew that I would see him later when he got home. Mom is in the kitchen making breakfast, the smell as warm as the yellow light coming through the curtains. I hear food sizzling and glass clinking, and I climb up onto the tall stepping stool next to the sink to watch her.
“Goodmorning, and happy birthday,” she says over her shoulder.
“Whatcha making?”
“Chorizo con huevos.”
My favorite breakfast of all time. Spicy sausage and buttery scrambled eggs. Mom likes them with tortillas, but I like them best with toast. She adds her own spices, flakes of herbs and ingredients that might as well have been the stuff of magic potions to me. I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t think of something better to do than watch anyway. When my sisters weren’t around, I loved to sit and watch my mother cook. She would explain the way her family used to make something, and then how she was changing it in some mystifying way, and it always turned out amazing.
This was when I loved my mother the most, more than when she hugged me or read me stories, watching her happy and creating, humming as she worked. She seemed the smartest and bravest when she was playing in her kitchen. I had two different mothers sometimes, and this was where I was most likely to see the ‘good’ Mom. The other Mom-the one who cried or yelled or threw things when she was upset, the one who could look afraid or sad for no reason, the one who would shut herself into her room while Dad tried to talk to her through the door-could appear at any other time, without warning.
But here, in her kitchen, she was perfect.
For my eighth birthday, I got a big stuffed dog from my aunt, and money from my grandparents who all live very far away. I also got, from my parents, a big set of colored pencils and my very first sketchbook. Normally, I just drew with regular pencils on regular blank paper, but they would always get smudged and stepped on and lost. Now I had a real sketchbook that I could carry around like an actual artist.
The colored pencils were the biggest and brightest set that I had ever had. I learned new colors like “crimson” and “cyan.” “Slate” was my favorite though, and for some reason, I hated “cerulean.” The best part about them, was that my parents said that they were all mine, and my sisters had to ask first, if they wanted to use them. I kept them on top of my dresser in mine and Julia’s room, right next to my sketchbook. I arranged them carefully, as close to how the rainbow is arranged as possible. Red to orange to yellow to green, and on, all their points kept perfect and sharp.
However, I soon found out that, like most things, those pencils were not 'just mine' for very long. My sisters would ask if they could use my colored pencils, and I would say no because whenever I got them back, they would all be out of order (sometimes some were even missing) and the important colors like red and black would be used so much that their sharp points were nothing but round nubs anymore. Everyone knows that red and black are the first to go as far as crayons and markers and colored pencils go, so I tried not to use them so much, or use some of my old ones instead. My sisters didn’t care about that though, and my red and black pencils still ended up being much shorter than all the others because of it. So, since my parents had told me that they were my pencils that I could do whatever I wanted with, I started to say no. But, then they would yell for Mom, telling her that I wasn’t sharing my pencils. I used to think that having something that was ‘just yours’ meant that you didn’t have to share it if you didn’t want to, but apparently they really didn’t mean that. I still had to choose between sharing or getting in trouble.
That night, while I was drawing, I thought about how I had been drawing since I could hold a marker. Mom and Dad liked to talk about how I never ate crayons or colored on furniture when I was little like most toddlers did. As soon as they handed me a marker for the first time, took my hand, and showed me that it made marks on paper, I couldn’t stop. As hard as it is for me to say what I want to say sometimes, drawing lets out what I can’t describe with words. I draw things that I see, sometimes just pieces, and sometimes I make up things to draw when real things don’t feel right. Drawing makes me think, empties out what is in my head and my insides. My sisters draw too sometimes, but I do it every single day. I’m never happy with how my drawings turn out, but that doesn’t stop me. I need to draw, I love to draw, and-from what my parents and teachers tell me-I’m good at it.
And, I think about this.
From what I understand, some people are just good at some things, and some aren’t, and this usually gets passed on through families. My sisters love to sing, and they say that they get it from Mom. They say that Mom’s whole family were singers; it’s in their blood. They also say that, aside from me, there are no artists in the family.
I wonder if the parents that gave me to Mom and Dad could draw. I wonder if they knew what it was like to need to sketch something, even in a small way. Is that where I got it from? My family, this family, watches me while I draw, and they make comments about how amazing it is to them. They don’t understand it, and they compliment me because of it. On one hand, it’s kind of nice that they think something that I do is so great. On the other hand though, I wish they did understand. Sometimes I wish that I was not the only artist in the family.
They would talk about how they marveled at the fact I somehow knew how to put lines together into a picture without even thinking about it, how I just seemed to know how to make shapes look like a monster or a bird leg or a face. I used to like hearing it, and letting them watch me work. But now, especially on my birthday, I think I am changing my mind. The more I think about it now, the lonelier I feel.
For those who don't know, a NaNoism is a hilarious typo/mis-type that tend to pop up during the marathon of NaNo writing.
Here's the first good one of '08:
"So, the cement ledge that lined the stairs became my new purse."
Yay!
Heh. Anyway, I guess I'll go post the next chunk. There was some embarrassingly awful wordpadding in this excerpt, so I docked a few parts to make it more tolerable.
It's short, but enjoy it. It's the last bit from this part of Blue's happy little life, heh.
My birthday is my favorite day, even over Christmas and Easter. I remember what day it is as soon as I wake up-a day just for me. Today Hannah tells me happy birthday first, which Paula and Julia echo, even though I am pretty sure that Julia doesn’t even understand what that means.
I am nine years old today. Just a few more years until Dad will get me a pocket knife just like his. Just a few more years until I might be able to get a pet of my own. I don’t know what I’m going to get for my birthday this year, but I am excited. I do know that I’m going to have chocolate cake, maybe even an icecream cake, and that green mint icecream with the chocolate chips in it.
Dad had already gone to work by the time I woke up, but knew that I would see him later when he got home. Mom is in the kitchen making breakfast, the smell as warm as the yellow light coming through the curtains. I hear food sizzling and glass clinking, and I climb up onto the tall stepping stool next to the sink to watch her.
“Goodmorning, and happy birthday,” she says over her shoulder.
“Whatcha making?”
“Chorizo con huevos.”
My favorite breakfast of all time. Spicy sausage and buttery scrambled eggs. Mom likes them with tortillas, but I like them best with toast. She adds her own spices, flakes of herbs and ingredients that might as well have been the stuff of magic potions to me. I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t think of something better to do than watch anyway. When my sisters weren’t around, I loved to sit and watch my mother cook. She would explain the way her family used to make something, and then how she was changing it in some mystifying way, and it always turned out amazing.
This was when I loved my mother the most, more than when she hugged me or read me stories, watching her happy and creating, humming as she worked. She seemed the smartest and bravest when she was playing in her kitchen. I had two different mothers sometimes, and this was where I was most likely to see the ‘good’ Mom. The other Mom-the one who cried or yelled or threw things when she was upset, the one who could look afraid or sad for no reason, the one who would shut herself into her room while Dad tried to talk to her through the door-could appear at any other time, without warning.
But here, in her kitchen, she was perfect.
For my eighth birthday, I got a big stuffed dog from my aunt, and money from my grandparents who all live very far away. I also got, from my parents, a big set of colored pencils and my very first sketchbook. Normally, I just drew with regular pencils on regular blank paper, but they would always get smudged and stepped on and lost. Now I had a real sketchbook that I could carry around like an actual artist.
The colored pencils were the biggest and brightest set that I had ever had. I learned new colors like “crimson” and “cyan.” “Slate” was my favorite though, and for some reason, I hated “cerulean.” The best part about them, was that my parents said that they were all mine, and my sisters had to ask first, if they wanted to use them. I kept them on top of my dresser in mine and Julia’s room, right next to my sketchbook. I arranged them carefully, as close to how the rainbow is arranged as possible. Red to orange to yellow to green, and on, all their points kept perfect and sharp.
However, I soon found out that, like most things, those pencils were not 'just mine' for very long. My sisters would ask if they could use my colored pencils, and I would say no because whenever I got them back, they would all be out of order (sometimes some were even missing) and the important colors like red and black would be used so much that their sharp points were nothing but round nubs anymore. Everyone knows that red and black are the first to go as far as crayons and markers and colored pencils go, so I tried not to use them so much, or use some of my old ones instead. My sisters didn’t care about that though, and my red and black pencils still ended up being much shorter than all the others because of it. So, since my parents had told me that they were my pencils that I could do whatever I wanted with, I started to say no. But, then they would yell for Mom, telling her that I wasn’t sharing my pencils. I used to think that having something that was ‘just yours’ meant that you didn’t have to share it if you didn’t want to, but apparently they really didn’t mean that. I still had to choose between sharing or getting in trouble.
That night, while I was drawing, I thought about how I had been drawing since I could hold a marker. Mom and Dad liked to talk about how I never ate crayons or colored on furniture when I was little like most toddlers did. As soon as they handed me a marker for the first time, took my hand, and showed me that it made marks on paper, I couldn’t stop. As hard as it is for me to say what I want to say sometimes, drawing lets out what I can’t describe with words. I draw things that I see, sometimes just pieces, and sometimes I make up things to draw when real things don’t feel right. Drawing makes me think, empties out what is in my head and my insides. My sisters draw too sometimes, but I do it every single day. I’m never happy with how my drawings turn out, but that doesn’t stop me. I need to draw, I love to draw, and-from what my parents and teachers tell me-I’m good at it.
And, I think about this.
From what I understand, some people are just good at some things, and some aren’t, and this usually gets passed on through families. My sisters love to sing, and they say that they get it from Mom. They say that Mom’s whole family were singers; it’s in their blood. They also say that, aside from me, there are no artists in the family.
I wonder if the parents that gave me to Mom and Dad could draw. I wonder if they knew what it was like to need to sketch something, even in a small way. Is that where I got it from? My family, this family, watches me while I draw, and they make comments about how amazing it is to them. They don’t understand it, and they compliment me because of it. On one hand, it’s kind of nice that they think something that I do is so great. On the other hand though, I wish they did understand. Sometimes I wish that I was not the only artist in the family.
They would talk about how they marveled at the fact I somehow knew how to put lines together into a picture without even thinking about it, how I just seemed to know how to make shapes look like a monster or a bird leg or a face. I used to like hearing it, and letting them watch me work. But now, especially on my birthday, I think I am changing my mind. The more I think about it now, the lonelier I feel.