I added a new feed on my friend’s page to a blog called Indexed. I think Jessica has got a cool thing going on here.
This is what she says about her blog: “This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.”
And she does it with postings like these:
That’s a cool little niche, in my opinion. Mind games. In a good way.
I worked from home today.
I completed my storyboards for Thursday’s class.
Class was somewhat of a drag tonight. Fortunately, it didn’t “drag on” too long, as I left at about 8:15.
I did 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, and then walked for a half hour. I listened to several podcasts—a few that were quite interesting.
One segment of NPR: Technology talked about “scam-baiters,” which was very, very interesting.
I listened to last week’s This American Life episode, called “Kid Logic,” which was just cute, cute, cute especially at the beginning:
| In Rebecca’s second grade class, her friend Rachel tells her, “I know who the tooth fairy is. I woke up while the tooth fairy was putting the money under my pillow, and guess who it was.”
“Oh my god. Who was it? I… I have to know,” cries Rebecca. And Rachel says, “It’s my dad. My dad is the tooth fairy.” Rebecca runs home and declares to her mother as if she’s grown up, “Mom, I know who the tooth fairy is.” And her mom says, “Oh? Well, who is the tooth fairy?” And she turns to her and says, “Rachel’s dad… is the tooth fairy. Ronnie Loberfeld is the tooth fairy.” And her mom says, “I can’t believe you know. It’s totally a secret and you can’t let anyone else know. But you’re right, Ronnie is the tooth fairy, and he works really hard, and you know, it’s a secret, so you can’t let anyone else know.” |
| The producer asks little kids what they think the tooth fairy does with all of the teeth that she’s collected? The exchange goes like this:
“Maybe she gives it to the people without teeth,” one kids responds. “Like who?” the interviewer asks. “Old people,” he says. To another kid: “What do you think she does with all these teeth that she ends up taking?” Eager kid: “I know. She makes… in, in a faraway land… uhm, way up in the clouds… uhm, she, there’s a, there’s a town in she makes castles ‘n stuff…” Interviewer: “She makes things out of the teeth?” Another kid chimes in, “I really think she just likes to collect teeth and make things out of them.” Interviewer: “Like what kind of stuff?” Kid: “Lots of stuff… make a tooth house… a tooth trophy… and a tooth desk.” (He actually lisps this and says, “tooth dethsk.”) Interviewer: “How many teeth do you think it takes to make a tooth house?” Kid: “Yeah… why… like… uh, a hundred [giggles]… a hundred… no, a hundred-eighty.” Interviewer: “Why wouldn’t she just make the house out of bricks, like everyone else?” Kid: “Because I don’t… because no one does-… doesn’t have… brick teeth.” |
| A little girl on an airplane, on her very first flight, sat down next to me, and as the plane was airborne, she turned to the woman next to her and she said, “When do we get smaller?” |
Ira Glass says, “These stories are like jokes, and they’re also like poems—I think because there’s this ‘Ah ha!’ quality to them. Some connection is made between things. A surprising connecting. A wrong connection, actually. And part of what makes these so satisfying as stories is that the logic in them is perfectly reasonable, and at the same time, completely and utterly wrong.”
Leaving the gym, as I approached my car in the Carmichael parking lot, I immediately recognized that in the angriness at the person hanging over the lines in the spot next to the one I wanted to take, and my determination to park there even if it meant he’d have to get in on his passenger side when he came back, I had totally missed the sign that said, “Authorized Parking Only: 7AM to 12AM.”
I was not surprised to see the citation: the dark red strip along the top, the rest white—looking just like a grocery store cash register receipt—on my window.
I was surprised to see a dark green construction paper quality flyer under it that started off… “Welcome to Campus.”
I thought, “How tacky.”
I immediately derailed my negative energy thinking about how much the fine was probably going to be, and replaced it with: “Well, whatever it is, I’m going to pay it with my credit card and at least get some frequent flyer points out of it.”
At the stoplight at the Western Boulevard intersection, I read two lines:
Amount: $0.00
Violation: 19 AV/SV space – WARNING
Ah. Now the “green card” made sense. I think I got a warning because I’ve gotten a new, personalized license plate since registering for parking on campus several semesters ago, so it looked like I might be a visitor. I’ll take it.