Stupid People (Mostly Me)

History Repeated

She bent over
and picked up her daughter.
The red brick was warm
to the touch
of bare feet.
She checked
to make sure
no harm was done
and replaced her,
eyes gleaming,
among the toys
which, already older
than she was,
would outlive her as well.

When the kids grew up
and left her alone
with her husband
she didn't know
what to look after.
So she walked
around the house
absentmindedly cleaning
the spotless interior.
She counted the allowance
money she now spent
on antiques,
wooden toys
and carved furniture,
spirals and inlays
intricate and pleasing.

The years advanced
upon her steadily,
though she showed
little acknowledgment
of their approach.
Her face remained
soft and smiling
unaware of the crow's
feet etching themselves
around her eyes
still bright and full of belief.

And when her son
was in the hospital
with his wife,
her eyes shone still
more at the birth
of his daughter,
though he never knew
the memories it sparked
watching their smiles.
The silent stories
she traced in the grain
of the wooden toys,
some battered,
that would be used
on another
warm brick walk.

Poem:
I wrote this for an assignment for which we were supposed to imitate the style of Gary Soto. I think the poem I chose as inspiration was called "History," which adds further meaning to the title. I can't find the book right now, but I'm sure it had something to do with history. Anyway, I was really trying recently to come up with some good inspiration for my own work, and I remembered this project, so hopefully I can look to other poets for inspiration again in the future. It's good to remember to shake things up every once in a while. I'm starting to develop a bit of a style of my own, but I think it would be fantastic to depart from it now and then to make sure I don't get caught up in my own things. Maybe I'll turn Fridays into the day I draw upon the work of another poet. That could be fun.

Observation:
It snowed yesterday. That observation was not a difficult one to make. There were two or three inches on the ground, and it had almost stopped completely by the time I drove to work. Unfortunately, this meant that there were also two to three inches of snow on my car. This shouldn't have been a problem for a normal person, I'll admit, but in my brilliance, brushing off my car with my coat sleeve somehow resulted in a sudden increase in the amount of snow in my right jacket pocket. A perfect way to get things started, especially since that was the one containing my headphones.
My fun did not end there. I missed the communication which must have circulated stating that anyone who hates driving in the snow should leave their place of residence at exactly 8:32 in the morning. At this point in the morning the roads had been plowed, the appropriate traction enhancers had been applied, and there seemed to be no further threat of bad weather. But you wouldn't know that by the way people were driving. If I had nothing else to go by, I would say their driving indicated we were in the middle of the worst blizzard of the last three years. Now, I am by no means a great driver. In fact, I'm pretty terrible. But even I know that when you are captaining a four wheel drive behemoth you're probably capable of going more than twenty without losing control. Who buys an F-250 and then drives fifteen under the speed limit at the first hint of bad weather? I'm pretty sure those were designed to handle more stressful conditions than our already-cleared roads. The next person I had the immense pleasure of driving behind had the delightfully paranoid habit of testing their brakes every couple of seconds to make sure they still had traction. Maybe this is a good idea in a way that I am missing, but, seeing as the conditions were completely fine and they had never lost any traction, this resulted in the brakes doing exactly what they were supposed to do: slowing the car down. And I'm mystified, since I'm pretty sure had the conditions been worse, braking intermittently would not in any way help maintain control. It would just give them more opportunities to lock their brakes up and slide somewhere they hadn't intended.
By the time I had gotten to work I was just frustrated enough to forget completely that I had brushed quite a lot of snow into my pocket earlier. This forgetfulness was remedied rapidly when I inserted my cold, wet headphones into my ears. There is a reason inserting a recently-licked finger into someones ear is a prank, and it's not because the experience is enjoyable. And with that, I was ready to start my day.

Exercise:
"What did you not?"
The exercise is to write about what you (or your character) failed to notice today.

John had no idea the things he was missing out on. He failed to witness the end of young love when he walked obliviously past the window separating him from a quarreling couple, though he did hear the crash of a thrown porcelain dish faintly as he turned the corner toward his bus stop. When he noticed the bus's approach, his haste made him oblivious to the car which, though it attempted to swerve, had no hope of avoiding him. When John did eventually make the car's acquaintance it was a very brief affair. He had just enough time to look into the driver's eyes echoing his own expression of shock before he was thrown through the air. Just before he lost consciousness, he noticed the sliver of sky between the tall buildings, and he wondered if it had always been there, if it had always been so colorful, and if it would mind his passing through. It certainly seemed to mind less than the pavement, to whom John was never formally introduced, though his head met it with a resounding crack.

Me:
I dropped my iPod a couple of days ago. This was both a fortuitous event and a tragedy. The screen cracked, you see, and I'm pretty sure that means I need to replace it with an iPhone as soon as humanly possible. I'm on Verizon, and I can't wait until Apple's product launches on what I'm pretty sure is the best network around. I've been hoping for this for three years, and it's finally going to happen. Another consequence of my iPod mishap is that I started paying attention to it again. I downloaded its 25 updates and even found a couple of new apps I'm pleased with. There's one in particular I'm having a good time with called Sketchbook Express (I only have free apps, but it's also available in a full version for a fee). I'd like to say this app turns your iPod (or iPad) into a sketchbook, but that's not accurate, since I've never been this addicted to a sketchbook. And I've never had this much fun playing with colors! If sketchbooks came with an "undo" button, maybe they would be able to rival this, but right now I'm completely captivated. It can work in whatever level of detail you want, and the controls are very intuitive. I'd obviously recommend it, but it's already a very popular product, so I don't think I need to. I just wanted to express my happiness. I haven't felt so "artsy" in years.
To wrap things up, I thought I'd mention the word "chatoyant." I think it's awesome, and I've been trying to decide whether or not I'll ever be justified in using it. I'm pretty sure using a word like that instantly earns you the label of a pretentious word nerd, but I'm probably okay with it in this case. It's just a pretty word for a pretty quality. It made me think "I should have a word of the day in my blog; then I could introduce people to cool words like this." And right after that I realized I had only become aware of it because it was the word of the day for my dictionary app. It's almost like someone had thought of this idea before me. And not only thought of it, but implemented it effectively. So after I was done feeling stupid, I decided to just make a mention of the word anyway because I liked it. If you want the definition, there's an app for that. Or Google. Or even a dictionary. How quaint.