We Wash our Sidewalks

She'd been there when I walked by two and a half hours before, washing off of the cement walk all the sand carefully laid down for walker protection last week. She's made some progress, but as I walk down the stairs toward her I hear the sound of sand gumming itself up in my shoe tread, and I know she's fighting a losing battle. We are out of doors, after all. The water she's been spraying is now running down the lower sidewalks, making little tunnels in the sand and mud caked up on the other walkways. And since that sand isn't going anywhere, more students like me will track it over more sidewalks all over campus, and I begin to wonder why we ever bothered to do this in the first place.

No teacher, no substitute

Why, then, did we all come to class this morning at 9:30? And what kind of teacher doesn't get a substitute to come in when he's in Florida? Dale. He left us a movie to watch in CORE today, and it played while the virtuous read the English subtitles of an entirely Spanish-speaking movie. But secreted in the back row, several students finished their homework for Chemistry. The pockets of rebellion spread as they sent notes across the classroom begging for help from other Chemistry students. After all, Dale never said we had to pay attention, just that we had to be there. And we were.

A Girl in a Yellow Rain Slicker in a Park

It is still raining, which doesn’t surprise anyone. It has been raining for the past three days, and the mud is superb, divine even. Just right to be played in by six-year-olds in outfits that ought not ever be out of doors. There is the girl kneeling in the sandbox just down the hill. The yellow rain jacket is fine for the weather; it is her white dress and shiny mary janes that aren’t quite the thing. It doesn’t matter to her. She’s having fun, regardless of the fact that the lacy fringes of her skirt may never get clean, and that her shoes have long since ceased to serve their purpose. The same descent into utter and glorious dirtiness has befallen her little poodle, which used to be white and isn’t anymore. They are digging a hole in the sand together. The hole is collecting water in it, and the little bark chips float on the surface. The other children on the playground are all little boys, and they are playing a game of tag. One of them splashes in the little girl’s puddle, and it looks like fun, so she jumps in it too. Everything is soggy except for her grin. She’s missing her two front teeth and she can wiggle her tongue between them. It’s a wonderful accomplishment.

When I don't Post

There is usually a reason for things. After recent accusations that I am boring because I don't post, I tried several times this morning to write something. After that I tried writing anything. Then I wrote nothing; I concluded that I if no posting equals a boring person then that's me, because I have nothing to say. But who wants to be boring? So I think I will play the system a little bit. My critic never said that what I write has to be interesting. It just has to exist.

I think my class assignments are going to make great posts.

When People Post

I read blogs. I actually do read quite a few, especially when I am sitting alone in the Castle Carpet Cleaning office, numbing my brain with inactivity. And I have begun to theorize about why people post when they post.

First of all, I know that many people post when they actually have something to talk about. When things are 'on the brain' so to speak. I also know that many people write when they Think they have something to say. In the words of Tom Banks (possibly misquoted, but definitely close), blogging turns us all into "philosophers...or at least petty aphorists." People definitely like to talk. And what about those other souls that know they have nothing to say? Well, they write anyway. Why?

I think it has to do with something I noticed about my childhood journal. I have always been fond of writing, but as a child I never stuck with anything for very long. My list of unfinished stories is practically endless. And so when I started journaling in the fourth grade, I also didn't keep up with it very much. But from the occasional entries, you would have thought that I was an unhappy, very bored, very tiresome, very prone to losing things sort of child. Reason being that I only wrote when I had absolutely nothing else to do. Usually I had lost my book. Comparing this to my blogging habits, I realized that they are very much the same. My last post was about being braindead. I was about to write another post about being braindead (from sitting in CCC all morning and listening to carpet jokes-*shudder*). I think I tend to write when I am bored or braindead. From a careful consideration of many other bloggers and their posts, I am inclined to think that I am not alone. No, not alone at all.