May 2, 2005 @ 12:31 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures

I don’t have time to write much in the way of a blog entry today, so I’m just going to post a list.

Things on My Nightstand (Which Is Technically Not a Nightstand, But Rather a Barstool Standing Beside the Bed):

• A lamp
• A baby monitor
• A small bottle of contact lens rewetting drops (mine)
• A small bottle of Burt’s Bees Milk & Honey lotion (not mine)
• A yellow plastic frog
• A copy of Mossflower by Brian Jacques
• A copy of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unset
• Several thousand dollars in Monopoly money

Hmm. Writing this list has given me a flashback. Ninth grade English class. Assignment: write a description of your bedroom. We had to read our descriptions aloud and I remember being puzzled when my classmates laughed at several points during my reading. Not in a mean way, just in an amused way; but I hadn’t intended to be funny and so it confused me that they thought it was. Looking back on it, recalling what I can of my description, I can see now why they laughed. There was something about the yellow walls glowing like sunlight above the grass-green carpet, the "fourteen crumpled pieces of paper from failed attempts at writing a poem" (I remember that phrase exactly because it jumps into my head whenever I toss a crumpled paper toward a trash can and miss), and a bit about melted crayons in the overhead light fixture because my bedroom had formerly belonged to my younger sisters who had bunk beds.

Funny how the only parts I remember twenty-plus years later are the parts people found odd enough to laugh at. Just as the interesting (to me) parts of my nightstand list are the frog and the Monopoly money. (I’m still wondering how they got there, and whether they were part of a single game/event or were brought to this place separately, perhaps by different children. I could ask, but there’s more ‘scope for imagination’ in not knowing for sure.)

So much for my just writing a list.

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1. Anne Marie says:

   I went as far as putting Kristin Lavransdatter on hold and bringing it home but I was thoroughly intimidated by the size (given the precious few minutes of reading time I have) and ended up bringing it back to the library unread.

   Are you reading it now? Should I give it another go?

   Posted on May 2nd, 2005 at 1:38 pm

2. Julie says:

   It’s the details, isn’t it? Those quirky, dissonant details that create anti-thesis and interest. I love lists! I love commentaries on lists. I like writing that stimulates my curiosity.

   Fun trip down your memory lane.

   I wrote an “S.A.” in fourth grade (What does that s. and a. stand for anyway? I wondered) about paper dolls and everyone laughed. But they laughed at me, not with me. Can’t remember a thing about it except pain and humiliation… and the fact that the techer never explained what an essay was supposed to be or how to spell it.
   Julie

   Posted on May 3rd, 2005 at 6:22 am

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