shhhhhhh

listen. do you hear that?

just now.

i farted.

Ignorance (Quote)

‘If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people.’

– Victor Cousin

My Classmate in the Green Bus

There’s a kid in my class who comes to school in a bus all by himself. It’s not a school bus, either — it’s just a big old green bus that drops him off right in front of the school. And the driver never acknowledges him, even though I’ve seen my classmate wave goodbye to the man plenty of times.

Everyone was scared to ask why he came in a bus by himself, or who he really was, or who the strangely rude driver was, or why he walked home after school instead of being picked up by someone. We would just comment about it when he wasn’t around, or act like we never saw anything, or like it was completely normal. Even when he made a scene of running off the bus with a terrified yell one day, none of us ever mentioned it.

He didn’t do it again.

I don’t know what prompted me to bring it up today. Maybe it’s because it’s almost the last of school, and I knew most of us wouldn’t see each other again after tomorrow; or maybe curiosity finally got the better of me and decided on its own that it wanted some kind of answer. Whatever the reason, I caught up to him as we were getting ready to leave in the hallway and I finally brought it up: why doesn’t the bus ever pick him up? Why does he come to school in a bus anyway?

He just looked at me for a second, so I began to wonder if it had been a mistake to ask after all, until he finally shrugged and answered with one word.

I haven’t seen him since that day. He didn’t show up for the final day of school, and I never heard of or from him since. It’s still haunting me now though — him and his green bus and his bizarre reply. I think about it a lot late at night when I can’t fall asleep. Sometimes I think it’s going to drive me crazy…

What does ‘genetics’ have to do with coming to school every day on a green bus??

---

I was going to make this serious but then my brain told me no and my heart also told me no so here we have a masterpiece.

Word Game: Let’s Make Fun of the English Language!

It goes like this: you choose any two words that have the same letter that sounds different in each word. (eg age, guy; sad, busy; bacon, receive.)

Then. You switch the pronunciations.

Age = a-gay

Guy = jie

Sad = zad

Busy = bissy

Bacon = basin

Receive = rikeev

…

Celery = chelery

Cello = sello

Have fun.

Free Verse: This is a Test

of humanity

to see

how much ‘art’ we can appreciate because it is spoon-fed to us in small bites,

Rather than something longer and harder to read.

This is a test for yourself

to make you question, ‘What are we here for in the first place?’

To which we can reply,

‘Cheap entertainment’ —

an answer no one can refute.

– June 30, 2019

Life Truth (Quote)

‘Sometimes life is like a game of Go Fish… and you just want to slap the person next to you.’

– Ali Wong, blogger’s sister

How to Meet World Leaders

or do anything really crazy — or something a little less crazy, like go skydiving on a whim, or publish a book for real, or talk to that stranger to tell them they look real nice today.

Hey there, recently my family and I have been reading Bob Goff’s book called Love Does. It’s kind of like a Christian devotional, but way cooler because the dude is crazy. He’s crazy regular in some ways, but in a lot of other ways, he lives life the way I probably would if I could if not for… what?

Good question. A mother who worries about me?

Anyway, he tells a lot of life stories that all basically sum up to the message of action rather than just words. Love does; it doesn’t just talk about it. And you should check out the book (this post isn’t sponsored, by the way), because I’ll try not to give away any spoilers; in short, he’s just a guy who took cool risks and went out on whims to do random things most of us wouldn’t even think to do.

He’s done some pretty big things, too. Met some incredibly ‘important’ people, but not under the expected circumstances. Which has led me to write this blog post.

The chapter we read last night — and honestly, most of the book in general — inspires a desire for action to get some of the randomly cool opportunities Bob Goff has had. The way he writes makes you think anything in the world is possible if you just try, and that’s just got me thinking… honestly, aside from our fears of rejection, what is the worst thing that could happen if we went out on a limb and tried _________ that would be really cool? Whether that be contacting a dear world leader to try to get a meal with them, or looking for a publishing agent as a tween, or asking a celebrity for their signed photograph, you never know when the answer is ‘yes’ to something you were only afraid of being answered ‘no’ to.

Maybe you can work at Disney. Maybe you can get into medical school. Maybe you can be unconventional and just be persistent in asking that one person: can I please get ice cream after lunch? (Even if Mom always says no, today just may be your lucky day.)

In other words, don’t let the fear of rejection or disappointment stop you from even trying. If you want it, try it. Give it your best shot. Often the worst thing that can happen is nothing changes at all except that you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone and maybe made a few enemies in the process and hopefully grew in experience because of it.

What do you have to lose?

The Process of Waking Yourself Up on a Sleepy (and Sleep-Deprived) Morning

1. Open your eyes. (Do not skip this step.)

2. Rub your eyes. Do this gently, so as not to infect them. It may actually be best to skip this step entirely because it’s bad to rub your eyes guys

2. Sit up and stretch. Do this for about thirty seconds; start with your legs, then move to your arms and upper body, then your neck. I don’t know why. Just do.

3. Do jumping jacks. Twenty, to be precise. Then go back to step 2 for another thirty seconds and then skip to step 4.

4. Slap yourself and play hype music, then take a cold shower.

5. I don’t know. I’m tired and last night was sleep-deprived and honestly doing all these steps in this order might get you killed.

6. DRINK COFFEE AND SING A SONG AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS. Then wait for nighttime or right after lunch to sleep.

Thanks for joining me on your TEDxTalk for the day of how to wake yourself up. Have a fantabulous day, folks.

Free Verse(?): Boredom

Hey

I think

we’ve been wasting too much time, so why

don’t we just

enjoy this thing that’s kept me

not bored lately, because I’ve been up to

MISCHIEF!

Anyway, would you like to check out this new creation? It’s amazing. And I’m utterly shameless, yes. Please enjoy the bad recording quality and all-around immaturity of it all. If anything, you can at least use it to forget that real life exists for a few minutes.

honestly i don’t know anymore either

Yesterday I Got Stuck in an Elevator

It was pretty casual.

I stepped in, hit the button, and started ascending until the fourth floor. (Of course it’s the fourth floor; everyone knows that’s bad luck.) The elevator shifted, then came to a stop, and the button undid itself. So I just pushed all the buttons I could; the only one that responded was the open door button, which did not open the doors, but lit up to acknowledge my existence before promptly blinking out. Next I tried the alarm button, which made a ringing sound — was it ringing outside? — before I tried the Phone button, which I held down a couple times just to really make sure people knew I was here.

A lady speaking in dialect answered. I had to shout for her to hear me; maybe I was just standing in a bad place for the microphone to pick up my voice. She told me someone would be there ‘right away,’ so I waited patiently in the still-lit elevator where the screen on the side was still playing the three ads it ever played.

Maybe I should have been more worried than I was. When I shifted, I felt like the whole elevator moved with me, so I tried not to move so much, but even if I fell, it was only four floors up, right? Besides, I was late for class, and I couldn’t get any signal from inside the elevator to send a message to my teacher.

Several minutes later, a man pounded on the elevator door asking if that was where I was, so I shouted back. He also told me to wait for a little bit, and then he shouted instructions to me. So I pulled open my side of the doors to see a few pairs of hands trying to pry open the outer elevator doors. We all tried working together, to no avail. Teamwork does not always get you places, people; sometimes you actually need a brain to get anywhere. Eventually they began trying to turn this little knob thing — turn again and again and again — I could see that maybe it would hook onto this little lever thing, but I couldn’t read what the lever would do properly on its instructions, so being the genius I am, I left it as it was even though that of course ended up being what they needed. They coulda just told me to give it a little toggle.

Oh well.

Twenty-five minutes later, they grabbed someone else to get help, and when they returned I was liberated from the elevator, gave the two dudes a thank you, and went to class about half an hour later. (With three calls from my mom asking where I was.)

The life lesson learned, kids, is that if you see a little lever that needs toggling, toggle it yourself. It’ll save you a few minutes.