Category Archives: Playground

I left for school early today so I could swim, but when I got there, the door was locked. I walked around to the principal’s parking lot, where there’s a door that’s always open so long as the school’s open. On my way I ran into a custodian running a snow blower. “You know school’s cancelled today, right?” she asked.

“Really?” I replied. “Why?” It hadn’t snowed much overnight. We got about five quick inches of snow between 7:00 and 9:00 last night, but no more.

“They’re predicting another seven inches before 3:00,” she said.

“Wow! So that prayer worked,” I said, once she had turned the snow blower back on and couldn’t hear me.

When I got home, I started working on polishing up my screenplay. Eight Mile Below tells the story of a rogue band of sled dogs whose abilities as rappers might be their last hope to get out of the oppressive antarctic. I need to add some finishing touches to the story, which is currently in production. The studio has put together a trailer for the film, which stars Eminem, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer and Kim Basinger. Click on the photo for the trailer.

This past week, I had my students mimic a Paul Auster excerpt from The Invention of Solitude in which he narrates a character’s memories. I started my own attempt at the exercise and I was surprised how much I remembered in just 25 minutes or so.

I remember mandatory nap time. Standing up in my crib in the upstairs bedroom I shared with my older sister. I remember the lights being turned off and the shades being drawn. I remember being angry because the shades couldn’t hide the fact that it was the middle of the day and it wasn’t right to be awake. I remember kicking soccer balls against the garage door in the back alley and trying to aim for the brown, circular imprints left by previouis balls. I remember lobbing a rock on top of a car that had just stopped at the intersection next to our house. I remember doing it purely out of curiosity, not malice. And I remember the driver of the car shouting “hey!” I remember waving goodbye to my older sisters on rainy days as they left for school in yellow raincoats. I remember feeling sorry for myself. I remember loving Curious George. I remember the bright, yellow hat that looked like a large banana when the man in the yellow hat was walking through bushes. I remember another book in which the main character watches two kids in yellow raincoats from a window. I remember feeling sorry for the main character. I think that book might be Mumpsy Goes to Kindergarten, but I don’t remember. I remember not liking the color yellow. I remember sitting alone on a deep windowsill in my preschool classroom away from the other children, who were seated in a circle on the other side of the room. I remember getting a motorized wind-up car as a gift in the hospital when I was waiting to have tubes put in my ears. I remember my bed in the hospital being only one among a whole group of beds in a big, open room, and I remember feeling no privacy at all. I remember feeling slightly jealous of my younger brother who was cute and who had epilepsy. I remember not admitting, even to myself, that he was cute. I remember how he used to run leaning forward a little and with his arms behind him. I remember him running into furniture and walls constantly. I remember catching snakes in the waist-high field behind our new house. I remember calling the waist-high grass wheat. I remember the feel of running the plucked plants through my thumb and forefinger to get a handful of seeds afterward. I remember finding a rabbit’s nest and petting the scared little babies. I remember being told that their mother would reject them now that they had a human scent.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to never blog again, but now I’ve gone and ruined that one.

Eileen’s new favorite website:

I just learned about this thing. The Stendahl Syndrome is a rare occurence in which the sufferer is so moved by art that he experiences a kind of vertigo, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations. It’s the secular version of stigmata. 🙂

Read more about it in the Wiki entry.