cats
sumptin funny to take the edge off (not you, edge...)... so i was reading this little vignette today about
(stay with me here...i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOW all this english seminar talk is getting lame--if it didn't start out that way for you--but i'm barely 1/3 through a class that's gonna last till may and so most of my concentration goes to it. see, the thing is i think i'm a little obsessive and unfortunately, a little perfectionistic as well. very bad combination when there's only 24 hours in a day and so much shit to get done. anyway
i tend to get really excited about what i'm doing so i can stay (con myself to be?) enthused about it. it seems to work out. let me know when you get really sick of it all and i'll try to talk about other, more interesting stuff. i promise.)
so there's this woman who's studying kids to figure out how media (ya know, movies, radio, television, video games) finds its way into their language in school (talking and writing). i think they're in first grade. (okay okay, so it's boooooooooooooooring, but stay with me for just a sec. if yr not a parent, maybe you will be one day...) well, this made me laugh out loud...ready...? wait, a teeny tiny backstory on the kids first:
marcel is obsessed with the nfl. so obsessed he turns a group project about making a poster about "freedom" into a dallas cowboy football player (which he tells the teacher is a guy trying to get to the underground railroad with harriet tubman [vince, are you paying attention?]) then there's wenona who always says she's a cheerleader. (she likes dallas as well.) anyway, marcel is a real firecracker, working his teams into projects, figuring out how to read the map so he can locate his teams, etc. wenona on the other hand seems kinda lazy. the researcher never SAYS so, but you can tell. she says during the kids' writing sessions, while others kids discuss and try to sound out words and wenona always resorts to "cats"... then comes the thing that just made me fuckin crack up:
"Wenona and Marcel are sitting together during writing workshop. It is early December. Wenona quickly writes 'I like'; when no one at her table can provide her with Christmas she finishes the sentence with cats...." (dyson)
can't you just picture that little kid. sittin there for like a second and can't figure it out without expending energy...so she throws her hands up and goes with what she already knows. wonder what she does with all that extra first-grade time....
but isn't it just like all us humans? i mean, when we just can't be bothered to work that little extra, to walk that little extra, to think that little extra. it can all be so simple... just... cats.
i'm gonna try that next time edge hits with one of those crazy rhetoricals or when rick drops a metaphorical bomb or when chark lays a pretty patch of black on white or when transience tosses out a phrase that makes me check to see if i pee'd myself or when jason says something confoundingly guy or when nameless makes me pine for my mom (or the red-haired twin i never knew i had) or garrison leaves a beautiful 3-liner in somebody's comment box or when jen ignores my message on her sassy blog... it could aaaaaaaaall be so easy... just "cats"...
but of course the fuckin trouble is i'm usually (though not ALWAYS) more marcel's style, the little punk-ass trouble maker.
what about you? when're YOU wenona? when're you all about..."cats"?
(stay with me here...i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOW all this english seminar talk is getting lame--if it didn't start out that way for you--but i'm barely 1/3 through a class that's gonna last till may and so most of my concentration goes to it. see, the thing is i think i'm a little obsessive and unfortunately, a little perfectionistic as well. very bad combination when there's only 24 hours in a day and so much shit to get done. anyway
i tend to get really excited about what i'm doing so i can stay (con myself to be?) enthused about it. it seems to work out. let me know when you get really sick of it all and i'll try to talk about other, more interesting stuff. i promise.)
so there's this woman who's studying kids to figure out how media (ya know, movies, radio, television, video games) finds its way into their language in school (talking and writing). i think they're in first grade. (okay okay, so it's boooooooooooooooring, but stay with me for just a sec. if yr not a parent, maybe you will be one day...) well, this made me laugh out loud...ready...? wait, a teeny tiny backstory on the kids first:
marcel is obsessed with the nfl. so obsessed he turns a group project about making a poster about "freedom" into a dallas cowboy football player (which he tells the teacher is a guy trying to get to the underground railroad with harriet tubman [vince, are you paying attention?]) then there's wenona who always says she's a cheerleader. (she likes dallas as well.) anyway, marcel is a real firecracker, working his teams into projects, figuring out how to read the map so he can locate his teams, etc. wenona on the other hand seems kinda lazy. the researcher never SAYS so, but you can tell. she says during the kids' writing sessions, while others kids discuss and try to sound out words and wenona always resorts to "cats"... then comes the thing that just made me fuckin crack up:
"Wenona and Marcel are sitting together during writing workshop. It is early December. Wenona quickly writes 'I like'; when no one at her table can provide her with Christmas she finishes the sentence with cats...." (dyson)
can't you just picture that little kid. sittin there for like a second and can't figure it out without expending energy...so she throws her hands up and goes with what she already knows. wonder what she does with all that extra first-grade time....
but isn't it just like all us humans? i mean, when we just can't be bothered to work that little extra, to walk that little extra, to think that little extra. it can all be so simple... just... cats.
i'm gonna try that next time edge hits with one of those crazy rhetoricals or when rick drops a metaphorical bomb or when chark lays a pretty patch of black on white or when transience tosses out a phrase that makes me check to see if i pee'd myself or when jason says something confoundingly guy or when nameless makes me pine for my mom (or the red-haired twin i never knew i had) or garrison leaves a beautiful 3-liner in somebody's comment box or when jen ignores my message on her sassy blog... it could aaaaaaaaall be so easy... just "cats"...
but of course the fuckin trouble is i'm usually (though not ALWAYS) more marcel's style, the little punk-ass trouble maker.
what about you? when're YOU wenona? when're you all about..."cats"?
posted by stacy muszynski at 11:14 PM
3 Comments:
Living in a house with three cats, from them I have learned that there's not a damned thing wrong with telling the world exactly what you want out of it.
when do I wanna cry out "cats?"....all the fucking time.....
I'm so excellent at coming up with "shoulda saids"
so from now on, I'm gonna use "cats", to give me time to think of the shoulda said and say it
(damn, that confused even me)
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