Harvest(arachnid)man

Gather 'round, children, and listen to the most embarrassing thing that I just remembered.

In ninth grade, I took a biology class. I went to a charter school and I was required to take that class, along with wearing a uniform, which included a cross-tie, a button up shirt, a khaki skirt, and some lovely knee socks that probably only went up to my ankles because I was so tall.

My proudest moment in that biology class was when my teacher wrote on the board, H2O2 and asked, "Does anyone know what this is?" Nobody did. Except me. So I raised my hand and said, "Isn't it hydrogen peroxide?" She was so proud of me. I was so proud of the science class I had the previous year that made me do a report on hydrogen peroxide. We were all proud.

Until one day we took a particular test.

I don't remember all of the content of the test, but I remember there was a list of terms we needed to understand, "niche" being one of the terms. I knew the definitions of each word, and unfortunately I can't remember what else was on the list, because it would make the memory that much more hysterical to me.

The last questions on the test related to a long paragraph, talking about the harvestman arachnid. However, while reading the paragraph (and let's be honest, I probably briefly skimmed the paragraph), I did not realize that the harvestman was a bug, but rather I thought it was a man who harvests things. So after reading the paragraph, the test asked questions that tested our knowledge of vocabulary. I only remember one question, it being, "What is the niche of the harvestman?" I thought it was weird that we were applying the terms we'd studied to real-world situations, rather than to something more scientific but I answered the questions the best I could.

We turned in the tests, and then we were all given someone else's test to grade (which is the most disagreeable method of grading, ever). We began going through each answer, marking down any of our peers' answers that were incorrect. And then we got down to the last questions. I looked at the answers on the test I was grading. I then realized that the harvestman question was about something scientific, and that I was totally mistaken when I answered the questions. WHY DIDN'T I REALIZE THIS QUESTION WAS ABOUT A BUG? I asked myself, mildly embarrassed about the misunderstanding.

Since the questions were open-ended, students began raising their hands, asking if the question they were grading was correct.

PLEASE DO NOT READ MY QUESTION OUT LOUD, WHOEVER HAS MY TEST. JUST MARK IT WRONG AND MOVE ON.

Then Katie raised her hand and said in a questioning voice, "This person said, 'The niche of the harvestman is to harvest the fields.'"

The class, including the teacher, burst into insane laughter. I laughed, too, so that nobody would connect the dots and realize that I was the one who answered the question. My teacher said, "I didn't know a harvestman could do that." Everyone kept laughing. Then the teacher said, "Mark the question wrong. They were probably just joking."

Everyone added up the points and started handing the tests back to their respective owners. Katie brought me my test, and I said in a laughing voice, "Yeah, I was just joking about that last question."

I'm sure she didn't believe me, because I was the most timid person in the entire school.


I have never shown my face in public since that day.

Backpack of Notre Dame

One morning in kindergarten, I was late to school for some unremembered reason. I had a coat, and being the little thinker I was, I decided to put the coat on over my backpack. It just seemed easier that way. I walked by the playground and over the asphalt where jump roping usually took place during recess. A little boy who was also walking toward the doors looked over at me, and under his breath he said, "Chubby." So I walked up to him, gave him a high-five and yelled, "Thanks, man! You are so nice."

Actually, I just kept walking and thought to myself, "Well. I'm never doing this again."

To this day, I never wear my coat over my backpack.

Bellowed

Perhaps beneath 

A sallowed wail 

Endures a lasting resonance 

And below a belted, 

Blowing tale 

Results a fading adamance. 

From drafts 01.04.12

Tattered Relics

There is a stairway leading

To an impossibly careless room

Of idle pages strewn about

Tired reflections of dusty gloom

The paper on the walls is peeling

Sagging with its age
Just like those recollections reeling
I vow to forget, and soon

This ancient room of decaying dreams

Tears away my breath

And I’ll never find what it means

To forsake and tear my past

-Polished from Poetry course

December 2010

Dwindling

To the cabin: 

From a dwindling 

Summer.

Ballerina

Did I ever tell you that I used to be a ballerina?

Up until eighth grade, officially. Which I find odd, because thinking back to eighth grade, I feel like I am thinking back to childhood.

And ballethood seems like just a few hours ago.

I miss ballet. I can't pretend like I miss some of the classmates throughout the entire experience. But I miss ballet.

I miss a lot of significants right now. Namely my post-consumption of rotten orange juice esophagus. And my post-lifting 6 tons at work state. 

Among other things.

But I'll spare you the eye-pacing and brain storage, for now.

Parade

I went to a parade today. I sat on the road behind a line of kids and I just watched. And I snapped pictures. There were only a few floats. One float had a beauty pageant winner and the runners up, all dressed in pink gowns. They waved to all the onlookers, smiling. Occasionally a firetruck would crawl by with little kids inside. They would wave to rest of the kids, proud that they were in the parade. The children watching would stare back at the wavers, imagining themselves in their shoes. 

More floats went by.

I remembered that I was on a float, once.

I had forgotten.

A man from church was in charge of a float for the city parade. He asked if I wanted to be on it, along with some other kids. Some of us would dress up like pioneers, others would sit on beanbag chairs and read. It was a reading float.

Funny someone would want me to be on a reading float, considering the fact that I can't recall what the last book I read was.

So we were supposed to wave to people. Which I'm sure was an intimidating thing for me to do. But I waved to people. Because I was on a float.

At the end of the parade, we were driving back over to the parking lot. There were some people along the way, so I waved to them. Common courtesy. If you're on a float, wave to people. It's in the contract.

There were a couple girls who were a little older than me. Pretty girls. I waved to them as we drove by.

They gave me a look, made fun of me using the word 'stupid', and I'm sure I turned red.

But it's fine. I'm shrugging about it. I still remember who one of the girls was, though.

She's probably a parade groupie now, seeing how much fun it can be to stand on a float and wave to people.

Crabapple Jam

Over a year and a half ago, I compiled a list of things that I wanted to do before I left my little, three-mile radius of a town.

1. Make crabapple jam
2. Have a picnic located on the library’s elevator
3. Tour the catacombs
4. Sit out on campus and paint
5. Go onto the roof. Well, a roof, really.
6. Create a mural
7. Ride a tandem bicycle
8. Find someone to ride the alleged bicycle with me
9. Somehow manage to learn a new song on the piano
10. Take a photographic masterpiece
11. Find a trapdoor
12. Use it.
13. Set someone up on a date
14. Build a blanket fort
15. Build a snow fort
16. Stargaze in the football field
17. Make a documentary
18. Paint light bulbs
19. Find buried treasure
20. Get a black eye (Only so I can say it was caused by a skydiving accident when people asked about it.)
21. Climb a slanty tree
22. Slaughter the rules in my 2D Design class and make my own art
23. Continued from #5, blast music from atop the roof
24. Go fishing using leftover fishing wire (leftover from hanging light bulbs around, of course), ice cream, and
      no-bake cookies
25. Rappel down the Activities Center
26. Tie sheets together, climb out my apartment window
27. Staple pillows to the wall. Mosh pit.


My Success:
I somehow managed to accomplish #9
I took plenty of photographic pieces, (#10), but I am not sure any of them were the master kinds of pieces.
I participated in #14, but I don't think I was actually useful in the construction.

Three out of twenty-seven.
Does that count as successful?