excerpt #2: i still feel guilty for that

My time with Mr. Keimig was short-lived, as there came to be an addition to the third grade teaching brigade not long into the year. I speak of Miss Hejlik. All I really remember from my time with Miss Hejlik is that I was in love with Miss Hejlik. She was new, and young, and beautiful. And taken. She had a fiancé that she'd tell stories about from time to time. She actually invited the whole class to attend her wedding at the Naval Academy. My family went. Seeing her walk the aisle tore apart any notions I had of a possible life together. Perhaps I was young and naive. I still remember the feeling I had on the last day of class, when she came around one by one to give us hugs as we sat at our desks. I think it was that day that I experienced anticipation in its truest and most powerful form.

When I flipped open my old Riderwood yearbook recently, I was surprised to see the comment she wrote: "Gordon, I expect to see you someday as a famous writer! I have enjoyed your stories! You have a real talent! Be sure to be patient when you are asked to sign so many autographs! Love, Miss Hejlik"

It all came back to me, how I had once had a passion for writing stories. How I had loved it. I used to write stories for fun and make my parents read them. Mom and Dad were very encouraging. It made me sad to think that it seemed I'd lost that part of me over the years...the writer.

One day, for getting a question right in Miss Hejlik’s class, I was awarded two tickets to see "A Little Princess". A class bully, Ryan Heller (I always thought it was so appropriate that the word "hell" was actually in his name), made me give him the other ticket. We sat next to each other for the premiere, and I remember thinking how strange it was that he teared up during the movie.

In fourth grade I had Miss Skomp...not Mrs. Skomp, no, because no man would want to share his life with this woman. I know that my classmates and I absolutely didn't. She was wretched...short in stature, deadly serious, and almost never smiled. And when she did, it was the most uncomfortable smile you'd ever seen, probably because the concept of happiness was so foreign to her.

What I remember most about fourth grade was seeing Amy Sachs pee her pants (actually skirt) in front of the whole class. No one was raising their hand to go up to the front and recite the answers to the spelling homework, so Amy was randomly called on. My desk was the closest to her, part of a quad of desks, of which there were a handful about the room. Her shaky voice, followed by the sound of trickling liquid, raised an awareness in me that perhaps the unthinkable was happening right in front of me. Upon leaning down and peering under my desk toward her legs, my suspicions were verified. She finally stopped mid-sentence, and asked to be excused, and left wet footprints behind her as she walked out.

Lauren Heavrin, who had a crush on me and conveniently for her sat across from me, looked in my direction and tried to hold in a hysterical laugh, causing me to leak out some giggling of my own. Miss Skomp, however, mistook Nick Kavoussi, the shy redheaded fellow on my left, as the one who couldn't keep his cool, and yelled at him with full force, her face red and her finger in his face, the words accented by the manipulation that comes when passed through gritted teeth. His mouth lay open a little, and his big confused, innocent eyes met directly with their opposites in hers. I still feel guilty for that.

wish it were all true

fleet foxes

excerpt #1: only homosexuals could sing so high

It was just about the time that they moved into the new house that I was born. If I can't expound upon the first few years of my life for lack of confident memories, it might be useful to talk more about these two people that brought me into this world.

My dad was born and raised in the same town of Riderwood in Baltimore County, and attended Riderwood Elementary, as did my mom (she was one class below...they probably passed each other in the hall, oblivious their lifelong partner was feet away). He had a sister, Gerri, eleven years older. If my dad ever got into trouble (and he absolutely did), it always seemed tame in light of the trouble Aunt Gerri incurred. As my dad has since explained to me, she apparently felt sorry for the kids with rougher backgrounds, and found herself befriending them, which in the long run probably worked to her disadvantage. She ended up marrying one of those friends at the age of sixteen, and multiple other love interests gave her three boys with separate fathers.

I remember my dad telling me stories where he'd find her sneaking out of the house, and after threatening to tell on her would sometimes find himself accompanying her and her friends for some of their fun. According to him, she was having a party in their basement one night (most likely involving some not-so-parent-friendly activities), and a male friend of hers had come upstairs and said sternly to my grandfather, "Don't come downstairs, and there won’t be a problem." The next morning Granddad had to use a hose to clean out basement. I’m still trying to guess why.

I always imagine my dad's parents as having been traditional, but it may have just been that everyone at the time was. My grandfather was a very skilled artist. While his job title may have been more along the lines of advertising, he was an artist. But he always said that you had to do something with art, because art by itself is a hard thing to sell. Part of that stuck with me, as I now test my artistic abilities in the realm of architecture. My grandmother was the best cook I ever knew. Perhaps the most vivid image of her I can recall is that of her back to everyone, preparing something over the kitchen counter. It certainly meant good things were in store.

She was a Protestant. He was a Catholic. They prayed to the same God. I may never know how truly spiritual they were, but they were adamant about things like not cutting the grass on Sunday, that sort of thing. They were fond of classical music when my dad was a boy, and still were by the time I came around. Granddad always said that you could tell music was good if they still played it hundreds of years later. When my dad was young, my grandmother had told him not to listen to The Four Seasons, since "only homosexuals could ever sing so high."

I think my Dad was a good son for the most part, but his grades were never exemplary. He wasn’t dumb by any means. He simply didn't care for school that much. He has a grand sense of humor now, and I'm pretty sure he had one then. Even when he was a little boy, he told me how he had knocked his mom's vase onto the floor while she was vacuuming, subsequently shattering it, but how she had not noticed due to the noise of the vacuum. He knew she'd find out soon though, and was quick to run and find a book, which he stuck down the back of his pants. When she saw the broken vase, she had tried to spank him, only to find he was protected by the book he had equipped himself with, and instead of getting angry, she could only laugh.

no one can call chris martin a wuss rocker

Ladamagomajo

I think

I think that I shall never hurt a man as kind as Berty-Bert.
I think that I shall never roll with anyone as cool as Joel.
I think that I shall never hasten to let myself become like Mason.
I think that I shall never wanna get on the bad side of Anna.
I think that I shall never pester anyone as rude as Esther.
I think that I shall never see another dude like Jeremy.
I think that I shall never say, “Damn! I look as good as Seye!”
I think that I shall never blame me, for that time, you know, with Jayme
I think that I shall never toy with playing Coldplay songs for Joy.
I think that I shall never spot a journalist as bad as Scott.
I think that I shall never span the globe with as much class as Dan.
[Due to rhyming issues, certain names have been withheld from this exercise.]

Inspired by the poem by Joyce Kilmer: "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree."

René Magritte

would you rather...

have a fist-sized piece of asphalt thrown at you by dan bauman?

or

be hit in the thigh with a baseball bat?

would you rather...

have two kids that love you but hate each other?

or

have one kid that loves you and one that hates you and they get along fine?

would you rather...

be stapled in the back five times by a staple gun?

or

be submerged in arctic waters for ten seconds?

would you rather...

(ok so maybe keeping to ANY schedule of 'would your rathers' is too hard...just stay tuned)

be stranded on an island with your 10 best friends (not including your best 2)?

or

be stranded on an island with your 2 best friends?

men camping

would you rather...

(ok so maybe EVERY DAY was overambitious...every 3 days makes more sense...it's better for everyone that looks at this blog once every 3 days anyway)


live next door to Al Pacino?

or

live next door to Robert DeNiro?

for seye

So Seye Iwarere says to me, "Hey Gordon, when are you gonna put up another g-damn blog? I'm sick and tired of your steel sculptures." To say the least, I was surprised by his candor and threatened by his demeanor, although by now I should be used to it. Obviously there was only one thing I could do. Post a new post. I'll conclude with an age-old question posed by the great Abraham Lincoln (who I wish was running for presidency this year btw):

Would you rather have sex with someone with no arms or no legs?


(I think I'll make a daily 'would you rather' post...spice up my blog appeal)