I sent this to almost everyone I know. Now it's your turn, blog friends.
From: HaikuGirl
Sent: Fri 5/26/2006 5:13 PM
To: All who were silly enough to give me their e-mail addess!
Subject: "There was this one time ... "
Hello Friends, Romans, Countrymen.
As many of you already know, I’ve been slowly churning out a kid’s book illustration portfolio and dabbling with ideas to also write a little something something to submit along with it. Inspiration finally struck and the book is going to be about things that make 6 year olds cry. Not real things like daddy hitting mommy or cats getting run over by cars - - but silly things. Like not being able to have a cupcake for breakfast or being forced to wear velour.
I’m looking for your stories! Remember throwing a tantrum over something as simple as the crust still being on the bread? Witness a kid throw down in Target because they were out of pink toothbrushes? Clue me in! If it makes the cut, I’ll thank you, take you to lunch and hide an Ode To You in the illustration. I also will sign a waver so the Ode does not amount to your 15 Minutes Of Fame because that would seem like a total waste of your 15 Minutes.
Thank you in advance to the kind souls who share their stories. I will be forever in your debt.
xoxo,
HaikuGirl
14 comments:
I know. It's troubling, isn't it?
blank stare
crickets
fingers drumming
DUDE. My word verification is crazy long: dyvyxddl. Nuts!
i'm trying...
considering my own terrible childhood stories for submission... maybe, maybe not.
And my veri-string is 'mudzvy'! I think that's Russian...
My parents took me to get a dog when I was eight. It was on this farm outside of the suburbs and they raised beagles as a side job.
When we got there, there were only two dogs left. One was this scrawny thing that was the runt and then a perfectly normal puppy as well. Narually, I wanted the healthy-looking one, no kid wants his future best friend to be a small fry. But the price difference in dogs made it so that I got the runt.
I threw a big hissy fit down on this farm in rural Oklahoma, I didn't want the dog, and I pouted all the way home.
That night the dog slept on my bed, and he curled up next to my head and something inside me clicked and then we were inseperable after that. Best buddies for many years.
Yeah for best buddies!
I think I was 7 or 8 actually, so this may not apply. But I was visiting my cousin, my favorite person in all the world, and we were wearing matching dresses. We were very cool. That afternoon, I was walking through their backyard and I was momentarily blinded by the sun. I took a few more blind steps right into the deep end of their swimming pool. Even though I should've known how by this point, I didn't yet know how to swim. There I sank, lower and lower, ineffectually trying to save myself. By something other than coincidence, I believe, my older cousin had just come around the corner a moment after I did, saw the rings in the pool and knew that something or someone was down there; he jumped in and hauled me to safety. My hero. I was heartbroken, though, and cried and cried. Why? Because I'd almost drowned? No, of course not. Because my dress was soaked and I was no longer able to match my cousin. It was heartbreaking.
When my dad drank, when my parents screamed at each other, when I prayed to God to heal the broken wires in my Liddle Kiddle dolls and my prayres went unanswered.
Are the illustrations on your posts examples of your own art? They are lovely.
Chris: Um... Ghostbusters? Ghosts can be killed. All you need is a couple tanks of green goo. Let's go find that kid and set him straight.
NYABG: I'm assuming the book will take me about a year - soooo - you got plenty of time.
Contrary Guy: Well ... when you're ready.
Jay: I was always partial to the runt myslef. For instance, I'm the girl who always picks the WORST Christmas tree on the lot becuase I feel sorry for it.
You can call me Charlie Brown if it amuses you.
Jay Are: Ruined dresses are terrible. I think I'd cry if that happened to me and I'm almost 40.
Karen: I'm sorry the Lord didn't fix your doll. And while I wish the art was all mine, tis not. It comes from all sorts of places.
I was young enough to be carried by my father… or so I think. That would translate to 4-5 years at the most. We were waiting for bus No 53 to carry us home. A short distance but a tedious stand still in the cold wind until the bus came to the station.
In the habit of relieving the stress by eating, he would buy us either a hot dog or a special type of candy bar: wafers with milk chocolate. That was the peak of the day!
Now, as a kid, one is gifted with certain super powers, one of which is the ability to give an absolute estimate of whether a candy bar is perfectly divided into two equal pieces. I pointed that out to my father. Perhaps several times. So that he wouldn’t give me a slightly larger piece, just to be kind (Bah – how pathetic!).
“Don’t worry, yours will be bigger”, he said.
That really hurt me, even though the delight of sugar may have been worth the wound. I didn’t cry, but it was a silent sob.
when i was two i fell down a concrete stairwell and fractured my skull.
perhaps that's not exactly the type of crying story you wanted.
this morning my daughter threw herself on the floor crying when she found her backback had been left outside and was damp from the rain/dew. she's 15.
okay, that's not the right kind either.
how about this:
when i was about 4 yrs old my grandmother told me eating boogers would give me worms. i inferred that worms grew from boogers. when my dad refused to believe me, insisting that worms only come from other worms, i cried at his ignorance and unwillingness to listen to truth.
Henry: Knowing that story happened in Sweden makes it all the better.
Bryan: Crying at ignorance and insisitence to not recognize truth is universal! And you captured it using boogers! Even better!
Aha, good memory!
I can easily transfer another state of emotion to you. These are the best days of an average swedish life, as the sun is out. For an iTuner or Pandorasbox.com'er, this is the key:
"In times like these" with Stan Getz
As in art, it is not necessarily a banality just because it is figurative.
We all know now that as kids, not having cupcake for breakfast, or not having breakfast, period, is such a heart-breaking thing, but now we deal with not having our guy back with a faked smile and moving around like normal...I would rather cry over cupcakes.
I need to read more children's book. Looking forward to your illustrations....
The pleasant stink of family ties,
The way your grandma smells,
Wakes me up in the morning, when the
Cat shits on the carpet.
People die, girlfriends get pregnant,
Dogs shit in the backyard.
If the sun would rise like I did,
Fields would never be burnt.
More to live for, less to die for,
A martyr with bleary eyes.
Give me a satisfied hidden vice
Frowned upon and accepted,
More to die for, less to live.
By the time the bed is made and the
Floor is mopped again,
Her knees sore and our egos bruised,
The trash for the week on the curb,
We dream away our baggage by nightlight.
The books we remember are the
Shopping lists we forget.
The coffee is a life unlived;
Faraway from home.
as if there is any difference between being banal and being anal,
kindergarten in holland always had a fat lady. i looked at water in the drain, you know the type with little holes like a meat grinding machine, and they lit up like lights in the horror
but one day i cut off the sleeves of my longsleeve shirt because i wanted a shortsleeve shirt but then there were these sleeves all on their own and striped. lying on the floor, the first thing I ever killed,
and out of pity I put them back on. so in holland kindergarten i was the first victim, laughingstock of a future america, wearing a longsleeve shortsleeve shirt with cut arms and explaining whatever kids explain while they're crying.
later, after moving across to the blue side i had a runny nose and wiped it with my nylon jacket until the crust built up enough for the teacher to take the jacket away. boogers are universal. no one's ever written a children's book on them. ever.
Post a Comment