Overheard and overseen
Mar. 7th, 2007 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantGuy at coffee shop: "Hey, there's a guitar pick on the counter. You want a guitar pick?"
Me: "I don't need one."
Guy: "Picky, picky."
"He wants you to spend your vacation with your in-laws in a trailer in Texas?"
"Oh, my god, when you put it that way it sounds bad."
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Sign at coffee shop: "This is Harry. Harry touched Coffeemaker 2. Now he's dead. Do you want to be like Harry? Noooo!"
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"I'm not going to get it at Campus Town. People are getting shot now at Campus Town."
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Woman at drugstore buying: A gallon jug of wine, a large bottle of vodka, and a multi-pack of Tic-Tacs the size of a coffee-table book.
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"I can't write romance. I've tried. Somebody always gets killed."
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Me: "Harriet's mean. I didn't remember that she was so mean."
Kidlet: "She just writes down what's true."
Me: "She writes down that she wants to see that old woman run over by a bus!"
Kidlet: "You just don't remember what it's like to be a kid."
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Spouse, out of nowhere: "I wonder if I've been using relative pronouns carelessly."
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The river is high, and the ice is largely gone. I looked out the window at the gym and saw three seagulls standing in a row on a floating sheet of ice. Their combined weight had submerged the ice, so that they looked like they were standing on the water.
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Mother to son: "Did you talk all day at school today, too? Or are you just making up for lost time?"
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Kidlet, lying flat on the couch: "C'mon. Let's play 'Tickle the Dead. "
Me: "I don't need one."
Guy: "Picky, picky."
"He wants you to spend your vacation with your in-laws in a trailer in Texas?"
"Oh, my god, when you put it that way it sounds bad."
-----
Sign at coffee shop: "This is Harry. Harry touched Coffeemaker 2. Now he's dead. Do you want to be like Harry? Noooo!"
-----
"I'm not going to get it at Campus Town. People are getting shot now at Campus Town."
-----
Woman at drugstore buying: A gallon jug of wine, a large bottle of vodka, and a multi-pack of Tic-Tacs the size of a coffee-table book.
-----
"I can't write romance. I've tried. Somebody always gets killed."
-----
Me: "Harriet's mean. I didn't remember that she was so mean."
Kidlet: "She just writes down what's true."
Me: "She writes down that she wants to see that old woman run over by a bus!"
Kidlet: "You just don't remember what it's like to be a kid."
-----
Spouse, out of nowhere: "I wonder if I've been using relative pronouns carelessly."
-----
The river is high, and the ice is largely gone. I looked out the window at the gym and saw three seagulls standing in a row on a floating sheet of ice. Their combined weight had submerged the ice, so that they looked like they were standing on the water.
-----
Mother to son: "Did you talk all day at school today, too? Or are you just making up for lost time?"
-----
Kidlet, lying flat on the couch: "C'mon. Let's play 'Tickle the Dead. "
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(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:57 am (UTC)You know, there's a lot of truth to that. Someone Who Knows About These Things told me that the reason there are so many dark themes in children's stories is because children want and need to read stories with dark themes. Reading those stories helps them learn to work though their fears.
One of my favorite books as a child was a Dr. Seuss book called "Are You My Mother?", the one where the baby bird falls out of its nest and spends the entire book trying to find his mother again. He goes up to every object, animate or no, and asks, "Are you my mother?" That book both terrified and fascinated me. Of all the books I had before I was in school, I think I read and thought about that one the most, because I was so terrified that something would happen to my mother and I'd be left alone. That book legitimated my fear somehow (whereas adults always tried to dismiss such fears), and I think it helped me come to terms with it.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 05:02 pm (UTC)Ursula LeGuin has the best quote about children's lit (which I post whenever I get the chance :P):
Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up.
All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words and little dumb ideas, and don't be too scary, and be sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it. Write down. Right on.
If you do all that, you might even write Jonathan Livingston Seagull and make 20 billion dollars and have every adult in America reading your book!
But you won't have every kid in America reading your book. They will look at it, and they will see straight through it, with their clear, cold, beady little eyes, and they will put it down, and they will go away.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 04:18 am (UTC)That is pure bad pun joy right there.
you are so exquisite
Date: 3/8/07 04:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 05:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 05:36 am (UTC)"I can't write romance. I've tried. Somebody always gets killed."
deserves to be iconned. These are all great. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 06:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:32 am (UTC)The icon is, anyway. It's a sort of joint venture between myself and
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:39 am (UTC)>>>
Seriously - gorgeous.
I have built a trebuchet in my time, but I never had a zombie to toss from it. Apparently, I simply lacked Vision.
Thank you!!!
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:49 am (UTC)A few more words: Society for Creative Anachronism.
The geekery contained in above words is nearly infinite and the applied physics/alcohol combinations implicit resulted in catapults, trebuchets, the occasional explosion and a few death-dealing headaches.
Oh - and the slight denting of a '78 Ford Pinto (the aim was WAY off but it wasn't my fault. I don't DO vectors).
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:55 am (UTC)That is absolutely brilliant.
Also the only really cool application of maths I've ever come across.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 12:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 07:10 am (UTC)*snorfles* He would fit in so perfectly at my workplace.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 08:22 am (UTC)And Madison Ave would have us believe that people wonder about their breath or constipation!
Loved this list - Life is certainly one long non sequitur, isn't it?
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 10:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 03:06 pm (UTC)It's only sensible to buy things in bulk, especially if you know you're going to need them.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 04:40 pm (UTC)Spouse cracks me UP! This is almost as good as the time he pretended to be, IIRC, a Russian character braving the ice & cold to take the garbage out, thus proving the value of English majors and all literature in general :D
Mother to son: "Did you talk all day at school today, too? Or are you just making up for lost time?"
OMG. THAT IS MY SON.
The river is high, and the ice is largely gone. I looked out the window at the gym and saw three seagulls standing in a row on a floating sheet of ice. Their combined weight had submerged the ice, so that they looked like they were standing on the water.
oooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
*em cheers when she sees ephemera & overheard on Res's LJ!*
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 06:35 pm (UTC)You just don't remember what it's like to be a kid *dies*
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 07:25 pm (UTC)"I can't write romance. I've tried. Somebody always gets killed."
That sounds disturbingly like me...
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/07 11:05 pm (UTC)Tickle the Dead. I think I used to play that, but it was called Sleeping Lions. His version sounds quite a lot creepier.
(no subject)
Date: 3/14/07 08:23 am (UTC)