Do You Believe?

Today in class, my group presented the poem, “Block City.” This children’s poem made me think about my childhood and the imaginative games that I would play, along my extremely optimistic outlook on potential human achievements. These include...

• Cars: That’s what we called this game. Basically, my brother had a children’s rugs that had a road design on it. We would use toy cars (we each had our favorites) and would create characters who basically were embodied within the cars. We would play often, creating elaborate story lines behind these characters. I believe we followed these specific lives for years.
• I used to have a loft bed in my room. I had a friend sleep over, so we had a mattress on the floor. We decided to train ourselves how to fly. We took two pillows in each hand and continuously flapped our arms as we repeatedly jumped off of the bed. After a while, my mom came up because she kept hearing loud thumping sounds. She kind of freaked out and made us stop...
• OK, so I am not going to lie, there may have been a game that I played with my friend where we pretended we were fairy princesses on the run from power-hungry humans intent on causing us harm: This may be why I feel strongly about environmental protection?
• Playmobile: I was very into this; I played with my brother at first, but when he got older, I played by myself. We had so much furniture for them that my parents actually built a playmobile house for us. It had different wallpaper for each of the rooms, along with a staircase and individually painted roof tiles.
• Our business model: I’m not exactly sure if this counts as make- believe because we truly believed that we (My brother, a close friend, and I) were running a real business. We called it Ekey- Kids and our logo was a globe with a red arrow wrapping around it. We had a money fund and would make plans for the future; we hoped to buy an office space. At one point, we were intent on buying a calculator that printed out receipts, but my mom somehow managed to sway us. She actually tried to settle this urge by buying a tool cash register, but it just annoyed me because I felt like she did not take our business seriously.
• My friend and I would make movies about various things: the three little pigs, a spoof of the three little pigs, a films about the murder of a movie star, a haunted mansion, the lives of tooth fairies, and more. We actually got quite into these.

Pertaining to My Life

Data sheets consume, but essays kill.

An Alternate Ending

What if they had had a chance to fight about their feelings? I think that things would have ended a little bit differently...

“They each presented a glass to Lanark. Then Vernon offered a glass to Clive and Clive gave his to Vernon”
Lanark then drank both glasses of champagne while exchanging pleasantries with the two all friends (that really were not that pleasant). All of a sudden, Lanark stopped laughing. He froze and started falling to the ground.
A high pitched scream pierced the air. A fat woman in a frilly pink dress cried out: “HE’S DEAD!!!”

Although she is not fat, I felt that she
got the sentiment across

An on-site team of rescuers (someone always needed a band-aid or pain killer in these high society settings) ran to him. They were kind of drunk, so instead of realizing that he had simply fainted, they too believed that he was dying.
“What has he had?” One cries, “Quickly! Someone! THIS MAY SAVE HIS LIFE!!!”
Clive felt uneasy. Had he accidentally given Lanark the wrong glass? He had already gambled one life at Allen Crags. Even though the last of his morality was dwindling, he knew he had to say something.
“I may have given him a sleeping pill by mistake!” Clive blurted out. To his surprise, he heard another voice speak at the same time. He looked up in horror to see that Vernon had just offered the same information. They caught each other’s eyes.
The rescue squad was relieved; they had not wanted to deal with anything serious, so they set Lanark down on a row of chairs and rejoined the party.
Clive and Vernon still stared at each other, slowly realizing the implications.

The guilt that Clive feels

“Tell me the truth” Vernon demanded, “Was that meant for me?”
Clive knew that lying would only make matters worse at this point.
“Yes” he admitted, “But it was just for our agreement. Look at yourself! You’re going mad!”
Vernon looked aghast, “I’m mad! Look at yourself! You just tried to kill me!”
“So did you!” Clive proclaimed
(At this point in the story there is some vulgar diction and a small amount of physical violence that most possibly would not be appropriate for school)
Vernon looked sheepish. A tangible awkwardness filled the air, as they both tried to avoid eye contact. Clive focused intently on the fat lady, now attempting to salsa dance with a fearful looking waiter.
“Maybe” Vernon said, “We have both made some mistakes. Maybe we are both a little crazy”
“Perhaps” Clive conceded.
They looked at each other again.
“I’m sorry” They both blurted out at the same time.
They then hugged it out just as the fat lady decided to start an opera karaoke competition
“Do you have any of that powder left?”

Blackmail anyone?

Have you ever been blackmailed or blackmailed anyone? I have not.
When I read about the pictures in Ian McEwans’s Amsterdam, I started to think about some not-so-good pictures of my own. By this, I simply mean, awkward photos. I have no dark secrets like Garmony. But on occasion, someone whips out a camera and a particularly unflattering picture of someone will appear. We laugh and joke about how we now have “blackmail” on that one person, in case it is ever needed. This happened so frequently that, through time, we have each accumulated mass amounts of potential blackmail against each other. For example, I have a photo of Sarah on my phone where she looks demonic. Someone might make a strange expression or look mentally insane. Or sometimes, my dad will take photos of gymnastics meets. These are the worst. But even though we all hold stockpiles of awkward photos, we never put them online or share them without the other person’s consent. It makes me wonder, how much anger does it take to actually blackmail someone? I could never even imagine doing such an act. I guess this is part of the reason that I think Vernon was so wrong. Yes, I could post an interesting photo of someone for this blog’s success, like Vernon would for his newspaper. But I will not. Instead, I think that you will enjoy these photos of random strangers instead.

 It looks like they all want to kill the child...

This is humorous because her head is
so far back that she looks headless.