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Bad thing:

I am working with a dreadful person. Her name is Effie, and she's got soulless eyes, and may in fact be Satan himself. Last night she made me cry.

Good thing:

Last night, again, a woman came to the register with her daughter, maybe three or four years old. The mother ran to the back of the store to get something she'd forgotten. The little girl squinted at me over the counter, then pointed to the Archie comics.

"Are these joking books?" she asked me, in a very critical little-kid voice.

"Sort of," I replied.

She picked one up and looked at it consideringly. "Does it have rhymes?"

I'd read a lot of Archie comics as a kid, but couldn't remember any having rhymes. "I don't think so," I said. "Just pictures."

"And words," she pointed out triumphantly as she flipped it open, giving me one of those hard, disapproving looks that children give you when they think they've caught you in a lie. She jabbed at one of the speech bubbles, in which Reggie was telling the other Riverdale boys that he didn't blame them for making a move on his girl, as she was such a doll. Or maybe peach. "What does this say?" she asked.

We stood there for a few minutes, her finger moving from one bubble to another as I read to her, feeling slightly foolish, bits of dialogue put in the mouths of teenagers with seventies vocabularies and eighties wardrobes by old men who'd forgotten both of those decades, and she nodded, very seriously, filing it all away somewhere for reference.

Her mum came back to the counter, flustered, and apologized for holding up the line. She told the little girl to scan her candy- I think it was a pushpop- and then told her to thank the nice lady.

She said "'nk you," and then asked her mother if they could buy the comic, since it had jokes in it, and I wondered what she'd be like when she learned how to read.

I hope she'll find a really good book someday, one that smells like libraries do on rainy days, one with someone else's name scrawled in pencil on the inside cover. I hope she'll fall in love with it. I hope she'll curl up on a comfy chair and get lost and won't come when dinner's ready.

on 2007-11-18 02:01 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] redheaded-itch.livejournal.com
Geek. :)

(You should make Effie's coffee cup float around.)

on 2007-11-18 02:55 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ishyface.livejournal.com
"Killlll, Effie... killlll them alllll. You know you want to."

on 2007-11-19 04:03 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ishyface.livejournal.com
"There was a voice, before. It made my coffee dance! And it told me to-"

"... Told you what, Effie?"

"Nothing."

on 2007-11-18 02:24 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] youidiotkid.livejournal.com
This entry made me smile :]
& that Effie girl can go get stuffed.

on 2007-11-18 03:01 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ishyface.livejournal.com
& that Effie girl can go get stuffed.

I just got the weirdest image of her as the stuffed vulture on top of Neville's grandmother's hat. It suits her, oddly.
(deleted comment)

on 2007-11-18 03:03 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ishyface.livejournal.com
Little kids with books are pretty fascinating creatures. (It makes me sad that so many of them are given such crap books, though. I mean, okay, we all went through a Baby-Sitter's Little Sister phase, but do we really need to immortalize Lizzie Maguire in book form?)

on 2007-11-18 09:33 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] mresundance.livejournal.com
This entry made me nearly cry. From joy.

I am now sending you subliminal brainwaves from across the miles: When you graduate, you will come to UEA. You will enroll in the program. Or any Master's program. Or at least be writing, writing, writing.

Okay, you left the writer's group 'cause the one dude was published with Michael Ondaatje. Big deal. Ondaatje and others need to hold onto their butts if you keep this up.

on 2007-11-22 07:46 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] spikey-kris.livejournal.com
*Gasp!* Someone else who read baby Sitters Club Little Sister Books!?!?! If I had to hear one more goddamn snarky word outta Pamela Harding's mouth I was gonna smack her! (On that note, I always skipped the chapter about "Jacob Two Two" Geeze Keren way to repeat yourself EVERY time you tell a story...)

Little kids are critical man, a seven year old can call you on any mistake you ever make in the most harsh of manners.

Oh, and the Writers group disbanded because all the fancy pantses were too busy with their junk. I wish you had stayed, I like reading everything, especially peer writing. :(

Are you taking the Advanced Creative Writing course next semester? it looks pretty interesting...

on 2007-11-23 02:07 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ishyface.livejournal.com
Oh, hell yes I read the Baby-Sitters Little Sister! Even though I kind of always hated Karen. (I always skipped that chapter, too. And the first chapter of every Animorphs book.) They have a BSC comic book out now, apparently. I kindasortamaybealittle want to read it, but it would probably squash all my fond childhood memories.

I'd wondered if it was still going. Even if it hadn't disbanded I probably wouldn't have been able to do much in it this year- I've been so busy and crazy and arrrgh. I should have stayed, though. It's good for me to share my writing no matter how ridiculously nervous it makes me. :)

Can second-years take that course? I know for one of them you need to be in third year and have some sort of writing portfolio to put forward. (Either way, as soon as I can take one I am defiitely going to.)

on 2007-11-23 03:12 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] spikey-kris.livejournal.com
Comic book eh? I don't know what I think of that...

Yes! yes! Second years can take the course! :D you have to give a 10 page sample of your writing to Dr. Maggs. I've been recruiting people to take this course, last year when they had it no one signed up and they cancelled it and I reeeeealy want to take it. It looks like such an interesting course, and I really like Dr. Maggs, he tells interesting stories. (Also: Creative Writing= No exam! 1 Less is always good by me.)

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