Childhood Friends

Found a dusty copy of one of my favorite childhood books the other day: "Little Town on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I sat right down on the floor in a shaft of sunlight and reread it. I looked in the front cover and saw my sister's name written in her childlike scrawl from elementary school. She loved those books too, probably because I used to read them to her when she was a wee thing.

The "Little House" books were the first books I remember really falling in love with as a kid; I recall the one summer I read the whole series, devouring one after another. And it's a testament that they still can be enjoyed by adults as well as by children.

The "Madeline" books were also childhood favorites; the free-spirited Madeline and her adventures in Paris and London. Laura Ingalls was a free-spirit, too. I loved how she would write about wanting to be like the Indians near their prairie home, wild and half-naked riding on a horse across the plains, and how she rebelliously refused to sleep in her corset in order to have a teeny waistline.

I can't imagine not having grown up with books; my parents read to all of us kids, and all of my siblings like to read, but I'm the one who truly loved to read: who always had my head in a book, sitting in a private spot under a tree.

This love of books is something I want to pass on to my kids, and I have already started to collect those treasured books from my bygone childhood days for them--like the "Little Golden Books" and "Aesop's Fables".

My Kingdom for a Deus ex Machina

I'm not usually the type to criticize other writers, especially novice writers (like me). However, there are circumstances where it's perfectly acceptable to criticize the novice; for instance, if she takes liberty with her thesaurus, or if she believes her writing to be superior to that of her other classmates.

There are several in my class who hold these opinions, but one in particular more so than the others. I literally cringe when she volunteers to read her stuff. Phrases like "balloon carcasses" and "yay-yo" pour from her mouth, as she concentrates to retain the modest look on her face, yet unable to keep the slavering delight for her words out of her voice.

Today, her salvos kept going off for an eternity; I tried to muffle my ears from the blasts, but some of them got in: "...valium " "...smeared cigarette ashes on my husband's Egyptian cotton sheets..."; "...vodka haze..."; "...the demon box..."; "...behind my Gucci sunglasses...".

Ugh; who farted, right?

Eventually my deus ex machina finally arrived...the bell rang. Walking out into the crowded hall, I thought, Please don't let me be that bad of a writer!