Yesterday Jeremy and I were sitting on our couch and facing the door to our apartment, and it occurred to me just how much of our life was currently represented by the debris in our entryway. Since yesterday, even more life has happened, making our entry way admittedly messy, but authentically so. Did I want to clean before photographing? Desperately! But that would have negated the time spent (or lack of time spent) flinging our coats off and casting off our boots because our radiator is hyperactive. It would have fed into the social media perfection machine. To clean would be to edit, to cover up the life that hides in the small moments. And my title promises that this is unfiltered, and it’s not clean either.
Tag: Blankness
A Nicer, Truer Hufflepuff You Never Will Find
Posted onI think if a member of the Hufflepuff house were to reach into the sorting hat in a moment of need, they would withdraw their hands in slight surprise, having just reached in to find my hedgehog coming to their rescue. They would have, of course, roused her from a nap, and so she would naturally be a little miffed, and thus, a little spikey. But a true Hufflepuff, seeing the good in everyone, even a perturbed hedgehog, would reach back in to find my hedgehog quite forgiving, her quills now laid flat. And in that moment of need, my Hufflepuff would offer the greatest support in any Hufflepuff’s moment of need. She would give a good snuggle, and all trouble would vanish.
An Image of my Boredom
Posted onIf you’re a visual kind of person, my boredom looks like this:
Screen Fast, Thoreau Style
Posted onIn an effort to get my students in the spirit of Transcendentalism and to “Simplify, simplify, simplify!” I have asked my students to create their own personal “Walden” of sorts.
Teaching: I am a Moose in the Headlights.
Posted onI’m a talker. I’m a sharer, as previously acknowledged. I’m an “experience the world through reliving it verbally” kind of person.
So it’s very strange, but I just haven’t really wanted to talk about my new job as a teacher very much.
A Nap About High School
Posted onToday was a special day, and here’s how I know it: I napped for an hour. A Whole Hour.
I am a frequent napper but usually only for five-ten minute bursts. I call these “synapses,” because they are short like a synapse and help me get something working again. But today, I had a genuine nap, though it was nothing special in and of itself. In fact, it gave me a headache afterwards.
Here’s a Slice of Senioritis
Posted onI legitimately have a list of things to do that is taller than me, and before you insert a short joke here, consider how daunting 5’3″ tall To Do list would look, even if it was written in a big font.
I have A LOT to do. So I scripted my To Do list, which was enjoyably stressful, as always, and I planned on going to the store to start our crock pot dinner, and then start the crock pot dinner and then get started on my 27,000 list of things to do. I was feeling as optimistic as a bright young cherry might if a cherry knew how to feel. I was planning on conquering the world tonight. I saved myself a Dr. Pepper, which I try to only drink now when the world needs conquering.
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| It looks worse in person, if you’ll believe it. |
But you see, I got derailed. First, I had to find out who went home on The Bachelor, and now I think Ben is an idiot. So I had to mourn for a minute about who went home on The Bachelor. And then I thought I should get started on my homework, but instead, I took a nap, watched this Ellen video about fifteen times, got hungry, ate instant soup, tried to start my homework, showed my husband the Ellen clip, took another nap, cuddled with my husband, and then made a Lean Cuisine (which, I don’t even like, and didn’t really eat). This whole procrastination process took six hours. I have become a procrastination expert.
I am choosing to blame Super-Senioritis, which is what happens to you when you were supposed to graduate a year ago, but then you had to stay even longer, and your brain is so addled that if you ever have to read another poem or critical essay again, you might decide to intentionally run over a trashcan with your car just because you’re horribly fried, and for some reason, that sounds like a good idea, and also use run on sentences because that also sounds like a good idea. That’s what Super-Senioritis does to all your thoughts and sentences that used to be neatly organized inside your brain and out.
I don’t remember having Senioritis this badly before. Certainly not senior year of high school, although admittedly my senior high school teachers were quite obliging; you’d get an A for participation if you said “Bless You” when the teacher sneezed. But in college, I still have 16 grueling credits, all of which would be totally awesome if I had taken them any semester except for this one.
And here’s the thing. My To Do list is still 5’3″ and this blog did little to help (though I think I will count it as a Slice of Life to make myself feel better). I think it might actually be time to start on my homework.
After I watch that hilarious Ellen video one more time.
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| Brace yourselves. It’s world-conquering time. |
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| My poor untouched backpack, casually flung and disregarded on the floor |
Curiously Blank and Mysteriously Pristine
Posted on
My name is Sierra Robinson. And I haven’t purchased a new blank notebook in two days.
Sponsors, I have a problem. I am easily swayed by indie cover art and blank pages (none of this college-ruled nonsense). I purchase blank notebooks like cartons of cigarettes. Something about them speaks to me. Maybe it’s the un-cracked spine. Maybe it’s those seductively blank pages. Maybe it’s the pristine whiteness of potential.
Whatever it is, I’m obsessed.
This is my current collection of notebooks:
See what I do to them?
Check on the spine on these puppies! They’ve been written in, pasted in, and beaten into submission so much that their spine starts to splinter like crazy. And this is just the college collection. I have a whole bureau drawer + a whole 3’ by 2’ container chalk full of them back home (even though I never really understood the phrase chalk full).
Apparently, I have a lot of thoughts. And a lot of time to write them down.
While some of my journals (namely the injured spine journals) are a raging success, others are less successful.
Take this journal for instance:
I agonized for minutes about whether or not I should purchase it. I scanned the list of potential uses for this journal. I weighed the pros and cons of this journal and I decided that I simply had to have it. I decided it would be of great use to me, whatever it became.
And then.
I blew it.
I wrote down my New Years Resolutions on the first page.
And now all this book can contain is lists of New Years Resolution, and it has ended up a wasted collection of tree.
This is why I am greatly perplexed about this newest addition to my collection:
This little treasure came all the way from Europe just to be with me. It is from the Belle and Boo Collection and I highly recommend it.
But it vexes me because… right now, it has so much potential to become the next great American novel.
It could hold my deepest darkest collection of intelligent poetry.
It could contain the cure to Cancer!
But I’m terrified, petrified, immobilized because what if… what if… this British journal becomes another house of New Years Resolutions??
WHAT IF I SINGLEHANDEDLY DESTROY ITS POTENTIAL?
Friends, cast your votes: What should become of this perfect little notebook?
And remember: Please notebook responsibly.
The Void
Posted onThe way I see it, there are the people who can make white space look awesome, and there are people who can’t. I belong to the latter category. You could accuse my life to be rather like my blog—busy.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Those people who just don’t need the noise of color. Those people who can let the whiteness of everything just speak of quiet, yet unhidden potential.
Author Nicole Krauss for instance, who has ENTIRE pages in her book, History of Love a COMPLETELY white tabula rasa.
I also imagine that the folks understand the beauty of white space with every notebook that they produce. I mean, have you ever seen so much potential contained in a singular, blank, college-ruled white-paged notebook?
This is possibly why I already love my newest blog follower like we are sisters. She understands the beauty of White. Her name is Daman Tiwana and I highly recommend her blog if you are looking for a little serenity.
Other ladies that just get the whole white space thing:
http://bethany-lee.blogspot.com/