#340 Feeling it in your bones. Born and blasted into the world you’re a baby brain with wide eyes, chubby legs, and cloudy thoughts. Mom lifts you and picks you, eyes open and close, and fogs rise and settle. Tears stream and faces scream as your swirling brain twists and turns into thoughts… Nothing makes sense till it does. Nothing feels right till it does. Chalk raps on blackboards beside times tables, language stirs sounds into sentences, and stories send you flying into faraway worlds.
Teenage sleepovers and late night walks, summertime camps and suppertime talks, keep expanding your mind and your understanding of the world. But … sometimes challenging lectures or scattering friends, confusing debates without exams at the end, can frighten your mind and scare dreams away, can frighten your life and trade tomorrows for todays. When nothing makes sense … … … When nothing feels right … … … … … When it gets scary to realize… … … … … … … There are no instructions in life… Because today you’re right here …
#805 The smell of crayons. #817 Doing something half-assed at the last minute and getting away with it. #834 Building an amazing couch cushion fort. Digg Building a family room stronghold is no joke. No, it’s a kindergarten lesson in teamwork, trust, and the art of war. Follow these six steps to construct your domestic defense: Step 1: Clear and collect. Get the coffee table, throw rugs, and plastic toys out of the way, then begin hunting for materials. Couch cushions are your obvious first targets but pillows, sheets, and sleeping bags will be needed too. Step 2: Main construction. Step 3: Add-ons. Step 4: Hiding spaces. Step 5: Rations. Step 6: Finishing touches. After that, you’re pretty much done. Yes, as long as nobody’s parents buy the pre-packaged Super Fort from the Cranium buzzkills, cushion forts sure do give kids a great burst of creative energy on rainy days.
Photos from: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. #847 Old, classic board games. Digg Wedged tightly into dark corners in dusty attics are piles of old, worn out board games from years ago. The corners of these old boxes are cracked and split open, the flashy prints on top long worn away, leaving only the dusty, corrugated bones behind. Pencils with broken leads, yellowed instructions, faded homemade scorecards, and assorted sub-ins for lost game pieces litter the box and make it look like that clattery kitchen drawer of assorted knick-knacks. Take a deep breath and you may sniff up a familiar musty scent that takes you way, way back. For old time’s sake, let’s look fondly on thirteen of the greatest board games of all time: 13.
Hungry Hungry Hippos. This game was invented for all the kids who were shooed into the basement to calm down and go play a board game. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Incredible Candyland Photo Credit: Peggy Dembicer Photos from: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. #837 Pushing those little buttons on the soft drink cup lid. Cola, Diet, RB, or other. When we were kids, my sister and I carefully pushed those little plastic buttons every time we scored a meal at McDonald’s.
We pushed Cola if we had cola, RB if we had root beer, and Other if we were sucking back some McDonald’s orange drink, which was our usual. Honestly, we thought there was a big Garbage Survey at the end of the day and every customer had to punch their button to send in feedback. We figured some poor McDonald’s employee stuck his arm shoulder-deep in that bag of lettuce scraps drenched in Big Mac sauce, assorted ice-cream cone bottoms, and greasy French Fry containers to pull out all the cup lids. Then we imagined he arranged them in tipsy, drippy piles and counted up how many of each sold that day, quickly tabulating the results on a clipboard and calling them into head office so they knew how many batches to make for tomorrow.
Kids, huh? It’s just compulsive. It’s just Photo from: here and here. #852 The smell of the coffee aisle in the grocery store. #898 Playing old-school video games. Digg If you’ve ever enjoyed some lazy afternoons just sitting on the rug, passing greasy controllers around, and occasionally blowing into the business end of a Nintendo cartridge, then you know what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about the best old-school video games of all time. Here goes nothing: 13. Super Mario Bros 2. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who loved Mario 2 and those who hated it. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. Yes, playing old school video games was always a sure way to get sore thumbs, strained eyes, and a dry mouth.
And those were some seriously good times, my friend. Some seriously good times. #878 The smell and sound of a campfire. Slicing and dicing a dead tree, tossing it on a pile of dirt, and setting it ablaze is pure joy. As that dry, withered stump slowly releases years and years of energy soaked up from the sun, the air, and the ground around it, out come bright lights, whispering hisses, sizzling pops, and a thick, intoxicating smell of Musky Smoke N’ Pine Needles. You can close your eyes and let your eyelids paint yellow and orange kaleidoscopes as the heat washes over you, rosying up your cheeks and giving you that nice, warm Hotface Effect. In that cold, dark forest, on that cold, dark log bench, beside that cold, dark lake, your ears and nose perk up, as you call on some of your primal, caveman instincts to focus on every little sound and smell around you.
Photos from: here and here. #960 Strategic trick-or-treating. Digg Trick-or-treating ain’t no game. No, it’s a life lesson in goal-setting, planning, and tactical execution. Kids who master trick-or-treating go on to become successful world leaders. Kids who don’t could possibly also do the same, but with less chocolate to show for it. The point is that chocolate is delicious, and you should fill your pillowcase with as much of it as possible. You just have to master the 4 Rules Of Strategic Trick-Or-Treating first: 4. 3. 2. 1. The 4 – 6pm Start Up: You must be very active and running around here, before the street gets too busy. Now that you’ve got a game plan, just remember to keep it clean out there.
And you won. Pictures from: here, here, and here. #967 Illegal naps. You know what’s even better than laying on a hammock in the backyard on a sunny Saturday afternoon? Better than catching a few winks after classes before a long night out at the bars? Better than falling asleep on the couch with the baseball game on the radio? You know what’s even better than all that? I’ll tell you what: illegal naps, my friend. Napping any time you know you shouldn’t be napping has a bit of an edgy, dangerous feel to it, like sneaking into a movie, sharing a free-refill soda at Applebee’s, or coming across customs without declaring the new sweater you’re wearing. I’m talking about driving away from work at lunchtime, parking in a nearby parking lot, tilting back your driver’s seat, and then sneaking in a little siesta before an afternoon full of meetings. So come on!
This post is in The Book of Awesome. #980 Old, dangerous playground equipment. Slides used to be dangerous. After climbing up those sandy, metal crosstrax steps you got to the top and stared down at that steep ride below. The slide was burning hot to the touch, a stovetop set to high all day under the summer sun, just waiting to greet the underside of your legs with first-degree burns as you enjoyed the ride. It also smelled like hot pee, years of nervous children with leaky diapers permanently marking it as their territory. Lastly, to top it all off, there were no cute plastic siderails or encapsulated tube-slides, which meant that if you went too fast or aimed your legs poorly, your shoes would grip-skid on the metal, and you’d spill over the side, landing face down with a sickening thud in a bed of pebbles, cigarette butts, and milk thistles.
It wasn’t just slides, either. There were fire poles two stories high — just a cheap, simple pole planted deep in the ground. These days those classic playgrounds sure are hard to come by. This post is in The Book of Awesome. #530 Listening to couples tell you how they met. #526 When dreams come true. I was a bad baby. From the time I was zero minutes old I was wide-eyed, wide-awake, crying and cranky. Bedtime meant nothing and my parents say I’d often stand in my crib staring around the room rattling the bars all night.
Sleeplessness stuck as the years rolled on and I’d lie in the dark quiet house staring at the ceiling with my eyes bugged open for hours. Eventually I discovered books and started squinting through thick Coke-bottle glasses — lips softly moving, fingers slowly dragging — getting pulled into new worlds and new lives. Dim lights cast dark shadows by my dresser as I followed Frank and Joe to Pirate’s Cove or cracked cases with Encyclopedia Brown. When I went to high school I tried to sleep in, I practiced even, but it just wouldn’t take. These days my fingers can still feel the crinkly color-faded pages of garage sale Archie comics. I think I’ve loved books since I was a crib-rattling baby. Today The Book of Awesome hits shelves around the United States.
#234 3:00am conversations with your best friend. I grew up in the burbs. Streetlights and neon signs scattered red and yellow glows on empty streets and dark houses. Going out late at night with friends meant entering small worlds in bedrooms and basements away from the emptiness of the outside. Whenever those hangouts finished the scene quickly cut to late night cruises through warm summer breezes till everyone got dropped off at their distant driveways three blocks away. And if you were the last to get dropped off then it was on those driveways when you might have a great 3:00am conversation with your best friend.
Curfews were cute but getting home later was nothing compared to the flickering connections you’d get when there was nowhere else to go. Deep thoughts, dark thoughts, head twists and turns, there’s so much to burn when the moon’s up, the sun’s down, and you’re hanging with someone you love. . – Email message – Photo from: here and here. #902 Roasting the perfect marshmallow.