Slice of Life 7/31

        Tintin, my dog, lays casually on the ground. He doesn't know that in a matter of minutes, he will experience a type of mental stimulation that makes use believe that he needs drugs. My dad's friend and his twenty-year-old son are coming visit us, but we consider them a type of family because they are really nice. I hear the car door slam, which causes Tintin's ears to perk up a bit, but not enough to have him get up from his lounge. It amuses me, because  I know what he will be like in some time, and I can't believe he can go from this to that.
        I hear their footsteps coming up to the door, my dad with them and greeting his old friend from college and his son. Tintin gets up. He can smell them. He is a really lean and skinny dog with shiny black hair and a little white spot on his chest. He stands in a heroic pose, the frame of a confident and alarmed dog. My dad starts to unlock the house, the first bark come out of Tintin's vocal chords. I hear the door knob turn and the door slowly sing open. Waiting just inside of the house is a creature who you would not really like to see when walking into the house, but my 'uncle' and his son see just that creature, which is Tintin.
        A huge eruption of familiar barks comes from our dog, who is soon going crazy, running and jumping in and around the house. Our visitors are startled by the dog, even after warning, because he is so persistent, but will then suddenly stop. After he gets his treat to calm him down, he will sit there, and out of the blue seem to forget about the new people and start his routine of barking and running around in circles. I keep thinking, it is amazing the mood swings he can have.
        Oh dogs. You have to love them.

Slice of Life 6/31

              I lean closer to the watercolor paper and paint another line onto it. I am almost done with this map, I’ve been working on it for almost the whole week at school. I have never painted maps, and haven’t tried to make them much at all, but in this past week, I seem to have found a new pass-time. The arrow I am painting rounds the corner between the Italian mainland and Cecily, cutting through the Mediterranean Sea all the way to Jerusalem. Either you already know because you are some kind of expert, or you don’t, but I am making a map of the Crusades. In short, the Crusades were holy wars in the 1000’s-1300 when different popes from Western Europe instructed their people to take back the holy land (Islam) from the Muslims and Jews. Thousands of people fought, and thousands of people died, and many other things happened. You are now caught up.

              Sorry to give you a lecture, but I just do that sometimes.

              Making the final arrow, I stroke the small watercolor brush across the rough paper and step back. I am truly satisfied by my work, as I am with other artistic things. I tried to make it look like a true medieval-look map, from the watercolor to the calligraphy, and I think it looks okay. I reach to the side of the paper to pick up, planning my rout to my art-folder thing, when I realize that there is no key on it. Just as I was about to sigh and smile, all while packing up the watercolor brushes and my small cup of water, I have to put it back and spend another ten minutes of perfectly good time on the key.

              Not only that, but I will need to strain the muscles in my hand, trying to not mess up on the writing. If I do mess it up, it will either look really bad or I will start over, which will absolutely suck. I get my ticket for the imaginary lottery, my chances getting slimmer and slimmer the more I work on this map.

              I sigh, but not like I was about to, more of a tired and irritated sigh to accompany me picking up the smallest brush and dipping it in the cup of water. I lean back closer to the paper and put my brush down onto the paper.           

Slice of Life 5/31

When you lean back and extend your arm out, time still moves in the right way. The last couple snow-balls you have completely missed, but you keep trying. There has been many snow-balls barely flying past you from opposing players, and you smile as none of them hit their mark.

              As you swing your arm around over your head, carrying the packed piece of the winter wonderland in your fist. You focus your eyes on the target, one of your best friends from school. When you are in the beast-mode you are in right now, you have to aim at your friends so your target doesn’t get too mad at you. Before you know it, momentum carries the snow-ball out of your hands and you move your fingers in the right way so it has back-spin, keeping in the air for just the right amount of time.

              Now time has really stopped. Thoughts go through your head as you realize how good of a shot this one was. Will it hurt them? Will they dodge it? The snow-ball seems to be flying as straight as a laser, with no arc in its flight path.

              Time starts to go faster now, faster and faster, until you hear a thunck sound and there is an explosion of snow around the target’s chest. They fall and lay there comically, while you bend down and pack together another snow-ball.  

               

              

Slice of Life 3/31

             Do you like cake? Some people don’t, and I don’t really understand their reasoning. To me, it seems impossible to be a human and also be able to not like cake. Anyway, my favorite flavor of cake is vanilla, (along with every other dessert) but at this moment in time I am eating a chocolate cake. An okay chocolate cake. I am not complaining or anything it’s just that (sniffle sniffle) it isn’t vanilla. I don’t understand people that simply don’t like vanilla (same with cake) because, it is just a plain and simple flavor that is amazing. But thing with chocolate is, sometimes chocolate is too much. I think chocolate is too rich by itself. My argument about this I a nutshell is, vanilla is better that chocolate is sweet and reliable, but chocolate isn't. It’s like the government.

              I hope I don’t get arrested for saying that, but then again, I’m in America, not Russia.

              The cake is actually my sister’s birthday cake, and before it was a sixth of what it used to be, it wrote her name in fancy letters, and the age she was turning. (I’m not allowed to put those two things on the internet). Besides the red frosting writing her name, it was nothing but chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

              I pick up the last forkful and move it slowly into my mouth. When I close my lips around it and pull the fork out, in my mouth there is nothing but cake and icing. Plain and simple.

              You know, it’s actually okay. 

Slice of Life 2/31

              

Are You?

              Sometimes I like to imagine what life was like in different history events. I really enjoy learning about history in general, and one of the things that I liked about it when I was young was that it gave me a platform to make believe. Am I riding on a white horse next to general Lee in the battle of Gettysburg as artillery balls an bullets alike fly past, each one not daring to hit either General Lee or I? Am I walking the streets of Paris during the French Revolution, alongside other young boys wanting to rebel against kings and queens with enough power to crush a city? Am I dumping barrels into the Harbor with John Adams and others in Boston?  

              A new topic has interested me lately, which is best described as the Crusades. Am I slaying innocent people because they don’t believe in the God I do? Am I establishing myself the king of a country because last night in my dream God told me to?

              Am I aiming a Gatling gun at a person in a gas mask I know nothing about because it was the orders given to me? Am I shaping the civilization that will be the most successful in history, while marble statues are being carved of my face?

              Am I shaping a genocide so horrible it will go down in history, while guns are being aimed at my face?

              Am I?

              Are you?

              I don’t know.     

              

Slice of Life 1/31

Blank pages are overrated. I sit here in my bed next to my lamplight and a clock that says it is too late at night to writing a Slice of Life, and a nice room that is so quiet it seems to be beckoning me to sleep. I hear planes rumble outside and remember when I was younger and I had just seen a ‘scary’ movie and how I thought that one of those planes was going to crash and it would be just like one of those movies. I also remember how they never did. That brings me to think how big the world is and how systematic it is. All of the planes, cars, people, plants, stars, computers, buildings, and whatever else you can think of run on a strict schedule, and somehow at the end of each day everything is on schedule so we can start the next day. I know I am leaving out the countless things that mess up, but if you think about it, the world is actually really big, really complicated, and really cool.

That probably sounds kind of cheesy, but you get my point. I have nothing to type about, just the random thoughts swirling around the room. I forgot to mention my dog, he is sleeping next to me in his torn up bed. He has a problem. He was found as a three-week old puppy alone on the streets of Huston, which directly translates into having attachment issues. Though, like any person I love him like a family member and that’s because he is. Every once in a while he moans in his bed, for not really any reason, I think it is just a way of his to show he is tired.

My eyelids shut from the heaviness they have undertaken so suddenly. I think I might go to sleep. I don’t know. I might type about something else though.  

Just a boy and his thoughts, a keyboard, and a clock that says it is way too late to be writing Slices of Lifes.

Slice of Life #6

     The White Team Ruled the Day

    I ease onto the couch - the coldness of the leather seeping through my clothes and giving me goose-bumps. Today, for much of the country, is one of the biggest non-holidays of the year. I wanted to stay at our house, or go to a friend's, but I was stuck with my parents taking me to one their sort-of friend's houses. One of my sort-of soccer friends, Rene (I cant figure out how to put an accent over the e), is sitting next to me, and unfortunately, once he didn't make the team we were both on last year, we have grown to not be able to connect on a conversational level.
    The coin is flipped - our offence is starting the game. Peyton Manning calls the play. The game has now officially started in the eyes on the fans. the ball is snapped, Peyton gets it and throws it down the field into the hands of Eric Decker, he runs- plowing trough the entire defense. Down the field he goes, an amazing run, and into the touchdown!!! Six points for Denver!!! Oh wait. That isn't what is happening. The snap goes flying over Peyton Manning  and into our own end zone, our running back dives onto the ball just before it is picked up. Two points for Seattle. Wow. The game went according to that rhythm for the rest of the game. The worst first play in NFL history.
     Everyone is in shock at the party - how could we play like this? This has by far been the worst performance this season by the Denver Broncos, and I know this even though I am not much of a football fan. All throughout Denver, people are struggling to block that game out of our minds, and all throughout the country, people can easily agree that the white team ruled the day.