13 Thursday: Write On
1. Sometimes reading seems like too much input, like taking in second hand information when I could be having original thoughts.
2. By the time I was eleven I was coveting Dear Abby’s job and reading Erma Bombeck while thinking, “hmmm, you can make money doing that?”
3. I felt similar about the Dick Van Dyke show and the fact that his character had a job sitting in an office writing lines all day. Coming from a working class background, that seemed unthinkable to me. But although I didn’t know it at the time, I was recognizing something that would later become a way of life for me.
4. Did you know that “the now common experience of “silent reading” is a late development in the story of the alphabet, emerging only after the Middle Ages, when spaces were first inserted between the words in a written manuscript (along with various forms of punctuation), enabling readers to distinguish the words of a written sentence without necessarily sounding them out audibly?” ~From “The Spell of the Sensuous”
5. These days a camera in my pocket is like a second pen.
6. I got an answering machine, a color TV, and a computer because someone gave them to me. I still don’t have a cell phone but I’m starting to want that gadget that is a phone, computer, and Ipod all in one.
7. Content should dictate technology and not the other way around.
8. When my friend, Mara, performs spoken word, she frequently wears pants with words marked all over them. When I first ran into her at FloydFest , I said, “What’s up with your pants. They have nothing written on them.” 
She handed me a pen and I got to write the first word on them while announcing “Let the pants writing begin!”
9. When she arrived at the spoken word night a couple of weeks later (the one we were sidelined to do on the street), she had a surprise for me. She, a regular loose leaf reader and re-occurring character on my blog had added a large 13 to her pants, knowing I would use it for a Thirteen Thursday post (see top photo).
10. My husband, Joe, got back from visiting his family on the hottest day of the summer. When I heard him come in I called from the bedroom, “Come in here where your fans are. That means me and the one plugged in that blows air.”
11. He brought me a present. He knows what I like. THIS.
12. Our dog is afraid of gunshots and thunder. Even though she has a doggie door, she’s been chewing her way in at every door in our house. “This has got to stop,” I said to Joe. “She’s eating us out of house and home.”
13. LOOK HERE. Mara wants your autograph.
Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13’s are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.
August 22nd, 2007 11:57 pm
very cool list!!!!
August 23rd, 2007 4:20 am
I remember your post about Mara’s pants…And I love that she put a 13 on her pants for you to use! Is the present one of those colorful personal fans? I have a picture of one (not a video) from my post about SEEMEH’S BIRTHDAY….(August 4th or 5th, I think…Anyway…I love seeing it moving like that, in the video!
August 23rd, 2007 8:39 am
I like your new toy too!! and love Mara’s pants with the “13” painted on them, just great.
Your nr. 5 left me thinking that the camera is actually my pen since I am not good in writing but love to communicate somehow.
August 23rd, 2007 10:03 am
Cool toy reminds me of a kaleidoscope! You never have to worry about not having any original thoughts…you are one of a kind. I totally love your randomness.
August 23rd, 2007 10:14 am
Great list. Your husband Joe is a sweetheart isn’t he? Always saying sweet thangs to you! The dog line cracked me up.
August 23rd, 2007 10:15 am
When I just re-read your line I see it was yooouuuu who was saying the “sweet thangs” and not Joe. So I stand corrected, you are the sweetheart!
August 23rd, 2007 10:32 am
It’s funny that you mention words on pants…I got a tiny bloodstain on the knee of my favorite capris that I didn’t treat instantly and now can’t get out. So I thought I’d draw a daisy around it…and then I thought I’m write a few words…and then I thought, hell, let’s totally revert to the 70s and write the whole of Stairway to Heaven on them!!!
Hmmm…perhaps Mara should send a pair of her pants on a trip around the world, having them written on by various people…
August 23rd, 2007 10:50 am
Your friend Mara is so funny.
I never knew that about silent reading.
August 23rd, 2007 11:21 am
Interesting about Mara’s pants; what a neat character trait/quirk. I could do a lot with that idea…
And the pun about the dog eating you out of house and home?? Wonderful!!!
Happy TT! Glad you stopped by West of Mars.
August 23rd, 2007 11:23 am
WItty folk, youse is.
August 23rd, 2007 11:24 am
I wish someone would provide me with a laptop just like those people that give you TVs and such.
Ooooh, I like the Worldwide Pants idea–have them written on by various people in different languages. Would be cool!
August 23rd, 2007 12:07 pm
Very clever and very well done. Have a great TT. 🙂
August 23rd, 2007 1:50 pm
“These days a camera in my pocket is like a second pen.”
I heartily agree and admire what lovely words you found for that observation.
The spinning top is just tops. And the signed pants are over-the-top, but in a good way.
August 23rd, 2007 4:59 pm
I love the pants! And that was a neat fact about reading. I never knew that.
Happy TT!
August 23rd, 2007 10:50 pm
I always keep my camera in my purse…I have friends and family that have stopped asking “hey, you have your camera with you?” now they just say “take your camera out and take a picture of that” My mother still laughs at me when I take pics of the food I make and eat.
August 24th, 2007 12:26 am
#5 – amen. My camera is slung in its bag over my shoulder every time I leave the house.
#7 – I was in a meeting with senior leaders of a Very Large Computer Company earlier this year, and I got one of them to stop dead in his tracks with an observation stunningly like this one. It’s never about the technology. It’s about the content.
Popped by from Michele’s to see what my mountain-home friend is up to.
August 26th, 2007 1:17 pm
Great list. Loved the “house and home” line!