Toys

Today's pointless photo almost sort of has something to do with anything (make your own English out of that statement). If you click on it you'll see a piece from an outdoor game board wedged in the crotch of an apple tree. The game board is well down the yard from the tree. I have no idea how the piece got to the tree. I doubt it would have been my nephews when they visited last year, because they would have had to've worked their way through quite a thicket of daylilies to get there. Maybe a crow or a magpie? I dunno, but it's kind of funny that I never noticed it until a couple of weeks ago.

Before I get on to toys proper, this video shows one of the easiest ways to make an office supply weapon. The bonus is, everything except for the pen is reusable so you're not even wasting anything. Well, time, I guess, but we all need stress relief now and then. I suppose I should have taken a picture of the one I made, but I'm too lazy to go get the camera just now.

Or joust now, which is what I typed. I guess I'm in a weapons mood.

Anyway, toys. As my two fans (and my nephews, for that matter) know, I have a lot of toys on my desk. Some I've been given, some I've bought on purpose to see what people play with, and some... oh, I don't even know why they're here. I'm a bit of a toy person, I think, because I'm a fidget. When I'm not actively doing something with my hands they're playing with something. One of my desk toys, maybe, a vegetable peeler that I forgot to take home, my jewellery, my hair; you get the idea. I was never good at the whole sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap thing.

Do they still get little girls to do that? Stupidest thing ever to tell a child, as I recall. It just makes you want to fidget more.

Anyway (again), I have a whole 'nother subset of toys that appear a little more grown up. On the surface at least. I was playing with them last night, but to a purpose. Yeah, anyone who's been reading this blather for any length of time can guess that I'm talking about art supplies. This time of year I get an almost unbearable desire to go to the art store. It's all those back to school ads, you see. I love stationery, and have since I was a kid. Yep, weird and I know it. It's just that having all those fresh new pencils and pens and binders and glue (I, um, come from the generation of rubber cement, remember. Rubber cement was fun) was always such a good time.

Hey, I already said weird. Shut up, world.

Anyway (the third), as I got past school and had a sadly-admitted lower need for stationery, I transferred the urge to art supplies instead. Art supplies? Definitely fun. And it used to be that I'd always find myself cruising the art stores -- heck, even the department stores -- in late August looking for something to play with.

Not this year.

Sigh.

I don't need anything right now.

Sorry, I'll speak up. I will grudgingly acknowledge that I don't really need anything just at the moment. I can always make an excuse for paper, yes, and I could replace some cheap brushes with one or two better ones, but I can't honestly admit that it needs to happen right now.

No promises about a month from now.

Ah well, I'm sure I can find another toy to satisfy me in the meantime, even if it's something silly like Kinder Surprise.

A girl's got to get her fidget out somehow, after all.



Oh, and I'll post last night's effort on the other blog after this. It was for work, so I guess it wasn't really playing.





It was playing.