There used to be a shop near my house called Cash Stationers. Actually, its still there. I once saw a 3" x 5" rectangular notepad there that I decided to buy. I used to carry it around in my pocket, to school mostly, in case I thought of a poem and wanted to write it. When I stopped writing poetry, I just forgot about those notepads until I got another notepad a few months ago as a gift. Those notepads were the only place I ever wrote spontaneous poetry in. They were just the right size to carry and the red ink always settled very nicely. I think I'll love red on white, slightly smudged, slightly absorbed, until I die. I never found the one with the art paper again though. Only cheaper quality notepads that I had to make do with. I think I got through a dozen.
Are there deadlines in fourth grade? At that time homework left over for after ten o' clock was a taboo. There were phone curfews, some people slept early, others did their homework right after reaching home, and I admit I've done it in school if someone was late picking us up. Calling a friend to ask a particularly difficult question at eleven in the night was outrageous. You could tell it was - your parents thought so, their parents thought so, they thought so and you thought so. Eleven! What did you do the other six hours you had to yourself? That's what everyone asked implicitly, always implicitly because the question spoken aloud was always about how long it would take, when you would sleep. I remember calling a friend at six - six! - in the morning, to tell him excitedly how I'd solved the question we couldn't understand last night - this was seventh grade - and setting off a whole chain of calls that ended with people hurriedly scribbling homework before clas...
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