FROM THE MARGINS

So I had a few things jotted down in the margins of my notebook that I was intending to share on here. The first says [I don't bother chopping off tags, smell of someone in classroom.] I hardly ever take tags off clothes that I first purchase. I'm not really sure why, either I don't find it to be necessary or important or I get nervous about it and then forget. Anyway I was wearing my Urban Renewal crushed velvet jacket that was mentioned previously. When I got into the classroom that my Plants and People class is located in I took it off and slung it over my chair before going to the bathroom. When I came back it was hanging in such a way that the entire inside was exposed, along with the tag. Later, as the class settled in for our lecture on marijuana, I caught a faint smell of someones perfume. It reminded me strongly of my grandma, and beyond that, her house and the light, heat and smell I associate with Florida. The feeling of being there I suppose. That led me to remember her beautiful old house in Chester, CT. I would love to visit that house again. The memories around Chester and the beautiful house are all so... lovely. There was also an air of mystery, adventure, and a gentle quiet that I remember especially walking down to the house or through the garden. That house was absolutely perfect for a child and their imagination. We used to pick blueberries, bake things and read in the top most room. I would fall asleep next to my grandma pondering the tower poking out of the ceiling with a little door in it. I would wonder what the door led to as I listened to her voice describe artists and their paintings, she had a collection of mini little books, each about a different artists, that I loved. Her soft voice, the warm light, and that little door. The cat was always purring.

The next one reads [graph paper, man on T, purple people, crazy voice homeless guy.] I love graph paper as anyone who has received a letter from me will know. Lately there have been several people who were using graph paper in my classes. My film one teacher writes in a square graph paper notebook which I really like, and a boy named Ted in my Screenwriting class also writes in a graph paper note book. Actually I like how he writes in it, the way it looks and the symbols he uses and such. Though that may be strange to say. The man on T refers to a small Asian man that kept trying to smell my hair on the T... enough said. Purple people: there is a girl that sits at the end of the row I like to sit in in my Ethics and Justice class. She really likes purple. She has a purple coat and a purple backpack. One day she came in and had dyed her hair purple. There was some runoff from the dye. I looked over to see that her face, neck and one hand (she was running it through her hair) where also stained purple. She put on her purple coat to leave and became a purple person. Finally, there is this homeless man who hangs around Boylston and Tremont every so often. I have encountered him before. He has a really low gravely weird sounding voice and will loudly say over and over "Does anyone have some spare chaaaanngggeee?" He drags out change everytime, and the way he says it makes me think he is hostle and violent. Honestly I just get really nervous. But his voice resonates with me, I can hear it now if I think about it. Despite that I really do hope people give him change despite him being intimidating, I don't ususally have cash of any kind on me.

Today in my Plants and People class a guy had a long tag sticking out of his shirt, and I was internally amused. Eventually someone told him it was there and he pulled it off and threw it away. When I spotted my tag I just put it back on. Finally I'll leave you with a few lines from the chapter on Marijuana in the book we are reading for Plants and People, The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. It resonates with me because I think we should stop to appreciate and take it what is around us every so often, I think he does a nice job of saying that, even if he is suggesting marijuana to help remind us of the beauty of the world. This is a very interesting book, by the way. I like to talk about the things he brings up, because I guess I'm just like that. "Even so, letting nature have her way with us now and again still seems like a useful thing to do, if only to bring our abstracted gaze back down to Earth for a time. What a reenchantment of the world that would be, to look around and see that the plants and the trees of knowledge grow in the garden still."