Trains and tigers

Last month I started volunteering as a reader at a preschool in Portland. It means once a week I read books with four preschoolers, fifteen minutes per preschooler. It means I have a lot to say about books for preschoolers. So let’s not waste any more time setting this up: the best and worst preschool books.

THE WORST BOOKS

Thomas. Any and all books featuring Thomas the Tank Engine.

There are others I dislike but mentioning them would lessen the impact of saying there is one bad thing in the world and it’s Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s nice that some things are still simple: up vs down, black vs white, good vs Thomas. 

Every kid wants to read Thomas books, there’s a mad scramble for them every time a new group of preschoolers comes in. The books are organized differently every day so the kids go crazy hunting for the Thomas books while the readers hang back, hoping our kid is the slowest kid and doesn’t get any.

Thomas books are the worst, they’re so long and the pictures are terrible. If a Thomas writer is reading this and you’re offended, you need to hear it. There’s no real story, no exciting parts, and kids glaze over three words in and start aggressively picking their noses.

Luckily they can’t read so the pain is over just as fast. “Hello Thomas said Sir Topman Hat, I have an idea said Thomas, let’s turn seventeen pages ahead. Turn another four pages! shouted Annie and Clarabell. Everyone cheered. It was another day as a train. The great story was over.” 

Then I get to pick the next book.

THE BEST BOOKS

The best book is any book read with Ian.

Have you met Ian? Supposedly he’s a four-year-old attending this preschool but he’s probably actually a child actor someone hired and trained to be my favorite person on earth. My first day as a reader he came in with the crowd of not-Ian kids, walked up to me, looked at me, and said “Let's read about gorillas."

Last week he picked a Winnie the Pooh story that I was lukewarm on. It was super long, and the words per page count was gross. But Ian’s really patient and a great listener so I went ahead anyway. In the book, Tigger (who Ian says I do a great impression of) decides that he’s self-conscious about his stripes. 

The book doesn’t really explain what causes this, maybe he was reading a magazine or maybe he noticed that a celebrity he likes doesn’t have stripes, but whatever the reason he decides to get rid of them. His friends help him execute a variety of horribly-conceived ill-fated removal methods, and sometimes before or after they offer to help they’ll mention off-hand that they like his stripes.

“Eeyore says he likes Tigger’s stripes” Ian would whisper, tapping gently on the picture of Eeyore. “I like them too, they’re part of what makes him special.”

Man it was a long story. But Ian was so invested and laughed at every voice and got so discouraged when dumb ideas like covering the stripes with honey didn’t work. And it made me think of dumb things I do, like not smiling in pictures because I think my teeth slant a little to the side. 

It’s weird to say, and probably not the point of being a volunteer reader, but by the end of this book I was feeling pretty choked up, and so was Ian. “That. Was. Such. A. Good. Story.” he said. “What I would love now, is if we could read another.”

Ian can read my mind sometimes. “You make the best snoring noises!” he’ll say, somehow knowing that’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear my whole life. That’s why any book with Ian is the best book. 

And Ian never picks Thomas books.

Everything I don't love not about biking

“Last week I started biking to work” I’ve been saying to any person who stands still long enough.

“How do you like biking?” ask people who know me, or who feel like talking to an enthusiastic stranger.

That is a great question thanks for asking. I LOVE some things about biking to work. I love the biking part. But there are a lot of things that aren’t the biking part. 

There’s the getting the bike down the stairs part. I noticed last week one of my legs is covered in bruises and I assumed I was growing muscles so quickly they were pushing through the skin. But this morning when I fell down the stairs holding my bike it hit me, it’s got to be the falling down the stairs that’s causing the bruises.

The front handlebars always twist and my wrist gets stuck, and the bike pins me against the wall and I’m just sort of standing there sweating and brainstorming but soon I’m out of my apartment and biking and that part’s fine. 

While biking there are a few bad things I have to do at the same time, like trying to unzip the armpit zippers on my jacket. If you ask if I enjoy unzipping the armpit zippers I will say no, but if you ask if I enjoy biking I will say definitely yes.

When the biking stops things get really bad. That’s when I have to get my keycard out of my backpack, and decide whether to try and carry my bike up the stairs or get my bike into the elevator and deal with the keycard again. I have to get the lock out, and I have to figure out how to use the lock, and at this point my nose is always running so I have to keep my head up and manage just by feel instead of sight.

Then I take my helmet off and I have crazy wind hair. If I could leave my helmet on all day it would make it all worth it.

But I love biking. Thanks for listening, woman in line next to me at the grocery store.

And thanks infinity to Krissy for loaning me the bike. Without her who knows what my hair would look like.

How old were you when you got into jazz music

My friend Boaz won free tickets to a jazz festival. To me the coolest part about winning tickets to a jazz festival is telling people you won tickets to a jazz festival, but they usually respond with “How was it?” so we had to go. 

As soon as we got there I realized that maybe for Boaz the best thing about winning tickets to a jazz festival might be listening to the jazz music, which is another example of how interesting it is to be friends with people with very different opinions than you. 

I liked the woman at the beginning of the show because she had seven different singing voices, including that low voice people use when they do impressions:

My ad was for a race car. What was yours for?

And also I didn’t like this woman because I think she’s twenty-three which means she’s three years ahead of me in the “be a cool jazz singer with cool hair and white glasses” game. I lose that game every time.

Then that woman left (her name was Cecile McLorin Salvant) and more people came onstage and it got really LATE, like dark in the theater and the music got relaxing and I felt very warm and later Boaz told me the exact moment I fell asleep was during a very loud drum solo. Which seems like something an old person would do. But it also seems like something a newborn baby would do. So maybe I’m just staying the same age? 

Twenty-six is a pretty good age to stay. I have red glasses and I’ve been practicing singing jazz music in the shower every day.

Reasons I shouldn't go running today

Please choose three of the four excuses.
○ It's snowing.
○ My knees feel sort of loose. Is that a thing?
○ Maybe I should stay home and watch tv so I know more about pop culture.
○ My hair looks too good to mess up.

I don't have cheekbones

Hey guess what it's 5 great things about not wearing makeup for 5 days:

1. You can rub your eyes in comic disbelief and you’re ready to go to a waterpark at a moment’s notice. I wrote that sentence in a way that makes it seem like those two things are related but the only connection is they’re both easier to do without eyeliner.

2. Everyone thinks you’re sick so they don’t make loud noises.

3. You look enough like a child to order from the kids menu, old enough to get senior discounts at movies, enough like a boy to use the men’s bathroom if the line's shorter, and bad enough to be completely invisible. I haven't tested any of these but I have a good feeling about all of them.

4. Beyonce sings about you. There's lots of language in this, the main language is English but there’s also swear words.

5. Now it’s time to think of something to not do next week. I think it’s going to be laundry.