my trapper keeper was yellow with a picture of autumn leaves.

september always makes me want to buy school supplies. i must not be alone in this because stores have instituted an outlet for the fetish - bins to collect school supplies for kids who cannot afford them. you pick out the fresh pencils and crayons, the unopened packs of looseleaf, the pocket portfolios, composition books, inkpens, glue sticks. you make all your lovely selections, then as you're exiting, drop them in the bin. fulfills the need to purchase school supplies and eliminates the need to store them somewhere.

once, i bought a canvas looseleaf notebook that included a set of tabbed dividers, a spiral notebook, a pack of college rule, and a newsprint booklet of maps and times tables. i wanted the traditional blue, but all they had was teal. my need was too desperate, i could not hold out for blue. i purchased the teal.

for years, i didn't even open it, instead just reveling in its pristine beauty. like a clear mountain lake, it was undisturbed by man. but after moving it from bin to drawer to desk to bin and back and again for years, i grew weary of its perpetual virginity. it was mocking me, mocking my pretend-student-ness, mocking my need to purchase a school supply i had no use for. "give me away" - it dared. give me away. NO - i decided. no, i will not give you away, stupid teal mockingbook!

i decided that i would use it, take notes on... on... well, on something for godsake. so earlier this year, i broke open the pack of college rule and i took out an inkpen and i wrote ACE'S PROJECT across the top of the first sheet.

ACE'S PROJECT.

ace's project.


ace's....


project....


being hermetically sealed together all these years was not beneficial to them. inbred like british royalty, like cousins in kentucky, like rats in a box. the notebook had infested the entire system with its misplaced austere disrespect. the blank page was mocking me now. had it forgotten who purchased it? who preserved it? who liberated it? who controlled it? SHUT UP YOU STUPID POOPY FACE PAGE! YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! STOP LOOKING AT ME OR I'M TELLING! NYAH NYAH NYAH!

yes, september brings out the schoolchild in me.

now, if you'll excuse me, i'll be on the swings.