When I first became interested in this whole blogging thing, I was strictly a reader. I tried to start a blog, but did not feel I had the stamina to keep up with it. Growing up, I never kept a journal -- beyond a few isolated entries in notebooks here and there, sometimes years apart. I did write letters to friends pretty often. I guess something of a "journal" was given away in the letters I wrote.

The other problem was a feeling of shyness. Not sure I wanted to blog, to share. It felt weird. So, I gave it up right away.

But today, I was feeling struck by the fact that my entries on this blog, while plentiful, were more often than not, fluffy? Not always. I do try to keep things funny for my own sake. I try to say something, even something silly, or just a notation of something interesting I saw elsewhere, as a time-capsule of "self"...as an exercise in regularity...in sticktoitiveness. To say, "I DO have the stamina!"

I thought back for a moment, back to my few feeble attempts at an anonymous blog. I re-read my few entries (posted and not posted) and felt almost perplexed -- "Who is this person? I wrote that?" And so, I decided to dust one of them off...because I thought it was funny, but also very telling. To those who know me really well, it speaks so innocently and simply, but peculiarly accurately, of the person I am today. What do I mean by this? I see the seeds of my current self in this childhood memory...my creativeness...my joy of feeling chills from spider-like tickling...and my selfish, demanding nature with regard to things being done "properly!"

Early childhood inventions: The Tickling Machine

As a child, I built the following engineering masterpiece:

Using several Tinker Toy sticks, I attached a rubberband to each one, knotted and fitted at the end of each stick - tight enough so that they did not slide off. This formed a loop on the end of each stick by which the individual stick could be hung. A much larger, "master" rubberband was threaded through these loops and looped through itself to tie the grouping off - into a sort of "key chain" of sticks.

I then presented my father with this bouncing windchime of sticks and rubberbands. In addition, I offered my bare 5-year-old back to him and demanded to be tickled with the instrument. My father required extensive training before he mastered the desired effect I had envisioned for the apparatus...namely, chills.

Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Labels: blogging, childhood, experiments, family, funny, memories, reading, recycling