If I did that, I’d have to explain further. Well, Mom, the book is called The Spanking Collection, and it’s an anthology of spanking stories written by 20 of the best spanking writers around. It’s edited by my friends Abel and Haron (some of the “writing friends” I’ve visited in the UK), and the stories in it are diverse and fun and moving and hot and–and, no, Mom, these people aren’t strange. They are some of the nicest, normalest people you could meet, and guess what? This whole book is for Cancer Research UK. That’s right. The contributors all gave their stories (or introduction or artwork) without pay (yes, me too, I know, Mom, but seriously, no one is getting rich writing short stories), Abel and Haron covered all the publishing costs as well as doing the editing, layout, Kindle-creation, and the rest of it, and all the profits are going to help people find cures for cancer. Yes, I know that cancer isn’t just one big disease like polio, but the point is that the people at Cancer Research UK surely know this too, and once they get the windfall from this book, they will know so so much more! Ok, but, Mom, you get the point, right? And, yes actually, I think you could tell everyone in your therapy group that your widowed, church-going daughter is also a published author of kink. They would cheer you on. This is New York, right? Please, I’m sure you’ve heard much more unsavory things from them. Right? Exactly.

Well, if you want to buy the book, you can get it in paperback here, and on Kindle here (oh, right, your Kindle died within the first month when your water bottle leaked in your purse, never mind), and for more links there is Haron and Abel’s blog here. I love how you always buy copies of my books, Mom. Thanks for buying this!

But, Mom? Even if you buy a couple of copies, ok ten, please will you do me a favor and just not read my story? No, it’s not shocking or anything, and, no, I am not the lead girl, Charlie, and no one in the story is you; it’s just that I’d rather you didn’t read it. Like, there’s nothing the matter with either one of us having sex, but it’s just better if we don’t share that with each other. No, Mom, there’s no sex in my story. There’s kissing, but that’s it. And, well, it’s a spanking book, so, well, but, the point is that my story is called “The Library”, so avoid pp. 110-122, and yes, I am Casey Morgan, and no, please don’t Google that, ever. Yes, that is the name I use for the blog I don’t let you read, and please, can we keep it that way?

No, this story isn’t on my blog, and as a matter of fact this book is the only place it will appear because all of us writers agreed to write something special and original just for this anthology and let it appear only there. So, there is nothing for you to see on my blog, nothing at all. And the point about my story is that I got the idea for it after taking a trip with my friend Emma Jane to the Trinity College Library in Dublin. (The Motherland, right? Top o’the morning to ya, my darling mother!) Emma blogged about it here, and that is another link I would like you please not to follow, but you can give it to the people in your group and they can see how much of the story is indebted to Emma’s imagination and not really mine at all.

Ok, look, if you have to tell them something, just say my story is about an English schoolboy and an English schoolgirl who kiss and get in trouble, and there is a library in it.

I am sure you are right that my story is the best one even if you never read it. Let’s just agree that it is, and you can order copies and give them to your friends from therapy and from the Village and never read mine and support Cancer Research UK and all will be right with the world. Great! Love you, Mom!!!

Dinner to celebrate? Sure! xxxxxxx me

Graham mentioned two key examples: Tom Sawyer (in its several forms and adaptations) and Little House on the Prairie (books, but especially the TV series). Little House fashioned the imagination of many, including yours truly, and continues to fashion young minds today if reports out of the Kinky House are to be believed.

illustration by Mercer Mayer

I’d offer a couple more: The Great Brain, in which the title character gets paddled for something he didn’t do, memorably drawn by Mercer Mayer and less memorably portrayed by Jimmy Osmond in the 1978 tv movie (if anyone has a link to this video, please speak up, as I can’t find the scene in the parts of the film uploaded to u-tubby). This paddling is a great scene, even though I personally dislike the paddle as an implement (I find it rather brutish and blunt; unsubtle). It’s enjoyable because a) the victim, Tom, is such an insufferable manipulator most of the time, I don’t mind seeing him whacked unfairly; b) Tom is brave, refusing to give his tormentor, Mr. Standish, the satisfaction of seeing him cry. As narrated by Tom’s brother:

I felt tears come into my eyes as I watched Mr. Standish give Tom ten hard whacks with the paddle. The tears weren’t for the pain I knew Tom was suffering. I knew my brother could stand pain like an Indian without crying. The tears were for the humiliation I knew Tom was enduring (The Great Brain, 121).

c) Tom gets revenge on Mr. Standish, which appealed to me as a young reader, the rebel against unjust authority. But, d) ultimately Tom’s revenge is revealed as cruel and callous, earning a terrific rebuke from Tom’s father:

“I have never laid a hand on you,” Papa said, breathing heavily, “but right at this moment if I had that paddle, I’m afraid I would give you a paddling that would make the one you got from Mr. Standish seem like patty-cakes” (136-7).

I was absorbed for some time in imagining that if-statement.

From the children’s book shelves we find If You Lived in Colonial Times ¹ by Ann McGovern. I would direct the reader to page 24 “What happened if you didn’t behave in school.”

I was lucky enough once to get a first-hand encounter with the one-room schoolhouse. I grew up within field-trip distance of the Henry Ford Museum / Greenfield Village, which is a gigantic outdoor museum of bygone American life. People are dressed in 19th century garb, and you can make butter like they did back in the day, see men forge horse shoes, etc. There is also a one-room schoolhouse, the Scotch Settlement School. When I was in fourth grade (age 9) my class got to spend a day in it.

At that age I was in a mixed 4th and 5th grade class of about 30 kids taught by a husband/wife team. I’ll call them Mr. & Mrs. Sweet because we all adored them. They were perfectly firm and took no nonsense, but they valued fun and unconventional methods. We got to go on more field trips than any of the other classes; they’d give us long recesses when we got cagey in the winter; they kept all sorts of live animals in the room; they’d tear up your math book and skip you ahead if they thought you could handle it; they read aloud to us regularly; and they had a carpeted claw-foot bathtub, shaded by a rainbow umbrella, where you could go and read books when you’d finished your assignments.

Mr. and Mrs. Sweet also had a paddle on the wall of their classroom. This disconcerted me. As previously discussed, corporal punishment was not used at my school (although it was legal in the state), but most of us got it at home. I just didn’t know how to feel about the fact that my favorite teachers kept a paddle on the wall, and, worse, would jocularly (?) threaten kids with it from time to time. (e.g. kid getting wild would be asked sternly: Do you want a spankin’? To which the only answer was a fervent shaking of the head no.) What’s more, this paddle was covered in signatures, supposedly the signatures of those who’d been whacked with it.  The subject was far too serious for me, at age 9, to have any perspective on the Sweets’ possible tongue-in-cheek threats.

Scotch Settlement School Greenfield Village

Still with me? Right, the schoolhouse: it is winter of fourth grade and we are going to spend a day having school at Greenfield Village. We will have free dress (no uniforms), and period costumes are encouraged. Costumes!?! I wore one of my Little House on the Prairie outfits, and even better, all the other kids made an effort, and Mr. & Mrs. Sweet were wearing costumes, too! OMG!!!!!!

All morning we sat at double desks, wrote on slates, did lessons out the McGuffey Reader, and got to sample the full range of old-fashioned responses to incorrect answers and misbehavior: writing lines on the blackboard, the dunce cap, holding books out in front of you, and—yes—whipping! This is where I got a little confused about how real it all was. Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, with the deep thespian instinct of all good teachers, introduced the punishments one by one, beginning with the mildest, and working up to the whipping. They looked for victims, choosing the typically naughty kids in the class, robust kids, kids who would play along. When it came time for the first whipping, Mr. Sweet put on his gravest scowl, selected a long switch from the supply, and wordlessly beckoned the naughty boy to follow him. They exited behind the blackboard wall.

The Scotch Settlement School at Greenfield Village

[When you entered the schoolhouse, there was a row of pegs for hanging your cloaks, and on each side a doorway leading to the schoolroom itself. It was to this "cloakroom" that Mr. Sweet & boy repaired.]

A hush fell over the class and then we heard it: the unmistakable sounds of a switch being applied. Thwick… thwick… “Ow!” the boy cried out plaintively. Thwick-ow! Thwick-ow!! Thwick-thwick-thwick! Sobs.

Can you imagine my uncertainty and fear?

great pic of the hooks by Devonhaupt

Soon Mr. Sweet emerged, conducting the boy by the collar. The class found this risible, but Mr. Sweet merely glared at us and deposited the boy into the corner, where he continued wiping his eyes. The twitters in the class probably communicated to Mr. and Mrs. Sweet that we were with them, but also possibly that not all of us were sure how real the performance was. I, for one, was starting to feel sick to my stomach. My seatmate, Frances (the best friend of my friend) assured me it was just pretend. But wasn’t the boy crying? I asked. His face was red. Frances wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t long before Mrs. Sweet had to whip someone. They, too, were taken off to the cloakroom and subjected to the same painful treatment. They, too, emerged rubbing their eyes. This was quickly becoming a very anxious field trip for me. I wondered when we’d get to go visit the crafts people, or have recess. As the morning wore on and more punishments were meted out, kids started to vie with one another to get punished, eager for the excitement and attention. Everyone was getting it, bad kids, good kids. You didn’t even have to misbehave for the Sweets to find a reason to include you in the drama. Frances told me not to worry; it wouldn’t be bad if I got in trouble. But I was worrying, and worrying all the more because the Sweets were running out of victims. The majority of the class had got in some kind of trouble or another. I sat very quietly at my desk and worked very hard on my slate.

The whipping reached a climax with the execution of a girl called Beth, who was generally well-behaved and a great favorite of Mr. Sweet. He summoned her to the cloakroom with thespian gravitas, we heard the requisite sounds, but when they emerged, she had her hands over her face—to conceal her passionate tears? or… was it to conceal her laughter? For Mr. Sweet was holding a broken switch aloft for the whole class to see. He wore an expression of disgust and shock, that this girl had been so very bad that she had actually broken the switch! The schoolroom exploded in laughter. If there had been a curtain, it would have fallen.

It was probably then that I began to cotton on, but unfortunately, it was time for recess, lunch, and touring the rest of Greenfield Village. Beth, who was a trustworthy friend, later revealed the stagecraft (whacking the coats, with the kids crying out).

I can’t tell you how much I would like to have a second chance at that day. Or how much I’d like to take some of my former students on such a field trip. Or even, how much I’d like to try it on with various friends who could be relied upon to rustle up authentic costumes, and swot up authentic practices. Wonder what it would take to book a field trip there today…

Norman Rockwell's classic illustration for Tom Sawyer

¹ This book is the antecedent for an in-joke M and I had. Once when we were staying at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, I accidentally got smashed before lunchtime on Brandy Alexanders. We retired to our room where I (uncharacteristically) took off all my clothes, sprawled across the bed, and (reportedly) said: Tell me about the colonial days! before passing out. M teased me with this thereafter whenever a drink started to go to my head. Other people took it as an amusing, drunken remark, but he and I knew I had been asking him to tell me about birching of school children in the American colonies. lol.

These were taken by my own fair hand with one of those cameras the size of a milk-duds box, where you advanced the film with your thumb. Sort of like this:

Except I didn’t get mine off the back of a Minute Maid can. Anyway, remember the pink bedroom in that story The Visit? Here it is, gray dollhouse to the right just off camera:

Here we have Mother Goose looking the formidable schoolmistress. Her pupils (front to back) are Daisy (who has seen better days, and actually looks like she needs a visit from mental health services), Heather (Holly Hobby doll), Annie, and Holly (Holly Hobby doll). I did not actually name any of them. I always like the Holly Hobbies because they dressed very Little House on the Prairie. Anyhow, Mother Goose had better keep her eye on Holly and Annie, if you ask me. If they could be played by real girls, I would cast… oh, how could I choose with candidates like Jessica, Emma Jane, Eliane, Haron, Caroline, Mija, just to name a few internationally renowned schoolgirls?? Vote in comments, kids.

Next up, the orphanage dolls. The photo is blurred to hide their real identities, ha ha, but here they are, all lined up for inspection:

Cute costumes, right? These orphan girls slept in bunk beds, sang “It’s a Hard Knock Life” and suffered constant, mean whacking from the orphanage master and matron, played by Mr. and Mrs. Sunshine, who, when they weren’t impersonating orphanage wardens, drove around with their cute little baby in a camper van spreading peace and love.

It was constant drama in the pink bedroom. How I found time for homework and play practice, I’ll never know.

Mom & Dad: if you’ve been lurking and now, after seeing these pix, have to acknowledge that this is indeed me – Ohai!!

We both skipped lunch every day to do homework in the library. In reality we talked, anything and everything, his navy blue eyes as open as the sea. I wanted to feel those chapped lips again, but he was dating a girl called Koozie. No one understood. He was smarter than anyone in our high-school of 4000. She, apparently, was a ditz. He told me things he’d never told anyone – about his brother’s mental illness, about his longing to live as a monk back in time on Lindisfarne, painting illuminated manuscripts in the scriptorium, the world cut off in a tidal cloister, ocean lapping at the pebbles, chant de-rattling his nerves. I picked at the stitching of my LeSportSac purse and exercised restraint, day after day. He liked me, lots. He could undress before me in that library as with no one. I had the mind and the heart to match him, but Koozie was the girl he wanted to kiss. I was doomed to Just Friends.

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• Travis King
• PapaTomLA
• Nettagyrl

A stern note: I have noticed that several people [cough, cdm] have grown slothful in their ways and have begun regularly to abuse the deadline for Flash Fiction Friday, as generous as it is. This will never do. Be advised, therefore, that as from next week, late entries for 3f will incur automatic whacking. No exceptions! [cough - casey!]

—Sir?

—Take the stick to someone the first or second day. Find the leader, and find a reason to cane him. When you do, cane hard.

—How hard?

—Too hard. Gets the message out. And you don’t want him coming back for more.

—What message, sir?

—That you’re not to be trifled with.

—Ah.

—Now then, take that, and that, standard issue. Practice. I recommend a pillow set about yea high.

—Yes, sir.

—When it comes to the act, for Heaven’s sake take your time. Observe all the regular ceremonies.

—Which are?

—Make the boy remove his jacket. Have him stand before you, look him in the eye, and announce the sentence in full.

—I’m giving you six?

—That’s rather prefectorial and brief. Better: Carleton minor, you have been insolent and self-indulgent mucking about in my lesson. You are now going to receive four strokes of the cane. Bend over.

—A bit artificial, isn’t it?

—Not at all. But make sure you hold the boy’s eye the whole time. If he looks away, make him look back.

—Right.

—Take time positioning him. For three or four strokes, you can have the boy touch his toes, but for anything more, it’s better to give him something to hold onto. If he seems overconfident, adjust his posture. Make him feel he’s conforming to your standards, not the other way round.

—Right.

—For the caning itself, you’ll hear every sort of opinion, but it is my long experience that slow is best. Count at least to ten between strokes, preferably twenty. You want him to have the full experience, remember.

—Yes, sir.

—Don’t let him get up until told, and of course observe the standard ceremonies afterwards, handshake, etc. When the boy says Thank you, don’t say You’re welcome. A simple nod is best. Whatever you do, don’t jaw him again.

—I used to hate that.

—Everyone does. Once the punishment’s given, it’s done and dusted. Full stop. And don’t tell him you hope you won’t have to do it again. Refrain from commenting altogether, unless a pithy Well stuck is merited.

—Right.

—You ought to stick to the cane, I think, but if it seems appropriate, you could put a third former across your knee for the slipper. I’d only do this in private, though, and be aware that he will feel the humiliation keenly. I think it’s best to avoid the slipper altogether this term, however.

—If you say so, sir.

—I hope you aren’t humoring me, young man. I know of what I speak! A good caning is one of the most fundamental sizings up there is between men and boys. Respect it.

—Oh, I do. But, sir… I feel I should level with you.

—How so, young man?

—I feel I must tell you that I am opposed to corporal punishment entirely. On grounds of conscience.

—Oh, yes? And how do you intend to maintain order?

—With clear expectations, praise, force of personality, and other non-physical sanctions.

—Right, well, I’m sure that will be a roaring success. But not unless you cane—effectively—at least one boy from every form. Once you’ve done that, you can use any methods you please.

—Is that an order, sir?

—Oh, don’t bristle, young man. I’ve said you won’t be persecuted for those beliefs of yours. Though how a Marlborough prefect wound up a white-feather man is a confounded mystery.

—So I’m told, sir.

—Right, then. To sum up: cane early, cane hard, observe ceremony. Never punish in anger, in haste, or in confusion. Clear?

—Crystal, sir.

—Then kneel, young man. And rise. Your rod and your staff. Go forth and educate.

Microfantasy Monday is the brainchild of the Sweltering Celt. The theme this week is ceremony. Congratulations to Ang & Doc on their wedding!

—That’s what it says here.

—Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? Had the cane before? …What, never?

—It isn’t exactly my fault!

—No one’s said it is… Ri-ight. Eyes front, listen to me… Listening?

—Yes.

—Do sport beforehand. Eight or nine circuits as fast as you can take.

—Why?

—Nerves. Two: look smart. Shower, comb your hair, polish those shoes, make sure there’s a crease in those trousers.

—You make it sound like going to church.

—Don’t mock. Three: It sometimes helps to count backwards in your head. Only four more to go. Etcetera.

—What if you’re told to count them out?

—Then disregard, obv!

—Obv.

—Where was I? Oh, yes: Be on time. Unless you want to go for extras, which I don’t recommend first time out.

—No fear.

—Five: Don’t clench. Makes it hurt more. Trust me. Try breathing in when you hear the swish.

—What if… ?

—What?

—What if you can’t stay down?

—Hold onto something, rail of the chair, your ankles, anything. Do not get up until told to. Like I said, don’t go for extras.

—What if…

—You can take it. Believe me. It’s bad, but not as bad as you think.

—Ha.

—Oh yes, six: When you’re told to stand up, don’t forget the thank you.

—Check.

—Cheek under duress. There’s hope for you yet. Right then, off you go.

—Thanks.

—You’re welcome. See you at four.

The pencil box was used mostly for formal school occasions, and it looks like it hasn’t been properly used since we went to Mr. Penn’s the second time. You can see the fake cockroach (realistic when you come across it!) and the caps & snapper for the exploding book trick, among other items. The Wall Drug badge was from our cross-country road/camping trip the summer he moved here. We tied the wolfhound up to the hitching posts outside, ha ha. If you’ve never been to Wall Drug, you’re missing something.

Here’s a sample page from the carbon docket book. Actually, the dockets were mainly written by people from St. Mary’s or St. Boniface’s (where Casey and Mark went when first at Home School). RP or TL would deal with them. This one was written by Casey’s form teacher, Mrs. Denner, who was no-nonsense but had a sense of humor. There are at least two other nail varnish offenses in the book. Dockets fell out of use after a while, but in the early years of being together, they were a handy way to ask for a scene. It also helped me transfer and deal with some of the frustrations of my RW day as a teacher, most especially how very boring and hard it was to have to be a grown-up all day long.

Elsewhere there are folders with notes and stuff to/from Marky, Casey, TL, RP etc. None were ever thrown away. I am nowhere near ready even to think about finding them. Unfortunately for me, there was a card in this drawer from Mr. Prior to Casey. Unfortunately for me, I opened it. There was his own handwriting (so how can he really not be anywhere??). It appears to be in response to a letter from Casey herself, I’m guessing one of the times she decided she seriously wanted to leave Home School, that Mr. Prior was super nice but had loads more important kids to look after, and in this case that she really didn’t deserve the tickets to The Sound of Music RP had given her for her birthday so he should really take Ruth instead. [one of the Others, kid at Home School] This kind of sentiment appeared periodically and can best be understood as extreme attachment made anxious either by his need to travel or by Casey’s jealousy towards RPK. (Ironic because they later became very close, a story for another post.) Here it the card:

And here is what it says:

October 11, 1998

My Dear Casey:

I’ve been saving up this card to send to someone in a farawy place, and this seemed the perfect opportunity to use it.

Thank you for your note. The night is always darkest as the dawn begins to break. You may of course leave Home School but you’re right – it will take a long while to arrange. In the meantime you should, I think, carry on trying to do your book, and you should certainly not surrender your ‘Sound of Music’ tickets. They’re yours, you deserve them, you jolly well take Ruth!

Often in our lives, things seem hopeless and despairing. Ask for help – from other people, from within yourself, from God. But don’t stop the search. You will find the courage, and the answer. I know that, and believe it as strongly as I love you.

Your wishes will be honored, and I won’t try to talk you out of this. But I don’t agree with it and I certainly don’t regard it as a done deal. I would like to talk to you. You know where I am, and you know, in your heart, how deeply and powerfully I feel for you. You have the light and the voice of God within you. Look, and listen. Create space and time for yourself, and only do when you are sure that what you have seen and heard is Right.

I love you, my little one. I know you’ll be true to yourself.

RP

I wish, I wish it were that simple now.

“Macaroni!” Rex Traherne interrupted. “Stuck a feather in his [muffled] and called it macaroni!”

“Sir!” Theodore Marvell broke in. The laughter occasioned by Rex Trahere subsided.

“Yes, Theo?”

“Sir, isn’t it true that Britten was a flautist?” Suppressed snickers.

Dr. H, flustered: “Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“I heard he was a very accomplished flautist!”

The snickering exploded into a peal of giggles, from the eighth grade no less. Donne may have spent recent decades in the cloister, but he knew puerile innuendo when he heard it.

“Boys!” he said, bursting into the choir-room, “I can hardly believe what I am hearing.” The eighth grade tried unsuccessfully to contain their mirth. “I believe,” Donne continued, “that some very dark clouds are approaching.”

“But, sir,” Felix Marvell replied, straight faced, “Isn’t it true that Britten was a flautist?” At this, Theodore lost his battle with laughter.

“I’ve no idea,” Donne replied, “but I can say with some confidence that rain is headed this way. Pouring rain.” The eighth grade blushed and fell silent. “Carry on,” Donne said lightly, departing.

He resumed his perambulation, pleased to have instructed the eight grade, that year, in the virtues of rhyming slang, if nothing else.

Confused? Try the glossary.

Check out other stories from this week:

• vanimp
  
• Rafi’s World
• PapaTomLA

These stories are more severe than I really like, but they did make me long for the kind of post-whacking soreness that lasts for days. That’s by-the-by. What I like in the series is the firm and unapologetic assertion of authority. On the one hand, the Headmaster is choleric, loses control, and goes way overboard with punishment. On the other hand, the discipline master – himself calm – asserts that the boys’ disobedience is indeed wrong. When challenged: “But it’s just a haircut,” he replies, “Oh, but is it?” He understands and shines a light on the undercurrent: of course the kid had his hair cut to spite the Headmaster, whom he loathed. It isn’t about a haircut for any of them, but about the question of whether or not they should submit to the Headmaster’s rules, or only submit to the ones they judge satisfactory. The story says: Submit to all of them.

And suddenly, this rather extreme M/m story became for me a metaphor for submission to the love and the will of God, which has been a fairly unappealing theme in the book I’m reading about Lent. The attitude in this school is peculiarly English, I think. In America we have more tradition for challenging and rebelling against authority (despotism!) if authority proves unfit to govern (in the eyes of the governed). In fact, there’s a sense of duty to search for injustice and challenge it, especially today. There’s also an obligation for authority to be “reasonable,” i.e. democratically acceptable. But are private schools democracies (even in the USA)? They aren’t on mmsa anyway! Clearly they can be democratically inclined, and many (esp. secondary schools) try hard to involve students in governance. But, because schools are 1) in loco parentis; and 2) there to educate, they can never, I argue, be honestly democratic.

Contrast with the grotesque example of the Hampshire water authority that consulted the population (after supplying them with informational pamphlets) on whether to add fluoride to the water supply. There was a legal obligation to consult the population, but not to abide by its wishes. Result: 72% said no fluoride, but they got it anyway. So, it’s at best a pseudo-democracy, and at worst a cynical hypocrisy. Would it be better to say, We don’t consult the population because we are in charge and we know best, thank you. People would still be angry over the water, but at least it would be an honest representation of the relationship between people and water authority. They’d all be spared the hypocrisy and illusion. I think a lot of schools today, especially progressive ones, are confused about their own authority and what it means. As a result, they are more like the Hampshire water authority than they realize. All of which makes me yearn for the clarity Mr. Hicks’s adults provide, if not exactly for their level of tgi.

Except I don’t.  My stupid homework still isn’t done, and I know I’ve been a lazy cow, and there’s no one to help me with either one. In fact, for the record, here is the sum total of my useful accomplishments today:

• gave wolfhound bi-yearly shower (harder than it sounds) and post-shower grooming
• laundry
• writing in notebook
• showed some kid how to use excel to calculate averages
• explained to another kid what dew point means
• signed up for twitter – tho’ TL says I am forbidden to Tweet and if I do, even once, I’m going to be grounded from the internet for a week – and that’s just for the first offense. To be completely truthful, I don’t put much store by her threats, but I’m not planning to tweet because the fact is I have nothing to tweet about and no one to follow me even if I did. It would just depress me.

my slipper wot RP used to employ at times

Before, when I had bad days and felt useless and unaccomplishing, RP always had something to say about it. If I wound up getting in trouble (for that or something else), it helped cope with the frustration and self-loathing. Now, there is nothing to help me cope. I’m screwing up right, left, and center and all I’ve got is TL sighing at me, looking at me sadly in a way that says, You’re only hurting yourself. Well, I know that, don’t I? But what are you going to do about it? Answer: zilch. Hurrah for modern childhood. :-<

the business end (well worn, you'll note)