Scrappin' Scrapbookers

Here's a news story I wrote for the paper today. It's weird and vaguely funny, so I thought it would fit the theme of the Kitten.

Scrapbook club secedes, rivalry ensues

Last year the Whitewater Room in the Idaho Commons was full of scrapbookers on the second Tuesday night of every month. They came from all over campus to this quiet haven, where the sound of scissors, Scotch tape and laughter filled the room.

Those were the glory days for the University of Idaho Scrapbook Club.

Now two scrapbookers remain, pasting their photos onto colored paper in silence.

It began after a dispute between the presidents. The club maintained a relaxed atmosphere, allowing scrapbookers a time, venue and free materials and creating a haven for them to preserve their memories. However, Heidi Hallman, co-president, envisioned something different.

Hallman wanted to introduce scrapbooking lessons to the meetings. The lessons, she said, could be provided by local craft store instructors for a nominal fee, allowing people who weren’t experienced in the scrapbooking arts the chance to refine their skills and learn new techniques.

Co-president Carla Houghton, who has since graduated, disagreed, arguing that the club should stay the course.

“When it got to the politics of scrap booking (Houghton) didn’t want an agenda, just meetings. I wanted it to include classes and study. She disagreed, and she didn’t want to compromise, so I told her she could keep her club,” Hallman says.

In November 2005 Hallman seceded, forming the Scrap N’Crop club after her vision.

Raechel Bianchetti and Teva Palmer are now the only members of the Scrapbook Club.

Palmer is more than willing to show off her latest work, which documents her spring break visit to Mexico. Within a small, bound journal, mementoes and photographs are artfully pasted, and each page has pullouts and envelopes to open.

“I like (scrapbooks) best when they’re interactive,” she says. “It’s more fun than just looking through a photo album.”

The best part about scrapbooking, says Bianchetti, is that it’s relaxing, and “you can’t lose your pictures.”

Although the two admit they’re lonely, they don’t blame the existence of the Scrap N’Crop club for the loss of their members.

“There are a lot of closet scrapbookers out there,” Palmer says. Both guess there are enough for two clubs.

The two say last year’s in-club fighting frightened off the majority of their members, making the once-serene environment no longer conducive to their art. Bianchetti and Palmer agree that although they do not have any ill will toward the Scrap N’Crop Club, there is a perceived enmity.

“We keep hearing rumors about (the rivalry),” Palmer says. “It would be really awkward going to one of their meetings.”

Things may be looking up for the Scrapbook Club. After a booth was set up at Vandal Friday, the club received nearly 30 names of potential members for next year. And Palmer says the number of people who sign up for the club is usually the same number that attend.

The Scrap N’Crop Club doesn’t need to wait for new members. Hallman has networked and advertised bringing in students, neighbors, parents and children. The club membership is at 10 and rising, she says.

Hallman charges the club’s didactic approach for its success.

“My club is all about improving skills and practicing. Like, once in a while we’ll have a lesson, or an all night scrapbooking party where we just scrapbook all night,” Hallman says.

Hallman doesn’t express remorse for possibly taking members from the Scrapbook Club. She says if Scrap N’Crop is the better scrapbook club, it’s the one that people should attend.

“I don’t even know anybody in (the Scrapbook Club) anymore,” she says, “but they’re welcome to come to mine.”
**30**

Celebrity Kid's Books

The boss is really riding me this week, and I think I’m starting to crack.

After I got in from lunch he stormed into my office, red faced and stinking like the coffee muck he swills all day. He was talking before he even rounded the corner.

The kids ah gettin’ wise to these plot devices. He said. They’re sharp Al, they ain’t buying none of dis daeus ex machina bullshit any moah. The lone woodsman used to be able to strut right into gramma’s house and save Goldilocks, but it ain’t gonna fly anymore pal, sorry, but it just ain’t gonna fly.

He was referring, of course, to my most famous work, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As far as children’s stories go, it was pretty well received, and right after its publication my career really took off. Everybody wanted a piece of the action from the guy that wrote Goldilocks. Including, Evan, my boss.

Listen Al, ‘cause I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta work on fleshin’ out dese characters. You useda be able to get away wid Humpty Dumpty fallin’ off a wall and shit and not explainin’ nutin’, but dat was the past guy. Now dese kids hear the word “Dumpty” and they think you’re taking a crap. They just aren’t taking you seriously anymore Al. It ain’t your fault, and I’m sorry, but dat’s just how the cards got played.

I should’ve worked for Doubleday.

So I’m breathing some life into this Humpty fellow like Evan wants. But writing childrens stories is harder than you’d think. Especially nowadays that everyone is writing a children’s story. I mean how can I compete with the likes of Madonna’s The English Roses, and Katie Couric’s The Blue Ribbon Day? I can’t. But I’m retooling Humpty nonetheless, just like Evan wants.

First of all I’m taking more of a bare-bones approach, kind of like Leno did in If Roast Beef Could Fly. And I’ve dropped the rhyme scheme all together. Couplets are great if you’re a retard, but if these kids can read Jamie Lee Curtis’ It’s Hard to be Five whenever they want, so why would they ever pick up a nursery rhyme?

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men are getting scrapped too. We all know these kids don’t want to hear about feudalism. They’re getting raised on books for the everyman, like Jerry Seinfeld’s Halloween, or Ricky Gervais’ Flanimals. The kings and queens should be saved for history lectures.

So, all I have now is Humpty, a broken shell of a man, balanced on the edge of a wall and the edge of his sanity.

Does he jump? Of course he jumps. But the question remains, what thoughts drove Humpty to break his body against the gum stained sidewalk? What words hang like a whisper on his lips, as his last breath slips from his mouth, and his yellow life-yolk seeps from his shattered, chitin shell?

Truthfully? I don’t know, god damn it fucking hell, I don’t know.

This story will be the ruin of me. I can already taste my failure. But despite it all, the kids will keep on coming. They’ll keep on coming with their biting judgements and their voracious appetites for literature, and with their parents, eagerly following behind them with bulging pockets, ready like a cowboy at a quickdraw to buy anything their young ones want. And I will be there to watch it all, impotent to serve them.

But perhaps…perhaps Will Smith’s new Just the Two of us will satiate them in ways I never could…perhaps.

The Herbal Remedies

You want some drugs you say? Well, I think I can help you out.

I can’t provide you with any of those clumsy designer drugs you kids are taking nowadays. Those are illegal and unhealthy. No, no, you wouldn’t ever want to smoke marijuana or “the chronic” as you call it, and the cocaine is very bad for the humours.

No, what you want are my all-natural, herbal remedies. They will take the edge off of your consciousness without disturbing your health in any way. Come in to my office, I’ll show you.

See this jar full of powder? I know what you’re thinking and no that isn't mustard powder. No my friend, that’s not nearly as delectable as mustard. It’s actually ground parrot beak, and it tastes as bitter as the bile, but if you mix it with honey it goes down smooth.

Believe it or not parrots’ beaks contain many feel-good properties you kids normally associate with your drugs, but parrot beaks are very good for your bones, making them strong and healthy. When you ingest the beak, almost immediately waves of euphoria wash over your body. You feel as though you could pick your feet off the ground, flap your arms and fly away. You have all the sensations of a parrot: you hunger for small fruits and nuts, you communicate by nasal squawks, and bright colors will make you want to mate. But I warn you, do not drive after ingesting parrot beak for at least two hours. The wheels, buttons and pedals will confuse and anger you, ruining the affect.

Next on the shelf is one of my personal favorites. It might look like a flower to you, but it’s actually a tiny society of sea creatures that are, as of yet, unknown to modern science. I call them rose crabs. And believe me, I don't use the word society disingenuously. They are endemic to the warm waters of Southern Bali, and they build elaborate, flower shaped sand castles to live in. All you have to do is sprinkle them in your hair and sit back. You see, these tiny little creatures will burrow through your scalp and into your brain.

I see you cringing, but don’t worry, they’re not parasites, and in fact, they are actually quite good for you.

After they crawl into your scalp they will find the small pores in your skull then pass through them. When they enter your brain you will feel a tingling sensation all over your body for about three to five minutes, this will be followed by a mild euphoria which will eventually transition into a sensation that I can only describe as “neurologically unctuous.”

You see, these tiny creatures make you very, very smart for a very short time. When they enter your brain you will understand things even the most brilliant of humans could not possibly comprehend. You will see time and space and the universe as a tiny filament. All of the knowledge of learned men will be the dancing of bees and all of the sciences will be insignificant.

Unfortunately, the affects of the rose crabs last only about five minutes. They will become bored with your tiny cerebrum and will exit your scalp to return to their chrysanthemum castles. Even worse, you won’t be able to remember or fathom anything that you understood mere minutes before.

Don’t bother writing anything down when the rose crabs control your brain either. When you return to your nominal state you will see that you have filled volumes, indeed, often tomes, but they will be meaningless to you. As meaningless as the rantings of a mad man. I have spend many years racking my brain over those esoteric ramblings.

And moving on, here I have…Could you repeat that, I'm hard of hearing? You want to see what’s in the cabinet? I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, that remedy is far too potent for most people to withstand. You insist you say? Well alright, I suppose I can show you. But know this, the affects of this remedy are garnered simply by gazing upon it. It is the most potent of all the known herbal remedies. It is said this drug is responsible for the dominion of humans over the other animals. It is responsible for all society, all culture, all knowledge and technology. The inventiveness of mankind is due to this drug.

But, then again, it may have no affect on you whatsoever.

Before I open the door heed this warning, men have been ruined by looking at what you are about to see. They have been driven mad simply from the sight of it.

Knowing this, do you still want to see it? All right then, you shall.