i admit it. i’m a dork. when school supply displays go up in the supermarket, i stop to browse. i examine 3-ring binders, peer into plastic pencil boxes, recall the visceral pleasure in being the first person to blunt the tip of a new crayon. i bypass the notebooks emblazoned with kittens and cartoon characters and reach for the ones with plain covers, looking for the right esthetic of pale green (not blue, not too dark) lines on white (not off-white) paper. even i, however, couldn’t figure out what i’d do with the “hip clip pencil sharpener” – a carabineer with a pencil sharpener built into one end. i mean, how often does one require hands-free pencil sharpening?

i’ve long suspected that i became a stage manger just so i could continue to buy cool, new school supplies on a regular basis.