the early asimov

hey, it's that pad of paper again. i just found it in the space between the wall and my bed, as i rolled over to try to fall asleep. i should be asleep because it's late and everybody else is asleep, but i'm not sleepy. so, maybe i'll write instead.

i just finished this big book of short stories that nana gave me, called the early asimov, by somebody named isaac asimov. nana gives me lots and lots of books. mom doesn't like it because she thinks i should play outside more, but nana thinks that it doesn't make sense to choose between playing outside and reading and i should do both. she says it's important to read. mom doesn't think kids should read, but she listens to nana. nana is her mom, so i guess she has to listen to nana, just like i have to listen to mom. that makes sense to me. mom's husband, tony, thinks i should read, but that i should only read allowed christian books, and nana really doesn't like that so she buys me lots of science books, instead, and tells mom it's very important i read them and tony is wrong. some of them are books about things like dinosaurs or astronomy or animals, like cats. i know about all the dinosaurs because i have books with pictures in them that have descriptions of them. and, i know about all the planets and all the moons on all the planets and even how stars work inside, a little bit. i also know about all of the countries and all of the capital cities in all of the countries because i have books with maps that are fun to sort through and imagine stories about travelling through. tony sometimes gets mad that i read all these science books, so nana once asked me to explain to tony that i like the science books a lot, and he seemed to get less mad after that. he even bought me some different science books, with pictures of people walking with dinosaurs, but i know those books are silly, because there weren't really people back then. but, maybe there were. i wasn't there, so i don't remember. but, there can still be books about people walking with dinosaurs, even if it's silly, i think.

before tony lived here, mom had a friend called nadine that stayed here. nadine was a university student. she studied philosophy. she once said there are negative numbers in real life, like actual negative numbers, but i don't believe her. that's silly. if you have a lot of apples, you can take some apples away, but you can't have a negative number of apples. nadine said you could, but i just refused to believe it and told her she was wrong. she laughed and said i shouldn't get so upset about things that are so "trivial", which means not important, but i don't think believing in negative things is trivial. it's not true! i don't like it when people tell me things that aren't true, it makes me upset. nadine used to tell me a little bit about science and i think it's one of the reasons i like science.

but, i already liked science, though, too, because my favourite movies ever are ghostbusters and et. i used to watch those movies lots and lots on the tv in the living room, in my care bears chair. and, that care bears chair is my chair - nobody else is ever allowed to sit in it, ever, or i'll get mad and push them out. don't ever sit in my care bears chair or we're going to get into a fight!

wow, it's really late. but, i really just finished reading this book by isaac asimov. at first, i thought it was going to be one big story, with chapters, so i was confused. but, then i realized it's actually a bunch of different stories. but, then i thought it was one big story, because there were some of the same characters, so, i don't know if it's different stories or one story. but some of the stories are about space ships and martians and people from venus, and it's fun to think about. i took notes about these stories in a different notebook that's for books i read only, so i won't talk too much about what they're about in detail, here. i'll just be general, here. but, i liked reading the stories, even if they used big words that i didn't always understand. dad gave me a dictionary, and i sometimes look words up in it if i don't know what they mean. he gave me the dictionary because i always asked him what words mean, and he usually didn't know, either. so, we would go to look up words, together. now, i know how to look up words and can look them up when i'm at mom's, too.

i like reading stories that are about ideas more than stories that are just about stories. stories are fun sometimes, but they're just stories, and stories that are just stories are just stories. a story has to be really good if it's just a story, and most stories aren't really good, so they aren't that much fun. but, if a story is about an idea, the story doesn't have to be as good to be fun because the idea can be fun, instead. i already knew that before i was eight, but, now that i'm eight, i really know that for sure. i think this isaac asimov book had stories that were more fun because they had ideas. the stories themselves weren't always that fun, but they were fun because they had ideas.

i'm really sleepy and am about to fall asleep. it's really late!

but, i often have the radio on when i'm reading, too, and i really like this silly song called so alive that is playing all the time right now. it's on right now.

i'm not so alive right now, though. i'm so asleep...

maybe i'll keep doing this

so, i'm cleaning my room at mom's place and i found that pad of paper again.

i spent most of july at dad's. he gave me some pictures to give to mom, but i took these two out of the pile because i like them. i think i'll keep them and put them in this book instead:

things are a little different at dad's because there aren't mean kids that want to hurt me, like there are at mom's. there aren't any kids on this street at all, it's mostly really old people. so, i spend more time outside and less time inside. one thing i like to do is ride my bicycle around the block over and over again. i can ride down violet street, and then down poulin avenue and then down howe street and then down britannia road and then up violet street, again. sometimes, i sneak off on to the bike path and drive all around, like up near the pier, but i'm not actually allowed, so don't tell on me. dad likes this neighbourhood because he grew up a few blocks away, on ritchie street. sometimes, he drives me around in his car and shows me where he used to go when he was a kid.

i actually got into a bit of a fight at mom's right before i went to dad's. mom says i have to play outside sometimes, even if i don't want to. so, i went to the park by the tennis courts and there were some kids there playing marbles. now, i don't have any marbles, so they said i was a loser. that didn't really bother me, because i thought it was silly. but, i proposed that if they really want to play marbles then they should lend me one. so, i played them at marbles and won some of the big shiny ones. then, one of the fat kids punched me in the eye because he was mad that he lost his favourite marble. i gave him his stupid marble back, anyways.

when dad came to get me, he saw the big bruise on my eye and i told him what happened. now, i go to karate every week. dad said it'll help me fight the mean kids, but i'd rather just stay away from them than fight them. the karate teacher says i should never start a fight, and i think that's a good idea. but, i agree that it's probably good that i can defend myself if the mean kids ever get even more mean.

now that i'm back at mom's, i'd rather mostly stay inside, but i'm not allowed, i have to go out and play sometimes, whether i like it or not. nana gave me some science fiction books by somebody named isaac asimov, so i'm going to start taking a look at those. maybe i'll write a little about it in this notepad.

i'm bored

so, i was sorting through my bedroom downstairs and found this pad of paper that nana gave me for christmas and decided to start writing in it. i don't know what i'm going to write, but i'm totally bored so let's just start doing it and see what happens.

i wish i had something to do, but i guess i'm a weird kid. i don't really have any friends in the neighbourhood. i used to go out and play sometimes, but the kids in the neighbourhood were always mean to me and tried to hurt me, so now i try to stay inside, instead, so they don't hurt me. it's only here at mom's that there's mean kids. there aren't mean kids at dad's because there aren't really any kids around at all. i go out really early in the morning sometimes to go for a bicycle ride around the neighbourhood, but i try to come in before the mean kids wake up.

some of the other kids like to stay inside and play their nintendos, but i don't have one of those. dad has an atari, but there's nothing like that here at mom's. so, i mostly stay inside and read, instead.

i used to have a room upstairs, but i moved downstairs this year because mom is pregnant. so, the baby is going to have my old room. that's ok - i like the basement better because i can stay up late and do what i want. also, mom smokes a lot, so it's nice to have cleaner air in the basement. you can really notice it when you go upstairs, a lot. and, there's a tv down here, too.

i guess i'm bored because school is over. i just finished grade two. mom wants to send me to a different school next year on the army base because she thinks that kids should have big yards to play in, and the school i go to has too much concrete. dad wants me to stay at the old school because it will be better for me socially to be around kids i live near. mom thinks that's silly because i stay inside anyways and dad thinks it's dumb to change schools because of the yard. i usually spend recess in the library anyways, so i don't really have an opinion on the matter. maybe there might be kids i can get along with better at the new school, and maybe there won't be. i don't know, really.

right now, i wish i had something to do besides watch tv. maybe i'll go outside after all.

i don't know if i'll keep writing here or not, but i guess that's it for today.