please print name

A couple of weeks ago I asked my parents, in a nonchalant, lazy manner, "Hey, could I maybe, like, move my drawing table up to the wood room* and make it, like, maybe a craft room or something?"
Don't be fooled as my poor parents were by the offhand air this question exudes. It was a carefully calculated sentence.  To go into the intricacies of it would take far too long, but the main points I tried to get across were:
1. "could I" I was careful not to use the word "we" - thereby implying that I would do all the work.
2. A craft room.  Having a craft room has always been my mother's most heartfelt desire.  Whether my definition of "craft room" and hers were completely in alignment was a question I did not raise.

And you know what?  The poor dears agreed.  Muwah ha ha ha haaaaaaaa.

I asked, again casually, if I could put up decorations.

And again the poor dears agreed.

This particular piece of decor is actually a torture device.

I mean.  What kind of sadists are these Schaum people?  First they fill their books with hideous illustrations that are physically painful for the visually sensitive child to behold.  Then they force the already hurting children to play songs like "Penguin Polka" and "Hot Dog."  "Hot Dog" had particularly charming lyrics which, if I remember rightly, ran something like:

Frankfurter sandwich

Hot dog!

Spread on the relish

Hot Dog!

Let's have another 

Hot Dog!

Frankfurter sandwich 

Hot Dog!

My mother and sister would sing and perform an interpretive dance when I practiced this particular song.  And they honestly wonder why I quit piano.

I took a picture of this black portfolio because it is a sort of symbolic thingy, don't you know.  I paid 27 bucks for it, which for stoney broke me is a fortune, and it's the only attractive portfolio I've ever seen - and when I was contemplating the purchase I said nervously to my sister, "But if I buy it I can't change my major." I don't know why she laughed.  It's perfectly true.  Because of this black portfolio, I am stuck as an art major whether I like it or not.   You can't buy a nice portfolio and then switch majors.  It makes you a pretentious moron if you do.  And that is a lethal combination.

And here we have an enormous desk, on which is the homework I am supposed to be doing.
So.  That's that.  I spend almost all my time in here.  It's very nice.

*This is the only room in the house that has wood floors.  In a moment of mental abstraction (Miss Prism) I called it the wood room, and the name has stuck.  Gah.  It's not even very easy to say.  And I have yet to think of a better name.   I'm trying, but drawing a blank.  "The studio" sounds moronic and pretentious, nobody appreciated a sort-of Dr. Seuss/hotel/school plan to call this "room 1" and the guest bedroom "room 2", and I'm out of naming steam.