my sense of humor...

[trochee]

...seems to be best appreciated by four-year-olds.

The downstairs neighbors' three-and-a-half-year-old has an orange balloon with black fur-like stripes. "What is that?" I ask. He grins, and holds it out for inspection.
"It's a tiger -- no, wait -- it's a balloon! Wait -- which is it?" He looks at his mom ("what a loon! I love it!") and laughs, and she shrugs ("I dunno -- maybe you'd better hang out with him and find out.").

Comments

[xaosenkosmos.livejournal.com]

Another fun thing to do with little kids is make noises that violate phonotactic constraints. It's more fun before they've learned to make words, and are just playing with sounds. Glottal stops go over well, with a great deal of puzzlement.

Also, rolling your tongue is always popular. It's great to watch them try to figure out how to do it themselves.

[ex-caracola454.livejournal.com]

A balloon with fur? Surely you jest.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

okay, not fur. But it had stripes painted on it to look like tiger-stripes. It had a very Tiggerish feel.

Hey, I keep meaning to follow up on our chance to talk about dichotic listening. Or whatever else. I had a good time at your party the other day.

[ex-caracola454.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you came to the party! And my pinko pops said he enjoyed talking politics with you. :-) [I'm so inspired when I see people becoming more liberal as they get older, rather than the what seems to be the usual push towards conservative. Any day now he's gonna be joining some Emma Goldman knitting circle to plot the revolution.]

I am about to do some hardcore dichotic listening research, ummmmm, if I ever get a hardcore streak of motivation, that is. But I have about 5 books on the topic from the experts! It's super cool...

Whenever you want, we should all get together for a drink or something and chat.

Hey, how's summer going?

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I liked talking to your dad too. I hope I wind up as cool as he is. I too like to see radicalized older folks -- and it's particularly cool to see an aging Lutheran theologian with such a strong radical streak.

I also had a good time talking to Georgia (was that her name) because I got to rave about Wikipedia and how it was a sign of the changes to the way people deal with information. But she was honestly interested in the subject, I think. Or she was being very polite.

It's like I say -- all the cool kids are going to library school.

[ex-caracola454.livejournal.com]

That's not just Georgia, that's my_left_ear! Oh, I'm sure she was genuinely interested, seeing as how she's one of those cool library kids. :-)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

Cool. *adds to friends list*
... but she doesn't make the Seattle filter, since she's Michigan-bound.