Thursday night while I sat in my classroom…alone…for seven hours…waiting for parents and grandparents to show up for parent-teacher conferences, I listened to Talk of the Nation on the radio. I happened to catch a story about a new book called Not Quite What I Was Planning. An online magazine called Smith (www.smithmag.net) asked readers to submit six-word memoirs and collected the short life stories in the book. I had fun listening to the six-word stories that are included in the book and listening to callers come up with their own on the radio show.
My favorites:
Fifteen years since last professional haircut. – Dave Eggers
Couldn’t cope so I wrote songs. – Aimee Mann
Well, I thought it was funny. – Stephen Colbert
Probably worried for nothing, I know.
Just let me finish this row. – a knitter
We were our own Springer episode.
Love me or leave me alone. – grafitti in a public restroom
I still make coffee for two. - 27 year old who had just been dumped
After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.
Watching quietly from every door frame.
Catholic school backfired. Sin is in.
I asked. They answered. I wrote. – Sebastian Junger.
Painful nerd kid, happy nerd adult.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn. – Ernest Hemingway
I think I will ask my students to write their own six-word memoirs. Care to share your own?
