According to Scarlett Johansson…

Seventh grade.

I knew at some point, this would happen. Finally, it did. I watched one of my daughter’s classmates conclude a presentation; a presentation that appeared to have been assembled in the time it took to walk from his desk to the front of the room. He concluded the wobbly thoughts and provided, per the teacher’s prompting, citations for his position.

”Well,” he paused, trying to remember exactly where he amassed the statistics in favor of his deeply-thought position,

“…according to Siri…”

The rest is irrelevant. The fact is that today marks the day I knew was coming; a day in which one student cited Siri as a source, followed by another who referenced, with straight face, Google as supporting evidence.

Columbia River from Steamboat Landing in Washougal

Matt, the sacred.

I had a wonderful little conversation with my new microfriend Matt, who was drawing birds on a Wacom tablet at the coffeeshop. I asked him to watch my computer while I went to the restroom, a modern-day leap of faith I refuse to not take.

I returned, and my backpack and computer were still there, and we engaged in twenty minutes of lovely and lively conversation about art, nature, ecology, the environment, and the graphic design projects he works on for various nature publications.

My favourite line was where he used the phrase “…the sacredness of all living things to exist.”

The sacredness of all living things to exist.

I love that.

Spilled milk.

All over. I picked up my water bottle by the lid; a lid which was not fastened, and deposited its contents all over the floor.

The tiled floor, while Mrs. Marvin talked about government and civics with 7th and 8th graders. I pulled together some old towels, rags, paper towels, and tried to quietly clean up the mess, grimacing all the while.

“Those things happen at every age, don’t they?!” She said later.

”Yep,” I said. “I guess maybe the lesson for all your students is that we make mistakes at every age, and ideally we always own up to them and clean up after ourselves.”

I felt very wise for a few moments, and then decided to get back to properly fastening my water bottle lid.