Vacuum Island

June 28, 2026

• In middle school, I was the kid who never had a pencil. Like, I'd go to school and figure it out on the fly. If I did get a pencil, I'd baby it until either I lost it, or it became an unusable nub. (The one exception being the New Millennium Pencil. It was stolen. That wasn't my fault, I swear.)

  This was a real problem for me. I was really anxious about it, actually. I remember taking a Scantron test in geography class and freaking out because I had no writing utensil that would work with it. Our teacher did not lend pencils, so I had to borrow one from someone in my class. For a kid whose typical interactions with peers were flavored with a heavy sprinkling of social anxiety, horrible.

  And yet, it did not occur to me to ask my parents to get me more pencils. They absolutely would have. I just didn't think of it. I went to class every day and figured out my pencil problem anew.

  This is weird for me to think about. Mid-30s me is definitely not the type of person who would go to school without a pencil.

  (I want to apologize here for the fact that this has somehow become a pencil nostalgia website. Isn't that better than a Web 1.0 nostalgia website, though? I mean, isn't the pencil the original internet?

  On second thought, I am not sorry. I realize pencils come up way too much here, I'm not working on it, and it probably won't change. Somehow, I still have other pencil anecdotes to share.)

• Here's my favorite sign in the world. I was going to post it at the summer solstice, because what says summer better than an island paradise? But I forgot, so here it is now:

  

  Sadly, Vacuum Island is no more. They got a new sign and lost 100% of their charm. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot... and then they took away Vacuum Island. Does the world only get worse over time?

• In other news, I've had some minor thrifting wins lately. I've collected several completed needlework pieces:

  

  I can't help myself when I see these. They're just so fun. I'm going to give some away, but others will go up around my house. I especially like the calendar. Probably going to find a way to fix the dog's soulless eyes before I do anything with it, though.

  I also found this unfinished project of a U.S. postage stamp:

  

  I'm planning on finishing it at some point this century. Now that I've finished my tank top, I'm trying to make a Michael Simon-style tote bag. After that, I'm gonna work on the stamp. Probably.

  I also thrifted a nice merino wool cardigan. The only problem was that it had an embroidery for some healthcare place on the chest. I covered it up with a patch from Etsy:

  
  Oopsie, sorry bout the cat hair.

  It was between that and this old Girl Scout patch that I've had pinned to my office wall for a million years:

  

  I love the horse, but it feels too special to use. The world's not ready. So the answer was "Nay."