Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Housewarming Part 2

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Our story tonight is called Housewarming, part two and it’s the first time we’ve had a to be continued sort of story. It’s about a slow hunt for a gift for a friend. It’s also about freshly sharpened pencils, the stamp inside library books, and a daydream that connects the dots. Buy the book Get beautiful NMH merch Get autographed copies Get our ad-free and bonus episodesPurchase Our Book: https://bit.ly/Nothing-Much-HappensSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Grownups, in which nothing much happens, you feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Catherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. My book, also called Nothing Much Happens, is available wherever books are sold. You can listen to ad-free and bonus episodes of this show

by becoming a founding member of our subscription service. There are different tiers, but in general, by becoming a founding member of our subscription service. There are different tiers, but in general, it costs about a dime a day and is a really lovely way to support what we do. Go to nothingmuchappens.com to sign up. Now, I'm going to read you a bedtime story. I'll tell it twice, going a little slower the second time through. Just by listening, you will shift your brain activity from the staticky buzz of your default mode to the smooth hum of task mode, which all just means you'll shift into a place where you can fall asleep.

If you wake in the middle of the night, try thinking your way back through any parts of the story that you can remember, or even just a fond memory. This is brain training, and you'll notice that the more you practice, the more quickly and deeply you will sleep. Now turn out your light. Settle your body into your favorite sleep position

and feel everything relax. You have done enough for today. It is enough. You can let go now. I am here. I'll keep watch. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose and sigh through your mouth. Nice. Let's do one more. Breathe in and out.

Good. Our story tonight is called Housewarming, Part 2. And it's the first time we've had a to-be-continued sort of story. It's about a slow hunt for a gift for a friend It's also about freshly sharpened pencils The stamp inside library books And a daydream that connects the dots Housewarming, Part 2 I was downtown, walking past the shop windows, looking for a gift.

It was a warm, sunny day. The trees that had held timid, baby leaves just a week or two before were now fully dressed for summer, and most of the shops had their front doors propped open to let the fresh air in. I stopped at the window of the stationary shop and looked in at the shelves of journals and planners. I cupped my hand over my brow to block the sun and leaned closer to the glass, my nose almost touching it, to spy the calendars tacked up across the back wall. I was searching for a housewarming gift,

something that felt special, that would help make a new house feel like a real home. I didn't think a calendar was the right thing for that at all, but the shop was so inviting that I found myself stepping inside a few moments later. There was a display of pencils and pens on a table by the door. The pencils were a shiny dark gray and flattened on one end where a rectangular pink eraser was fitted into place

by a coppery bit of metal. I'd learned somewhere, though I don't now remember where, that that piece of metal was called a ferrule. I like rarely used words for very specific things, so had filed it away in my mind and whispered it aloud in the shop to myself as I turned the pencil in my fingers. Screwed into the wall beside the table

was an old-fashioned crank-turn pencil sharpener, the kind that had been beside the light switches in every classroom of my elementary school. And now that I thought about it, was in the basement of every house I'd ever lived in. I remembered moving once when I was 12 or 13 and rushing down into the basement to see if there was a pencil sharpener attached to one of the walls. I'd pulled the strings hanging from bare bulbs

as I went along the length of the room, but couldn't find one. It had bothered me because I thought it was something every house had to have. It seemed to upset the order of things. I'd turned back toward the stairs, and that's when I'd spotted it, hiding on the other side of the steps beside a doorway to the laundry room. Firmly bolted into the plaster and still half full of shavings that could have been fifty years old. I turned the handle and wondered whose pencil had last been sharpened there.

Had they thumped down the stairs with a big idea blossoming in their mind and hurriedly sharpened their trusty yellow number two pencil before the thought could flutter away like a butterfly from an eager hand. In the shop, above the sharpener on the wall, was a small hand-printed sign that said, in pretty, genteel copper plate, you sharpened it, you bought it. It made me laugh out loud, as clearly I was not the only customer who felt the pull to slide one of those shiny new pencils into the slot on the side of the little device

and turn the handle till I had a perfect point. Remembering that I was here for a gift for someone else, not for me. I called on all my discipline and set the pencil back with its neighbors. I picked up a few heavy, serious-looking ballpoint pens, liking the way they felt in my hand, and even writing a few lines on a pad of paper set out for the purpose. The bit of metal that attaches your eraser to your pencil,

I wrote in smooth, connected letters, is called a ferrule. I wrote in smooth, connected letters, is called a feral. In the end, I knew a pen wasn't the right gift either. And laying them back in their velvet-lined cases, I strolled through the other aisles. There was a shelf of desk accessories, tiny boxes of fancy paperclips,

organizers, and paperweights. Some were smooth pieces of marble or stone, and then a few oddly familiar rigid domes of thick glass in sea green and sky blue. The tag called them Hemingway insulators, and I realized my grandfather had had a row of them on his bookshelf when I was a child. At one point in their history, they had sat high atop telephone poles with live wires carried through their glass bodies. Just like their names stated, they insulated so that the phone conversations passing through those wires

weren't absorbed into the poles and thus into the ground. I picked up the blue one and turned it this way and that, wondering whose was the first call to run through this pretty piece of glass. And what if it had been the person who'd sharpened their pencil in the basement all those years ago? I set the insulator down, thinking I should pick up a journal to write this evolving story in, since it couldn't seem to leave me alone. In the next aisle, in fact, were rows of blank books

to be filled in with everything from dates to remember, dentist appointments, sketches of squirrels in the park, and poems about true love and heartbreak. I ran my fingers along the spines and stopped at one whose saddle-stitch binding wasn't hidden by a cover. You could see the folded edges of the sheets of paper that made it up, with deep red thread holding the bundles into place. And without a second thought, I pulled it down from the shelf and tucked it into the crook of my elbow. I stepped back

over to the display of pencils and found the one I'd set down a few minutes before. If I was getting a journal, I'd need something to write with, wouldn't I? I slid the blunt end of the pencil into the sharpener and began to turn the handle. There was that first catch, and I remembered the feeling of grinding down a new pencil

from my bag in school. The resistance rattling through the handle and needing to plant my feet and square my shoulders to push the lever around. I checked it after a few turns, nearly there, slid it back in for a few more. When I drew it out again, it was a perfect point, and I blew the graphite dust from it and turned to carry it with my journal toward the register. On the way, I remembered one more time that I was in the shop to buy a gift for a friend, a friend with a new house. My eyes fell on a rack of thick writing paper with matching envelopes, and I stepped over to them.

They came in about twenty shades, some blank and some with decorative borders. I didn't think he was much of a letter writer. Though the stationery sets were beautiful, they weren't quite right. Beside them was a table of stamps and stamp pads and tiny bottles of ink. The clerk came over to ask if I needed help, and with a sudden idea alight lighting in my mind. I took the red envelope from my purse and pointed to the address in the top left corner. Can you make a stamp with this name and address? I asked her.

Of course, she said, and she showed me some options from the table. There were some, very practical ones, made with plastic casing, and they stamped just fine, but didn't feel very nice in my hand. She showed me one that reminded me of the stamp the school librarian had used to mark the due date in our books. It was wooden, with dials to adjust the days and times, and was rolled onto the page, the letters and numbers pressed from bottom to top to evenly spread the ink. Behind it, I spotted a heavy contraption made of metal with a wooden plunger on top.

You pressed it down and the stamp rotated away from its ink pad and pressed words or an image into the paper. It was incredibly satisfying to press, like an irresistible big red button. The clerk and I picked out a font and layout for my friend, and she went back to her desk to put it all together. While she worked, I selected some thank-you notes on thick white cardstock and chuckled to myself as I set them with my journal and pencil next to the register to pay.

He'd been cheeky in the invitation, saying that gifts were graciously expected. So I'd be cheeky right back and give him a gift to set him up for his thank-you note writing. The clerk showed me how to position the stamp, and we tried it out on a spare bit of paper, pressing the plunger down and leaving a neat print announcing the name and new home of my old friend. Someday, someone might find this stamp in a box in an attic, and re-ink the pad and press it onto a sheet of paper

and wonder about him and what letters he'd sent out. And the story would continue. Housewarming, Part 2 I was downtown, walking past the shop windows, looking for a gift. It was a warm, sunny day. The trees that had held timid baby leaves just a week or two before were now fully dressed for summer, and most of the shops had their front doors propped open to

let the fresh air in. I stopped at the window of the stationery shop and looked in at the shelves of journals and planners. I cupped my hand over my brow to block the sun and leaned closer to the glass, my nose almost touching it, to spy the calendars tacked up across the back wall. I was searching for a housewarming gift, something that felt special, that would help make a new house feel like a real home. I didn't think a calendar was the right thing for that at all. But the shop was so inviting

that I found myself stepping inside a few moments later. There was a display of pencils and pens on a table by the door. The pencils were a shiny dark gray and flattened on one end where a rectangular pink eraser was fitted into place by a coppery bit of metal. I'd learned somewhere, though I don't now remember where, that the piece of metal was called a ferrule. I like rarely used words for very specific things,

so had filed it away in my mind and whispered it aloud in the shop to myself as I turned the pencil in my fingers. Screwed into the wall beside the table was an old-fashioned crank-turn pencil sharpener, the kind that had been beside the light switches in the basement of every house I'd ever lived in. twelve or thirteen, and rushing down into the basement to see if there was a pencil sharpener attached to length of the room, but couldn't find one. It had bothered me, because I thought it was something every house had to have. It seemed to upset the order of things.

I turned back toward the stairs, and that's when I'd spotted it, hiding on the other side of the steps, beside a doorway to the laundry room, firmly bolted into the plaster, and still half full of shavings that could have been fifty years old. I turned the handle and wondered whose pencil had last been sharpened there. Had they thumped down the stairs with a big idea blossoming in their mind,

and hurriedly sharpened their trusty yellow number two pencil before the thought could flutter away like a butterfly from an eager hand. In the shop, above the sharpener on the wall, was a small, hand-painted sign that said, in pretty, genteel copperplate, You sharpened it. You bought it. It made me laugh out loud, as clearly I was not the only customer who felt the pull to slide one of those shiny new pencils into the slot on the side of the little device and turn the handle until I had a perfect point. Remembering that I was here for a gift for someone else, not for me. I called on all my discipline and set the pencil back with its neighbors.

I picked up a few heavy, serious-looking ballpoint pens, liking the way they felt in my hand, and even writing a few lines on a pad of paper set out for the purpose. The bit of metal that attaches your eraser to your pencil, I wrote in smooth, connected letters, is called a ferrule. In the end, I knew a pen wasn't the right gift either, and laying them back in their velvet-lined cases, I strolled through the other aisles. There was a shelf of desk accessories, tiny boxes of fancy paperclips, organizers, and paperweights.

Some were smooth pieces of marble or stone, and then a few oddly familiar ridged domes of thick glass in sea green and sky blue. The tag called them Hemingray insulators, and I realized my grandfather had had a row of them on his bookshelf when I was a child. At one point in their history, they had sat high atop telephone poles with live wires carried through their glass bodies. Just like their name stated, they insulated, so that the phone conversations passing through those wires weren't absorbed into the poles, and thus into the ground. I picked up the blue one and turned it this way and that, wondering whose was the first call to run through this pretty piece of glass.

What if it had been the person who'd sharpened their pencil in the basement all those years before? I set the insulator down, thinking I should pick up a journal to write this evolving story in, since it couldn't seem to leave me alone. were rows of blank books to be filled with everything from dates to remember, dentist appointments, sketches of squirrels in the park, and poems about true love and heartbreak. I ran my fingers along the spines and stopped at one whose saddle-stitch binding wasn't hidden by a cover. You could see the folded edges of the sheets of paper that made it up, with deep red thread holding the bundles into place. And without a second thought, I pulled it down from the shelf and tucked it into the crook of my elbow. I stepped back over to the display of pencils and found the one I'd set down a few minutes before. If I was getting a journal, I'd need something to write with, wouldn't I? I slid the blunt end of the pencil into the sharpener and began to turn the handle.

There was that first catch and I remembered the feeling of grinding down a brand new pencil from my bag in school. The resistance rattling through the handle and needing to plant my feet and square my shoulders to push the lever around. I checked it after a few turns, nearly there. Slid it back in for a few more. When I drew it out again, it was a perfect point, and I blew the graphite dust from it and turned to carry it with my journal toward the register. On the way, I remembered one more time that I was in the shop

to buy a gift for a friend. A friend with a new house. My eyes fell on a rack of thick writing paper with matching envelopes, and I stepped over to them. They came in about twenty shades, some blank and some with decorative borders. I didn't think he was much of a letter writer. Though the stationery sets were beautiful, they weren't quite right. Beside them was a table of stamps and stamp pads and tiny bottles of ink. The clerk came over to ask if I needed help, and with a sudden idea alighting in my mind,

I took the red envelope from my purse and pointed to the address in the top left corner. Can you make a stamp with this name and address? I asked her. Of course, she said. And she showed me some options from the table. There were some very practical ones

made with plastic casing and they stamped just fine, but didn't feel very nice in my hand. She showed me one that reminded me of the stamp the school librarian had used to mark the due date in our books. It was wooden, with dials to adjust days and times, and was rolled onto the page,

the letters and numbers pressed from bottom to top to evenly spread the ink. Behind it, I spotted a heavy contraption made of metal with a wooden plunger on top. You pressed it down, and the stamp rotated away from its ink pad and pressed words or an image into the paper. It was incredibly satisfying to press, like an irresistible big red button. The clerk and I picked out a font and a layout for my friend, and she went back to her desk to put it all together. While she worked, I selected some thank-you notes on thick white cardstock and chuckled to myself as I set them with my journal and pencil next to the register to pay.

He'd been cheeky in the invitation, saying the gifts were graciously expected. So I'd be cheeky right back and give him a gift to set him up for his thank-you note writing. The clerk showed me how to position the stamp, and we tried it out on a spare bit of paper, pressing the plunger down and leaving and re-ink the pad and press it onto a sheet of paper and wonder about him and what letters he'd sent. And the story would continue. Sweet dreams.