[This is post #2 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first or next post.]

Without any ado whatsoever (other than yesterday’s post, and now this sentence, and now this parenthetical, and now…), here’s a pretty thingy made of 60 drinking straws:

After much deliberation and Simple English Wikipedia browsing, I decided to call it Straws Thingy.

So what is it? How does it work? What is it good for? Why does it induce vertigo if you stare at it too long? And how can you make one yourself?

I’ll cover all this and more in the coming weeks. (Except for that 4th question. You might want to ask your doctor about that one). And yes, I’m confident that you can indeed make your own. To start, I suggest heading to Target and picking up a box of up&up 5-color flexible straws, making sure you have at least 12 of each color.