odds and ends

To continue with the creativity theme of late, here are a few more fun things that have been completed, and a wonderful example of A's mad drawing skillllllz.First, A's first self-portrait. He laid his head on the paper and "traced" his head, then added a body, teeth, eyes etc. I asked him about clothes and hair, and he added them very carefully. His hand is also holding some little toys, which is as accurate as he could be.

Right now, the boy is putting on "scuba gear," which consists of a shoe in the back of his t-shirt neck for an oxygen tank, a fireman's helmet for a mask, long socks for flippers, and a little red shoe he is using as a camera to take pictures of all of his sea creatures. Sigh. I'm so proud.
The completed hungry hungry hippos painting. Gluttony, of course, is the theme. I had to scrape down a couple of the marbles and some of the red, as it was just getting so impastoed (is that a word? it is now) that the crayon layers cast weird shadows. One must attempt to get the color right the first time, but that's always easier said than done. I just finished knitting this scarf last night, after starting it, and putting it down, about 4 months ago. The material is beautiful recycled sari silk (that's the sarriest silk I ever saw! har.), made by women in Nepal. The colors are absolutely exquisite, and the light does wonderful things in the fibers. I knit four rows, then I yarn over 4 times to make each stitch in the next row, and as I knit the subsequent row the loops fall down and make this extended stitch. It shows off the yarn quite well.This is my latest purse design. The structure of it is nice, with integrated pockets--each side panel X is a pocket as well. I like structured bags, and all of my bigger ones are full of pockets. I will try and write the pattern, to sell somewhere hopefully.

topper topper topper

There are some words that should be banned. Forever. Topper is one of them. It's in every crochet magazine I get, and it just looks so damn frumpy. A topper is what you put on a cake, not a sweater, or lace collar, hat, or any other godforsaken clothing item. Top is marginally better, but lacks so much in description that it's pointless to put it in print. Of course this will go on a person's top! It's on the model, right there, on top.

"Wearable," "nipped-in," and "luxe" are other infuriating words. Lucky magazine is especially rife with those descriptions. What would I want with clothing that wasn't wearable? "I had to get this see-through chiffon tunic. It will look great on my wall." Nipped-in just makes me think it's so cold that...well...not to be gross... And luxe is just plain dumb. Is it just not luxurious enough to qualify for an entire word? Like spelling night, "nite?" That's a night that is cute rather than solemn.

I have good company for word-hate (a rather Orwellian term, I think). Dorothy Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker, talks about the origin of evil in writing terms:

The very act of choosing that one "right" word, automatically and necessarily makes every other word in the dictionary a "wrong" word. The "wrongness" is not inherent in the words themselves--each of them may be a "right" word in another place*--their "wrongness" is contingent upon the "rightness" of the chosen word. (*author's footnote: Always excepting, of course, words like "sportsdrome" and "normalcy," which are so steeped in sin that no place is "right" for them, except Hell, or a Dictionary of Barbarisms.)

busy bears of hippity hollow

I am a deeply nostalgic person. I love history--in broad, epic chunks of time and in tiny, inconsequential recollections. Knowing the history of a place, the sitter for a portrait painting, the origin of an object, gives so much more depth of meaning and pathos. They are no longer just nameless faces in uncomfortable clothes, the object isn't merely a nice-looking example of its kind; they are people and things with a life before and after you see them there, and they saw things that history never tells, but you might only guess. Like the movie, The Red Violin, which follows the violin through centuries of owners, slowly revealing how and why its color is so distinctive. It's a fascinating, if somewhat disturbing, movie.

I wouldn't pretend that any of my possessions have the power to transcend centuries and intrigue millions, but I enjoy them thoroughly nonetheless. I may be drawn particularly to still life because I devoured objects as a child. Not in a literal sense (leave that to my progeny), but I have loved Things obsessively, remembered their history, and spent untold hours drinking in every detail.

My first crush, for example, gave me a Smurfette charm necklace and a set of dominoes for my 5th birthday, at Farrells in Golden Ring. Farrells was a kindof embarrassing place to have a party, as they would bang a huge drum and have a siren going when it was someone's birthday. But I was so excited that Ben was there, my friend whose birthday is Groundhog day. When we were in high school, he told me that he also had had a crush on me, so much so that he failed handwriting in second grade because he tried to write with his left hand, just like me. *sniff*

My sticker books--my first ongoing, obsessive-sorting project, were also cherished and kept to this day. And I'm sure if I ever get into my parents' attic, I might find a million other things to stop my heart and send me back to 1983. Well, and the spiders might also stop my heart, come to think of it. Good thing I got my Nancy Drew books out early.

I got a jolt this evening, while looking up board games for my 7 deadly sins project. On a flickr page was a whole beautiful slideshow of about 80 percent of the toys I also played with as a kid. Not only were there the plastic charm necklaces, She-Ra dolls and Strawberry Shortcake, but Charmkins, Dollypops, and to crown all, Busy Bears. Below is the only photo I am aware of that shows nearly all the busy bear sets, and no one on ebay has heard of them. I would pay a lot of money for these. Seriously. I don't know why. I had all of them, got them all from Best, which was a chain of stores (maybe like Target or Wards?) that were distinctive for their odd architecture. The one in Towson had a facade that tilted upwards at an angle, like a giant had lifted a box to see what was underneath. It was unsettling to go under the facade, even though it was secure, and hid a real entrance.

My mom and I picked out the busy bear sets. Each one had a little koala bear, and a house or shop in one or two parts. The shop itself was shaped like what it sold, so the alarm clock-shaped house sold clocks, the teapot shaped shop was a tea shop, etc. Little doors, little containers, little friends to go inside them. Perfect in every way. It really is no wonder that A's favorite toys could all fit inside a shot glass.

Since I loved these toys so much, why aren't they a part of my little collection of cherished things? Sadly, in a fit of mad generosity, years ago I gave most of them to my sometime friend, B. We had a tumultuous relationship all through elementary school, both fighting to be the best friend of another girl, T, and not really wishing to be friends with each other. It was really ridiculous, petty, catty nonsense that lasted for years, and makes me shake my head to think of it now. Once in a while, B and I would cease hostilities and go hang out together. One of those times, I let her have all these busy bears, regretted it immediately after I gave them to her, but felt bad asking for them back. Or in the politically incorrect way of putting it, I wasn't going to be an Indian giver. So there they went, never to be seen again. Maybe it's for the best.

creative flood

It's feast or famine here, let me tell you. I've had so much lovely time to think and veg my mind in the past week or so, I've been able to do a tremendous amount of creative work. It helps that things are clean and organized at the house, which keeps the nagging voice out of my head that says I should be cleaning instead of working on this frivolous stuff.

So, a few things I've gotten started/finished:

• my first painting in about 2 years. It's melted crayon, about 18x24", of toys I cherished as a child. My china tea set, a pewter mouse from my dad, a pompom bunny, and Lemon Meringue from Strawberry Shortcake are all sitting on a Barbie sticker book. Joy! The tea set was a real challenge. Still looks kindof chalky grey to me.
• I'm starting my second painting, same size, of hungry hungry hippos. Everything's very local-color right now, but later I'll layer on more subtle colors and reflections. The painting will be the first in a series on the seven deadly sins. Can you guess which sin this is?
• I'm brainstorming ideas about my maternal grandmother's house, not sure if I have enough material for a book, but maybe some essays. I remember her stuff vividly, and have wanted to write about it for ages. Mom gave me this blanket Nanny made, before she (Nanny) lapsed into a Valium-induced 30-year stupor. The crazy thing is that the shell stitch is one of my absolute favorites to make, and these colors are eerily similar to the ones I choose when I work. And I found out that Nanny was also a perfectionist with her crochet, always saying, "I'm going to have to rip this row out..." if there was the teensiest mistake. I do the same thing. No one else notices, but I know it's there. It bugs me.
• last, here's a shot of my sunny studio, looking cheerful and inviting! The windows are amazing, help the crayon stink to leave quickly, and the light is very good. Some anonymous admirer left the Smurf sheet on my door yesterday, which totally made my week! Who are you? How can I ever repay you? It's smurf-tastic.

make me the usual, mommy

I didn't need any more proof that my son has a serious oral fixation. From literally the moment of birth, where the nurse informed me that he had "the strongest sucking reflex I've ever seen," the kid has spent his life putting things in his mouth, and considers the day wasted if he hasn't licked something horrible and repulsive (the latest: the underside of the ticket counter at the State Fair). He's remained remarkably healthy his whole life, praise God, which makes me wonder if he's bolstered his immune system by taste-testing the world.

It was always embarrassing picking him up from the nursery at church, where I saw a sinkful of toys each time, all of which had been liberally slathered with A's drool. The nursery worker would ask me, "Does he usually put a lot of stuff in his mouth?"

"No," I'd say, covering up the drool-stains on my shirt. "How strange."

Now A has almost learned to control himself, with only one or two lapses a month that leave me screaming, "What the HELL are you thinking???? Don't you know there's POOP on that and GERMS and oh my GODIcan'tBELIEVEyoulickedthat!!!"

He has transferred his licking tendencies to a more vicarious medium: the creation of playdoh sculptures that can lick, bite, and most important, swallow defenseless victims. Jonah's whale, the whale and Bruce from Finding Nemo, and Jaws are very popular characters; they're all mouth, with a teensy tail at the end to show they're not sideways pinch pots. Jaws always has a "thin" that sticks up out of the water and "du-duh, du-duh HE'SCOMINGTOEATDAFIIIIISH!"

A has taken these sculptures a step further, adding loads of pointy teeth, tongues with "tasties," and to crown all, dangling "usuals." (i.e. uvulas, the fleshy things that hang down in the back of your throat. I was going to put in a picture, but they were all quite disgusting.)

"Make a usual, Mommy please?" he says, "so dey can hang on to da tasties and get chomped up in da whale's froat!"

He makes it sound like I'm some sort of dough bartender, looking up from the taps to see him coming in. "The usual," he says, and I slap it down on the counter, a squishy all-mouth whale, complete with a few thins and a taste-bud studded tongue.

At least it keeps him from licking the toilet. For now.

great article from the onion

I used to visit The Onion for my weekly dose of absurd news. I had kindof forgotten about it until today. Here's an article for all you moms and dads out there who are tired of those cuts and scrapes caused by their child's vivid imaginations.

The sad thing is, some people actually think the news on here is for real. I made the mistake of reading the "comments" sections on the HP7 reviews in Christianity Today and I regretted it immediately: someone had used the Onion as a source for the "fact" that J.K. Rowling is a practicing witch. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I still read the entire load of tripe and falsehood--what else could I do? It's like watching the President of Iran talk about how the holocaust didn't happen, and all you can do in the face of it is stare in disbelief. It's just too much to take in; first, there really are loads of incredibly stupid, ignorant people out there, and second, that they can spread their stupidity via the internet, for all the world to see. Capping it all are the virulent spelling and grammatical errors and ALL CAPS shouting to lend their rants some real credibility. All the tripe was on a Christian website, no less, so at least there weren't any f-bombs and references to people's mothers, but I think it made things even worse. It's easier to dismiss someone as a loony when they're cursing, probably drunk, and can't use a computer.

(ps. the image is from an amazing site called "Flame Warriors," all about the personalities of people who are members of internet message boards. He's got great descriptions, and funny illustrations, of all those wacky folks in the online community)