Blog Flash 2012 - Final thoughts

Here is my final thought - author FAIL. I missed quite a few posts. In my defense, I had some previous commitments to do reviews and such. But still - FAIL.

So, here are the topics I missed, with some thoughts under each:

Different World

There are some books that really bring me into a different place. Fantasies like Harry Potter accomplish this, of course, but it is even more amazing when a realistic book draws me into its little world. For example, Running With Scissors made me feel I lived in that crazy, filthy house with the psychiatrist and his insane family.

A nonfiction piece that pulled me in was Awakenings, by Oliver Sacks. The book became a movie, and it was pretty darn great, but Sacks' clinical imagination is missing. He describes, for example, the wild movements of one patient as being like "Martian cathedrals."


Wild at Heart
Gosh, I'm just so not wild at heart. Some like drama in their lives; I go out of my way to avoid it. For one thing, I'm really bad at drama. Handed a dramatic encounter, I'm certain to make it worse by my conversational flailings. 

No, the lady by the fireplace reading the Oliver Sacks book - that would be me.

Blue
What a strange color. It can be absolutely awful, as that dead blue painted in certain train stations and stairwells. It can be vibrant and shimmering, as the color of the ocean in the southern isles. That sparkling light turquoise - relaxing just to think of it, isn't it?

My daughter loves blue. She was never a pink gal. I think it is part of her constant drive to be different. And bless her, that is awesome at age eight.

Blues that I love: the eyes of one of my very best friends in high school, the dark grey-blue of the Irish sea, the greenish blue of turquoise set in heavy silver, blue veins pulsing under milk-white skin.

History
This was my worst class in high school, and how I regret it now! I WANT to know about the Pelopponesian War, who all the monarchs of England were, the evolution of the Constitution, the opium wars, the Haitian revolution, the rise and fall of the Roman civilization. I need to have a course that gives me an overview of the history of the world, with a fascinating text and an interesting lecturer, please, so I can catch up and be a real person.

Of course I could have accomplished all this in high school, but nooooooo, I was too busy day dreaming. Shame on me.

Masquerade - BlogFlash 2012

Never been to a masquerade, but we used to go to my brother-in-law's Halloween parties every year. This was pre-kid, which meant we actually had time to make costumes. 

One year my boyfriend (now my husband) and I decided to make Potato Head outfits. He would be Mister, and I was Missus.

We began with the actual potato part, which was really easy - just two large beige pieces of felt cut into potato shapes with holes for our heads and hands. Our legs stuck out the bottom.

We decided to make the face pieces removable, so you could actually play with the costumes. So that was the hard part. The nose was the most difficult, and we tackled that first: one styrofoam cone split in half lengthwise was the bridge, and a styro sphere split in half on either side were nostrils. We covered those with skin colored felt and added velcro to the back.

The lips for Missus were more styrofoam. I cut lip shapes out of a styro flat block and covered them with red felt. Mister just needed a mustache, so we glued fun fur to another flat block, cut in half lengthwise. More velcro went on the back.

The eyes were easy - we got four flat ovals and glued on felt shapes, in order: pupils, lids (missus's lids were blue with eyeshadow) and lashes for Missus. Mister needed two smaller versions of his mustache for eyebrows.

Boyfriend cut out ear shapes from another flat styro block and we glued pink felt. Velcro went along the side, and those were the most pain in the butt parts - the ears kept falling off. If I did it again, I'd make the ears flat to the body.

Meanwhile, the opposing strips of Velcro were glued to the felt bodies - the potatoes, as it were. Note how I never picked up a needle during this entire project?

We found two cheapo softie top hats. Missus's was pink; Mister's was black. I cut out holes for our faces and we put them on right over our heads. 

Two pairs of large gardening gloves for our hands and largish shoes, and we were all set. Imagine the joy of all in attendance when they discovered they could PLAY with our costumes.

Damn straight we won the prize. Vive la Masquerade!

Seeing - BlogFlash 2012

I think I was in sixth grade when it suddenly hit me how amazing sight was. I was looking at something very normal, like leaves on a tree, and I thought, "They are green, and the wood is brown. Isn't cool that I can sense that?"

At that point I probably realized I brought the wrong homework or wore two different colored socks. Or whatever. Real life intervened and the wonder of sight drifted away.

Years and years later, I went with my husband to the incredible art museum in Chicago. There was a painting in the Impressionist section of a few boats lying on a pebbly beach near the sea. A few people walked off  in the distance. The sky was a bit dark, and you could just tell a storm was coming.

I don't know why that picture grabbed me so. My husband and friends walked on, and I stayed there, entranced. I could hear the steps of the people as they waked on that stony shore. Their footsteps would crunch on the rocks. There would be a smell of brine and water, and the wind would whip your face with a few drops from the incoming storm.

At that point, sight became more than sight. It was another world.

Sometimes paintings that do that for me. They open a window into an alternate universe and offer something that isn't always pretty - sometimes it is quite ugly - but it is alive. For that moment, it lives, and I experience what the painter saw.

I love that.