I think the sun forgot to rise this morning.
Month: June 2016
Piggy
He’s holding the tip of his tail while he sleeps.
Seen in the Wild
My neighbors across the street think they have a morel mushroom in front of their house, but they are wrong. Their yard is now sporting a tiny little woody-with-intact-foreskin.
Piggy on My Feet
Every time I fold laundry, Piglet parks himself on my feet. But only when I fold laundry.
Look, a Flower!
Somehow all of my flowers did not die of neglect. This day lily is blooming, and another variety is full of buds. And most of the seeds I planted last weekend are sprouting, which is kind of exciting.
Ashes
I got Franny’s ashes back today, finally. And yes, the first thing I did was open the little bag and smell them. I knew they’d just smell like a fireplace, but I still had to check.
Make Art
In the meantime, though, Kaimal’s results confirm what art junkies around the world know very well: Making art is actually, factually, good for the body, mind and soul. Even if said art resembles the deranged scribbles of a grumpy toddler.
Source: Study Says Making Art Reduces Stress, Even If You Kind Of Suck At It
I have said for years that art is simply a creative process by which we communicate. We are all driven to create. It’s been in our DNA since the day humans first started walking upright. It’s literally what makes us human. That creativity takes innumerable forms: cooking, composing, writing, scrapbooking, photography, decorating, journaling. And no, we aren’t all good at it, but we all need to do it.
By the way, this is one of the reasons I have always loved Bob Ross. Not just that his program was “local” (it was filmed a my university), but because he compelled thousands and thousands of people around the world–from small children to their elderly grandparents–to create. He told them it was okay to make things, and that there was no wrong way to be creative. Just showing up and doing it is all that’s required. I think he knew he was giving the world art therapy.
True story: When I was in high school, I did an epic amount of babysitting. My family lived in married student housing, so there were tons of kids with parents who took university classes and needed babysitters. So I’d watch groups of kids, sometimes 8-10 at a time. And when it was time for Bob Ross to air, I sat them all down with art supplies and let them go to town. He was soothing, affirmative, and non-judgmental, and the kids really seemed to enjoy the watching him and making art. If you’re going to plunk kids in front of the TV, give them art supplies and turn on Bob Ross.
Gift Corn
My awesome neighbor brought me some ears of corn. Pretty and tasty!
Throwback Thursday
Harriet Brown 2010
Franny McGee 2013
I’ve been dogless for three weeks. It’s kind of awful and disorientating on multiple levels, but this is not a post about being sad. This is a post about being lucky enough to have had two fabulously funny and fearlessly opinionated dogs. I can’t explain what made me gravitate toward Frances, at the shelter. I think these two photos do better justice to it than any words could. That face! She sat at the back of her kennel, just staring at me with the most contemptuous, judgmental expression. It was an expression I’d known and dearly loved. When I first saw Frances, I recognized it instantly, and in that moment I fell hopelessly in love with her.
Everything’s a conspiracy and reality’s turned upside down
Conspiracy nuts despise official knowledge. What they relish is their own knowingness. Just when you think you’ve refuted their canards, they dance away. One mark of this sort of conspiracy theory is that it never says die. Blocked at the end of one cul-de-sac, it reverses field and rushes off to find another one.
Source: In Trump’s world, everything’s a conspiracy and reality’s turned upside down
This is not a post about Donald Trump or even politics, really. It’s just that something struck me while reading this article. Conspiracy theorists puzzle me, whether it’s a fixation on vaccines causing disease, or our president not being a “real American,” or Monsanto creating the Zika virus. It’s easy to dismiss these believers as ignorant fools, but I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. I wonder if they seek out and cling to conspiracy theories because, despite being intelligent, they don’t have confidence in their intelligence. If you aren’t confident that you’re smart, you might defensively hit out at anything and everything that makes you question your smartness. You might feel compelled to go the extra mile to assert your own personal knowledge over that of others, including (or especially?) folks the rest of us concede are far more knowledgeable than we are in their given fields of expertise.
(As for Mr. Trump, I don’t think he’s particularly intelligent. Someone has to fill out the fat part of the bell curve, yes? But I also am not convinced that he believes half the dog whistles that emit from his angry little pie hole. I was born cynical, and I am convinced Trump is playing a role.)
red paper boat 