Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

My left foot [/unintentional Cerebral Palsy in-joke]

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:10:17 GMT

Anyway, so at the end of July: I made a list of Na'Arts I wanted to make in the month of August. The very first thing I wrote for that list was:

A hand-drawn sketch of my own, bare, feet (they are the part of my body I am least comfortable with, and I want to get more comfortable with them) Problem: Getting a way so I can actually see them while in a position to draw them...

So this post is ALL the THOUGHTS and FEELS about that, that I just didn't have the energy to post on the day I did the picture:

( cut for those who are disturbed by images of feet (500 x 402 pixels) )

Okay, so it's one foot, instead of both feet... 'Cause ... Do you know how hard it is to get a clear view of your own feet when you're holding a clipboard in your lap?! Ahem. Anyway, yes...

I'm not sure if it's clear from this perspective, but my feet are "clenched" -- my instep is almost hemispherical, with my toes curled under; if the bones of my feet had the same range of motion as the bones in my hands, my feet would be clenched fists. The angle between my foot and lower leg is actually less than 90 degrees. Here - this picture, illustrating the full, normal, range of motion for the human foot shows what I mean: my feet are stuck in the full UP position -- if someone pulled really hard, they might be able to get my feet to budge down a millimeter, but not without me swearing bloody murder at them, 'cause OW. That dark line I drew around the top of my instep is no exaggeration -- it really is deep crease where the sun (or the library chandelier) don't shine.

I used to be more self-conscious over my feet's weird crooks and creases. But that's no longer the main reason I'm ambivalent toward them now. (As my friends know, I'm perfectly willing to be weird). And I'm even cool about their spasticity and its discomfort most of the time.

( 'It's just that...' -- Cut for your scrolling pleasure )

The thing that I love about drawing from life, by hand, is that in order to do it well, you have to slow down, and really look carefully at the thing (or part of yourself) that's in front of your eyes -- not your memories of it, or prejudices about it -- but what's really, actually there in the present moment (Which is why drawing from life is better than drawing from a photograph). So I'll probably do another foot picture or three. I'd love to get in front of a full-length mirror, so I can draw the whole of me, either nude or not (my feet are almost always nude, except in public). But I don't have such a mirror, yet.

This was going to be a much longer post... but writing this (with breaks for dinner and snack) has taken me five hours. So there may or may not be a part 2...

Oh, and here are ( the other things on the list, with links where applicable: )

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It's Father's Day, in America:

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:46:39 GMT

These Mother's / Father's Days always make me feel a little bit bitter, because A) they remind me that I no longer have either parent in my life, anymore, B) both my parents were scornful of the Greeting Card Industry's commercialization of parenthood while they were alive, anyway, and C) Google's horrible gender-normative animated "doodles" make me want to "GRAH!"

However, as I was toddling to bed, turning out lights, after midnight (with these thoughts fresh in my mind), something caught my eye, and I found this photo had slipped from between some books on the shelf, probably, and had fallen onto the floor. So I took it As A Sign that maybe I should Celebrate Anyway, because, dammit: Celebrations are Good on Principle! So:

( Happy Father's Day, Everyone!* )

*(If your biological father does not deserve celebrating, for his own sake, celebrate surviving him).

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Douglas Adams interview clip -- this makes me happy

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:11:35 GMT

The other day, I was looking around YouTube for a Douglas Adams interview clip where he said he hated dystopian fiction, because we what we create in reality comes out of what we imagine. And I wanted to cite that in a post talking about why I like (most) "Holiday" stories on TV -- both the annual specials that are aired each year, and the Holiday themed episode of regular series.

But.

I could not find it.

What I did find was an upload of an hour-long documentary interview with him, for the South Bank Show, from 1992 (in six parts).

What's extra nifty about it is that while he and the interviewer are in the sitting room having their conversation, Adams's fictional characters are milling around the other rooms of the house, listening in, and rolling their eyes.

This is Part 5, and it's the one that makes me the happiest of all, because this is the bit where Douglas Adams talks about how other creatures besides humans are also intelligent, and their perceptions of the world are just as valid as our own, and this is also the bit where Ford Prefect explains to Arthur Dent how the relationship between Authors and Characters work...

And what he says reminds me an awful lot of what Dad and I would talk about, late into the night. And so it kind of fills that Lonely Hole I've got, right now.

So I thought I'd share it:

( transcript to follow, bit by bit, probably )

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So, The CafePress store I'm thinking of starting...

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:54:37 GMT

And this time, I'm actually doing stuff about it, not just thinking about it. At the moment, I'm working on adapting this image into something suitable for a mug:

Description: a cartoon image of rabbits -- two normal, with nine "monster, hybrid" rabbits and one rabbit-shaped cloud above a quote attributed to John Steinbeck: "Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."

I'm doing it in two halves -- and plan making both "right-handed" and "left-handed" versions -- so that the normal rabbits would face outward, and the "Crack!fic" bunnies would be staring down the drinker. So I'm rearranging the image to be split horizontally instead of vertically.

I also found this old photo of my mother as a little girl, and it cracks me up, because that outfit is so antithetical to her personality, it's like a meeting of matter and anti-matter, and you can see it in her face:

Description: Old black and white photo of a little girl in a white dress with embroidered bodice, peter-pan collar and puff sleeves. Her dark hair has been curled and parted in the middle. She is fidgeting with her dress and pouting.

I want to give it the caption: "All dressed up... And I don't wanna go!" ... How wrong would it be to put that on a CafePress design for sale?

BTW, I'm thinking of staying away from t-shirts and focusing on mugs, for the most part. Most people I know have a surfeit of shirts, and there aren't many places, honestly, where it's appropriate to wear decorated shirts in public -- not at the workplace, anyway. But the social rules for coffee mugs seem a little bit more lax, as long as they're not rude or crude. And that's not my style anyway.

... Am I right about that, btw?

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The day most recently past was my father's birthday; he would have been 83.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:24:24 GMT

So, in his honor, I'm reposting this memory of him (originally posted 2010-02-02, but it was behind a cut, in a list of randomness):

[Quote] My father's favorite moral directive was Immanual Kant's Categoracal Imperative. He said it was like Christianity's Golden Rule, but more evolved. He would quote his own paraphrase of the first formulation of that throughout my life, thusly: "Do only what you'd like to see become universal."

Speeding through this red light, at this moment, might be a good thing for you, now, but if everyone did that, all Hell would break lose. So don't do it.

He said it was more evolved than the Golden Rule, because the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you.) is still focused on your own, perhaps selfish, desires, and limited perspective. But Kant's Categorical Imperitive takes it to the next dimension, and takes other people's lives into account, and asks you to think about further implications of your actions. [unquote]

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Telling a story of my father telling a story of his father

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:58:09 GMT

My father never told many stories about his father (my grandfather).

There was the story about how he worked, in the early years, on the new invention of the telephone, climbing the poles, testing the lines, and how he fell in love with my grandmother when she answered her phone during one of those tests.

There was the tidbit about how he became one of the earliest electrophysicists, and how it was so early in the field, his official title was "Professor of electricity."

There was the maxim, of sorts, that the point of going camping is not to "rough it," but to figure out what you need to be comfortable, and be as efficient as possible so you can carry what you need to where you want to be.

And then, there was this story, which my father told repeatedly, and I will now try to remember:

When Dad was about 10 years old (1937), he went for a walk with his father, who started to tell him about the structure of atoms, and how it seemed like atoms and the solar system had the same structure, but just on a different scale. How all protons, electrons, and neutrons in atoms are identical -- that it's not the stuff that differs from one thing to another, that makes us unique -- it's all in how this stuff is arranged in different patterns.

Dad nodded along, yes, he could see that.

And then, his father asked this question:

ASIDE BREAK:
Now, my father's family were, for the most part, Orthodox Friends (Quakers) who were taught that all our actions must be in accord with the Christ (or Light) Within, and that, no doubt, was what was prompting this question from my grandfather.

"If we are inside the universe, and there is no way for us to view the system from outside, than how is it possible for us to know whether or not what we are doing is working in harmony with the whole, or working against it?"

Grandfather had no answer, himself, it was just something he was pondering. And he left the question in the air for my father to ponder, too. Personally, I think he was coming up against the boundary between his personal faith, that there is an Light Within, but (maybe) not an external God in charge of setting down the rules, and keeping score for us.

...

So, for eleven years, or so, that question rolled around in my father's head, and then, one night, as he was riding home on the train from his period of duty in the Coast Guard (I think), he looked out the window at the stars, and the answer to that question popped into his head. And it was one of the first things he told his father when he got home:

"We know that we're doing right when what we're doing is fun."

( And that's why finding this vid the other day made me get a bit teary-eyed )

( It wasn't until the last year of his life (it may have been in one of our very last conversations, either over the phone, or literally beside my father's deathbed) that Dad let the shadow-side of this story drop )

And that's why my cousin Toni laughed out loud when the nurse at the hospital asked if father would like to speak to a priest, to administer last rites. "He'd be friendly and polite to the priest," she'd said. "But I think he'd rather talk to a quantum physicist."

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W-O-W! Essay-Rec!!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:26:31 GMT

Came upon this just this afternoon / evening. And damn, if it don't make a metric buttload of sense to me.

Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign

Even if my posts on signing have, until now, all been outside of your interests, read this (brief, ~1,100 word) essay. At least, if you're one of those people who grew up with parents in your household, or had friends who did, you might find something to relate to, here:

[snippet quote]

There are many stories telling of how a parent got a new Deaf co-worker at the office, or comes into contact with Deaf people at church. All of a sudden, the parent is eager to learn sign language. Why NOW, after five, ten, fifteen, twenty years of living with their own flesh and blood? Simple: the new relationships with these Deaf adults are not stuck in the quagmire of power and control.

[snippet ends]

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