Glitteratti (or, Take a Lesson from Molly Brown)

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I have to preface the two photos below with this information: I hate my hands. Everyone else in my family has my grandmother’s long, elegant fingers, strong nails, perfect dexterity.

Me? I have my grandfather’s stubby fingers, and my nails break if I breathe on them the wrong way. While I still own a cello, one of the reasons I never pursued it after high school is that you can’t be in an orchestra or chamber quartet if you can’t play a full-sized instrument (oh, they make 7/8 scale “ladies celli”, but those are difficult to find, or at least, high-quality ones are difficult to find, and horribly expensive when you can), and my hands are so small certain transitional and upper positions, are difficult for me.

My grandfather used to comfort my despair over my diminutive digits by reminding me that Molly Brown (the unsinkable one) had small hands also.

Ms. Brown wore fancy gloves and rings to show off her tiny hands and fingers. Me? I’m not really into rings (except my wedding and engagement bands) so I resort to nail polish. For the last several months, I’ve been having acrylic put on over my natural nails (no tips) because of the afore-mentioned breakage issue. Generally, I opt for solar nails (this refers to the manufacturer of the solution and powder, not any special daystar-related technique), which are designed to mimic a French manicure, pink bases, white tips.

Ever since dying my hair Blackberry and Indigo, however, I’ve had an issue with the fact that the purple in my hair stains the tips of my fingers. Today, Mai at ZiZi Pedispa in Arlington Highlands (shopping center, TX) suggested we use a color for the tips – she had glittery purple sitting out, and since I like purple and don’t mind a bit of glitter, that’s what we used.

Here, in crappy shots from my Blackjack cellphone, are the results:

Bloggeries

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This isn’t an essay length piece, just bloggeries I’d ordinarily have tweeted, or compiled into something in paragraph format.

– Since washing my indigo-streaked hair is staining my finger tips lavender these days, I opted for a modification to my traditional French manicure at the pedispa today. The main part of the nail is still Light Solar Pink, but the tips, where the white would normally be, are now Glittery Galactic Purple. I don’t think I’ll keep this much past Halloween, but today it’s making me smile.

– The thing that makes Starbucks’ “Perfect Oatmeal” only practically perfect and not completely perfect is that it’s all carb. I could have added protein to my drink, but didn’t think of it.

– The temporary SPIRIT Halloween shops are fun to look through but everything there is way overpriced. The animatronic Hannibal Lector was kind of cool, though.

– Halloween stuff at Target, on the other hand, is reasonably priced. I got the coolest stuff!!! And even completed CANDY shopping. Yay Halloween!

– Why use the word “bloggeries?” Two reasons: one is that it seems an appropriate term for this sort of sticky-note style presentation of random thoughts; the other is that I like the sound of the word.

Excellence…

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Bobbi honored me with the above award, and, as per the rules, I’m passing on the appreciation to ten of the bloggers whose work I enjoy. They’re listed in alphabetical order, because I’m silly that way, and for a change I’m not offering commentary. Explore, if you will.

  1. The Goat Rodeo
  2. Gold ‘n’ Purls
  3. Living the Fictional Dream
  4. Michele
  5. Mindful Banter
  6. Nogut pik i bagarapim ples matamat
  7. Nota Bene
  8. Notes from an Eclectic Mind
  9. Paula Tracey dot Com
  10. Tuna News

(I tried to pick people who aren’t already displaying the E award, or who inspire me, or both. That the list is all female is intentional, it being breast cancer awareness month, and all.)

Words as Weapons

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Words are a form of action, capable of producing change.
— Ingrid Bengis

For almost two years now, I’ve been involved with an organization called Soldiers’ Angels, which is a non-partisan group that writes mail and sends packages to American soldiers serving “in harm’s way.” Joining was difficult for me, and I did it in part to honor the memory of my grandfather, who was career Army, but also to honor a net-friendship with a man I know through his writings at places like MySpace and OpenDiary. Every so often, he half-jokingly calls me his muse, but in this he was mine, though he probably isn’t aware of it. Or at least, he won’t be until he reads this. If he reads this.

I remember him posting something to the effect of people not actually being able to uphold the tenet, “Love the soldier, not the war,” without the soldier being criticized as well as the situation. I wanted to prove that I could put my money where my mouth was, so to speak. I’ve never believed we should be in Iraq, but I strongly believe that the men and women in our military deserve our respect and support.

I also remember a conversation I had with my grandfather, during Operation Desert Storm, which – wow- was almost twenty years ago, now. She was complaining about people demonstrating against the war, and he, after patiently explaining to her exactly where Kuwait and Iraq and Iran were, and what the point was, finally blew up at her for her whining. “God DAMN it, Esther,” he said, “What do you think we fight for?” He went on to explain that while he didn’t much like the demonstrators either, the fact that they COULD demonstrate was a crucial part of American culture and society.

So what does this have to do with words as weapons?

Think a moment. You’re eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. You come from a large high school in a major city. You join the military, partly because you know if you survive you’ll get an education, and partly because it’s an escape from the life you know – one with a place to sleep, regular meals, and friends to watch your back, and partly because you want to belong to something.

Maybe your parents just aren’t letter writers. Maybe they don’t want you to serve, for political reasons, or for personal ones. Maybe you don’t even talk to them. You come from a culture of instant communication, email, text, the constant ringing of cell phones…and you’re sent to a foreign country, where you may or may not have email access, but even if you do your time is limited, and phone time is rationed the way water is during a drought, and even if the conditions aren’t that bad for you, you see others coming and going from places where the risk is greater and the conditions considerably worse, and just when you feel most isolated, you get an envelope from a stranger, who says hello, I’m here, and I’m thinking about you, and you’re not alone.

That letter – words upon a page – is a weapon to fight loneliness, and to create a connection.

Saturday at Barnes and Nobel, I picked up the book Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature through Peace and War at West Point, by Elizabeth D. Samet. Samet is a civilian English teacher who has been teaching at the United States Military Academy for nearly ten years, and the book is about the way the study of literature and poetry affects the cadets in her classes.

She mentions the fact that there are some who think teaching poetry to men and women destined to be military leaders is a waste, but that there are others who passionately believe that these men and women need such studies as much or more than the rest of us, because it gives them important insights, fosters creative ideas, teaches them to think, and feeds their souls.

She also mentioned a program begun in World War II, and back in vogue today, of issuing specially sized versions of popular and classic literature designed to fit in a cargo pocket, and distributed among our soldiers. She labels this chapter, “Books as Weapons,” and she’s right.

Words have power. Just as a speech can invigorate and encourage, a good story can spark a new perspective even as it entertains. It can offer escape, or it can be the catalyst to catharsis. A poem can trigger a love of words, or create a verbal picture. And each can offer a connection to the familiar, or to the possible, or both.

Words, and the books which hold them, are weapons against indoctrination, boredom, and stagnation. They curb lonleliness, incite laughter, warm hearts, and expand minds.

Write a letter. Read a book. Scribble a story. Compose a poem. Draft, craft, recite. CREATE.

You’ll be changed.
And you will also be the instrument of change.

Kid Food and Personal Landmarks

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Technically, it’s been Autumn since the last week of September, even if “Autumn” and “Summer” are not all that different in Texas, but last night, standing on the deck, waiting for the dogs to do their business before bed, I exhaled into the darkness and saw my breath hanging in the crisp night air.

I live in a world of personal landmarks. It is not officially cold, or officially Fall, no matter what the calendar says, until I see that first visible breath. The Christmas season does not begin, in my house, until after the sighting of Santa Claus at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and weekends are measured not in what I’ve accomplished, but in how many books I’ve finished reading.

The onset of my personal Autumn, however, is the beginning of my favorite time of year, for while I do not enjoy serious winter, of the type experienced north of here, at all, I do like warm-ish days and chilly evenings. My ideal weather is when the mornings require a sweater, the afternoon is warm enough for shirt-sleeves when you’re in the sun, and the evenings are cool enough that comfy pajamas and a mostly-decorative fire are not uncomfortably warm.

Comfort weather.

Today, on the first day after the arrival of the first of this year’s Comfort Weather, I spend much of the day sleeping in a cool, dark room. A double-dose of Midrin killed the migraine that was brewing, but made me dizzy, and tired, and since I needed to mull over an article rewrite, spending a day with just myself and my dogs was definitely in order.

Although when, at 12:46 pm, I realized that Fuzzy had not, in fact gone into the office, but had chosen to work from home, I offered to make mac-n-cheese for lunch. I mix tuna in, for protein, and it doesn’t come from a box, and while it may be organic, it’s still unhealthy, but oh, so good. I sat outside in a warm breeze and listened to the birds chasing each other through the trees while I did so.

Then I did some email work, took another nap, did some more email work, took a bubble bath, and decided I was hungry, and that more comforting kid food was in order. I have a fridge full of gourmet food, including the makings of a lovely spinach and mushroom French pizza (which isn’t French at all, but feels that way – no tomato sauce, just grated gruyere, baby spinach, etc.) and what I wanted more than anything in the world was a peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk.

And while, as a kid, it would have been Skippy and not organic peanut butter, the bread still would have been multi-grain, and the milk still would have been chocolatized with Hershey’s syrup.

Sometimes, like comfort weather, kid food is just what you need.