Fireworks: a metaphor

It is a beautiful night, the first we've had in a while, and we have several boxes of legal fireworks, so Ryan and I go outside to sit on the front step. Ryan opens a box of snaps and throws a few at the ground. Snap! Snap! I watch for a while, mesmerized, then turn my attention to the colorful smoke bombs. I light a few, then go back to watching Ryan.

After a while, he hands me one. "Go on, throw it."

I take it, reluctantly. Having grown up in a state where fireworks were illegal, I've never played with snaps before. Plus, he's already thwarted my attempts to unwrap all of the snaps in the box and empty their contents into a coffee filter, creating a super snap. I look at the small, white packet in my hand, then toss it to the ground.

Nothing.

"It might be a dud," Ryan says, "but you're doing it wrong. You need to throw it with more force. There's more wrist action."

"Okay," I say, and turn to him with my hand out.

"No, get that one you threw off the ground. Don't waste them." He points to the un-exploded snap near my feet. I sigh, then bend over, facing away from him.

Snapsnapsnapsnapsnap! Suddenly, I am surrounded by explosions. I jump up and yell. Ryan laughs.

"Ryan! What the hell?" He laughs harder.

Later, I throw another snap that does not explode. I bend over to pick it up facing Ryan and do not break eye contact. He throws a snap at me anyway.


Moral: Some women date men that remind them of their fathers. I, however, am dating my baby brother.

(By the way, this is my response to this. Turnabout is fair play.)

Days 6-10

This is a lot  to remember at once. I should probably start updating more often. LIGHTNING ROUND!

30 Days of Creativity Update: Days 3/4/5

Have I been upstyling my titles? That's something I'm going to need to take a look into. I think I have enough content that it's time to put together a style sheet. Hear that, fellow bloggers? Style sheets. They are things that you need. You can make up your own rules, but rules you must have. A foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds (Style sheet entry "Misquotes:" Okay if used to prove a point).

Onto the creating.

I should write for Glamour

About a year ago, I purchased a three-year subscription to Glamour magazine. About 11 months ago I realized this was a terrible idea.

Days 1 and 2

Yesterday I was sick, very sick. My sinuses ceased to exist as holes in my head and became throbbing canals of pain (and also mucus). And my internet was down. There are two things every girl needs to be creative: oxygen and internet access. Yesterday I had neither.

So here's what I've been doing for the last two days at work. It's been slow. America, get out there and write some checks! Incorrectly, if you can!

Paper flowers! I think technically this is kirigami, but to me it felt more like making paper snowflakes but folding the paper slightly differently. They are made from old calendar pages, as I mentioned before, and colored with my vast supply of highlighter pens. Total time: about 2.5 hours.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but for now I kind of like having them on my computer. Whenever I get bored I stop what I'm doing and rearrange them. It's soothing, like a brightly colored, ultra-girlie Zen garden.

Today's Craft: Bread, using this recipe.I'm going to let it rise overnight to give it more flavor. Haven't made bread in a long time, so I'm really looking forward to it!

30 Days of Creativity DAY ONE GO!

I signed up for this because Heather did first, and I tend to follow Heather and her crazy ideas (Let's get dressed up and go to things and hope that people will take our pictures! Let's go see Twilight even though we both hated the book! Wait, let's write a Fringe show instead!). But this is a good one, because I need motivation to do creative things that don't involve spite (see also: Fringe show).

I am a pro at linking to things. If I was telling this story out loud, that paragraph would have taken 10 minutes. HTML: Your window to a less long-winded tomorrow!

So, I made some kirigami flowers out of old desk calendar pages at work today, and now I have a bouquet of November 1-19, 2009 on my computer. I have 5 1/2 months left and not a ton of real work to do, so I'll probably keep working on that tomorrow. I'll take some pictures and post them somewhere within my vast social media network (which is to say, on Twitter). And I have a hymn for church tomorrow that's not in the hymnal, so I'll have to improvise a harmonization for that. Does that count? That had better friggin' count. I went to school for that shit. Maybe I'll figure out how to record and post that too.

I'm not normally good at this sort of thing, on account of I lack discipline and self-control, but I'm getting better. I've listened to the whole Bible on my iPod 1 1/2 times since the start of last year, I stopped biting my nails, and I even got myself photographed by a legitimate member of the press (Naomi Beck: hyperlinking machine. Also, pretty good at pulling off hot pink miniskirts). So I'm pretty confident about this.

(Disclaimer: Today is also the start of the Lazyman Triathalon at the YMCA, and you get a t-shirt for finishing that, so if it comes to the point where I have to choose which one to finish, I'm gonna go with that.)

So here goes...

Why I should start doing improv

Because, as I try to write an introductory essay to my huge-ass semester project anthology of humor (Funny without Trying: Something something haven't written a subtitle yet), it occurs to me that I am good at beginning to talk about things, and I'm good at continuing to talk about things, but I'm terrible at stopping before the talking turns into a rambling mess. If this essay were an improv scene, someone would just clap, and it would be all over. Life, I think, needs more scene-changing claps.

Also, today a gay man told me I had the perfect hair and skin color for jewel-toned shirts, and that's like the improviser's uniform. So there's that.


PS - One of my goals once this semester from hell is over (Tuesday at 9:30 PM!) is to start blogging more. But another one of my goals is to do the laundry I haven't done in four weeks, so don't hold your breath.