No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on February 26, 2016

No really, I need to buy more coffee beans today or I will have no coffee tomorrow. And coffee is expensive. Sure the price hasn’t changed much but the bag keeps getting smaller and smaller so more expensive.

And I have noticed that more and more manufactures are doing the same thing. The cost of the product is the same but the amount you get for the money is greatly reduced. I think they thought we would not notice but we noticed. There are labels now on things that say new smaller packaging but same amount as before. Less waste of course but still I am getting paranoid about having enough of what I need for the time I need it.

Fortunately a gallon of milk is a gallon of milk. It can be pricey too. Milk prices are on the rise and we like milk. I have been able to find good deals for milk. I used my CVS bucks to get it down to reasonable and they had a sale on milk if you used your CVS card. Same milk as I get at the grocery story since I avoid the milk with the hormones and antibiotic additives and have the entirety of Caroline’s life.

The cats have all found their sunshine spot for their morning nap. I really don’t understand how Inky can stay up on the top of the couch like that and not fall off.

Today I have several things I want to accomplish. Yesterday I managed one out of a list of five so those four and two more are on the list for today. Ten is the most I let onto the list because there are only so may hours in the day. Out of the six, three MUST BE DONE and three should be done. Let’s see how far I get.

And then there are the poor puppets that are sitting there waiting to be finished. And the things I need to do for Caroline’s play.

If I keep this up, I am going to not again anything done because it will all seem too much to do.

So putting all that and the timer that is running out from my mind and concentrate on number one on the list.

So finish up this cup of coffee, go to the kitchen and start my day.

I am grateful for everything I do get done today.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 25, 2016

I have never had the sensation of what people refer to as brain freeze. I have had it described to me. I was with Caroline when she had her first one eating ice cream too fast and Peter was able to explain to me why she was upset.

For me brain freeze is when my brain gets stuck on an idea or something and it keeps wrapping around and around just on that one thing. I try to shake it loose but if I am not focusing it comes back up.

I also have a soundtrack going on in my head. It is how I seem to distract myself when the ringing in my ears gets bad. It might be one song over and over again or it might be a series of songs. Right now it is the Doors “When you’re a stranger”. Yesterday it was an aria from Lakme by Debelis. There are times it is dialogue from plays I have done or shows I have seen or just about anything I have heard. Sometimes I can’t place what is going on in my head and that just frustrates me until I can figure out where I heard a piece of music especially instrumental music that is looping until I do figure out where I heard it. Even with the ringing, my hearing is really good to the point where I still hear the hum of electronics.

Quiet in my head is not an easy for me. I have been working on quieting my brain for years and, with very few exceptions, haven’t been very successful. There are times that I am totally in the now and nothing stray wanders through but that is an exercise in focus. I can tell when I am in the zone because things do get much quieter. Not as many stray thoughts bouncing around distracting me from the task at hand. I have figured out that if my math brain is working, then I can focus easier.

I have a lot of ideas for things to write and do that if I started now and didn’t have a new idea or thought, I would be set for the rest of my life.

I refuse to apologize for being smart. I am smart, clever, and inventive. I know I see the world slightly differently than a majority of the people on it. It allows me to do things and solve problems in new and interesting ways.

I have an extensive vocabulary that I keep adding to. I like words. I like word play. I read a lot. I still use a dictionary if I don’t know what a word means. I like the word of the day when I learn a new word or phrase that I can use elsewhere.

My brain is a treasure to me. I like what I can do with it.

I am grateful that my brain is my brain.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 24, 2016

We go to a lot of conventions. We go to all kinds of conventions from the large for profit to the fan run media conventions to literary conventions that have been going on for many years.

If he wanted to, Peter could go every weekend to a convention. But that would be all that he was pretty much doing since a convention takes time to get ready for, get to, participate in, come home, and putting everything away. So we pick and chose our shots.

With a few exceptions for people we know really well and trust, Peter does not go to first time conventions. He has done so in the past and most of his stories about how not to run a convention tend to come from those conventions. Not to say that there are not a lot of conventions that do it right the first year, but the chances of something going wrong are much greater.

There are a couple of conventions we attend every year. There were four but now there are three since one shut down. We have a standing invitation to attend and the attendees would probably find it odd if we didn’t show up and go ask someone why we weren’t there.

When Peter is asked to go to a convention he asks for transport, hotel room, speaker’s fee and, if possible, a table for him to sell books and the like at. This makes it much more worth his while to go. We also try to not go to one area too often so the convention gets more bang for their buck that they can say he will be there. Depending on the time of year and the like, he may increase the ask to bring Caroline and me along with him for the convention which can be a deal breaker if we have some event that we want to be together as a family like our wedding anniversary.

Recently I have been reading a number of stories of conventions either not delivering on what the promised or promising too much and finding themselves back peddling on what they offered to the point it went from transport, hotel room, and badge to badge.

The merits of the people they invited for guests is not up for discussion. The con committee invited them to participate in the convention and gave them promises for what would be expected of the guest and what would be expected of the convention. Some of these are formal contracts and agreements and others are basically e-mails and handshakes.

One story reads like a comedy or tragedy of errors that compounded the guest’s discomfort about how the convention was run. They were told that they were paying for the room by the hotel where they had been told by the committee that the convention would be paying for the room and they would pick up incidentals. They were shunted from the guest of honor table where they hoped to talk to some of the other guests at the convention to a staff table. Now I put this one on the committee solidly. It is better to spread your GoHs around the room rather than have the cool kids table and then everyone else. Oh and they were asked to pay for the meal that they were invited to by the convention. That got sorted out right then and there and once they got back to the hotel, the room issue was sorted out.

Then some panels were spectacularly wrong for them. Not what the panels were about however there was serious drift but the people on the panels and what they said and did made the guests uncomfortable. And how by this point can you even have a panel about a subject like women in comics and not have any women on the panel? (that’s a rant from another convention).

After the convention, they used the forms and format for filing complaints about the behavior of others towards them as the convention stated should be done in the program guide. There was a new non-harassment policy in place and the structure of how a compliant should be filed was also new. So they did so only to find out that nothing was done to address their complaints at all so they went public with something they have kept bottled up for almost a year and, along with that, all the feelings they had and have about the situation, which was not too good.

There is another convention that invited a lot of guests to their convention. They had an Indigogo campaign to support the convention that didn’t do well. They had to go back to the people who they invited and promised transport, room and badge and inform them that they could offer them a badge only. They apologize and said they were not expecting everyone they invited said yes making it a problem for the convention. So now they had to come back and tell the guests that they would not be honoring their original commitment. So it is apparent that the con committee is cherry picking the people they think will put butts in the seats even if the convention is limiting the number of people who can attend.

Agreeing to go to a convention is a commitment. It means that you have blocked that weekend or week out for that group of people so you can’t take any other offers. And there are times that a better one comes up but we made the commitment and going with the agreement with the group we committed to first. The exceptions are those that are stated in the agreement including work related commitments and the like. I know people get upset that a certain individual cancels coming to a convention and it seems at the last minute but that happens because work comes up or some personal issue that needs to be dealt with. Frankly I am happy when I hear an actor I like has had to cancel because they are working on some new project. It means they are working as an actor, which is what they should be doing. I am a little disappointed that I won’t be seeing them but I would rather have new work of theirs to be seen at a later date.

It is also a commitment for the convention to live up to what they promised the guests when the guests agreed to come to the convention.

I am grateful for all the wonderful conventions I have gone to over the years.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 23, 2016

I thought it was just me but I have had a couple of friends confirm that I wasn’t just seeing things.

It’s that age old argument about who belongs in artist alley and who belongs in the dealers room. Or, more simply, art vs. craft.

At many conventions there is the dealers room and the artist alley. Artist Alley is usual set up near or around the art show or it is the art show. It is seen more at anime and comic book conventions but a lot of conventions have an artist alley or an artist section within the dealers room.

In many cases a table in artist alley is lower than the cost of a table in the dealer’s room.

A number of these shows are saying flat out no 3-D art for sale at the table. Original art and prints only. Part of it does come from some abuse of the system for a cheaper table but that is not that rampant. It more seems to be a commentary on what is art and what isn’t.

Years ago I went through the hoops that an art show I wanted to participate in and was informed that I was not going to be included because my work (the puppets) was craft not art and this was an art show. An art show where I had displayed and sold a number of my puppets in just the previous year. I was not happy with the decision and pulled together a number of articles about puppets being exhibited at museums and about the center for puppetry arts museum of puppetry. I also gathered some articles including from art journals and the like about the art of puppetry. I presented all this to the art show committee and the con chair. I got my space in the art show.

I know someone who made the most beautiful decoupage jewelry boxes. She gets the boxes at the local Michael’s craft store and the images from materials she has collected. The art is in how she puts these together where they are visual pleasing to the eye. She stopping making them a number of years ago and now only does them for friends and the like. One of the reasons is that she couldn’t get any table space in many art shows because it was considered crafty not art. These were not mass-produced. One never matched the other. They were unique pieces of art. Her eye for color and what might go together was amazing. I have seen other people copy the idea but they paled in comparison to what she did.

Most art show directors like what I bring to the table. My work is rather unique; it is rare that there are any other puppets in the art show. I may not be a top seller but I amuse the patrons and people do come to the art show to see my work both pluses for art shows.

Now with 3-D printers and the like, there can be more cookie cutter art or 3-D rendering of 2-D images. Now where is the line?

If the artist makes everything that they sell that is one thing but what is the difference between ordering prints of an original piece and using a company to produce copies of an original stuff thingamajig? Do those artists who have nothing but prints be in the dealer’s room? What about art books of their art?

It should be on a case-by-case basis and they should also look at the 2-D artist as well to make sure that the same level of scrutiny as the 3-D artists both in the artist alley and the art shows. Then it has nothing to do with the dimension of the art but the art itself.

Craft is art and art is a craft. Let’s stop trying to separate the two.

I am grateful I have been able to change minds over the years about puppets as Art.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 22, 2016

And that would be all of our feelings including those that no one wants to talk about.

I have made a decision that was not easy for me but if it helps some people then I made a good decision.

We keep saying let’s have honest/frank discussion of mental health and we need to find ways to remove the stigma from mental health issues. But I have noticed that there are certain areas that people don’t seem to want to think about or talk about.

There are a lot of people out in the world who are affected by mental health issues. They may not have any of their own but have someone in their lives that is dealing with it and thus they have to deal with it too.

I am putting the rest of this behind a reading line to allow you the reader to decide if you want to read the rest of this or pass. I am not judging you either way. I know this topic can be a sensitive one for many reasons and I am trying to respect yours.

If you do read on, I ask that you respect my reasons for writing this.

(more…)

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