No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on March 3, 2015

This past week I did an interview for a documentary film about women in fandom entitled “Squee: The Fangirl documentary project” which is being done by the amazing Hansi Oppenheimer. Her questions got me to thinking about puppets, fandom and me.

There is a song in Avenue Q where Princeton sings about Purpose and finding one’s purpose in life.

I honestly think one of mine is to educate and entertain through puppetry. And I had done so over the years in various venues including fandom. I have done panels on puppetry and workshops on how to operate a hand and rod puppet. I have talked about puppet building and how I do what I do.

A lot of my work is fandom related. I enjoy creating puppets that look like various characters in fandom. The first one I did was a Captain Picard puppet and it kind of snowballed from there.

Since then I have made probably over 200 puppets that were fandom related. Some were challenges (the first Dr. Who set) and others because I love the characters so.

I have dozens of story that start with the phrase “I made this puppet of”. Because I made the Klingon puppets, I met Peter who is now my husband. Because I made a Sandman puppet , I met Neil Gaiman and we have been friends ever since. Because I made an eighth doctor puppet, I got to talk theater with Paul McGann. I have made a lot of friends over the years through the puppets.

I have had a lot of interesting conversation with people just because there is a puppet on my arm.

I have noticed that there are more fannish puppeteers doing the same thing that I have been doing for over 25 years now. And I am very happy to see it.

The more we get our art form out there, the better for all of us.

I am grateful for all the adventures I have had with my puppets.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: crafty tuesday

Posted By Kathleen David on March 2, 2015

This is Random Thoughts After the Coffee Kicks In since I had my cup of coffee about 6:30 this morning and went out at 7:40 to shovel the rest of the snow with a bit of ice mixed in which took me until 9:08.

So I think I got my cardio and upper body workout in today. I have to get the snow off the car but that will be later today. Right now it is possible for Peter to return from Virginia and get into the driveway and up the steps safely so that’s a win for me.

Hardest part as always is the end of the driveway since the plows push the snow and muck into it. So I have an extra treat when I get that far. Honestly that was the part that took the longest and was the heaviest but with the sun peeking out, it was only going to get worse.

As it is since I got out early the walk and the driveway are clearing up nicely and I can see that I don’t have to salt anything since it is all melting on those surfaces.

I really enjoyed Once Upon a Time last night. I was willing to give it a chance that a number of fans seemed disinclined to do. The set up was worth it and they have made it very interesting again. And I admit to missing Rumplestilskin at his Rumpliest. The conversation between him and the witches was done so well. And what the heck did Charming and Snow do that would cause them to be so concerned about the new Storybrooke citizens? I do think it works best when Rumple is being the puppetmaster rather than a woobie.

Good Wife was firing on all cylinders as well. I had no idea how they could possibly bring Sweeny back into it but they did. And Ed Asner was wonderfully creepy.

This weekend I showed Caroline a number of episodes of original Star Trek. She liked them. Yes, they were mostly Spock centric episodes. I also found part of our Elfquest collection and she has been reading that with great interest. We also watched Big Hero 6.

On Sunday for the children’s mass, she read the prayers of the faithful. She was chosen because she can pronounce words clearly and correctly. She only stumbled over one name and that was something I would have had trouble with. I am very proud of her.

There was a two-hour delay this morning for school so that the roads and side streets could be made passable and give people a chance to shovel out their walks. A couple of the home owners have done so but the usual characters haven’t. Some of them haven’t shoveled their walkway from the first snowstorm over a month ago. So now it is an icy un-walkable mess. Makes Caroline’s path to school that much more adventurous which is not sitting well with me.

I am looking forward to Peter getting home this afternoon.

I am grateful for neighbors who are willing to help each other with the snow and the snow piles.

Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on February 28, 2015

I can remember the first Star Trek episode I saw. It was Devil in the Dark and my introduction to Spock. As an episode it is OK but it was a strong Spock episode because hr melded with the Horta and got the answers that they needed. I became a Star Trek fan and my favorite character was Spock.

A number of years later on my eighteenth birthday, my parents took me out to dinner. While we were at dinner my father talked to me about being an adult because now I was legally one. He told me that since now I was an adult, he was going to let me into the great secret of adulthood and feeling like an adult. He handed me a small package that I opened. In it was an action figure of Spock from one of the films and he said, “You never do.”

I met him once. Peter had a couple of times and presented him with the Dragon Con Julie Award. It was at a convention right after his photography book entitled Shekhina was published. He remembered meeting Peter in Italy (I’ll let Peter tell that story because he tells it so much better than I) and he knew that Peter was a Star Trek author even before they met because of John DeLancie. Peter introduced me as his wife. We kind of held up the line a bit because we got to talking photography. He shook my hand when we were done and told me it had been nice to meet me.

He had social media pretty much figured out. His tweets were great. I don’t remember when he offered to be anyone’s honorary grandpa (OK a little Internet research says it was January 15 2014) but I remember the response from the Internet and he declaring that he was the proudest Grandpa. His last tweet should have clued us in that things were not great. A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

He would admit he was not a perfect person but he was a good person who did have his heart in the right place.

He will be missed.

And honestly one could say of his life that he did live long and prospered and that is a good life indeed.

I am grateful that I got to meet Leonard Nimoy.

Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on February 26, 2015

Personally I am hoping that the weather forecasters are wrong. Considering that when I went to bed last night it was a 40% chance of snow for about two hours this morning and now has gone to a 70% chance over most of the day and evening. I know that the storm moved a bit north because Atlanta didn’t get hit the way that it looked like it was going to get hit. Apparently that put us in the track of the snow.

Peter is supposes to go to Mysticon this weekend in Roanoke Virgina. I can only hope that we can get him there.

It also means that I have to go to the hardware store and buy some more village approved salt. Out drains run into the bay so we are limited as to what we can put into the system and it is better for the marine life.

I did manage to get the garbage cans out for pick up this morning. I’ll take my victories where I can get them.

We got in the covers to Peter’s new series for Marvel. Oooooo do they look mighty fine. Peter is waiting for word if he can post them on his web site.

Sore throat this morning and I am trying to figure out why. I don’t feel sick. I think it might be from post nasal drip but it feels ‘sharper’ than that sort of pain. Really hoping that I am not coming down with something.

Got a writing challenge to do. I have to put my muse where my mouth is and see if I can pull it off. Working on an outline but going to have to scrap that and try again based on some information I found about the time I am writing in. I am going to have to do some serious research to make this idea work correctly.

The fact that I am a published writer amuses me. One of those things I wanted to do way back when, didn’t think I would do not as far back, and through a series of events ended up doing.

Wow the wind is not very kind this morning. However since we were above freezing yesterday, everyone who has the pitched roofs doesn’t have any snow or icicles hanging from the eaves. Which is a good thing. Most of the houses in this neighborhood don’t have gutters because of how the roof of the house was built.

Inky is getting use to being petted by people who aren’t me. For the longest time she would only let someone else pet her if I was next to her. Now she is allowing Caroline to pet her and she goes to Peter for pets. She is still very skittish but at least she isn’t running for cover at every sound and movement.

I had a rant but David Gerrold gave it voice better than I could. But I am still not happy about this new form of censorship that had been creeping into society where people are shamed into silence for stating their informed opinions that don’t agree with a small subset but very vocal group of people. I had a friend who was very active in a certain fandom but she doesn’t participate much because she got hammered for suggesting an idea that was not what the fans had been crying for.

Fan entitlement is a really problem and why many creative types are pulling back from participating in social media with fans. It doesn’t belong to the fans. It belongs to the person who created it and maybe the fans should trust that the creator knows what they are doing. Also if one gives the fans exactly what they think they want, then the fans tend to say no that’s not what we meant. Peter learned that lesson many years ago when he was writing fanfic. I learned it as an editor.

Going to start at the top of the list and work my way down it.

I am grateful for Caroline’s interest in my web log.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Kathleen David on February 25, 2015

When Graham Moore gave his Oscar acceptance speech I was cheering and hoping that what he said would help at least one person to accept themselves and what they bring to the table.

Or as one campaign put it ‘it does get better.’

For those of you who were at the DragonCon awards ceremony in 2014, Peter was introducing Terry Gilliam for the Julie Award and he said, with my permission, that Terry’s film “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” saved my life. I told Terry that was the absolute truth. I was at Yale at the time and that film gave me a couple of hours of hope and something to look forward to which honestly got me from day to day for a while.

I dealt with being different or weird for many years. I knew I thought differently and reacted differently than many of my peers. And for years other people’s opinions really mattered to me to the point of not being good for me.

Then while at Yale after I had been dealing with my depression for a bit, my mentor sat me down to see how I was doing. We talked about the show I was working on and the director that was known as a PITA by the entire school. She said to me that she admired my ability to let the other person know that I was listening and that they had been heard but I needed to learn that a lot of the time the negative that seemed to be directing at me was really nothing to do with me and was their problem not mine.

Somewhere along the way I learned to only really care about the opinions of people who actually mattered to me. I learned that a lot of the criticism had nothing to do with me but with other things going on with people. And I learned that some people are energy sinks and will take all you can give without anything in return.

I also stopped hiding who I was. I had my friends, my family, and my community and that was where I valued the opinions about me and what I did.

I know that I stand out at times where I live. Caroline has to deal with some kids not really understanding her or her life. At Caroline’s elementary school I had the reputation as one of the creative parents with solid theater skills. I was know as either Caroline’s mom or the puppet lady. I had one parent tell me that they weren’t sure what to think of me when they met me but they are glad that they did.

It did get better for me. At the time of my worst despair I didn’t think it would. I couldn’t see a way out other that a rather permanent solution to a very temporary problem. I really did think I would never be happy again.

But here I am now. No, my life is not perfect but I have learned to deal with the imperfections. I don’t hide my passion of things anymore or really feel like I need to fit into the social norm. Take me or leave me what you see is what you get. I am at a comfortable place with myself and my life.

I am weird and different and it took me a long time to realize that being so didn’t make me a bad person but it did make me, well, me and I celebrate that.

I am grateful that I am still here.

Category: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tags: