No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on December 16, 2019

Recently there have been a number of articles and stories on various social media platforms about women who are smart/clever and how they are treated by both their professions and other people. 

I have even heard that old chestnut that men should have more education than their wives. Smart women are dangerous. And a new one that all smart women are part of the gay agenda. I checked with my usual suspects and they informed me that they appreciated smart women, but they were not part of their agenda.

I have a brain that goes a mile a minute and works through all kinds of things. I have a thirst for knowledge. Those who know me know that I will research a subject I am interested in until I know as much as I can know without reading or speaking a foreign language. I will read translations in a pinch. I can come up with an idea or a solution to a problem pretty quickly. 

I will go through half a dozen ideas and discard those that will not be suitable for the problem at hand and give my best.

I also retain a lot of what I have read and learned over the years. I can still recall cues to plays I did back in college and chunks of the scripts as well. Peter uses this skill when he needs to know something for a project he is working on. I use him for the same thing since he also has a high level of retention. Except for people’s names, we are both crap at that. It can take me a while to learn someone’s name and even longer as to how they pronounce it if I don’t hear it from them several times. Dyslexia at its finest. 

People are astonished to find out that I am severely dyslexic. Right and left do not really work in my world. I can work it out, but it can take me a bit which can be bad when giving directions. And I do mix up letters. I figured out how to read and I can read really fast, but I don’t read the way that they teach in school. 

I have an undergraduate degree from Emory University and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Both took a lot of work and both were worth the work. Peter finished college and then jumped into the work force learning as he went.  I am one of those women who is frowned upon as a wife to some people. I don’t think I am smarter than Peter. I believe we are pretty much intellectual equals with our strengths and weaknesses. It is one of the many reasons we are so compatible with each other.

I was once told by my boss before he moved onto another job that I was the smartest person not only in the department but pretty much the whole company. I thanked him for the compliment then he said that he was giving me a warning because others saw me as competition because they could see how smart I was and how I could do their job and my own without breaking a sweat. Reflecting back on some other jobs I had, I could see that might have been the reason that some things just didn’t happen for me or I was blocked from rising within the company I was working for.

I know I scare some people because I am smart. But I was raised by two college professors to be proud of what my brain could do. And, honestly, I feel that my brothers and sister are smarter than me. I do know when the four of us brainstorm it is very special because we build on each other’s ideas. Nothing is dismissed out of hand but considered then discarded if it doesn’t fit with what we are doing. 

I feel the same way when Peter and I work through story ideas and concepts. We are totally honest with each other that if an idea doesn’t work, we say it out loud or give a way to make it work for us.

I uses to hide my abilities because I didn’t want to cause problems and fit in with the group I was working with. I stopped that years ago. One has to deal with me as me not a dumbed down version of me. I don’t know if it is age or knowing my ideas are as important as anyone else’s out there.

Intellectual is not a dirty word as much as others would have us believe. It is the clever intellectuals that have made the leaps, so we have new things and ideas to play with. I may have grown up on the grounds of the ivory tower, but my parents made sure I knew what was going on outside academia. I appreciate those who have knowledge and skills they learned from outside the college setting. I firmly believe that those people are just as smart and clever as people who went to college. 

I am smart and I will not apologize for that. I take pride in my abilities and use them to be my best.

I am grateful I grew up in a household where thinking outside the box was encouraged and no idea was dismissed as stupid (OK there were a few but they were very stupid).

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Posted By Kathleen David on December 10, 2019

It’s good when I have my DragonCon Puppet Slam sketch sorted out in December. It Is a collaboration between Peter and me. We are probably testing part of it out at FarPoint.

I have puppets to build for money and puppets to build for my hobby of giving puppets to people who I admire. I have at least two if not three to be done within the next week and a half to make sure that the puppets get to their new owners by Hannukah/Christmas. 

I want to get back to doll making. I learned from one of the best doll makers on the planet, Wendy Froud. I would like to get one or two done before Heliosphere (http://www.heliosphereny.org) since I am the artist guest of honor there and those are part of my art.

I have an odd idea of taking photos with the puppets sort of like the photos shoots you see with cosplayers or in the theater. It’s an idea that I am mulling over.

This year I got the website up. Next year I want to promote it and Peter’s Patreon Account by creating flyers we can give out at conventions and get business cards made for both of us. It has been ages since I have had an accurate business card. 

And build puppets. I want to build lots and lots of puppets.

I am grateful for goals both attainable and pie in the sky. 

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Posted By Kathleen David on December 9, 2019

Warning for frank talk about Mental Health. Your mileage may vary. This is my journey and I hope it helps others to be able to talk about their mental health. I want to help remove the stigma of mental illness so that it can be talk about and people who need help are able to find it.

This year I went through some big changes in my life both good and bad. There came a point that tipped me over into a dark pit of emotion I could not crawl out of. We all have our limits and I hit mine hard.

Since then I have gotten help and therapy to get myself in probably the best place mentally that I have been in quite a long while.

A large part of it has been the various medications that I have been put on. After some adjusting with adds and drops, I am feeling more in control of myself and my life.

We started with my lack of sleep. I have a fitbit which gave me data I could share. It showed that I was getting 4 to 5 hours at most and my deep sleep was practically non-existent. This is not good for one’s body over time. In fact, it is very bad for one’s body. Now I am getting that deep sleep that my body has been craving and gone to 7 hours on the average. It is amazing how much that one thing has helped me. I used to have about 6 hours of good time per day if I was luck. Now I have so much more and can get so much more done.

I have another medication that helps balance my mood. That is a little trickier because everyone’s brain is the same and different at the same time. There are medications that work for one person’s depression and does chuck all for another.  We found one that leveled me out and helped me to go back to being me. I can look back and see how bad I was doing. I was blaming health issues for what turned out to be depression. A lot of my pain is now a dull roar rather than sharp and causing me to not be able to do things. Again, this has helped my productivity increase a lot.

As things got better, I started to notice some other issues that were emerging. They had been there for a while however I was dealing with these other issues that I thought it was part of the whole problem I was having.

My biggest problem after we got all the others sort out was lack of focus. I used to be able to laser focus on something and work on it until done.  I could work through the details of a project and break them down. I was sleeping and I didn’t feel like my world was going to end at the drop of a hat. However, I was still hitting a wall trying to get things done which was very frustrating to me because I assumed once medicated properly, this would not be a problem.

After a couple of months and some long discussions with some testing, my doctor added another medication that has turned night into day. Apparently somewhere along the way my brain went to the side of attention deficit disorder. A mild version of the disorder but still very annoying. There is a third medication I take which allows me to do things again and not get totally overwhelmed. My memory is improved, and I don’t find myself spinning my wheels and getting frustrated. I can make a plan and execute it like I could back in my younger days. It is a glorious feeling.

I found that if a medication doesn’t seem to be working there are plenty of others to try. And finding the right doctor/therapist is very important to getting back to normal so the first one you meet might not be the one you stick with. There has to be a chemistry and trust between the patient and their doctor. I think this is even more important in terms of metal health.

Right now mentally I am feeling better than I have in years. This has allowed me to get things done in a timely fashion. That is a great feeling. I feel accomplished for the first time in a long time. Now I want to keep this trend going.

I am grateful for medicine that allows me to be a functioning adult.

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Posted By Kathleen David on December 8, 2019

I was a little old for Sesame Street but my brothers and sister were not so I could watch along with them guilt free and then see the Electric Company. I, of course, loved the puppets and the serial story lines that happened over a week’s span or so. 

I have to admit I liked Oscar more than Big Bird. Big Bird the innocent who asked many questions we wanted to ask the grown-ups and Oscar the cynical smart-ášš with a secret heart of Gold. Also I loved Oscar’s trash can and all the secrets held within. In the Sesame Street Magazine there was an illustration of the interior of Oscar’s trash can with so much to read and enjoy. 

I first met Caroll in passing in NYC then I was at Yale when a mutual friend introduced us. He was polite but very much in a hurry. I was able to tell him how much his work meant to me.

A number of years later (22 I think) I came around a corner at the Javits’s Center during the 2010 New York Comic Con and there was Caroll Spinney selling the Wisdom of Big Bird with his wife Deb. I had a puppet on my arm which he commented on. We had a pleasant conversation and I bought a copy of the book. He did an illustration for me of Big Bird being a puppeteer with Ernie on his hand.

(For the VI: This is Caroll drawing in a book I bought from him. He has white hair and is wearing a tan jacket. Next to the book is a series of pens he was using to draw)

The next time we met was at the Florida SuperCon. I found him because I was getting something to George Perez for Peter. He recognized the style of the puppet and we fell into a discussion about puppet building and the tricks he had learned over the years and tricks I had learned over the years. He gave me some good advice which I use to this day. It was a very pleasant afternoon and we became nodding acquittances by that point.

( Caroll and Me. I am on the left with a Rumplestilskin puppet on my arm. Caroll is holding up a photo of Big Bird, Oscar and Him)

After that we met up at various conventions.

I had the privilege of being the moderator on two panels he was on at DragonCon. One was an hour with Caroll Spinney and the second, two years later, was the human faces of Sesame Street. 

(From right to left Caroll, Deb and me)

Photo Copyright Bob Brown

Peter had the honor of presenting Caroll the Julie Award at DragonCon for his over all body of work. Caroll got up and joked about a bit and sang to us in Big Bird’s voice. It was magical.

(Caroll standing at a podium with his Julie Award)

I knew Caroll was not doing well and had been having some health issues. Having your hand over your head and caring an extra 40 to 50 pounds can take a toll.

He was still delighted to talk to people and engage with them. He was amazing to watch with children. He knew his audience and he would give them a show that was just for them. 

But he was slowing down. He retired from Sesame Street. He was still going to conventions but you could see that it was becoming harder for him. 

Even knowing all that, it still hurts that such a lovely person is no longer among us. 

Thank you Caroll for everything. You will be missed.

My prayers and sympathy to Deb, his family, and friends. 

I am grateful I met Caroll Spinney.

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Posted By Kathleen David on December 5, 2019

Today Caroline turns seventeen years old.

 It seems like a blink of an eye and that she has always been at the same time.

Dear Caroline,

Another trip around the sun finds you at the brink of adulthood. Scary I know but it will be fine.

I know it will be fine because I have watched you grow from infant to the young lady you are now. I have watched you navigate your way through life and, for the most part, came through with flying colors.

You have common sense and think a situation through before making a decision. Having that skill at your age will help you as you go through life. You have a thirst for knowledge that is amazing.

You are doing great at school. Your teachers see your potential and push you to be the best you. I know you can do anything you want, and you are already showing us your abilities in writing, critical thinking, and mechanical skills.

I love watching you geek out to something that you enjoy. I love that you have introduced me to things I would not have listened to or watched if you hadn’t told me about them.

I love how we can talk to each other. All the silly conversations we have in the car with each other. I appreciate that you can talk to me about anything and know I will listen to you.

Tonight I am making you beef stew by your request. We have cake and will have a family celebration. 

Love

Your Mamamamamamamamama

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