Title: Doing stuff that has nothing to do with computers (go figure)
Music du jour: The Crystal Method, Vegas (again)
I'm eating leftover pad Thai noodles, and I just bit into a rather pungent sprig of basil. It made my eyes water. God, I love Thai food. A recommendation for you cute kids: Swing Thai, on the corner of south Penn and Alameda in Denver. I mean it. It's like an Asian fast food place in terms of price and service, and you get a shitload of food for like six bucks. It rules. I can usually get at least two good meals out of one of their servings. We went there last night to get our HTF[1] fix, and to introduce Cynthia to the wonders of Thai food, since she'd never had it. This, by the way, is a sign of a deprived childhood.
Pad Thai is the answer to all the world's problems.
Speaking of all things Cynthia, she has sucked me into the dark and nefarious world of Sculpey. Sculpey, in case you are unaware, is a polymer-based clay that you can bake in the oven and it'll stay hard without chipping or cracking. It is nifty. Cynthia apparently has been playing with Sculpey for fifteen years. I always knew she had a preference for 3-D art over drawing or painting, but I didn't realize she'd been doing it for so long. It was fun watching her take these little shapeless blobs of clay and make something appear out of nothing. She showed me how to make a hand that looked remarkably like, well, a hand. I made a foot and we stuck the hand on top of the foot, so it now resembles something out of a bad sci-fi story. I'm going to bake it and make it a monitor pet. Jim's immediate reaction to the foot was, "Hey, you can make a Dust Puppy!"
Seeing Cynthia work with this clay reminds me very much of me with a pencil and sketchbook. I can't even count how many notebooks and sketchbooks I have lying around my house, not to mention all the books I filled up when I was a young aspiring art geek. I think my mom may still have some of them taking up space in her storage room. Similarly, Cynthia's mom has clay pieces of hers dating back to when Cynthia was ten and twelve years old. When you've been doing something like this for that long, it's inextricably a part of you. It's part of your identity... it's what you do. I draw... Ian tinkers with electronics... Cynthia plays with clay. And it's kind of nice doing something that you've done for fifteen or twenty years... it's a connection with what is hopefully a good part of your childhood, and gives you a sense of continuity. Personally, I've moved around so much since 1988 that I don't know what it's like to be in one place more than two or three years any more. It can be very disconcerting. But no matter where I go, I still have my drawing. Cynthia has her Sculpey. I like that.
[1] Hot Thai Food(tm). First heard on Eagle's Nest in reference to lunch outings
to Little Bangkok in Colorado Springs on John's Sun expense account.
-- marcie.