TimTv

For many years now I've been working on a sketchbook which will one day be a present to my daughter Sev. Here's one of the pages!

Yesterday I did my first real puppetry version of my "Once Upon a Crumpled Napkin" story about how I went from a "shapeless" child, navigated through the many years of people trying to get me to assume THEIR shapes, and the journeyed into discovering what shape was my own. I'm really happy with how it turned out! :)

Bastard Squad

At 4am I woke up from a dream. You know those kinds of dreams where you’re put into an annoying or frustrating situation in order to practice your coping skills? Yeah, it was one of those, but with a rallying crescendo at the end.

It was time for cirkus practice and we were in a large room There were about 50 or so people present, all sitting in folding chairs lined along long tables, much like you would see in a cafeteria. It was time for practice to start, but no one was practicing. I was still busy doing prep-work, focused on some little chore to get ready. As I walked through the room I saw everyone sitting around, looking bored, having idle conversation. One person made a sarcastic comment to another saying something intentionally trivial to flex their annoyance that no one was taking charge.

I JUMPED up on a table. (I was GOING to kick the objects off, but all there were were some nice-looking pastries, so I left them alone.) And my rant began.

“Youuuuuuu BASTARDS! When I first moved to this town I had NO friends. (In a self mocking tone:) And I was soooooo sad, and I felt SORRY for myself, and I sat in a corner all alone. And listened to the Cure.” (editor’s note – I didn’t, but I’m teasing my friend Rachel here, even in my dream. I DID, however, do all of those things when I first moved to MI and had no friends..)

I continued, “But I realized that if I wanted to find people of good quality; smart friends, fun friends, clever and sharp friends, then I was going to have to work on showing that I was the kind of person they’d want to meet. Woody Allen said, ‘I wouldn’t want to join any club who’d have me as a member.’

Now I have PLENTY of friends who are dirtbags; don’t get me wrong. I’m friends with scumsuckers, bowery bums, lowlifes, and pirates. Present company included. But I needed to build something, to create, and for that I needed amazing people, excited people, people of action. And so I had to BE that in order to attract them.

So are you gonna be the kind of sit-arounders who are just waiting for someone to tell you what to do? NO! Are you gonna be lollygaggers and mouth breathers? NO! We hold these truths to be self-evident; that we have gathered here today for ONE purpose: to make ourselves better. And to help eachother get better – okay, two purposes. And nice pastries.. You know what I mean!

Now get off your asses! The time is NOW, the future is HERE. You HAVE the lever, you HAVE the place to stand, now let’s do some Earth-movin’!” (Thanks, Archimedes!)

I woke up still standing on the table, and still ranting. For 22 minutes I let it roll around in my head, fading more by the minute. I write it down as a lesson for ME. Because I know I am the one on the table, but sometimes I’m also the one in the chair. Sitting, lever-in-hands, moving no Earths. I’m thankful my subconscious Sensei cares enough to wake me up, even when I’m wake-sleeping.

For those of you who don't already know, I have a dream of creating an enchanted fairytale village in the forest, so I'm slowly amassing the resources to make it come true!

HAHAhahaaa! Playing with AI is fun! I've been experimenting with all sorts of prompts (in Bing chat) to get different images that represent what my fanciful nigh-imaginary life is like. None of them are spot-on, but some are pretty great!!

Today's doodle!

This week in history..! 14 years ago I had a little troupe called "Thee Inner Cirkus" with some pals, we practiced weekly at the Warehouse Theater, and my Greenville world was just starting to grow..!

It's funny, these very words are written in steel above the entrance to the Detroit Masonic Temple. It made me feel warm and fuzzy..!