well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key And My November Forum Member nomination is... Mary Anna Evans!|
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Popularity Seeker |
Mary Anna Evans!
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Pinta & the Santa Maria Minor Deity  |
Good choice! And I'm loving the Kermit avatar.
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly  |
Oh, wow! Being nominated by both Bill and Kermit gives a girl a special thrill!
Not sure what there could possibly be left for me to say about myself after spending five years chit-chatting on this board, but I'll do my utmost. And just to prove that I've been here a looo-oooo-nnng time, that last paragraph originally began, "Not sure what could possibly be left for me to reveal..." but I remembered to whom I was speaking and edited myself accordingly. Let the questions begin.
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Pinta & the Santa Maria Minor Deity |
OK, here is my first serious question. (Perhaps my first on WTF?
 )You have such fantastic, accomplished and brilliant kids. How did you do that? I know that every mom will talk about how it's their kids' doing, that they are lucky to have gotten the kids they have, and all that's true. But I know there is a lot of stuff that goes on at home to help any kid achieve their utmost. So what's your secret? |
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Beatification Candidate |
Wait! Wait! Wait!
I think we need to consider the ethical implications of asking questions on Oct 31, not Nov 1. After all, we could be setting a precedent here. It's one thing to know who the November person is in advance, it is another to break long-standing tradition! 
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly |
Nina, your question catches me on an interesting day, as it is the 24th anniversary of my becoming a mother. So I'm going to answer it a day early, no matter what Rick Z. says.
 I had the distinct feeling with all three of my children that they were already themselves from the moment that they opened their eyes. This has caused me a great deal of thought in the case of Muffin's Sister, who was born while I was in my second trimester. When does a person's self, their soul, arrive? (Apparently pretty darn early, and before we can even breathe on our own. Food for thought...) So maybe we as parents can only credit ourselves for giving our kids the things (material and non-material) they need to make the most of who they are and then just making sure they know we love them. Feeling secure in someone's love can make a person bold enough to try new things. One can ask, "What's the worst thing that can happen if I fail?", and the answer will always end with, "But my mother will still love me."  I have made a lot of mistakes as a parent, but I think all three of them must know, deep-down and all the way through, that I love them. Now that Muffin's Sister has a little Stud Muffin, she knows just how much.
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Beatification Candidate |
OK, if we are going to sin against tradition.....
Those people I now who are artists tell me they they simply must create in order to be whole. It is a compulsion, if you will. Is this true of your writing? Hard as it must be at times to sit down and actually do it, is it something you need to do in order to be complete as who you are?
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly |
Yes, I do feel compelled to write. I also feel compelled to play the piano and to sing and to write songs and to plant flowers and to flout the recipes when I cook. At times in my life, the compulsion has led me to sew and crochet and cross-stitch, mostly badly. And I go on spells of sprucing up the house. (It's about time for one of those.)
During the period after I'd quit my engineering job and before I'd sold any of the stories that I persisted in writing in the face of repeated rejection, I was working as my church's youth choir director. Since I wasn't happy with the materials available to me, I recruited a couple of friends and we wrote a play. We picked some popular music that the kids liked to sing and I worked with my ex to arrange them for the voices and instruments that we had. While that was going on, someone I respected...okay, it was my therapist...said I was the most creative person she knew. I'd never really thought about it in that way, because everything I've chosen to do isn't typically thought of as "creative." But in engineering school, I was always the one in the class who solved the chemical kinetics problem du jour in a completely different way from the rest of the class. (Then had to convince the professor that my way was just as valid.) I think there's a bit of the artist in all of us, and we neglect that part of us at our peril. I also think there are a lot of ways to be an artist. This is my way.
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Beatification Candidate |
Very interesting and what I suspected. These artist friends of mine also say they feel odd at times compared to others -- not really fitting in. But they have trouble understanding it because they assume everyone acts like they do. (We all assume that, I think). When I point out many of us do not act that way at all, they say they recognize that, but.... What say you?
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly |
Oh, yes, I do feel odd at times. Adolescence was awful, because I couldn't figure out why everybody wanted to wear the same clothes as everybody else. And the same hairstyles. The other girls just seemed to know by osmosis what clothes were cool and what clothes weren't. And they seemed to be born with preternatural hairstyling skills. How did they know how to make their hair flip back like Farrah's? (Way too late, I was told that you use the curling iron where you want the hair to flip back, then you move back a few inches and do the same procedure there, and voila! Who knew? Not me.) Even if I'd had the skills, my hair doesn't take any more kindly to direction than the rest of me, so I finally learned (after a couple of decades) to just wear it my way. And to just do things my way, as well.
I think artists feel like they have something important to say, yet nobody listens. So they bury it in something so compelling--dance, a painting, a musical composition, a novel--that people can't look away. It's a way of forcing those around us to hear.
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Beatification Candidate |
Something we have in common. Did your children inherit that trait? |
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Poseur Extraordinaire Beatification Candidate  |
"preternatural hairstyling skills"
 Who is the best looking guy you ever met at Wakulla Springs on a cold day?
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly |
Nope. They all have great hair, and it's nothing like mine. Their hair is almost straight, with a bit of wave to it underneath. It's very thick and shiny. My lack of hairstyling skill extended to being able to style theirs competently, but they took over when they hit adolescence. They all look great. I did help Muffin highlight her hair yesterday, though I was sure the entire time that she'd wind up with orange tiger stripes. Fortunately, it turned out to be gorgeous, despite my involvement.
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Lord Emperor Mom Gadfly |
Why you, darlin'! But you knew that already...
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Poseur Extraordinaire Beatification Candidate |
See guys, you must frame your questions carefully.
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well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key And My November Forum Member nomination is... Mary Anna Evans!