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Highlight Reel

My generation grew up with black and white movies, and went through eras of westerns, gangsters, slapstick comedy and the like that defined the movie industry for years to come.

I was privileged to view films that were revolutionary, like Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc. that changed the entire landscape of visual entertainment and ushered in sci-fi on a whole new level.

Many of the things once cartoonish, became human dramas, and vice versa.

All of these movies were fuel for my imagination, and influenced much of my writing and drawing in my early years.

I would have liked to have made movies myself, you know, the big dream of writing and directing and producing your own vision. It is a complicated business that you have to start young at and work your way through, and I am sure it is not as easy as it sounds. I find even putting a story in writing a very hard undertaking. But I am loathe to say hard work, as it is not. I love doing it and I get mad when fellow writers and artists insist on claiming it to be toil. I can tell you what toil really is – doing what you hate, day in and day out just to pay the rent and feed the cat. Disappearing into my imagination for hours at a time is not toil. It is escape.

What makes creative pursuits hard is putting them out into the world. They are your children, they are you.

If I could show my stories on the big screen this would be the culmination of all the art, writing and photography I could possibly make. There could be awesome scenery and beautiful places that words cannot adequately describe. Pages of emotion can be displayed on an actors face in only seconds. I think this fantastic. It gives me chills.

We usher in a new era of movies; animation and CGI (computer generated images) that are so lovely that I find myself holding my breath watching them. I was first introduced to modern animation with Howls Moving Castle, which left me spellbound. How To Train Your Dragon is mesmerizing. Both have stories to tell, not just dazzling animation.

In my mind, every story I write is a movie in my head and I am at once, all the characters, the plot, the scenery. It is the grandest of escapes, my only escape from the drudgery of the reality of my actual life.

There are movie reels and then there is my escape highlight reel in my head.

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Poor Design

I have come to the conclusion that so often the people who design things have never actually used them.

Everything mankind has was designed by someone. We live in design. So why are we so poor at it?

Architects who have never lived in an apartment, visited a mall or have a clue what function their design is to house. Transportation ‘experts’ who have never taken a bus, driven a car or been a hapless pedestrian or cyclist. They have not seen the area in question other than as a google map. Sometimes, I am sure, the only thing that is considered is how much revenue will be generated, without a thought to virtually everything else; traffic flow, the environment, the neighborhood or anything.

I watch condominiums pop up like strip malls once did, and I marvel at how little thought was put into the actual living conditions of its future residents. Balconies are the biggest offender; offset so the people above you can look directly down onto yours; adjoining balconies that unscrupulous neighbors can easily visit your apartment, or listen in to all your outdoor conversations, or you have to endure all theirs with radios and children blasting. Access to the balcony is through your bedroom (who was the genius that thought that up?!) Inside we have small cut up rooms and doors so large that you have huge wall space you cannot use. Facts, such as we have 8 months of harsh winter are ignored. We need good fitting, sealed thermo glass windows. We don’t need tiled courtyards that become skating rinks. We have concerns about increased traffic on residential roads – Oh! The list is a long one for us ‘box’ dwellers.

Don’t even get me started on buses!

Poor design is rampant; exposed wires and mechanical parts on things subjected to the elements. Things so hard to use or so needlessly complicated, (think computer programs or electronics here), designed to look futuristic, sexy or whatever but are buggers to use. One function actually has 5 equally useless functions, pressing 1 takes you back to the beginning so you have 10 functions to wade back through. Small almost invisible buttons located where you normally hold an item so they get pressed when you don’t want. Fancy names for mundane functions so it takes a long time to figure out what the heck it really does. Another long list.

Many companies are not open to suggestions from the people who use their items daily and know what works, and what doesn’t.

The absolute worst however, is manuals, or rather the lack of manuals, cleverly (I say this word because those who did this think it is very forward thinking) replaced by tutorials. Manuals can be poorly written and illustrated, missing key points and diagrams, too much technical jargon and a lot of ‘you should already know what to do stupid’, but tutorials rely on you asking the right question in a technical language you are not privy to and this can soon get me screaming. Give me an index!

The best design of anything is something that addresses the primary function(s) of the object in question and then considers a lot of other factors around this, without losing sight of the main objective and going cutesy, artsy or futuristic. Making it look nice should be the last consideration, not the first.

I love simple, easy to use and ‘clean design’ (something that also looks good). Oh and some design is so brilliant it takes my breath away. I am awed by those trying to solve the problems of our ever changing world, who are environmental and people sensitive. You know – improving our and our fellow creatures lives.

You probably already know what I am about to say – we don’t need another damn telephone, 10,000 Teslas, a wall, or more rockets and junk floating up in space! Our world needs help!

Great design comes from those who realize the fun part of designing is the process; the research, the prototypes, the puzzles that need to be solved, and that it is an ongoing process, the tweaking can be endless, there are always new advances in technology and materials, the purpose of items evolves too.

Great design is making something that actually improves peoples lives and our world.

Like tutorials, ask the right question first. What are the main function(s)/purpose(s)/consideration(s) of this thing? And then keep on asking.

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February BLAHS

By far the most agonizing part of my year is the one long month in three parts, January, February and March.

January begins with a tease of extreme temperatures, from near absolute zero to tropics. It thaws and freezes in daily cycles. February decides to be eye ball freezing cold mixed with some nice bouts of freezing rain and truck loads of snow, so that when March arrives we have four feet of slush.

February is particularly hard on my nerves with overcrowded, never on time or no show buses, that frequently get stuck in the snow, and our city is turned into a parking lot at rush hours. My 5km commute can become 3-4 hours of agony. It wasn’t always this bad, but the city’s poor transportation management is to blame for a large portion of it now.

I get tired of lugging not only myself, but half my wardrobe with me everywhere I go, layering is not a fashion statement, but a necessity. Dressing for extreme cold and deep snow puts a whole new perspective on ‘just popping over to the corner store’. You must prepare before you go out, and this can take up to a half hour. And bringing home even a jug of milk and a loaf of bread can seem like hauling a load of bricks, the weight of such is proportional to the distance you must travel. It increases by at least 10 pounds for every block you walk.

Salt leaves its trademark white undulating lines on boots and coats. Gravel and sand soon make a pathway in your house.

The only reason why I go out at this time of year is to go to some place warm, as my apartment is often very cold. I have an indoor winter coat that I sometimes have to wear. This is the plight of many fellow apartment and condo dwellers in our city. We build buildings and infrastructure with a California spirit and neglect the reality of our harsh winters. Our ridiculous laws are also rather optimistic; must be 72 F during the day (seldom attained) and 68 F at night, which translates to 60 F in reality because it never reached 72 F during the day (why do they turn it down at night?!). No need to turn on the heat until October 12th and off it goes by April. The only thing that is warm on many a Thanksgiving is the turkey. Perhaps this is a clever ploy to keep us going to work. Otherwise we would realize we are nuts to go out and stay home.

The upside is, we are heading towards spring, instead of away from it. The days are quite noticeably longer. Every once in a while the sun comes out and you can feel its increasing strength. And lo and behold! I saw some very brave or crazy song birds have returned.

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Employed Single

I recently read an interesting article about the perceptions employed married persons have of their fellow single workers, and it brought back a lot of memories.

I find what happened in the past amusing, but at the time was frustrating. Those were the days when women were on a whole different level in the working world.

Today I enjoy working for and with single women and these issues are gone from my life. Well, mostly.

It sometimes happened that I cohabited (in those days we said cohabited to make it sound formal. To our friends, it was ‘living together’ until common law came into existence). But since this was not a recognized form of attachment I would still be treated as a single person, but with a moral problem.

When it was time for raises, I was informed I didn’t need one because I was single and didn’t need as much money as married people. If anything, I needed more because I only had one income, they had two!

Of course, as a single woman I must be sitting at home doing nothing, and therefore my free time belonged to the company. I was once called a coward because I refused to continue giving up my Saturdays to do work at home that my married co-workers couldn’t possibly do, because, well, they are married!

I was frequently called in during my vacations to do menial work or take care of a crisis that married workers could not deal with, well, because they are married! I still have a bit of trouble keeping my vacations to myself even in my current situation but for different reasons.

If anything needed doing in my life, there was only me to do it. I seldom had the luxury of assistance from a partner to run errands, fix things, or take care of anything. Yet to try and have time off for an appointment was difficult because it was believed as a single person I somehow didn’t need to do anything that married people do. I never had major issues, well, because, I am single! Anything greater than the flu was not believed.

I was told I have the world by the balls, like I didn’t have any responsibilities or concerns, and I could do virtually anything. In reality, the world often had me. I had debts. I had an ailing Mother to care for. I often felt insecure and alone and had no safety net. I didn’t have any back up financially or otherwise, so to venture out on my own was very risky. I longed to go back to school, and I did, and it was scary as a ‘mature single student’, watching my hard earned savings dwindling and the debt rising. I wanted to start my own business and have at last, but I never had someone to catch me if I fell. My debts are my own.

My married co-workers and bosses had houses, cars and exotic vacations. These are luxuries I seldom got to enjoy as a low income earner. Whenever I would go on vacation to another place it was frowned upon – a single woman going where??? And they would wonder where I got the money from. Why would a single woman want a house? Or need a car? Ah, those were the days. . .

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Purging

There is this strange phenomena that happens when I decide to do a major purge of stuff.

It does not seem to matter how much crap I discard, trash, give away or recycle, my place still looks the same.

This is how it has been all my life. Does this happen to anyone else?

I have spent the last 4 weekends on a major purge. I donated bags and bags of clothes – mostly suits I wore when I worked in a office, along with the dreaded killer high heels (glad to be rid of those – though I did try a pair on, just in case I thought I still could manage a 20 something swagger.)

I redid my studio and made a lot of wanna be artists happy as I unloaded truck loads of paper, pens, pencils and other more artsy stuff into their eager hands. But as I sit here, do I really have any more room? Hmmm. Well, it is cleaner. . . and I got some new better stuff. . .

I guess it is because of my organizational style. That whatever I keep, I now arrange it to suit me, so it just takes the space of the gone stuff. But my clothes closet is not any more roomy, and I did not buy more clothes. I think it must be that my living spaces shrink and expand according to what is in them. Or during the night things secretly reproduce.

At any rate, I feel better. Getting rid of those suits ensured I will never go back to working in an administrative office ever YAY! And getting new and more suitable art equipment is a step in the right direction for the kind of future I want.

I would love to get a bigger place to live – but it’ll expand and contract just like my little apartment. At night things will multiply while I sleep. Next morning I’ll look in my closet and say “I thought I got rid of that”, or in my studio “How is it I now have 3 of these?” No, I haven’t shopped and forgot – yet.

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Treasures Lost

Tucked off to the side in a mundane looking office building was a small library. This was a magical place. My Mom would frequent there and bring home science fiction for me, with the strict admonition to “not tell your Father!” How she selected such books was a mystery until I was much older. The stories were not fantasy, but future scenarios based on believable technology. Many of them had a profound and lasting effect on me, so I remember those stories to this day.

I loved writing, and banged out some pretty wild stories of my own on an old, sticky keys, heavier than a boat anchor, Underwood. When I was old enough, I made my own trek to that library and fished out much needed facts and other research for my imaginings.

My Mother had been a secret writer, hiding the fact from a disapproving husband. That’s how she knew such great fiction, she’d been reading it herself! But she vehemently denied this, claiming she disdained science fiction. However, all those books had been carefully chosen, they were the best of the best, I never read any crap.

Unfortunately, my Mother either abandoned writing altogether, or destroyed her work. Her later years were spent devouring murder mystery novels, she was insatiable. She only confessed to being a writer then, but no amount of coaxing could persuade her to write one single line for me. A treasure lost.

Like so many other things, late in life, I have only come to appreciate the gifts my Mother gave me. The love of books, libraries, reading, research and writing came from her. Thank you Mom!

My Father was a non-fiction writer, but he never published his works. I discovered them in his paperwork long after his death. He had a fascination with geology and had literally written an entire text book on the subject.

Two treasures lost.

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A Good Source Of

A lot of food products are advertised as being a good source of something we need, like protein, vitamin D, calcium.

But personally, I like stuff that is a good source of joy.

And that is not always healthy stuff, unfortunately. I like to have fun once in a while, and that might be a bag of cheesies. A piece of cake.

Or, it could be a mad dash for a splash in a puddle. . .

As crazy as it sounds, it is even what I’ve been doing the past two weeks. Completely redoing my entire studio. All new stuff. Purging all the old. A very good source of joy that is.

A good source of happiness can be a clean sweep, a fresh start.

It can also be what I will do next.

Rest.

Whew!

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The Critics

When I first started publishing my own books, I had lots of people criticize my efforts.  People who seldom even wrote an e-mail and thought that was publishing, were telling me they never would have made the mistakes I made, or done it the way I did.  They judged my every decision as if they knew better than me.  I am glad I did not pay them much attention.

One of my heroes is now undergoing criticism and scrutiny and I hope he ignores it all.  Boyan Slat, is a 24 year young man attempting to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive expanse of mostly plastic flotsam covering an area the size of Texas.    https://www.theoceancleanup.com

This is a monumental undertaking.  The people who criticize the current systems failures have no idea what a formidable task this is, as huge and as complicated as going to the moon.  And like going to the moon, has never been done before.

The ocean is a hostile, massive, deep body of water, with incredible powerful forces.  This is not some environment you can write reports about and then everything will work fine. You have to get out there and experience it.  And this is what Boyan Slat is doing.

We need to encourage people like Mr. Slat that he should never give up.  We made it to the moon with far less technology and beyond.  We can now clean up our oceans and restore the world.  We can learn from our mistakes and revise and rebuild.  One day Mr. Slat will be the most celebrated hero of the day.

Critics forget, this has never been done before.  The only real way to make it work is to get it off the drawing board and go DO it.  President Kennedy realized the same truth about going to the moon.  We had to do it.  Not just talk and write science fiction about it.  The rubber has to meet the road.

Boyan Slat is my inspiration, an example of perseverance and resilience, doing something you and I could never do.  He has the right attitude – learn from the mistakes and the unexpected and revise and rebuild until it works.  We need to silence the critics.

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Waiting For January 2nd

It is hard to not make New Years Resolutions.

The same force that compels us to have the Christmas spirit is the same that makes us want to promise all kinds of things for next year.  It is not our fault.  It is a very real energy.

When all that energy wears off however, usually by January 2nd, we wonder, what were we thinking?  We spent way too much money, ate till we near burst and we made resolutions that will inevitably just not happen.

The reasons why we don’t change, can’t change or won’t change is because it is no fun.  

I stopped making resolutions many years ago because I got tired of beating myself up.  They are very ego bruising.

We are pleasure seeking creatures, like most animals, we don’t excel with misery.  If resolutions mean work, well, that means misery and that means we are not going to do them, at least, not for long.

Therein are the secrets to keep resolutions, after the thrill is gone of making them. The first secret is to make them pleasurable.  We make everything tedious work.  Make it play and you will easily do whatever needs to be done – well, almost.  You may need a bit of discipline once in a while, after all, old habits die hard.  However, if you continually make it an effort, you are done, you won’t budge, you won’t do it.  The second secret is to be open and try many things.  There is always more than one way to an end.  And trying many things – guess what – is fun!

Exercise.  Ugh.  How many of us are going to make that promise?  Off to the gym we trudge like we are doomed.  Who says exercise has to be the gym?  There are hundreds of different ways to get physically fit.  You could try every single one of them and still have plenty of choices left for next year.  Perhaps one of them will click with you and you will – oh my goodness – enjoy it so much you’ll keep going!  You can walk, run, swim, do karate, ballet, boxing, rowing, tennis. . . or do everything if you have the energy!

Diet.  Oh, how many times have I been down this dead end.  And hated every single minute of it.  Instead, I learned how to cook healthy and found healthy foods I actually enjoy eating.  There are many ways to get into the spirit of good food – cooking classes, seminars given by nutritionists, beautiful healthy food cookbooks and magazines, the internet is bursting with thousands of recipes and ways to make your favourite foods with substitute ingredients for all the bad stuff.  And I also learned to like my body, lumps and bumps and all.  It is way better to feel good inside than to look like a model.  When I feel healthy and strong, well, I’ve met my goal!

Changing a personality trait or behaviour can also be fun as you try on new ways of being.  We are very flexible and adaptable creatures.  As always, I only support positive changes never destructive ones.  There are infinite ways of being a better person than you are now.  But perhaps, you are already good enough.  None of us are perfect.  Maybe you are trying to be who you are not – somebody else – and forgetting what a great person you already are.  Any destructive behaviour however, is worth making a resolution to change it for good and forever.  Not just for you, but for everyone.

My only thoughts for the New Year are to keep on doing what I love and do more of what matters to me.

No, I’m not going to make a resolution now.

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Animals Are Not Humans

I want people to know this when they bring home a pet this Christmas, or at any time.  Animals are not humans.

So many people expect their pets to behave as a human would.  Now sometimes they do.  Mostly, they do not.  I ask you to allow your pet to be who they are and enjoy their perspective on life.  Maybe even learn a thing or two from it.

Many animals are simply not meant to be domesticated.  Exotic pets are not pets, they are animals far removed from home, and this makes my heart very very sad.  How much better to leave them in the wild and enjoy them from a distance.  It is mans nature to want to own things and collect things and when this extends to wild animals I am uncomfortable with it.  Some animals have a truce with us, such as cats and dogs and the like.  But others do not belong in our human world.

If I had my way everyone would have to take a course on how to properly treat animals before they could have one.

All animals respond to love, and this is a trait shared with humans.  If you can only remember one thing, remember this.

If you treat your pet with love, you never tease or punish it, it will trust you and soon learn what is acceptable and not in your world.  Your job is to be a responsible person; to protect and provide for them.  In return you will have a companion like no other.

You have to adapt to their modus operandi to successfully blend your two worlds together so both of you are safe and loved.  Pets are meant to be companions, not slaves and forced to exhibit abnormal behaviours, to do tricks for you or wear costumes.  They need to be appreciated for who they are, and be certain, they will not change for you.

An animal can live well and be well adjusted if you understand and accommodate its needs.  You will be surprised at how well an animal can adapt to your environment when it is treated with respect and love.

Ditto, by the way, for humans.