Crafty

So, inspired by Fiona, I went ahead and posted a hand-made Pay it Forward offer and am now scouring magazines and websites for things that, if they were titled for my convenience, would read: "Idiot-Proof and Easy-to-Make yet Exquisite Thingies that Your Friends will Love and Not Just Throw Out Right Away."

It's too late to make jam, unless I make it out of winter tubers because that's all that's left here on the frozen stupid tundra I call home. Parsnip compote is maybe better than it sounds?

No one will tell me where they've hidden the sharp scissors.

I want to make Lego-block rings with little diamonds lasered into them but I have no diamonds, no lasers, and my friends are generally the sort who might be freaked out by such a thing. Not by the whimsy but by the idea that anyone would let me play with a laser.

I cannot ship live animals across international borders--and besides, who makes art out of live animals anymore anyhow.

Decoupage? No. Embarrassed by the word itself. It's too close to decollete for my comfort.

Origami. (See above, but you know what I'm getting at.) (Plus it's not ecologically responsible.) (Origami, I mean.)(Plus Jane has already done it.) (Plus origami (I really am feeling weird writing that down.) (Catholicism, eh?) is hard to do when one of your fingers looks like a cocktail weenie.)

Re: origami. I just clicked here and now I feel worse.

I tried to make popsicle stick puppets and a theatre but I liked them so much I kept them. The Anna Wintour popsicle stick has to be kept in a special silk-lined box away from the Lauren Weisberger popsicle stick, but I secretly sometimes just throw them in a drawer together and let the chips fall where they may. The Bai Ling doll was FUN TO DRESS, let me tell you.

Where does one even find honeycomb?

It's hard to know where to draw the line between caricature and cruelty when making home-made nose glasses.

It has been pointed out to me once or twice that just because something has 17 syllables doesn't make it a haiku. Plus, I need to write down things in multiples of 5, so haiku kind of drive me mad unless I can write "la ti da" in invisible ink after the last word.

The last time I knit something, it was a 17-sided scarf for my father. When he's feeling a little low, he takes it out of the closet and cracks up at the memory that my parents used to think I was the smart one.

Off now through the snow and the bitter chill to buy the latest "Tea Cosy Quarterly."

UPDATE: DEAR GOD, LOOK WHAT I FOUND

I Heart Wexford Jewelers

Oh, Wexford Jewelers, thank you. I might have to go break a couple more fingers, if I get to adorn them with such sparklies.

Time to grow a pair

An interesting turn of events:

When you have a spiral fracture on (in?) your metacarpals, you risk losing some centimeters from your finger length.

The relative sizes of one's ring and index fingers supposedly point to whether or not you are a transvestite or trans-gendered person. (Thanks, tflem, for forcing me into gloves for the rest of my life). I shared this info at the dinner table last night. Even I could not have predicted what would come of it.

My six-year-old son is now not entirely convinced that I am currently/have always been a girl. Evidence: the finger thing but also the fact that there is sometimes a long white hair sticking out of my jaw (clearly, a beard). Also noted by small brain: daddy often refers to "mommy" as "Pete." "Mommy" likes to watch Eddie Izzard (formerly the world's funniest transvestite comedian, now, one hopes, soon to be a Member of the British Parliament) in the afternoons and has been heard to say "I love that guy."

Note to the interested: when you say, "Time to man up, son" to a small boy worried that his mommy is really a man, you should expect a look of horror followed by questions about how adoption works.