Five Things…

So, now that Rabbit is officially in the outside world I am finally going to take a few minutes to add my things to the MQG run-up to QuiltCon. The task is to share five things about yourself so that people might get a bit of an idea about each other before QuiltCon. Normally before I do anything resembling actual writing I spend a couple days mulling things over and playing with ideas, but for this I am just going to blurt out the first five things that come to mind. This may or may not make sense, and it probably won’t be pretty…

One: I am profoundly and unabashedly neurotic.

If you got rid of all of my self-doubt and terror I am pretty sure you’d be left with a tiny pile of carbon and a bit of water. Seriously, I think my muons and gluons and been replaced by anxiety and fear. Now this isn’t a plea for help; in fact I am pretty happy with the state of things. I am quite attached to my neuroses; getting rid of them would likely leave me clinically depressed. Because of them I have no off switch; I cannot remember a moment in my life in which my brain was not working overtime. You all can go ahead and hit the beach and relax; I’ll stay here and fret over the metaphysical implications of the grammatical organizations of my sentences.

Two: I don’t particularly like art.

Actually, let me revise that: there is very little art that I actually regard as relevant. You see, I think art imprinted on my brain at an early age but then nothing I saw or experienced as a child correlated. For me art is like this clip from Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings:

Simon uses drawing to radically effect the world, to respond to it and change it. Art here is activism and commentary; it is profound and powerful. Simon’s transformation of the weapons to musical instruments is of and about the world; it fundamentally matters and not just to Simon. The notion of art as pure self-expression just seems insanely egomaniacal to me; why the hell should I care about you? Now talk to me meaningfully and we have something. And aesthetics are largely arbitrary; the notion of universally correct forms or relationships just offends me. Outside of a context, a reason, formal decisions are all essentially equal, no one choice essentially better than any other. I am all for people making stuff that makes them happy, but thanks to Simon art has always been something far grander than that to me.

Three: I wish I were smarter.

Every day I bang up against the unfortunate limitations of my own intellect. It drives me f*cking batty. Stupid brain.

Four: We’ve just had a baby boy.

We call him Rabbit, and Bee is utterly in love with him. She’s also a little nervous. I am going to need more caffeine.

Five: More often than not I sew to either the Dead Kennedys or Parliament.

It tends to be Dead Kennedys in the winter and Parliament/Funkadelic in the summer. Funk just seems to suit the heat. Spring and Fall are just great big clusterf*cks of noise. Actually, I would totally buy an album by a band named Big Clusterf*ck of Noise, but then it would probably suck and that would piss me off. I don’t buy much music these days, but I do listen to a lot of NPR.

Well, I think that about covers it. In fact, if you really get into these five things carefully and look for a grand unifying theory I am pretty sure you can see the entirety of my being. Hey, I think I may have managed to sum myself up pretty well. You might be wise to be a little bit afraid.

Yay fear!!!

-t