Stuff I Love: Glitter Obliteration

I have fond childhood memories of covering my hands in Elmer's Glue and then peeling off the glue once it dried. It was an incredibly satisfying way to pass the time. There's probably a very specific reason this was so satisfying (something to do with the primitive brain, I would guess), but I'm a fairly lazy blogger, so today we'll chalk it up to this: kids like gross stuff. Peeling glue off your hands is part satisfying and part gross.

I thought this memory would transfer to my current state of using multiple types of glue to create my purses for Nyx 2019. I used, at my purse making peak, up to three different types of glue at one time. Glue is messy, so I've spent many days with glue all over my hands. I've been playing a fun game called "Is that dried glue or a cut?" The results are about 50/50 (sequins are sharp). This isn't a review of glue, but I'll say that I'm a fan of E6000, despite its smell, and matte Mod Podge. Mod Podge is the closest to Elmer's one can get. It's what helps make the purses all glittery.

I'm officially done with my purses. I set a goal of making 10 purses this year (we can make up to 20) and I finished my 10th purse on Friday. The only thing left to do is make my purse tags and bag each purse for transport. Oh, and fly to New Orleans, but that won't happen for another week. 

There is not glitter purse class one joins when becoming a Nyx sister. There are some videos online by fellow krewe members and many, many purses for inspiration on the Nyx Purse Tracker. But no class, so most of my experience this year was trial and error. It's also been incredibly fun and creative. It's been one of the more rewarding creative/artistic projects I've done in awhile. Since there aren't a lot of rules and the more glitter the better, it's been challenging in the best way possible. I love all the purses I've created and am already thinking ahead to next year. Before we get there, let's discuss what I've learned about creating a glitter purse.

• Glitter is not created equal. Super fine is best for covering a purse (thin layer of Mod Podge, pour or dip, allow to dry, brush, and repeat if needed). Larger glitter is better for design items and lettering. It took some time to figure out what worked best for each purse, but I'm now the proud owner of 20 different glitter colors. I'm 100% okay with this and will enjoy using all of these colors in the future.
• If you ever need to know how to remove metal/jewelry glue from your hands, let me know. I have a tried and true method that involves an emery board, sea salt scrub, sitting on your bathroom floor cursing metal glue, and a cat staring at you, judging your choices. The cat is the most important part of this formula. 
• PUFFY PAINT! I did not realize my life was missing the magic of puffy paint transfers until this year. I mostly used puffy paint for lettering, but it was a revelation. The way glitter sits on puffy paint and makes it look even more shiny and beautiful, is pure magic. Next year, I want to use puffy paint for shapes and figures. I feel like this will elevate my purses even more. 
• Naming my purses helped me focus on them and treat each one like a special event. Some of the names include "I Call Everybody Darlin'", Nyx Delivers the Stars," "You're the Cat's Meow," and "Glitter Obliteration" (my 11th purse, a bonus purse, inspired by Yayoi Kusuma's Obliteration Room.) 
• The smell of E6000 glue will haunt my dreams, but man does it hold sequins and rhinestones and palm fronds and unicorns like a champ. E6000 forever.
• I know understand why artist Mickalene Thomas uses chopsticks to place rhinestones on her paintings. Rhinestones have a mind of their own, so tweezers were very important. 
• When you need something to hold tiles or rhinestones in place while the E6000 cures (that's a thing with epoxy-adjacent glues like E6000 and Gorilla Glue), a Mr. Bingle coaster is the best item to use. It's New Orleans-y and whimsical, which is basically my new way of living life. 

If you're going to be in New Orleans on February 27, come out and see the Mystic Krewe of Nyx roll along the St. Charles Avenue route. I'll be on Float 11, on the upper level of the tandem, driver's side, position #1. Make me a pretty sign and maybe you'll get one of my fantastic purses.

Enjoy some photos of my purses in various stages of progress. I'm taking next weekend off from the Island to get ready for my trip. I'll have all the details (that I can share) in upcoming posts. Check out Instagram during the parade for photos and videos when I can post! 

Stuff I Love: A short commute

I've developed a habit of making up stories about random people sitting in traffic. Sometimes they do things that inspire the story, like the time I saw two younger guys in a minivan, one was dressed like a soccer dad and the other was definitely Shaggy younger brother. In my mind, they were lab partners who live next door to one another and soccer dad's mom told him he had to be the good guy and drive Shaggy Junior home. Soccer dad was not pleased. Sometimes I see a little boy walking home from school carrying a legit old man briefcase. He's either a spy or a math genius.

I started this game when my commute changed from approximately 15 minutes to anywhere from 40 minutes to eternity. If you've ever driven during rush hour in the greater DMV, you know this is no exaggeration. There was day during my first month at this job where it took 3 hours to get home. There wasn't an accident, just traffic. Lots of it. I live 30 miles from my office. It should not take 3 hours. Something is wrong with the scenario. And yes, I am very aware that I have the ability to move closer to where I work. I don't want to. I like where I live. I like it's proximity to DC and that I can walk to Target (I never do; cat litter is heavy). I may reconsider this when Amazon becomes my new neighbor, but for now I manage my commute with weird stories about my fellow commuters, listening to music loudly (I'm probably in another commuter's story), breaking more than necessary when a people is too close to me, and flipping people off for being awful. These are my commuting coping mechanisms.

I've also fully embraced the ability to work from home once a week (twice a week now if I really need the extra day). I like many things about where I work and love a few things, but this supportive work from home culture is one of the things I adore. Now before I dive into all the things I love about this, let's make a distinction:

• Working from home: the practice of occasionally working from a home-based location (glitter and sequin strewn kitchen table for me). My "home office" is my actual physical office because I'm located there the majority of the work week.
• Remote working: the practice of working from a home-based location for more than three days per week. My manager is a remote employee; she's not based in the DMV and works from home all five days per week. 

I worked for my previous employer for almost 11 years. In that time, I only worked from home when the weather was too bad to drive or I was sick, but not sick enough to take the day off. I would usually take late night meetings from home too. We had a work from home policy, but I always felt like I wasn't allowed to use it because I lived close to the office. Even on days when the snow was really bad, people would roll their eyes when I worked from home...from the safety of their own homes, of course. This is why I was apprehensive to take my work from home day where I am now, even though pretty much everyone on the team takes a day and it's normal and accepted. 

My apprehension is gone. I love my work from home day. My regular day is Thursday. I settled on Thursday through a very scientific process of rating my commute home for my first four months in my job. Mondays and Fridays are lovely; government workers can telecommute on those days so traffic is more manageable. I have a lot of Wednesday meetings in which I need to be in person, so I rule out Wednesdays. It came down to Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesdays seemed too early in the week for me, but the final event that made me choose Thursdays was the random day it took 3 hours to get home for no reason. After that day, I paid closer attention to my Thursday commutes, and it was always the worst on my drive home. Thursday wins. 

And it's perfect. It's later in the week, so I don't have as many meetings. I try to schedule meetings for the days I'm in the office and use Thursday as a project work/research/writing day. This doesn't always work, but I try really hard to make it so. Editing content, creating new content for the programs I manage, writing for various people, takes a lot of focus. That focus can be easily broken in the office. If my team in the Philippines needs to meet at 7 am my time, it's easier to do it on Thursdays because I'm at home and I don't have to worry about traffic and whether I'll make it on time. It makes for a relaxing and productive work day. I thought I would miss being around people, one of the things I enjoy about working in an office, but I find having one day with no one around is great for my productivity. My hours are normally 7:30-4:30, and on my work from home days, I will sometimes work a little later because I can get things started for dinner, and then go back and finish something I was working on. It's awesome. 

It's also the day where I feel I get more done than other days, both professionally and personally. Work from home days have produced a few of my best presentations (since taking this job), an article I'm super proud of (for someone else), and several brainstorming sessions, which resulted in new projects or approaches to doing things we do all the time. I also completed the leadership program I was enrolled in last year, and have recently started drafting ideas for articles for some periodicals in my field. This is the power of uninterrupted time. 

On a day where I go into the office, I get home between 5:30-6, which is the same time as when I was commuting only 15-20 minutes. The big difference is that I get up much earlier now than I did then; I have a 40 minute drive (approximately) every morning, so I need to be up and out by 6:40 at the latest. So I go to bed by 9:30, which means I only have 3 hours at night to accomplish things like making dinner, hanging out with the cat, laundry, grocery shopping, and whatever else I need to get done. And before anyone is like "you're single, you don't even know what tired is," I get it. I don't have kids or a spouse, but married or single people with children don't own the market on being tired and having shit to do. We need to stop comparing our lives in these ways. It makes everyone grumpy.

I don't feel rushed when I "get home" with cooking dinner, so I'm able to actually make something that's good and relatively good for me. I use my lunch break to run errands, which I sometimes do at the office, but it's easier when I'm closer to home. If Keely needs to get a pet-icure (they make me call it that when I make the appointment), I can take him on my work from home day. All of my doctors are closer to my house than to work, so I also try to schedule my own appointments on these days, again over lunch, so I don't have to take PTO to go to the doctor or go on a weekend. Sometimes, I even sleep in until 6 am on my work from home day and it's glorious. I feel well-rested and ready to be my best at work. 

Have I talked about how great it is to be around Keely all day? He is a grumpy, old man (who isn't old; he's 2) who doesn't want attention. And then he does want attention...while I'm conducting a team meeting. 

This was one of my first work from home days after I adopted him and he looks like he wants to be part of the team. My team members thought this was hilarious, especially when he meowed a few times during the conversation. His second favorite "the human is here all day" past time, is trying to jump on the counters when I'm on the phone and making a horrible noise when he can't do it. It's awesome, especially when you're on a call with a member of leadership and they can hear the unfortunate meow in the background, despite the fact that I was wearing headphones. 

Most days, Keely lays in his bed or near my feet when I'm home. Last Thursday, he was on my feet all day and would occasionally make funny faces at me. This was a rare work from home day where I had calls from 7-11 am with little break. He was doing his cat job, and providing humor and levity in a stressful day. 

Such a weirdo. This particular face made me giggle for a good 15 minutes, silently since I was still on a call. 

I have fully embraced working from home. I never thought I would. I've always enjoyed the hustle and bustle of being in my place of work; there's energy and other people. There's a dynamic in office environments, particularly when you work with interesting and talented people (which I do), that's super satisfying. Finding that environment makes me want to work better and be better. Working from home one or two days a week doesn't change that. In fact, it's made me think differently about my time in the office. I work hard to schedule the rest of my week so I can have a focused work day on my work from home day. I think about the tasks I need to do in the office, like working on tasks that involve data review or major editing, because I have two screens at the office and those are easier to accomplish with a larger monitor. I manage two leadership programs, so I schedule our in-person sessions mostly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which I've read are the best days for in-person training. It took me some time to get it right, but I finally did. 

Stuff I Love Month continues with a final look at all that glitters in the purse world as we get closer to my first ride in a Mardi Gras parade! Next week, we'll look at some of the finished glitter purses and I'll share the inspiration behind the designs. It's going to be so sparkly.

Stuff I Love: With a Thousand Sweet Kisses

I spent the summer of 1996, the summer before my senior year in high school, sitting in the theatre office in my high school, planning the upcoming season (I was in my second season as Business Manager), hanging out with my friends, and listening to the original cast recording of RENT on repeat. I'm surprised we didn't wear the CDs out (it's a two CD soundtrack) given the amount of times we listened to it. Something about the musical and the story of its creator, Jonathan Larson, completely captivated me and my friends. What did suburban white girls (mostly) have in common with the hip, cool characters of Larson's East Village? Quite literally nothing. I hadn't even been to New York when we started listening to the soundtrack. I didn't know anyone who was a junkie, although I knew kids in my high school who did drugs. I didn't drink in high school, and I was the mom of my friend group at 17. Which is cool I guess. It usually translated into always having easily accessible snacks for the group and making sure everyone made curfew.

But I knew every word to every song. I could sing the show in my sleep (and still can). Before the days of instant access to everything, I bought every magazine and paper I could find that had any information about the cast and Larson. Larson died the day before the off-Broadway opening of RENT, which only makes the show even more beloved. My parents bought me tickets to see the show on Broadway as a graduation present (we saw most of the original cast), and yes, I did sit next to my mom during the song "Contact." My parents knew what they were getting themselves into when they bought those tickets.

RENT is a lot of things: it's a modern day La Boheme, it's the precursor to many of the modern rock musicals, it's one of the most beloved musicals of all time, it's revolutionary. It makes you laugh and cry, often within the same song. It's about love and community and inclusion. It gave a face to the parallel epidemics of HIV/AIDS and crack and the impact both had on generations of young people. It's about art and politics and being your authentic self and creating.

I might not have had any life experiences in common with the characters in RENT, but I was young and believed that I could do anything. I was at the point in my life where I was about to head off to college and become whoever it was I was supposed to be. I was going to fall in love and create great art. I was going to have my "one song glory" like Roger (although it wouldn't be a song since I don't sing and can't play any instruments, but you get my point). I would find my tribe. Pick a song in the show and there's at least one lyric, maybe more, that speaks to my soul. It's that sort of show.

To say I was surprised that a live version of RENT was going to be on Fox last weekend would be an understatement. I had zero idea this was coming. I'm sure there was an announcement, but since I rarely watch network television anymore, I probably missed it. I'm ambivalent about these live musical broadcasts networks seem to believe we want. On one hand, my musical theatre nerd self gets so excited about a musical. I mean, I used to borrow cast albums (on vinyl) from the library and make up my own dance routines. I love musicals. On the other hand, these experiences almost never go right. The productions The Wiz and Hairspray have been the most successful of the fully staged productions, and Jesus Christ Superstar was an amazing concert/musical production. I've set the bar super low for these productions so I'm not disappointed, just like my Grandma K taught me.

I didn't hate RENT, but I didn't love it either. I DVR-ed it because I can't stay up past 9 pm on a school night. And it wasn't like I was missing an actual live broadcast. Because of a cast member's injury (more on this in a moment), only the last 15 minutes were live. The rest of the broadcast was from the recorded dress rehearsal the night before. The sound was terrible, but it's never good on these shows. The live studio audience was too loud (not a concert, y'all) and the cast, overall, was underwhelming. The set was impressive and cool, appropriate for a live broadcast, but was too overwhelming for this production. I really loved Roger's first pair of pants. No joke, not only do I want to see Brennin Hunt wear them again, I'd like a pair for myself. That's how good these pants are. Brennin Hunt was my favorite of the cast. He's definitely a Roger for 2019. Vanessa Hudgens was pretty good, better in "Take Me or Leave Me" than in "Over the Moon." Valentina was really pretty. I admit to fast forwarding through a lot of the recording. I skipped to my favorite songs, watched the awkwardness that was "Contact" on broadcast tv, and cried during "I'll Cover You - Reprise" because I will always cry during that song.

The lesson we learned from RENT Live! is to have an understudy. Hunt seriously injured his foot during the dress rehearsal. Rather than have a backup option of another actor, the production went forward with the recorded version until the last 15 minutes of the show. The climax of the show is staged in a way that Roger (Hunt) can sit pretty much the whole time, so that's what he did. And it was fine. The show ended, the curtain came back up on the original Broadway cast and "Seasons of Love" played as God and Jonathan Larson intended. Adam Pascal, the original Roger, and Jesse L. Martin, the original Collins, have gotten even hotter with age. I wish Adam had decided to jump in and play Roger; that would have been some amazing live theatre. If not Adam, what about one of the guys in the chorus? Trust me, they've all wanted to be Roger since they were 17. The last 15 minutes of the show, the actual live part, was the best part. It showed what this production could have been.

The next morning, I did what any RENT fan would do and listened to the original cast recording in my car on my drive to and from work. I sang along, because I always sing along, and I listened to the show as adult me, not 17 year old me who was in love with Adam Pascal. I still get chills during the certain songs and I laugh at Anthony Rapp and Idina Menzel. Wilson Jermaine Heredia's Angel will always be the heart of this show. What I was struck by on this listening and the "live" production, was the realization that the thing that Benny wanted, CyberArts, is now a thing that artists and tech people do all the time. Collaborative/multipurpose art spaces are super popular. Co-working spaces are a great example of people from all sorts of career fields working in a shared space, often stumbling into new ideas and creative endeavors. When I was younger, I loved Taye Diggs (I mean, come on), but disliked Benny. He was the villain, he was the living embodiment of Allison's comment from The Breakfast Club "when you grow up your heart dies." I still don't love Benny, but the original idea that Benny and his former roommate had, is now the norm. I have to wonder if Jonathan Larson was writing this show today, what would be the CyberArts of today? What would be the thing that took the heart out of art and creativity and innovation and revolution? I don't know, but I've been thinking about this all week, while humming random songs from the soundtrack.

And that's what makes watching the "live" production valuable. In addition to having an opportunity to watch a show about love, diversity, inclusion, community, and creativity on broadcast tv during prime time, I revisited one of the formative artistic creations of my youth and am thinking about it in a different way. At 17, I wasn't a fully formed human yet, and I had no idea what I'd be or do in my life. I'm not sure I'm fully formed human at 39, but I do know who I am and what I value. Listening to RENT makes me realize a lot of those things can be found in the songs and characters of this show. And that, is the power of art.

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