Overall Success

The finished result: One Mad Hatter!

 I think it turned out pretty well, what do you think?

That red hair dye is yet to come fully out of my blond streaks. Secretly I am pleased that I finally have the red hair both my sisters were born with.

Cognitve Dysfunction

“It was a simple experiment…how did it end up like this?” Vladamir paced the damp sidewalk, dead leaves clinging to the underside of his black boots. Rain splattered against the taunt top of his ripped umbrella dripping down the back of his raincoat. A blood curdling cry rang out in the night’s sky, sending ripples of fear down Vladamir’s soaking back. Vladamir quickly glanced toward the squatting building in the distance. Someone switched on a light on the third floor. Vladamir nearly fell backward, gasping as he saw the outline of a woman standing in the newly-lit window, staring down at his shaking form. “What have I done?” he asked, wringing the umbrella handle tightly in his ghost-white hands.

“What on earth have you done? Sir! Excuse me.” The high-pitched voice coming from over his left shoulder did not penetrate Vladamir’s deep thoughts. The voice tried again, “Sir, sir, I must ask you, what on earth you have done?” Vladamir’s focus was broken and he was forced to turn to the toad-like man standing behind him.

“Of what matter is it to you of what I have done?” Vladamir gazed downward, burning an icy hole into the man’s inquisitive looks. The toad man shifted in his overly-oiled shoes, glancing at the piles of books surrounding Vladamir: precariously stacked towers forty books high. Several books lay flat on the table, their pages ripped from their binds and strewn about as if a ravenous beast had gnashed into them, teeth ablaze for the blood of their contents. 

“Well sir, I am the librarian, and well…I don’t really appreciate the way you seem to be treating these books.” Toad man’s squeak of a voice was barely audible to the loud ideas tumbling around in Vladamir’s mind like pennies in a tin can.

After an extremely long pause, Vladamir turned away from the toady librarian, the conversation over, and immersed himself again in the papers before him. Toad man could not decide whether to remain, but after a moment’s hesitation, slunk away in embarrassment at the sight of Vladamir’s turned back.   Papers began flying off the table as Vladamir made his way through stack after stack of notes. A slow rhythm of curses tumbled from his lips as his hands sped along the table, looking for something. The rhythm gained momentum as the remaining pages grew fewer and fewer. The mumbling died away as Vladamir’s fingers began stroking one, particularly aged page—running his fingers down the length of the column searching the ancient writing, searching, searching. Then, “I’ve got it!” The sudden exclamation from behind the towers of books surprised several studying students, eager to be torn away from their studying of Chaucer and Saussure. Their gaze drifted reluctantly back to their studying when nothing more came from behind the leaning towers of books. 

“Don’t you see what this means Suzanne?” Vladamir’s voice was reaching near hysterics as he paced back and forth in front of Suzanne’s hospital bed. Suzanne did not respond and Vladamir continued to pace around the cold, metal frame. “I can fix this, I can fix this. All I have to do is…never mind the details. What is important is that I can fix this.” Vladamir bit down deeply on his lower lip to prevent the tears that had begun to collect in his hazel eyes from falling. “I can fix you,” he whispered quietly, staring at Suzanne.

“How is Suzanne doing today, Vladamir?” Dr. F—whose name was too difficult to spell or pronounce for most patients—asked from the doorway.

“The same” Vladamir replied, moving to the window while Dr. F examined his patient. “Her EEG looks good,” Dr. F’s tone was flat—neither hopeful nor disappointed—like he was reporting the pledge of allegiance out of obligation rather than of sincerity. Dr. F glanced hopefully toward Vladamir, attempting to make conversation, but Vladamir continued to look out the window, lost in contemplation. Finished with his observation, Dr. F began moving toward the door, “By the way, how is your thesis coming along?”

Addressing the frosty window rather than Dr. F’s concerned face, Vladamir responded “I found some new information last night. Now I just have to finish the experiment.”

“I’m sure your experiment will impress the panel. You’ve worked so hard on it for the last two years. “

At the mention of the last two years, Vladamir broke his gaze from the frozen outer world and gazed back at Suzanne’s bed: the bed she had been a trapped occupant of since that fateful evening two years ago. Dr. F, recognizing Vladamir’s common look of regret and guilt, slipped quietly out of Suzanne’s room to continue his rounds. 

No one else was in the University’s lab when Vladamir arrived. The lab had become his sanctuary in the last two years: first as a distraction from reality and then as his only reality. His simple experiments became more and more complex until no one, not even the professors, offered to help him. His long legs covered the entire span of the lab in a few steps, bringing him to the office door of Professor Clackuster. Knowing how trusting the Professor was, Vladamir was surprised when the handle did not yield under his grasp. Baffled, Vladamir stepped back and stared at the door in consideration. Then, with one quick kick the door fell in on itself, revealing the overly-organized interior of Clackuster’s office. Vladamir made his way to the office’s back corner. Hunched behind a tall, black file cabinet was another door, this one unsurprisingly unlocked. Moving quickly, Vladmir scanned the small space until his eyes rested on a large mass. Taking out his notes, Vladamir began evaluating the perfusion cords and the EEG, identical to the one beside Suzanne’s bed. After checking and then rechecking all of his notes, Vladamir began to sweat, starring at the in-vitro brain before him.

Visiting hours were over. Dr. F was most assuredly at home eating dinner with his perfectly healthy and cognitive -functioning wife. Vladamir, who in the past two years had become more ghost than human, had no problem slipping by the nurses’ station. Suzanne’s room was quiet, except for the slow rhythm of the rain that had just begun to fall from the darkened sky. Vladamir knew he had to move quickly, but he hesitated, gently stroking the permanent frown lines on Suzanne’s temple. Her black hair had lost most of its brilliant sheen and her skin had turned from its sun-kissed tan to a sickly white. Gazing down at her, Vladamir could not help but wish fairy tales were real and that with one kiss from Prince Charming this beautiful Snow White would awaken from her slumber. Leaning down, he softly kissed Suzanne’s lips. Tears fell from his quivering eyelashes onto her tightly-closed eyelids, giving the false illusion that she was crying out of pain as well. Straightening up, Vladamir brushed away his grief. “It’s time.”

Moooo-rrific!

These cows are featured on Inhabitat (use the link in the side bar) and are made from recycled cars! Dad, I think I know what we can do with all those old cars you're hanging on to for a rainy day! How about a herd of metal cows?!

Preparing for the Madness!

Last weekend, I actually had some time off from work and I devoted most of the weekend to the making of my Halloween costume: The Mad Hatter. Knowing that my hat would most likely take the most time, my father offered his help in the hat construction. I followed a tutorial--which said the entire costume could be made within four hours--from here:  http://youtu.be/zKcbk6xnSz4 After four hours, we were still trying to figure out how to put the hat together without continuously burning our fingers with the hot glue gun!

 Some amazing tie-dye (which you can't see here) poster board and this lovely pink upholstery fabric that I'm not entirely sure how I ever came to be the owner of? Well, it has finally found its purpose in life.

This was the most difficult part of the hat construction. Although the tutorial used lace and then spray painted the entire hat different colors, we decided to use tulle because it is mesh and with the use of different colors (purple and black) it would have somewhat the same affect without the mess of spray paint. What we didn't take in to account is how incredibly difficult it is to hot glue tulle because it is mesh-like. Ugh! My fingers hurt after this but we succeeded after Dad came up with a strategy involving masking tape!

  And here is the finished result! IT"S HUGE!!! I'm nervous it is going to just fall right down over my head, but it is pretty fantastic! I still have to sew the brim as you can see, but hopefully that won't take too long. And then I just need a hat pin and a thimble and my costume should be ready to go!

 I attempted to color a clown wig (which you can see peeking into the photo here, yep that green fluffy thing is my wig) bright orange, but the entire contents of one can were not enough to color over the bright purple and green of the wig. So I think I might just buy some more orange hair color and curl my hair up all crazy and that will have to suffice! Better than wearing an itchy wig anyways!

Feeling Inspired

Fall has thrown my desire for creativity into overdrive. Anything and everything with color catches my eye. After a stressful week of midterms, I am looking forward to the weekend. Even though I still have quite a bit of homework to complete, I am also looking forward to completing my fantastic Halloween costume and repainting this:

Walking down mainstreet with this painting (because it was too large to fit into the father's recently purchased mini coop) was quite an interesting feat. Most people were looking at me like I was half mad--whether that was because of the actual carrying of this over-sized painting or the incredible hideousness of the painting was not discernible.

Only ten more days until Halloween!!!! I've got a lot of work to do to finish my costume:

Oh my giddy aunt!

Autumn is upon us and with it comes a slight nip in the air. Whenever the weather cools off, I begin to think of one thing: knitting. Knitting scarves, knitting socks (something I still haven't quite gotten the hang of), and knitting lots and lots of hats (my favorite thing to knit I would say). This year however, I decided to try something new: crocheting. I've often heard that for those of us who were taught to knit quite young will never be able to master crocheting and vice versa. Well, I want to eat my cake too, so I have enlisted my Mum to teach the knotty craft!
Mum and I spent the morning on our porch passing the crochet hook back and forth. Although I have just begun, I think that I can debunk the old wives' tale and say that I am on my way to becoming a master crocheter!

 Look at that pretty chain!

 Okay...my turn

 Okay, it looks like I messed up, but I didn't! Mum put that spacer there for me so that I wouldn't get all scrunched up. So that's where my double crochet began. Not bad right?

 Getting more intense now!

 Lily was getting overwhelmed with the lessons but couldn't be parted from Mum, of course.

 So now it is a matter of attempting to remember everything I learned. Um....yeah. MUM!!! I need help, Christmas is just around the corner and I have a few presents to make :-)

Whispering Forgotten Words

Come la mia anima piange per le parole dimenticate del mio viaggio.
How my soul weeps for the forgotten words of my journey.

Although I kept a travel journal with me at all times throughout my time in Europe, small glimpses of forgotten conversations between myself and my butcher Massimo or the beggar woman outside of the post office, come back to me, catching me unaware and causing my heart to catch in my chest.  Even though I tried to be meticulous about the events, people, and encounters I experienced, life can only be captured like light in a child's small hands--held closely for inspection, until light fades with the crossing of the sun in the sky. 

I'm curious if when I am able to return to Italy, how much of the Italian I learned will spring back to my memory. The other day, a friend who also recently returned from Italy, attempted to hold a conversation with me in Italian. It is safe to say that I understood about 80% of what he was saying (the 20% was all really BIG words that I never ever learned of course) but could not formulate a response. But hey, that is still something that I can still understand spoken Italian--now just figure in the different dialects and I'm back to square one. I think the solution to my problem is watching lots and lots of Italian movies (with subtitles on of course--how else will I learn those BIG Italian words?!?) 

Certain Italian words, my favorites, whisper to me as I sit at my desk daydreaming about Viterbo: farfalla, libellula, mezzanotte...

Sun in my Soul

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.-Emerson

Road trips generally provide me with a time of self reflection. This last Saturday, driving back from a wonderful weekend with my family, I was escorted by the setting sun and my inner thoughts all the way home. The large, burning orb in the sky made me feel more spiritual than I have felt in a while. As I contemplated her beauty, she spread her warmth through my body like the warmth of hot chocolate on a chilly day. 

Since returning from traveling through Europe, I find my soul journeying on without me. In its quest for something else, I have begun to look at the world through “slower” eyes. In the past, I was wired to function on an American time schedule where my ambition did push-ups while I slept. Now, I take every day as it comes, appreciating the small things as often as I can. Sometimes those small things still go unnoticed; I am still human after all and not perfect.

The power of the above sunset has stayed with me for two days now.  And I am still feeling the resonance of its power. 

Everything is a cycle. Everything is connected. I want to feel connected.

Recently I was watching Shanghai Noon with my family and was reminded of one of the film’s more powerful quotes: “This is the West, not the East. And the sun may rise where I come from, but here is where it sets.” I saw many beautiful sunrises when I was in Italy (East), but now that I am home, I can’t help but to focus on the setting sun. Perhaps this is a sign that a new chapter of my life has begun, while another has closed.