...Took a Well Day off from work.

... and it was lovely.  I slept in a little, read a little - "The Last Knight" by Norman F. Cantor.  I've read his "In the Wake of the Plague," and really enjoyed it, even if it was about how 40 or so percent of Europe died horrible deaths in the 14th century.  What can I say?  He's a fun history writer.  And I am such a sucker for a fun history writer.

John of Gaunt - the last True Knight of medieval England and the subject of Cantor's book.
I am SUCH a geek.

Thomas Cahill is another great history writer.  I used his "Hinges of History" concept to talk about Copernicus with my astronomy kids last week.  We medieval Europeans were happily following Ptolemy's logical - and insanely incorrect - lead on a geocentric solar system until Copernicus went, "Hey, wait a minute..." and science turned to another path.

Ptolemy's Approved Geocentric Solar System:  WRONG

Copernicus' Heliocentric System:  Not quite there yet, but at least it's mostly RIGHT.

At any rate, Cahill wrote one of my favorite books, "How the Irish Saved Civilization."  If you haven't read it quite yet, pick it up and give it a shot.  Entertaining as all get out, too.  Honest, you won't be sorry.

Right now I have such a yearning to paint my nails, something I don't undertake lightly.  My hands must be still for way too long to let the polish dry, and I can't stand chipping.  since we have no spare nickels to rub together and buy me a manicure I must do it myself, and keeping my hands still for more than five minutes is not one of my strengths.


AND>>>> LAST BUT NOT LEAST>>>>>
My friend and summer school student Carmen knitted me the most gorgeous scarf, with all my favorite colors.  She gave it to me last week, and I absolutely LOVELOVELOVE it!  Thank you, Carmen!  You are one of the best humans I know.

.. thought about what creativity is.

When my son was a HS freshman I took him and a friend to a retrospective of Frank Gehry's work at MOCA in downtown Los Angeles.  I was in awe especially of the initial building models - they were built of balsa wood, paper cups, Styrofoam plates, corrugated cardboard cut from storage boxes, Saran Wrap, pencils -- anything and everything.  AND they were everywhere, pouring off the walls, flowing down the tables, practically dancing in the halls.  And it struck me while I stood there, dizzy from  it all - creativity is generous. And joyful.  And unselfconscious.

One of Gehry's models.

This is Disney Concert Hall - I think that it was just underway
when we went to the retrospective.

...made banana bread and colored my hair.

I also graded and recorded a six-inch stack of papers from my classes, and finally cleared out some junk from a shelf in the pantry.  Another week ahead.

... finished the above-mentioned octopus

I was thinking about what I unconsciously mean by creativity, and I think for ME being creative is visual and kinetic. I need to make something with my hands to call myself creative. (I certainly need to be keeping my hands busy if I want to feel stable.)

I saw a very cool video this morning on WIMP.com on "divergent thinking," as part of an animated lecture on pedagogy:

http://wimp.com/educationparadigms/

... crocheted most of an octopus.

... but finally put it down because I wanted to work on my astronomy PowerPoint.  I admit it -- I love making PowerPoints for my classes.  I work hard on them, try to make them readable - fret over the kind of font and font size, how much on the page, that sort of thing.  I LOVE hunting down just the right image.  I just love when I find a cool yet odd pic -- like the one of Kepler with a California roll in his calipers.  Awesome!

I've asked my students, "What's wrong with this picture?" and to my delight kids GOT it in about 20 seconds. 


So is tweaking a PowerPoint an act of creativity?  Or just another way of procrastinating before grading papers?


I think I'm going to stop declaring my next day's creative exercise.  I feel sort of embarrassed that I don't have that banana bread baked yet.

Finished my skirt! I stitched my very first hand-sewn buttonhole.

It took me a while to get to my creativity project this evening - I just crashed last night after DD had her play practice; I even brought my crochet hook and yarn along.  I just ended staring at my steering wheel as I sat in the parking lot, hoping that I could make it back from Venice, a whole 3 or so miles away, without falling asleep at the wheel. 

Lesson learned? (Cue the South Park boys...) I need a full eight hours of sleep in the night, otherwise my evening hours the next day are useless.

The laundry I was supposed to fold last night had to wait until this evening, but it's all neatly done and put away.  Yay!  Usually I leave it for days. I still have piles of papers to grade.  Not tonight:  I have sleeping to do.

Tomorrow I think I'll NOT throw away the over-ripe bananas in the kitchen, but tomorrow make banana bread.  Is baking a creative act?  I'm assuming that it is, but am I right?  If I'm right, why do I feel strange about declaring it so?

I feel the need to explain my creativity project for this evening.  I am very proud of this wrap skirt - it's from a free internet pattern and fabric that I love, which I've had for years.  It was almost finished, and I was stonewalled by the buttonhole.  My sewing machine was not behaving, and I was dreading the buttonhole process - even with the machine I've always been terrible.  But the buttonhole was needed to pull the sash through for the wrap and at the end of it all:  one more incomplete project to haunt me.  I didn't just sew my first buttonhole; I just broke a lifelong habit - for a day.

Why I think I could be creative -OR- what I do right now that hints of creativity.

1.  I'm a good listener.
2.  I can make a kick-ass PowerPoint for my classes, and they've gotten better as I've practiced.
3.  I taught myself to crochet after a friend showed me how to hook a row of single stitches.  I like to crochet dolls, and pretty much design them as I go.
4.  I write pretty good amateur haiku.
5.  I'm a good story teller, and my students love to hear them.
6.  I'd rather do anything else - even dishes - than watch most TV.
7.  I am awed in the beauty and individuality I seem to stumble across in just about anything.