Torrefaction

My friend's receiving her M.S. in Clinical Psych tomorrow - I'm going to see her walk for it.  This will be my first-ever commencement.  When I got my B.A. my folks were in Europe, and I'm not a big ceremony person anyway (I got married at court, thank you very much), so I skipped it.  And my M.A....well, I didn't get my M.A.  I left grad school after 2 year's worth of M.A. work and an additional year toward an M.F.A. in poetry (yup, that's right, poetry).  If I had finished the paper I was writing on "Dissolution of the Narrative Self in Edgar Allen Poe" and passed a French test, I would have my M.A., but by the time I was leaving school in 1993 academics had become pretty meaningless to me.  And I sucked at French.

I wasn't cut out for grad school...I like hard work, and to study in order to further my work.  And I enjoy abstract knowledge - I read history, psychology, and science for fun.  But when the work IS the getting of abstract knowledge...well, then it's just a drag.  When I moved to Chicago I figured I'd make a living as an editor or proofreader, but after a couple of weeks in the city I discovered that people would pay me just to type on a computer.  Like, $15 an hour to put addresses into a spreadsheet.  How crazy is that?  I've loved computers since I was a kid playing "adventure" on the campus mainframe...I never imagined that I could get paid for my hobby.

So, my original life plan was to get my PhD and become a lit professor.  I didn't really expect I'd find anyone to marry, since I have a quirk or two and had generally been unlucky in love.  But I was determined to have a baby eventually...I figured I'd get some friendly fellow to knock me up if I reached 35 without a steady boyfriend.   The way it's really worked out, I've been with my husband 10 years this month (married for 6.5 of those years), but I don't have an advanced degree, I've become a monster of corporate coggery, and I'm infertile.  So it's all backwards.  I'm happier this way, I think, and certainly wealthier than expected, but confused.

Moving along to the shrunken heads...my friend is going to be a therapist.  Already is, actually, because part of her program involves a practicum, where you do the job with supervision from older wiser types.  I figure she should have something whimsical to take the edge off when she's had a bad day at the office.  I couldn't find any good shrunken heads on the internet (nothing affordable and not gross/made of goat skin, that is) so I decided to make her some.  These are about 3" across and they're made of crayola model magic clay, plus beads and yarn.  There's a largeish wood bead in the center of the head with beading wire strung through it and out the top of the head so they can hang from a hook. The "hair" is just knotted around the wire after the head is dry and then the knot is glued down to the head with glue-all. Model magic dries in 24 hours, no baking or any of that crap...nifty!  Kiddie art supplies are always more fun than the grown up equivalents.

I'm gonna have to make some more of these so I can keep 'em for myself.