i have been oh so inspired by the over hundred emails i received in support of my doo dad duplicatin' drama. who knew so many dozens of you out there had detected this doo dad duplicatin' without the need for a dose of defining from me! i'll get back to updatin' THAT in the next blog.
today i want to say how proud i am to be a part of the portion of the human race that goes online and finds dramas to read on designers blogs and offers to support them in their duplicatin' doo dad dilemmas - it may be a small portion of the race that is human but i'm awful proud to be among that portion.
growin' up as i did in the south, there are a few lessons you are taught from birth - they change slightly whether you are born of one sex or the other but some remain the same whether you grow up to be called sissy or bubba or even if you grow up and are able to answer to both sissy AND bubba.
girls have to learn to flirt and have a burnin' desire to be a cheerleader by the age of three and can't wear their hair big or apply make-up until much later - around nine i think it is - but they must be payin' close attention to the skills the females around them use for both so when it's time, there's no learnin' curve to get them to the proper level. those are just a few. the boys must must must play football if they want to be real men - this is even if trumpet playin' is more their calling in life. and they learn to spit preeeetty far by the age of around two and wear wranglers if they want to be real cowboys and levis otherwise.
now before some of you southerners take offense, i must say as a disclaimer - i left my southern home base quite a while ago so i am willing to admit all this may be completely different NOW - but i can only say this IS the way it was when i was growing up about as south as you can get and still be called an american citizen.
anyway....the one thing that all three types of humans are taught in the south is to stick up for what you believe and be willing and ready to stand up for others who could use a little standin' by. this was so important to learn as a southern child that if one of your parent's heard you were guilty of NOT following this age old rule, well....nail the kitchen drawer shut bubba because your mamma is going for the spatula and is going to swat you with it, hard! my older sister was the perfect example of the standin by and up lessons. she ALWAYS took up for me and stood up for me no matter what she might risk by doin' so. it's not really important that she would torture me endlessly afterwards, in the privacy of our home - what mattered is that she stood up for what was right - in public.
when i left the south i was unaware that this isn't an AMERICAN attribute hammered into children from the day they are born. in fact, i was shocked to find out some people had NEVER EVEN HEARD of standin' up for what you believe and was REALLY dumbfounded to discover that even if you tried to explain the 'standin' by someone else' thing, they couldn't even begin to grasp the idea. many a time i thought i would actually show them what this was all about by doing either the standin' up or the standin' by traits they may want to aquire for themselves. if it was just the standin' up one, they would act like you had lost your marbles. now the standin' by would be a little trickier. i would see a need to stand by someone in some situation. boy - they would be so glad not to be there all alone. i'd think - okay - i think this is good - they understand this whole concept and maybe now will go forth in life and share it with someone else and sooner or later more people will teach their babies this from birth and the world will be just a little better place to live.
but you know what - the next time i needed some one to stand by me, i'd wait for that person who i had helped to do the same....and they would just look the other way, like, "this ain't my problem" or they'd say, "don't get me involved!". i was really glad that i was NOT a part of THAT portion of the human race.
when mini mo started kindergarten at a very la-tee-da private school, where tuition for one year is more than both her daddy and i both paid, added together, for all our years of college, it didn't take me long to realize there was no security for the students whatsoever. no fence around the whole property and no gate in the front. just about anybody could come and go as they pleased. they did have a rent-a-cop but when i stopped by the school at odd times - not just when parents usually hang around - i actually found him sleeping in the public park next door. this was terribly upsettin' to me. i mentioned it to some of the other parents i had befriended and they were OUTRAGED at this! at one point they even got together one evening to discuss the matter at hand - AND exchange phone numbers for trainers, publicists, agents and the like....but the main purpose was to figure out how to address the school and it's lack of security for our tiny children. finally the issue could be put off no longer - a man with a gun came into the public park next door and shot himself - dead - right when the bell rang and the tiny children ran free - arriving in the park quickly of course since there was no gate to make their way to and then exit.
it was time to go to the school and make them protect our children! i arrived at the appointed time in the appointed place and when the god-ess of all things school headed toward me, i looked around for my friends for the stand up and by part and all the outraged parents disappeared. from view. from me. from the standin' part. from the god-ess of all things school - including our tiny children's safety and security. i was left to do the standin' for the tiny children all alone.
well - i know you've got some other things to get to so i'll try - as hard as you have come to realize it is for me - to make THIS story short. my standin' efforts did finally get the school to put up a fence around the learnin' facility and a gate with a buzzer in the front and back etc.etc. but from the moment the school realized it was just me doin' the standin', they made my life a living hell until mini mo made it outta there last year. it was really difficult to do alone and it hurt for my new faux friends to run away from me whenever the god-ess of all things school waddled around - see they were afraid she'd think they were 'standin' with me. everybody now brags about what a good job the school does to protect the children and blah blah blah and the school prints out all sorts of materials saying how this is their number one priority etc. etc. which is another important thing i was taught from the time i was born - when you stand up for what you believe is right and stand by someone else who you believe is right and needs you, no matter what you risk or what the outcome, there's a pretty good possibility that no one will notice or remember the standin' - except you. and you gotta know that just you is more than enough and really the only person that matters in this standin' area of life.
so...what i was tryin' to get to in my long winded round about way, was to thank each and every one of you for doin' some of the standin' by during my duplicatin' doo dad drama. and to all of you who told me to be sure to make your standin' statements public again when the broo-haha settles down - that you liked your standin' by to be public and not hidden for protection, i will honor your requests. i will always be greatly appreciative of your emails/comments and especially those of you who are not southern since you probably had to teach the whole standin' thing to yourselves! i hope you'll pass it on to all the little ones in your lives.
all that thanking done for now.... please check back in tomorrow. i'm hopin' i can update the doo dad drama and let you know what i've decided to do with this week's doo dads i designed to deliver via download since i didn't deliver them this week to their usual place. i am ponderin' a few ideas and should have it all figured out by tomorrow afternoon since i can't just let precious doo dads go undelivered, even during a drama! in the meantime feel free to go adopt the little orphans at the mojackson.com orphanage - they're being adopted so quickly i might have to stamp their adoptions final and introduce some other ones to find homes for and once their gone, they're gone!
today's art was a gift to me by my good friend in germany, zahra aka imagined whirrled peas. she's an incredible artist and uses the scrapbook-bytes gallery to display her oh so beautiful scrapbook pages. you can't really tell by her other work but i think she did a fine job here of showing off her wickedly wonderful sense of humor - if you doubt me, check out that fancy seal of approval on the award.
see you soon i hope....
