BELOW: Me at Emmler's garage sale
Below, Emmler, in another of the Emmler Look-Alike series. (That's John Waters on her T-shirt.)
I'm glad she lives near the store so it's easy to bike by sometimes, since she doesn't work at the store anymore.
. . . EAT THE APPLE!
Emmler inspires me to make stuff out of nothing.
When I went to Santa Fe in February, many things had conspired to give me this message:
MAKE TOYS.
That piggy-backed on my New Year's resolution to learn how to attach things to other things.
I'd come home and rearranged my workspace so I could work on toys. For a couple months, I did that--including the Alley Protectors, partly with E.
Then I started to slack off... Toy-making didn't come to a full stop. Oh no! Penny Cooper is always on the job!
But you have to rewind the key every so often to get going again.
This afternoon I sat with pen and paper and asked myself what I want to work on.
Answer: I want to create a Girlette Calendar for 2024 with nontoxic paint, recycled paper, and no metal.
That means a calendar not printed by the company I've used the past three years.
I'll find out what my options are. Potato printing with water-based inks?
I want it to be nice though--something I can share with other people, because every so often during the year, someone will tell me they are enjoying the girlettes calendar, and that means a lot to me.
Such little efforts to be environmentally friendly may not be worthwhile in cost-benefit analysis terms. I think of a friend, for instance, who uses silk dental floss because it breaks down in landfills.
But so what if they aren't? The learning itself will be fun and good.
There's a story that Socrates learned to play a tune on a flute while he was waiting for his executioners to prepare the hemlock.
When asked what the point was, he said the point was to learn to play the tune on a flute before he died.
Play better!