Lisa: A Dreamy Soapmaker

 

Soap videos are so addicting. The rich colors flowing together to make something beautiful and useful capture my full attention. I watch a lot of soapy content, and I watch a lot of Lisa, who makes the soap of dreams. She is always trying something new and pushing soap just a little further out there. I don’t ask a lot of soap videos, so her determination to try everything has me playing her videos as soon as they come out.

A sampling of the kinds of soaps she makes: swirls, who knew that there were so many ways to pour and stir soap; scrapers, she uses plastic scrapers in just the right shapes to manipulate the soap batter into amazing landscapes and other scenes; embeds, small pieces of soap that are tucked into or onto the soap batter to be revealed as the soap is used. Beyond these techniques is what she does by combining techniques (check out “Starry Night.”). 

She truly is obsessed in the best way. If you like color and art and practical ingenuity that makes something beautiful then this is the YouTuber for you.

https://www.youtube.com/@IDreamInSoap/featured

Titanic Therapist

 

Let me in.

Let me love you.

Let me arrange the furniture on your deck.

It won’t be like last time.

I promise.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

 My sister and I are five and a half years apart in age. It meant finding activities to do together was always a challenge. At the last moment before I hit puberty leaving childhood behind forever, we discovered Strawberry Shortcake. The dolls appealed to both of us, were not overly expensive, and we could play for a long time without either of us getting grumpy.

I still have mine and the little fold-up kitchen I got for Christmas. I miss the experience of collecting Strawberry Shortcake items. They always smelled so good, and they could be posed in fun and interesting ways. Strawberry Shortcake was creative and spunky. Her legacy hasn’t persisted as I hoped. I did google Strawberry Shortcake and found these Funko figures. Unfortunately they are really expensive. I will keep looking.

More, Please

Why is it so hard to get ahold of African literature? I just finished two more versions of Sunjata and and I could happily do with two more. The comparison of what is important to each storyteller gives this epic a translucent life. With the setting aside of historicity in favor of meaning the purpose of art becomes as clear as a bald man’s character to a phrenologist. It is shakshuka compared to oatmeal. I love it.

Sana and Will Saleh: Happy Muslims

 The more I step away from the details of fundamentalism, the more fundamentalist groups seem the same, particularly when it comes to the life of women. For me, if a religious community cannot accept a woman in a loose-fitting t-shirt and loose-fitting jeans then the men in that community need to take responsibility for themselves and stop burdening women with men’s problem.

That said, the Saleh family is adorable in their veiled positivity. They enthusiastically embrace Islam, and bravely share it, just as they are. Like so many other fundamentalists they homeschool their little girls in a special space made and decorated for that purpose. Making and selling hijab is the family business, and they are beautifully modeled by Sana. They work together in the basement dyeing and packaging in what looks like a graceful cycle.

After all the reading about medieval Muslims it is fascinating and at points refreshing to meet modern Muslims. I would never choose Islam because of the restricted life it offers women and the unacceptable practice preached by Mohammed concerning slave women, but I believe people can live an honorable life in Islam. Thanks to the Saleh family I believe it can be done cheerfully.

Go and watch them. They will be unexpected and charming.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa53GFyem6cgf6etoIpoIdQ

Be Happy!

 I am naught.

Emagine That

 Sometimes you just need someone to take care of you for a change. Women especially are expected to give and give and survive off the fumes of Mother’s Day and her birthday. I have a place that loves to take care of me, my local theater—Emagine. First off I buy the seat I want. I don’t have to worry about hurrying in and saving my place with a coat. I pick my seat when I buy my ticket, and it’s mine until the show is over. Next, they will feed me, pizza, nachos, funnel fries, pretzel bites etc. I order what I want, purchase a drink or candy and head to my auditorium. The seats recline like at home. I settle in enjoying the pre-show programming, and a sweet person arrives with my food. For the next two hours I can just relax. The whole experience is a low maintenance pick me up. Thank you, Emagine Saline.

U Turn

 

U ruined my life before I was born.

It was either God or U.

Did he forget he was making a girl?

U never forgot I am a woman.

U never let me forget it either.

Morgan Donner, Free-style Seamstress

 

She is dazzlingly free of instructions for her projects. Where others carefully draft patterns she wings it with a tape measure and chalk. Watching her sew garments is never to have the same adventure twice. No silhouette wears out its welcome. Her efforts are not limited to garments either. She creates new spaces for her work, and even made a manikin that is an exact duplicate of her body. 

Such courage is inspiring, especially when someone is filming it all. We see it all, and it’s great. 

Thank you Morgan for sharing yourself with us. You make a difference.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Morgandonner

Homekeeper, Workkeeper, Literary Agent

 

The change of seasons has been a real grind in the past. Every new moment means rebalancing all my projects and plans. School is coming up, and I’m working at adapting to the struggles that come with it. When I was younger I spurned the idea of having help, but as I’ve grown older there are three kinds of helpers I daydream about.

Homekeeper—I am not now, nor will I ever be a cleaning aficionado. I get along, but problems like rust deposits in the shower mystify me. My vacuuming schedule goes as follows. Burn out old vacuum trying to catch up. Enjoy new vacuum forgetting that vacuuming is supposed to happen before the carpet is gray. Notice gray carpet. Burn out new vacuum. For the sake of the environment someone else should help me with these things.

Workkeeper—I am a person with a million ideas. With so much going on in my brain it feels like great things are falling off and becoming lost every day. I want someone who takes down my ideas, records them, organizes them and periodically prods me to update them and make good plans for pushing each initiative out toward public usefulness.  Is there an app for that?

Literary Agent—I like to go forward, on to the now thing, Edna Mode style. To entrust my writing to a champion who will fight for my babies as if they were her own, I love that idea. I can research and all of that, but I’d rather release a project into someone’s care.

Addiction

 Pizza has been one of my goto comforts. Bad pizza is better than a lot of other things at their best. I prefer lasagna, but it’s not as fast and easy. Recently I’ve been questioning my allegiance to pizza and so I am on the hunt for other possibilities. I fell in love with KFC’s Ultimate BBQ Fried Chicken Sandwich. All the ingredients plays so well together and it is satisfying as a meal in itself. On a brioche bun the crispy chicken breast nestles down with KFC’s honey BBQ sauce, bacon, pickles and pepper jack cheese. Whenever I’m at a loss for dinner I pick up one of these. You should give it a try.