"Prince"

I watched a Prince retrospective on tv and dreamt his songs all night.  I didn't even know I knew that many Prince songs.  I never paid that much attention to him, or at least that's what I thought when I heard he died this week.  I sent a condolence email to a friend of mine who looooved him and thought that's that, but the retrospective reminded me Prince was a changing factor in the world.

I'd forgotten about how he wrote "slave" on his cheek when he was mad at his record company.  He took control of his music, dressed like he wanted, wrote what he wanted, didn't talk to the media very much, and overall, I respected him.  He was role model to my friend, and I'm realizing he played that for me too in subtler ways.  His was a life well lived.  RIP and thank you.

I know, lots of people think they can't succeed for one reason or another.  Prince was an abused 5' 2" epileptic, effeminate black man.  That would be enough to stop most people from trying.  There are lots of incredibly talented people who never make it.  I suspect the biggest reason is because they don't believe they can so they never really try.

Many times I've been told to have "realistic" expectations.  Dream lower.  Don't be so full of myself to think I have what it takes to compete.  The people who've told me these things didn't want me to succeed.  People can be like a nest of hungry birds.  If a sibling gets a coughed up worm, that's one more worm the others didn't get.  They try to keep you weak so you can't lift your head.  Fighting in the nest takes so much work you can't fight for yourself in the greater world.

I don't want to get on stage like Prince.  I just want the best successes for the talents I have.  I finally received the Mensa 50th Anniversary Bulletin magazine for which I did 5 illustrations.  I love it when I see my work in print!  This full-page piece is for an article a father wrote about his elevator-loving, autistic son.  It was the first piece I've done like this in a long time, and I pushed myself and fought my inner critic to do it.  (Pat, pat myself on the head.)  Alright, I'm still fighting my inner critic because Isee things I'd like to fix, but enough.  I did it!  I feel a bit like the happy boy in the illustration.

The first step in doing it was deciding to try.  I wrote the art editor, attached samples, and expressed desire.  I got a response and had to maintain that desire.  It didn't help that I hated the first article she sent me.  When I rejected it, I felt like I'd shot myself in the foot, but she came back with this article and I was happy again.  I then went about the illustration in all the wrong ways and had to keep myself motivated to succeed.

My fights were entirely within myself.  The art editor gave me more articles.  Each got easier to accomplish as I went along.  I rejected a cover article because it just wasn't me, and that felt good too.

Prince set an example.  The autistic boy is another.  There are regurgitated worms for all of us if we dream, follow through, learn, and succeed.

"Smart"

I have the perfect post for "smart", but I can't show it until April.  Such a shame.  You see, I've been doing illustrations for the magazine "Mensa Bulletin" for their 50th anniversary edition.  This isn't making me rich, but I'm enjoying doing it, and I am getting paid.  Well, they said I'd get paid.  I haven't actually seen any money yet.

Mensa is a group for people who score in the top 2% of IQ tests.  I don't like to admit it very often, but I'm a card-carrying member.  I find this embarrassing, I suppose like someone in AA would feel.  If you're an alcoholic around other alcoholics, it's perfectly fine to admit you're a drunk.  If you're smart, it's okay to admit you're a geek to other geeks.  They're my people.  I love them.  We have great conversations over bagels. 

I learned cool stuff about mercury from a respected chemist this month, and he seemed tickled to find someone interested in learning about it.  I have no plans to do anything with mercury, and he won't repair his mercury clock because filling it with mercury would be too heavy and toxic.  I know, nobody else cares.  That's why there's a group for people who like to learn completely useless stuff, where nobody rolls their eyes at us.

I've spent a lot of my life hiding my brains because it's so uncool.  Being "too smart" can get you beat up on the playground, though luckily I never had that problem.  I suppose some people feel intimidated by Mensans, but I've found most of them to be open and helpful in explaining anything and everything that anyone else wants to know.  They're like Labrador retriever mutts.  Stick!  Cool!  Let me get that for you!  Do you want another stick?  Squirrel?  Sock?  Ball!!!

My original plan in joining in my 20s was to find someone interesting to date.  That accomplished, I let my membership lapse.  It wasn't until a lot of years later, and the breakup of another relationship, that I decided that I just wanted to hang out with my kind.  I discovered my brain was really, really rusty.  I felt intimidated and didn't say much until I discovered that Mensans are just like everyone else.  They've got opinions and biases.  They're nice or not.  The only thing you know they've got in common is that they're good at taking tests.

Many of the members are scientists and engineers, though there are a splattering of artists mixed in.  I think plenty of artists would qualify if they believed they could because artists often have that same kind of interest in everything.  Artists devote a lot of time to reading and studying all sorts of things.  There's a young lady in my group who loves Harry Potter as much as I do.  It's not all about molecular chemistry.  We spent an afternoon coloring together recently.

Sometimes the young daughter of a member comes to our group.  She colored with us too, and she blends as well as the grandparents in our group.  Age, sex, color, etc. doesn't matter, and I really enjoy diversity.

I can't show you my illustrations until after the magazine comes out, but this hand is a teaser.  It's about 1" x 1 1/2" of a full-page.  The art editor likes my efforts and gave me another full page to do.  Yay!  I expect to fully enjoy my weekend :)