Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Rosalind

Once upon a time, my younger sister Guinness came to pick me up from school. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks, as she'd just gotten home from vacationing with a friend. She had an enviable tan and her hair was underneath a bandana. I stood outside with a group of girls, chatting and waiting for my ride. None of these girls had ever met my sister before.

So, Guinness pulled up to the curb, but the other girls saw her before I did. One of them, Ashley, I think she was called, gasped and exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, there is the hottest guy in that car."

...that's my sister.

Nothing quite warms my heart like remembering this perfect. PERFECT moment.

Soundly embarrassed, Ashely might have begged me not to say anything. More likely though, she just laughed with everyone else and was a good sport about it. In any case, my sister thought it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever heard.

She's always embraced her androgynous appearance. It's been easy for her to work with, because if you'll remember, Ashley specified that Guinness was a 'hot' guy. My sister is a gorgeous women, and knows well how to play up her more feminine features, but she can also do more masculine looks when she feels like it too. She's done some acting, and she really wants the chance to play Viola or Rosalind someday. Especially Rosalind, because that's her favorite play.

We were all pretty stoked when her theatre make-up class assigned her to do a half-male, half-female paint-job on her face.

I think the fact that she already had the a-symmetrical half-buzzed haircut made it that much better. If you cover the girl half of her face she looks like a dude and if you cover the dude half, she looks so girly!

Guinness is my favorite thing!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Didn't get back to Cardiff until midnight or so




Yes. That is the Mystery Machine parked in front of Stonehenge. Your argument is invalid.

I received a firm exhortation (nearly a threat) to write more about my time in UK-Landia. So, I take you back to the same day with the slugs, but a little later on. I had the wonderful opportunity to skip and dance and pretend I was a merry druid among the massive, mysterious stones of Stonehenge, right at Sunset. (It was pretty much the greatest thing ever:)

I tried to be a good girl and didn't touch/rub/hug/try-and-make-out-with the Stones, although I cannot say the same for all of my companions on that trip (looking at you Guinness) and that picture was taken the same day by someone in our group. Clearly, this proves that Stonehenge is haunted.

If you want to make your own henge, you may do so if a few simple steps.

1 Be an awesome Stone Age person! I just want to give props to Stone Age people for a second. They had very little to work with. Pretty much just stone and dirt, but they still dreamed big, and they worked with what they had. Go them!

2 Go to Wales to get yourself some awesome Welsh rocks. Ignore the close by stones, because who cares about them. Actually, just kidding, get some of those too. (I’m skipping over how they transported the stones, because I honestly don’t think the debate about method is nearly as interesting as archeologists seem to think.) 

3 Carve your stones into desired shapes.

4 Loose the earth within the desired henge area, perhaps using sand, for extra sinkage, although your stones are so heavy, I really don’t understand how that would made a massive difference. Sorry scholars.

5 Arrange your stones (except for the capstones). Use all kinds of horrifying, yet simple techniques to get them upright. (Not even wanting to put my toes in the water of that ongoing discussion)

6 Pack the heaps of earth around the stones tightly so that they don’t tip over.

7 Keep going—bury the whole structure, until you’ve got a pretty steep manmade hill.

8 It’s going to rain and stuff, because this is England. The rain will wear some of the earth away, which means you’re going to have to redo steps 5 and 6 (and maybe even 4) a few times. Don’t worry about it, by this point, you’ve been dead for ages and your kids' kids' kids' etc. are now working on the project that you started when you went to Wales to bring back some cool Welsh rocks.

9 Once the ground is really secure, you can go ahead and scrap off that top layer of earth so you can just barely see the tops of the stones.

10 Slide those massive capstones into place on top of the mound.

11 Start digging.

12 Let the grass grow, and watch from the afterlife as thousands of generations of your progeny can’t figure out how the hell you did that.

13 Laugh.