Pseudo Geniusness

i think mostly people think, when imagining how glass is cut, that you use a saw, or a special knife, and it goes through all the way like cutting anything else. when you hand cut glass, you use a glass cutter, which is a little tiny sharp wheel with a handle, to score the glass. it introduces a point of weakness. then you break it. you can use your hands, the edge of a counter, a special tool called running pliers, grozers, tap it with the end of the glass cutter, it doesn’t matter. you introduce a crack, and the break, ideally, follows the weakness you’ve introduced to the glass via scoreline, and your glass is cut.

curves are more difficult. glass likes to break along straight lines, crystalline. sharp curves can become impossible; inside curves are notoriously hard. sometimes the glass has inherent weaknesses, invisible until tested, that will ruin your break. some glass is much harder to break than other glass. some glass gives like putty, elegantly twisting, sweet in your hands. some glass is so tough that you may never coax it into the shape you want.

i don’t like thinking about this metaphorically. i don’t want to apply the logic to myself. people are not glass. people are not glass.

i like to work with curves. even though they’re the hardest part, even though i waste glass when i fail. i love circles, sharp dips, peaks and valleys. curves so sharp they refuse to break; curves so deep i burn out bits early grinding the glass into shape when i cannot convince it to take the score. stubbornly chasing projects that would make far more experienced artists than me frown at the pattern. i can’t stop myself. i want what i want. it’s my glass, my money to waste, my energy and time.

i don’t like thinking about that metaphorically either. people aren’t glass. i’m not glass.

you might be surprised how much glass can take. i’ve gotten much more familiar with how to handle it, what kind of pressures to use, when to be gentle, careful, and when i can relax. it becomes exponentially stronger as the pieces get smaller. below an inch or so, i could fumble and drop a bit of glass on the floor without flinching- that won’t break. above twelve by twelve, i start to move pieces vertically. if you handle a large enough piece of glass carelessly, hold it horizontal for too long or at the wrong angles or with the wrong pressure, it can spontaneously break under its own weight- more than that, you can introduce hidden weaknesses, exacerbate them, create problems for yourself later.

i don’t like metaphors in my glass studio.

i make a lot of nature pieces. a cicada wing, a moth. honeycombs. mushrooms. a windchime inspired by cattails, a panel of cattails. flowers. sunrises. i like to create in the image of soft things, things that would bend, things that aren’t brittle. matte things, opaque things. something about the contrast is satisfying. i want to see them lit up, vibrant & translucent, that holy quality that puts stained glass in church windows. forever-crocus. shining dusty insects. organic, messy, elemental shapes, curves and curves, soft and straining, glowing. coaxing cracks that want to fly across the surface into the channel the scoreline dug. it doesn’t come away neat. it comes away sharp. you always need to grind down the edges, every time, on every piece you cut.

i don’t like metaphors these days. i’m so tired. i don’t force my mind into tight curves anymore. i save that for the glass. my head i draw straight paths for, shallow and forgiving and slow in the turns. i’m not glass. i’m not glass

sometimes i buy scrap glass- bits that came off other people’s bigger projects, big enough to work with but oddly shaped. once in a while those pieces will have scorelines drawn across them- evidence of somebody’s failed break, their abandoned attempts. the first thing i always do with those pieces is finish the break. i don’t want to reach for it thinking there’s more unblemished glass there than there actually is. don’t like unfinished business.

i’m not glass i’m not glass i’m not glass i’m not glass i’m not

those scraps are always good. sometimes they’re surprisingly big, always cheap. perfectly functional and beautiful glass, just in off dimensions. it’s enjoyable to make a puzzle out of it- figure out what pattern will work, what pieces will fit. what can i make out of this? where can i put it? what function will it have, no longer discarded?

i’m not glass i’m not glass i’m not glass

i made a nightlight out of some beautiful scrap pieces, added details to a lamp with others. lots of scrap in my luna moth- highlights and entire chimes of my windchime. i made an entire, gorgeous poppy flower, bigger than my hand, out of only scrap red pieces. red is the most expensive color of glass, did you know that? it’s made with gold- always has been. i guess it’s just the best way to do it, still, even if it makes it pricy. i don’t really buy whole red sheets, just because the prices make me wince. even the castoffs are more expensive than other scrap.

i’m not glass

i’m really proud of that poppy- i wish i had taken more pictures before i gave it away. it went to my tattoo artist. maybe i’ll make another one sometime. orange could be fun, even if it’s less traditional poppy color. i’ve always liked poppies

i’m not

just because they’re so simple and delicate. all symbolism aside. their petals are so thin- it’s like paper, like four sheets of tissue paper wrapped around. i actually don’t think i’ve ever tried growing them- maybe i should try growing them this year

i’m not

i think that would be nice. i could have the glass poppy in my window and look out into my garden and have them there too. i’d like that

i’m not

i think that would be nice. you can see the sun through poppy flower petals, actually, i think, because they’re so thin. they’re like stained glass flowers

i’m

"Well, in the past, I have said that there is real chess and women’s chess. Some people don’t like to hear this, but chess does not fit women properly. It’s a fight, you know? A big fight. It’s not for women."

Only for Kasparov to get absolutely obliterated by Judit Polgar, a Hungarian woman, a few years later.

Judit has defeated numerous other chess legends, such as Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, and Boris Spassky, all former world chess champions. She has even won a match against Magnus Carlsen, who is the current world chess champion as of 2021. When I tell you this woman is a beast I mean she is RUTHLESS.

Famously, in 1994, during a match with Judit Polgar, Garry Kasparov cheated, taking back a move after realising it was losing, even though this is very much against the rules of chess. At the time, Judit was only 17. Imagine being so good at age 17 that you make the world champion cheat!

Anyways. Stan chess legend Judit Polgar because she is a beast!!!!!

And, their sister Sofia Polgar, is ALSO a chess international master! Meaning that all three Polgar sisters are chess masters!

my 7th grade social studies/8th grade science teacher (he did both classes. Somehow…) had a snake lovingly named Hisser. Hisser would occasionally be taken out to crawl and he was held by kids and when there were fire alarms Hisser was taken along, usually to his chagrin. 

This was one of those days where we had in class work time and most of us were just chilling and so Mr. A got Hisser out and started passing him around.

Every girl student that he came to, he would immediately snuggle up to, wrap around their arms, and get cozy. With boy students, he would just sort of sit in the coiled lump that he’d been handed in. This was true with just about every single student, and Mr. A said that Hisser likes girls a lot better than guys and this has been thoroughly proven by Hisser’s attitude.

Then Hisser was handed to me. He was a loveable cold scaley rope as you would expect, but he didn’t coil around my arms. He didn’t get cozy. He just sat there. And Mr. Anderson said, “Huh. That’s weird. He usually likes girls.” 

I passed the snake to my friend and surely enough, Hisser wrapped around her arms and got cozy. 

I came out as a trans guy about 7-8 years later, and just recently realized that Hisser was right about me not being a girl all along. 

I never got to read 46-52 and it means i missed the culmination of the whole series. I cant describe how much it means to me and how much it still holds up

Anyway the print is beautiful and I painted this frame.

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.

you think you’re going to have a normal field trip and she shows up wyd

babies don’t steadily grow, they grow in spurts, which means on a growth day they’re in quite a lot of pain ... but no one takes it seriously because a baby can’t communicate that they’re growing over a centimeter over night and that HURTS

ok i dont see you trying to run a marathon every day during a growth spurt when you did it yesterday ... fuckin chill. that baby is hurting.

Neglected kids have less function in their temporal lobes and are more likely to suffer from mental illness whether they cognitively remember the events or not. Another thing that has been known for decades now.

It starts at birth. Children MUST be cared for. Leaving them to sob hysterically or punishing them in any way for being in pain can end up dooming them to a sad life. This culture of letting your kid cry and even getting mad at them for it is exactly why the older generations typically has such a problem with emphasizing with others.