Frog Dancer

Day 27 (Part A): If I have achieved nothing today, I have this photo to show for it. I had an idea (it seemed like a good one at the time) but unfortunately didn't discover that my studio (read, "living room") had some serious shortfalls until I started setting up. Literally, the window needed to be taller or my perch needed six inches less height. By the time the issue made itself apparent, I had already moved cat furniture, two chairs and the harpsichord and was consequently not in the best of moods when I donned all the paraphernalia of a cross-cultural Frog Spirit dancer. Repeated scrambles onto a footstool left me hot and sweaty and cross. I finally said in my inimitable fashion, "(unprintable), I've either got it or I don't," whereupon I disrobed and put everything back in place.

I was not pleased with any of the results from that first session, a circumstance which set me to pointlessly pacing as I tried to figure out what I could find for a "blog shot" on a rainy afternoon. I wasn't doing well, not at all. On the edge of frustration, I decided to take a nap, but no sooner than I'd laid down than another idea hit me: go build a shorter box. The next half hour was spent in the garage with sawdust flying.

Satisfied that at least I had created something which would be useful in my studio in the long term, I then sat down to do some knotwork. Almost immediately, I sprang back up. When once again the harpsichord, the chairs and the cat furniture were moved out of the way, I put the new box to the test, sweating myself into a pool as I ran back and forth from the camera to my appointed perch.

The chairs, the harpsichord and the cat furniture are all back in their accustomed places. My costume is packed away in the cedar chest and the heavy wooden frog mask is hung back on the wall. The essay I intended to write has gone completely out of mind, and I'm sitting here laughing at myself for wasting a whole day on one silly photo. Eh, I could have been watching TV (if I had TV).