K.I.S.S.

Silly Hafiz, always making me cry. What can I say? The fella had a way with words.

Every child has known God, 
Not the God of names, 
Not the God of don’ts, 
Not the God who ever does Anything weird, 
But the God who knows only 4 words. 
And keeps repeating them, saying: 
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”

-Hafiz

And what if that was all? What if we kept it so simple, and danced?

Shedding Light on the Subject

It all started in March of 2010, when I stumbled on a blog post by Laura Zabel, who works at an amazing organization called Springboard for the Arts. 

Zabel boldly pointed out that it might do the arts community a bit of good if more people had the guts to call themselves artists. 

...I think that in our effort to command greater respect for the profession of being an artist, we’ve excluded people from identifying as artists and prevented them from seeing the art in their everyday lives. We want artists to get paid, obviously, this is something I feel strongly about. But in order to do that, we’ve created all these ways of defining who is a “professional artist” and that’s usually linked to those who make their living as an artist. But what about the hobbyist? The avocational artist? Aren’t they real artists? Those who used to practice but don’t anymore? At what point do you lose the privilege of calling yourself an artist? ...I’m not sure excluding people and having fewer people who identify themselves as artists is a good route towards public support of the arts.

It blew my mind. So you mean, all that creative stuff that I make and do might actually mean that I'm an...artist? 

It was one of those moments that changes absolutely everything. For the first time, I understood art as something other than a thing that I did. Artistry was now something I identified as a characteristic of who I am.

There are implications to realizations like that.

First and foremost, I'd spent years wondering about what my life would look like if I was one of the painters, photographers, or dancers whom I so admired. I'd see works by Edward Burtynsky or Steve McCurry, and I'd wonder what it would feel like to use my insight to connect with people so profoundly with an image. In my mind, those artists were different than me, somehow.

Zabel challenged those of us with artistic tendencies to acknowledge them as part of the package:

“I’m a doctor and I’m an artist.”

“I’m a teacher and I’m an artist.”

“I’m a senator and I’m an artist.”

“I’m a lawyer and I’m an artist."

Was it possible? Would anybody really buy that I was an underpaid, bored copywriter, server and an artist? And if that was the case, what did that mean?


First, it meant that the pet project that had already consumed weeks and weeks of my time was more than just a hobby. It was art.

Second, it meant that the big-time photographers whose works gave me goosebumps weren't actually all that different from me. To be sure, their talents were more cultivated, practiced, refined. They were artists, as they'd always been. But I knew then that I was, too.


A lot has happened in a year. That little project has actually garnered a fair amount of attention, and there are big plans in the works for a tour this year (knock on wood).

And, in a slightly more terrifying twist of fate, some opportunities have arisen that can't be passed up...but I'll have to work as an artist. Full time. For myself. In a studio that I own and operate (in partnership with the amazing Waffle Guy). Gulp.

My studio and gallery will be open for business in the next few weeks. I've got some of the most amazing and creative minds I know planning to work with me on this next "pet project," which will live in a building that had been abandoned for 40 years. My kids hang out there. So does Waffle Guy. My oldest plays with my camera while the middlest investigates the dungeon of a basement for clues about its history. There's even a perfect Daydreamin' Window for the Littlest Waffler.

Everytime we're in that beautiful space, I swear it whispers a "thank you" to us for bringing it back from a forgotten place. And I murmer a "thank you" in return, because I know that the space will take care of my family and friends. You'll hear lots more really soon. In the meantime, you can find us there, trying to figure out where the outlets should go...

The other day, I sat at a desk in my newly acquired studio, my iPod on shuffle. And that's when I heard it:

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine...

Don't forget that you're an artist, too, completely qualified to share your own unique and beautiful perspective with the world. But be careful. There are implications to realizations like that.

How Oscar Mayer Changed My Life

This version of the Oscar Mayer Bologna song became famous before I was born. No matter. It was one of those jingles that embedded itself deep in our culture's collective ear. By the time I was old enough to fully appreciate the flavor of the spongy, pink "meat product," I knew how to spell B-O-L-O-G-N-A.

It's amazing what marketing can do.

This version came out later in my childhood, and I remember it clearly.

Really, the power of a good jingle astonishes me. Not only did this company teach two generations of kids to spell correctly a total phonetic anomaly, but it made us all admit out loud that we wished we were Oscar Mayer Wieners---so that everyone would be in love with us!!!!!

It was a more innocent time in our country's history, and the wing-nuts had not yet learned that they could garner a lot of attention for protesting the promotion of open love affairs between children and processed foods. This is why Waffle Guy and I have an open relationship: he is totally supportive of my propensity for an occasional late-night rendezvous with a bag of kettle chips. But I digress.

It's been a long time since I've considered the powerful influence of the company that produced the original "Meats of Good Taste" in my life, but Oscar Mayer has reappeared in my life.

My Eldest Waffler's school participated yesterday morning in a sandwich-making service project extravaganza yesterday for a touching Minneapolis-based charitable project called "363." Founded by a retired Minneapolis school teacher named Allan Law, the organization is a formal recognition of the fact that we're great at feeding the homeless and hungry among us on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They're there to take care of the other 363 days of each year.

Mr. Law talked to the students a day in his life. He personally picks up sandwiches from the storage facility where they're safely stored, and spends his nights making the rounds. He focuses on hungry kids first, and then visits "safe-bay"sleeping shelters where the lucky among the homeless can sleep on a mat on a floor in a warm room. Mr. Law discussed how those in need appreciate his gift--none among the hungry turn away the sandwiches because they're not in the mood for a sandwich.

And then, for 20 wonderful minutes, the kids turned into a fantastically animated assembly line, carefully placing American cheese and slices of Oscar Mayer Turkey Bologna on enriched white bread, bagging them up, and sending them on their way.

Last year, Mr. Law distributed half a million sandwiches to the hungry and homeless in Minneapolis. In a city so clean, pretty and affluent, it can be hard to imagine that there is need so great. There is.

The 363 Web site estimates that it takes 6 people half an hour to assemble 150 sandwiches. There's a link to order supplies directly from Coborn's Delivers  on 363's page.

After talking to my Wafflers, we've decided that we'll take one day per month, and make sandwiches. On that night, we'll have bologna and cheese, to help us remember how lucky we are to have the choices that we have.

I no longer wish I was a wiener, Oscar Mayer or otherwise. Still, despite all my food snobbery, I'm starting to see bologna in a whole new light.

Resolved.

She spent the whole party playing with stacking cups, a gift given her by Waffle Guy's mother. Slowly, she'd build a tower. Then faster. Tall, thin towers, and shorter, broad towers. Towers sorted by color, and multi-hued towers. Always, her towers would fall, but she was undisturbed. Lost in play, she picked up her treasures, and lovingly built the biggest, most colorful creation she could muster. 

We've just changed our calendars, and pop-culture columnists from all media are making their predictions about Who to Watch, Where to Be Seen, What to Wear, and How to Wear It for 2011. Tech experts are doing the requisite four-minute morning-news segments about this year's must-have gadgets. Personal bloggers and self-help gurus are listing resolutions and setting intentions and writing about theme words for the New Year.

There are lots of rules about new years, apparently. Lots of advice.

Set resolutions that are attainable, we're told. Try cutting out soda instead of deciding to lose 50 pounds. That way, they say, you're less likely to get frustrated and give up.

Or don't set resolutions at all. Set intentions. Just deciding to change is the key to changing, they say.

They also say you can pick a theme word. Choose an easy-to-embrace mantra, and repeat it with all your might. This way, they say, you're not focused on the things you're doing wrong in life. You're likely to notice what's right if you can wrap it all up into one simple word.

They say lots of things, and I listen. I'm not sure why. I have yet to see the science that tells me that big goals are worse or less attainable than little ones. And while I've intended to be a chocolate-guzzling comedienne-supermodel with a recording contract and my own Florida Key for some time now, I'm beginning to realize it's just not going to happen for me. And somehow, I can't possibly find just one word that describes the incredible, complex and nuanced thing I wish for my life to become.

It's possible that I'm missing some glorious point. Maybe I'm not emotionally or spiritually evolved enough. Nevertheless, I really don't care what I'm supposed to want or who I'm supposed to watch or how I'm supposed to do things in 2011. In the past, I've paid attention to all those things at one time or another. And do you know what it's done for me?

I don't.

I try to keep it positive here, but I have a bone to pick with American culture as I begin the next year of my life. When, exactly, did we become so bombarded with messages about what we're supposed to do that we forgot who we want to be? 


I mean, try it. Ask yourself who you want to be. Answer. And then ask yourself how your answer would be different if you had never seen a magazine, or a newspaper, or a blog, or a movie. Scratch every answer that can be measured in pounds or inches or dollars or promotions or possessions.

What if your answer wasn't at all influenced by what your mother taught you, or what Oprah said, or whoever wrote whatever in that column you read? What if your answer came from inside you?

My favorite people all seem to be driven by a common force; a beautiful inability to listen to all of the messages that they're given about how they're supposed to live their lives. Instead, they watch. They notice the things that are true. And they choose for themselves how to build the lives they want.

What if you're already doing everything you need to do? What if you already know what you need to know to live your best life? What if no one else needs to tell you?


I'm not actually sure what I want from my life, much less my year, but I know that I don't want to distill my life down to an easy, formulaic strategy that ends with me being a size 2 Stepford. Why do I have to do or have or be anything specific at all this year? What if we all simply lived, really lived, our lives? What if we loved every minute for exactly what it was, and loved our family and friends for exactly who they were? What if we just let life count for what it is?

It's not that goals are bad. It's just that, with the hype of each new year, it seems we forget more and more what constitutes a goal that is important and worthy. When we're 95 years old and breathing our last breaths, will these resolutions and words and intentions and gizmos really have helped to fill our years with life?

Some, maybe. But not most. Trouble is, it's hard to tell the difference.

And that's why I aspire to be more like my Littlest Waffler. Just to notice the perfect, bright building blocks of this life, and to stack them as well as I can.

This year, I'm resolutely refusing to buy in to the ballyhoo. I'd rather just love what I already have.

Celebrity Endorsements, Storm Statistics and Confessions

We reside in a cozy house situated neatly on the eastern shore of a lake in the southernmost reaches of the far-north city of Minneapolis. If you're familiar with Minneapolis, you know that it's a funky, cool, progressive, beautiful city with a funny accent, an abundance of flannel-clad hipsters, and a lot of quirk. If you're not familiar with Minneapolis, I owe it to you to disclose that in our lexicon of local celebrities, you'll find a couple of television meteorologists.

It's really strange, I know. But they're not there because we don't have anyone actually cool to admire. On the contrary, we've spawned a number of rather iconic individuals, like Bob Dylan and Judy Garland and the Coen Brothers. No one's asking Prince to be the keynote speaker at their gala events, though, and it's not just 'cause he's really flippin' strange. We'd just rather spend our time with that guy or gal from [insert your favorite channel here].

I have a theory about this. 

The climate here has the potential to be vicious in its extremes, and we mere mortals are entirely at its mercy. Except that there are these weather dudes and dudettes who somehow just sorta know what's coming next...with a huge emphasis on the "sorta." It's like they have a static-filled line in to whatever higher power decides it's time for baseball-sized hail. And if they really have face-time or whatever with the weather deities, then maybe they have some clout, see? Maybe they could chat us up with Thor, and convince him to, you know, blow the snow into Richfield instead? It's like climatological social networking. Or junior high.

If you don't live here, you might not understand why your Minnesota friends make such a big $%&@ deal about the weather. To us, it's obvious: It snowed yesterday. Like, a lot. Now I have to figure out where to park my car until Monday night. Except that it's buried in a four-foot drift. But plows can't get down the streets because they're not plowed. And they can't tow cars off of the streets so that plows can get through because it's too deep to get the tow trucks in until they plow. 

The net-net is that if you're from Minneapolis, everyone you know just spent seven hours shoveling little Habitrail paths for themselves, just so they could move their cars to the even side of the street. It sucks. And that is why we talk about the weather.

When I was a kid, I aspired to be a local celebrity meteorologist. I envisioned myself pointing effortlessly at a Chroma-key, gesturing naturally as I described this week's incoming low-pressure system in an informative-yet-engaging manner. I imagined our at-home viewers chortling aloud at my playful on-air banter with the anchors, their guffaws causing them to nearly choke on the frozen pizza they were noshing from their perch on the couch. In this fantasy, I singlehandedly forecasted the weather with unparalleled 80% accuracy. I wanted it all.

When I was 12, I was given the opportunity to spend an afternoon "shadowing" the iconic Paul Douglas, the Twin Cities genius who brilliantly pioneered--get this--outdoor weather broadcasts. He was the rock-star of the weather world, with a crisply starched shirt, receding hairline, and buttery-smooth voice. My mom took me shopping for a new pink silk shirt to wear to the KARE-11 studio, and I was sweating so hard from nervousness that I completely pitted out by the time my mother dropped me off. So deep was my awe for Mr. Douglas that I couldn't speak a word the whole time I was there. I just sat in his office, on a stool, staring. I must have seemed terribly creepy to him, dripping with perspiration and mute. 

I don't know if it's nostalgic exaggeration, or if my memory is accurate, but it seems to me that it was much, much snowier here in Minneapolis when I was a kid. Mr. Douglas pointed out in his Friday blog that remembering snow from our childhood is inaccurate, as we were likely much shorter then. And he has a point.

Whether it's "wear layers" or "bring an umbrella",  those damned TV weather people always have a point. Seriously. How do they do it?

This winter, we've been treated to the kind of snow I remember from my childhood. The kind that does things like this:

This weekend, my parents got snowed in at our house, so the extended Waffle-Clan spent the weekend baking Christmas cookies, playing with dogs, and shoveling. But that's not the only gift given me by this blizzard.

Though I never have lived my dream of becoming a charismatic major-market television weather personality, this weekend also gave me an opportunity to report on the storm from my perspective. 

Here are some neighborhood storm statistics:

Neighborhood Snow Total: Around 18 inches, according to Paul Douglas

Number of People Snowed In At Our House: 6

Number of People Snowed Out Of Our House: 1 (Sorry, Waffle Guy. We missed you.)

Total Dogs Snowed In At Our House: 4

Total Hours Spent Snowed In: 39

Cookie Recipes Used: 4

Total Cookies Made: Approximately 17 dozen

Total Cookies Stolen By Dogs: Approximately 1 dozen

Snow Angels Made:12

Snow Angels Visible After All the Snow had Fallen: 0

Hours Spent Shoveling: 7

Metric Tons of Snow Shoveled: Infinity

See? I can do it. No sweat.

Creativity

I've always been labeled "creative."

It's a fascinating label, considering that the analytical, logical parts of my mind are a much more obvious part of my persona. I notice tiny details. I solve problems. I take things apart and put them back together. I look for the source. 

Even so, compliments I receive from family and friends return again and again to creativity. Sometimes I wonder who they're actually talking about, but secretly I love it.

Sometimes I outwardly embrace the label. Having a "creative" personality is an excellent excuse for running a few minutes late, or for accidentally putting on mismatched socks in the morning. "Oh, yeah," I'll say, glancing nonchalantly at the flashback-inducing contrast of one purple plaid ankle, crossed neatly over an orange paisley ankle. "I'm feeling inspired today." I like to think I can work it.

Sometimes, creativity is essential. At more difficult times in my life, I've sometimes had to create something from nothing. I remember one Christmas, a few years ago, when a friend gave me a box of her daughter's old toys. That year, I spent a night in my garage, painstakingly inspecting story books, looking for the ones that were most perfect. Those with the fewest folded corners; those with the fewest fingerprints on the cover; those that could pass for new--those were gifts from Santa that year. I wrapped them in homemade wrapping paper, and tied them in ribbons I'd cut from an old pillowcase.  I cried that year at my fireplace, feeling like I'd failed my girls. But my children were young then, and their delight was palpable. I like to think that if they'd been older, I'd have found a way to rise to the occasion. I learned that year that no matter what, there would be a way to make Christmas for them.

Later, in a more prosperous season, I would find myself making big, puffy bows out of pine-colored dog-poop bags with Waffle Guy's youngest daughter. There wasn't any necessity. We were only doing it to prove that we could create something beautiful from a humble poo bag. But as I watched that Youthful Waffler accent her beautifully wrapped gifts with her fluffy, homemade bows, I recalled harder years, and I was grateful that creativity had become a luxury.

This year, we took a Thanksgiving ski trip with most of the Waffle Clan. The Eldest brought with her the Adopted Waffler, a native Texan who'd never experienced the sting of Lake Superior wind in November. To celebrate, and to keep warm, the girls had packed an arsenal of Heinous Sweaters, and we expanded the collection at the Duluth Ragstock so that every member of our posse could sport one for a day. When my brother, a North Shore resident, met us for lunch, the Young Wafflers even presented him with a Christmas Panda shirt. He wore it like a champ, and we all spent much of the meal giggling at one another affectionately. I found delight in the fact that on a whim, these two young women could so masterfully craft for us all such a beautiful memory from such an ugly source.

Nothing, it would seem, is wasted. 

And isn't that the very definition of creativity? To take something hideous, or to take nothing at all, and to turn it into something beautiful. When I see it in other people, I regard this sort of creativity as genius.

For some reason, I feel almost desperate this year to make the world just a little better. I'm an idealist, and I get this way from time to time. When I was a kid, I was convinced that if I tried hard enough, I could cure AIDS and end war. It was either noble or a delusion of grandeur. I'm not quite so naive, now, but I still believe that one person can make a tiny difference. And I believe a lot of people can make a lot of difference. It just takes some creativity.

When I mentioned in this blog last week that I wanted some help adopting an additional family, I got so much response that we were actually able to provide gifts for several more families. For a day or two, I realized that I couldn't want any more than to call people like you my friends. Maybe it's guilt for a time when secondhand books were the best I could muster that makes me feel so compelled to fix things. Maybe it's some deep-rooted need to prove to myself that I am a good person. But I'd like to think that creativity has something to do with it.

Waffle Guy and I have come up with a creative way to feed a few people who might otherwise do without. In the spirit of creating beauty from ugliness, it involves your most heinous and gaudy holiday attire. It also involves filling our truck with your donated non-perishables, and snacks for you. Email me if you want to know more-- wafflequest2009 (at) gmail (dot) com.

I do always brag about my amazing, creative friends. Let's make something pretty, huh?

Kindred Spirits and Sunday Silliness

I've been secretly stalking Dan, author of the astounding Waffleizer Blog, for some time now, and I thought it was time that I shared his genius with all of you.

Dan is a Web editor at the Chicago Tribune who shares our passion for waffles. His approach is a departure from our unabashed holier-than-thou, Sugar-Waffle-or-Die attitude. Rather, Dan tackles some of the Waffle Universe's heavier questions, such as the all-important "Will it Waffle?"

Armed with a trusty waffle iron and a lot of creativity,  Dan explored the waffling potential of 30 of his favorite foods, ardently journaling his successes and failures along the way.

Alas, Dan opted not to continue blogging after his 30th recipe was finished, which totally breaks my heart. I check the Waffleizer every week or so, just in case Dan happens to change his mind. He never does.

Even so, bear-hugging Dan from the Waffleizer has an important place on my bucket list. Waffle Gods willing, it will happen someday.