Some days I have to give up my 'mild mannered appearance' and let the geek out to play. She's in there, and I usually tell her to be quiet because I can go overboard like bringing 3D math and chemistry models to work and playing with them on my lunch hour in front of confused coworkers. Not like I completely understand all of these ideas - but I want to - and how does one understand what one does not explore? Some other people seem boggled just by the sight of such things and it is true there is some thrill to that but quite a bit of sadness, too. I want them to either join in or leave me to have my fun and do their own thing. People like 'E' at work (the one who was thinking I was ruining Esme) say it makes their brain hurt LOOKING at a drawing or a model - so they want me to put it away and do something 'quieter.' This person is one year younger than I am and has five children at home... *sigh*
My definition of fun is different than most people's, I guess? I don't have a good word for it. I think museums and intricate mechanisms and libraries and stick and ball chemistry models and language root patterns are fun... as long as there aren't other people in the vicinity who are bored or upset by the very concepts etc... I also (like all humans) don't like being forced into participating in something I don't want to do at the moment... and I can see that in their reaction. But if you don't want to get into what I'm doing, then don't. Go sit over there. Lots of oddity, there... But I've never been good at that - as if just 'thinking too hard' in someone's vicinity infringing on their right to 'be' what they want to be over there where they are sitting? I can't explain the level of frustration that is. It is like a room in my head that is bright and lit up with all of these ideas and 'what if' wanting to put it out of the visual and into reality... and I turn most of those lights off as soon as they wink on. And most of the time I just keep that room shut up because there are other things that need to be done, work hours to finish etc... and nothing ever gets completed or explored to the end of the line. A million shards of some precious material I can never make into a single useful sheet etc...little bits and pieces that stay saved together in groups like areas of a puzzle put together but still wishing for that one correct piece to join them together into a full picture...
I can't say I don't find fun in 'regular' things other people do - but saying my 'range' of fun is wider and more obscure is probably the best explanation. I think Rube Goldberg machines and finding obscure parts for faucets and matching up compression fittings to solve the puzzle at hand are fun. I also like sewing meticulous things in 3D and and sketching out huge scribbles making them into animals and people etc.
But I think I might start unleashing all that sort of thing again.. because it is fun for ME. And I need some fun. And I need to stop worrying what they are thinking about so much that I constrain myself to what is expected and break outside the boxes I put myself into (by taking their comments to heart etc..) If I let it get to me then Esme will 'turn off the light' as well learning by example. I want her to let the light shine out when it is there - always. No matter what turns it on for her.
SIDE NOTE: The idea that maybe I should have done something 'more' with all of this energy and thought instead of shoving it down into my imagination comes up often... and I just tell it 'later' in so many ways. That one I still have to work on, but baby steps.
In other News: Last night when we were watching a new show 'Warehouse 13', which is like X-Files. Esme popped up from her nap and told the evil-eyed stone head sculpture in the pilot episode 'you're a BAD PUMPKIN. Man you all right? It all gone!' etc... She had us laughing so hard and it is so hard to explain why. Kids just see things so much simpler. I would NEVER have called it a pumpkin, and it has been so long since she saw a jack o'lantern that it took me twice to understand what the word she was saying was in fact, 'pumpkin' and to make the connection to the rest of what she was saying. But, as soon as she said it - she was absolutely completely right. The thing it resmembled most was a jack o'lantern.
The 'Aztec' stone head sculpture in the show was being a very very bad 'pumpkin' with glowing eyes and sharp grinning teeth, chasing people around making them cry and flashing bright lights etc... It was all very silly, too. I think we're going to like this series. Weird stuff, very little 'gore', lots of humor. That is one of the reasons I sat down and started making the icosahedron 'soccer ball' instead of just hanging out on Facebook playing games. I felt the geek rising in me and wanted to do something 'real' or at least tangible with it :)
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