inertia

I feel like I should be writing more. I have tons of ideas in my head. Loads of things I want to write about and share. But I can't get out of my own way.

The bra project was a delightful diversion - oh, and "Iron Maidenform" won the naming contest hands-down. The friend who came up with that name was delighted and pleased. Sharon, one of the organizers, was delighted to have the bra in her possession and now I have ideas for something else. But first I have to get some real work done

Work is rough this year. The economy is in the toilet, so lots of people are holding off on repairs and maintenance to their homes. I had a nice big-ish job in Portland last month, and I'll have another there next week, but otherwise it has been pretty thin. Some friends of ours in the Portland area have been lobbying pretty hard for us to move back there. I don't know though. There are pros and cons to all of it.

I like living on MDI, but Portland has a lot more going on, particularly in the winter months.

We have a great community of friends here, but we have friends there, too.

There is better access to charity medical care in Portland, and that would be good for Laura - she could get her back treated. Here, we have no options.

But living cheek-by-jowl in Portland again does not appeal to me. It just doesn't. I don't like hearing and knowing what my next door neighbors are doing, and I don't like them hearing/knowing what I am doing.

But there is work there, at least more of it than there is here. I have told some friends that if I can see six month's worth of work there, we could move. I can't just pick up and go without having some kind of income set up for when we get there, but I am not sure we can afford to stay here. It is discouraging. I love living in this part of Maine. Yes, I complain about tourists and cruise ships, but honestly, they interfere on a limited number of days each year. Most of the time, we have Acadia all to ourselves. The trout are hidden in quiet pools and streams, if hikers wander through, they quietly wander back off again without disturbing us or the fish. It's a pretty good life.

Except for the lack of work and access to medical care.

Yeah. except for that.

I guess what I'd prefer is that a move like this present itself in a positive way for me. But I don't see it that way. This is a retreat, in my mind, not progress, not an advance. Like I/we lost a battle of some sort. I don't know.

What I do know is that I have some metal that I need to make into a handrail for some customers. That will keep me busy today and probably tomorrow. The rest of the summer's work will fill in the way it fills in. There is not much I can do beyond schedule it on the calendar and follow the money.

And be open to what the world offers me. I have to work on that. I think I need to stop trying to fit the world into my schedule and to see what I can do to work in harmony with what the world sends my way. That will be my goal for today. Blessed be.

Independence Day

I'm not much of a patriot, I suppose.

But then, I don't have full citizenship rights like some of my friends and the whole rest of my family. I suppose that means something.

I am up early today, though, preparing for a parade and for some political action.

A couple magician friends of mine have a show locally and the show will be participating in Bar Harbor's July 4 parade. There are two magicians (one can't make it) and a couple of belly dancers. One of the magicians has asked me to drive my truck in the parade to carry the sound system and one of the dancers. So I will be driving my big rusty truck through downtown with a dancing belly dancer in the back. How cool is that??

The other reason I am up so early is that the state-level Freedom to Marry people have asked the Hancock County people to start collecting signatures of supportive voters and identifying volunteers for the effort to preserve marriage equality. I am one of six people who will spread out with clipboards, canvassing people, asking for their support and their signatures.

This morning I am up at an unholy hour to prepare fresh bagels for these volunteers. Volunteers are much happier and more productive when they are well fed, preferably with good food.

After the parade and subsequent seafood festival, we'll all retire back to our house here for a cookout of the veggies and chicken and spicy noodle variety and to celebrate. When lesbians grill, I suppose I should be glad there is no tofu in the mix.

What better act of patriotism could there be, I suppose, than working to make our democracy a better and more equitable place for everyone to live? Laura and I have set a wedding date of September 19, but I expect the law allowing it to be stayed by a court injunction before we can do that. Opponents are out in force already, and telephone push-polling has begun in our area.

So today, in celebration of our democracy, we shall engage in democracy. We will work to educate our fellow citizens, we will do what we can to secure their support for our civil rights. We will do what democracy is about: participatory government. Rule of the people by the people. Not by violent overthrow, not by force of might, but by ourselves. Rule by democratic means and in the name of justice. Because it is just that if we pay taxes like everyone else that we enjoy the same rights and privileges as everyone else.

Only we've got some work to do to get there.

So this morning I will make bagels for our volunteers. I will marinate supper for grilling later. I will carry my share of clipboards and talk to my share of strangers and smile when I don't feel like it. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is a living, breathing thing, and if I don't care for it, it won't care for me.

Music on Maine Public Radio this morning is all 18th-century stuff. What was being heard in salons in Europe and the colonies as rebellion was percolating through the streets. Later I will sit and listen to my favorite voices from National Public Radio read the Declaration of Independence, and you know what? I'll get goosebumps first, and then I will weep at the beauty and strength of the words, as read by my heroes of the free press. People can say what they will about the media, but really it comes down to this: the media is the first (and sometimes last) protection the people have against tyranny. The journalists of NPR read the Declaration every year - or at least it is broadcast every year - on this date, and every year I try to make a point to listen. Google it and listen on line if you can't catch the live broadcast. It is inspiring.

Now I am ready.

We are fired up.

We are ready to go.

Watch us change the world.

Reader's bra poll

Hey all. The steel bra is done and delivered to the auction organizers.

The Bra art auction will take place on Saturday, August 1, 2009 at 4 p.m. at the Unitarian-Universalist Church on Easy Street (no kidding!) in Pittsfield, Maine. For more information, contact Sharon Mack at sharonkileymack@hotmail.com. I expect that there will be something set up soon to handle silent bids made in advance of the auction. Contact her if you want to learn more about it.

Here's the link: http://www.bras4thecause.org/

I received more than 60 suggestions for names for this marvelous creation. Laura and I have whittled that list down to five finalists, and we now present them to you for your consideration. Leave a note in the comments section regarding your favorite. The final choices are:

Brahilda

Gladiatrix

Iron Maidenform

Bra Templar

Bra Hallah

I look forward to seeing how this all shakes out. Also, here are some additional pictures of the bra from various angles. There is nothing but metal and paint in this thing. No plastic, no glue, nothing but sheet metal, bits of iron, some welding wire and paint. I am now half-tempted to make some kind of g-string to go with it. Note I said HALF tempted. I still have other stuff to do...

the bra is FINISHED!!!

And now it needs a name.

Suggestions, please?

Oh, and for the record, this is one of many bras that will be auctioned off to raise money for breast cancer stuff. I know the auction is August 1. I think it is in Pittsfield, Maine. I'll let you know more details once I have them.

But first it needs a name.

I am so tired

I can hardly think.

We went to Portland a week ago and haven't made it home yet.

Pride was awesome.

Seeing old friends was awesome.

Making new friends was awesome.

Having Quinn with us was a lot of fun, if trying at times.

I came down to spend a week doing a job for a friend and it rained all week. Bleah. It was an outside job. Could you guess? Yeah.

So we had a good week. The job finally got done, later than I had expected, and now my tools are packed and we're ready to head back up the highway tomorrow toward Bar Harbor.

Hopefully I will be able to write more when I am home and rested.

Mark V

This is the beauty that I built the box for on Saturday. I have no idea yet what most of these things do. I expect to learn by reading the owner's manual that has a price list from 1965.

It is as old as I am.

So I expect it to have some things that don't work like they once did. We'll see how it goes.

all I need is a cannonball...

You know, when a Civil War reenactor says such a thing, nobody flinches.

When a historian or a museum curator says such a thing, people consider it a reasonable request.

But when I say such a thing, they get nervous.

Here is a sample transcript of several nearly identical on-line conversations I had last week on facebook:

Dawn: I need a cannonball. Anybody got one?

Friend: You want a what?!

Dawn: a cannonball. You know, round piece of metal, like a ball, but steel.

Friend: Yes. I get that. WHY do you want a cannonball?

Dawn: To make a bra.

{very long silence}

Friend: To make a bra?

Dawn: yup. I need a cannonball.

Friend: to make a bra?

Dawn: yup. any idea where I can get one?

Friend: Why are you making a bra out of a cannonball?

Dawn: it's for an art auction. For breast cancer. I'm making the bra out of metal. I need the cannonball so I can hammer the metal into the shape of the bra cups.

{the light goes on}

Friend: Oooooohhhhh. OK. No. I have no idea where you can get a cannonball. Have you tried the park? By the cannon?

Dawn: those are all welded together. And I think the hysterical society might have something to say about it if I show up there with a piece of sheet steel and a ball peen hammer and start banging away.

Friend: right. well, good luck with that.

****

Now for a little back story. My friend Sharon, over at the Queen's Blog, is working on a project that has something to do with breast cancer stuff. I think it is a fundraiser/awareness raiser kind of thing. Anyway, she has asked lots of people to craft bras into pieces of art to be auctioned off by folks (we hope) drinking loads of wine and willing to pay big bucks for artistic renderings of a piece of women's undergarment. Here's one of her posts on the subject. At least I am guessing the wine might make that process flow a little more smoothly... Anyway, Sharon asked me to craft a bra from welded metal.

Aha.

It all begins to make sense now, doesn't it?

See, people automatically think the worst when I ask for a cannonball. Humph.

Only Sharon asked me to do this back in April, I think. There is a July 1 deadline. You know what's coming next, don't you? Yup. Wait for it...

So I started thinking about how to make a metal bra last week. Yes, in the second week of June. You got a problem with that? No? Good answer.

Well as it turns out, nobody could find or lend to me a cannonball. But I did find a shot put. I have right now, an eight-pound shot put on loan from the MDI High School Athletic Department, courtesy of the AD there, one fella named Bunky Dow. I called up, explained what I was doing, what I needed the shot put for, asked to borrow it, promised to return it, and he said "sure, swing by the gym tomorrow morning around 9:30." I love a small town.

The shot put is a steel ball approximately four inches in diameter and filled with lead. It is heavy as shit. Eight pounds of shit, to be precise. Holy crap.

So I took the shot put and headed of the the garage to get Laura's exhaust worked on. While I was there, I poked around in the junk pile where the guys tear apart wheel bearings and found a short piece of stainless pipe that once served as a wheel bearing housing. I asked, and the mechanic said sure, and I cleaned it up and brought it home to serve as a little platform/coaster kind of thing to hold the shot put. Very cool! Also while I was there, I picked up some steel ball bearings. I am not sure yet whether they will be used as nipples on the bra or as the ends of barbells through the nipples (think piercings). In either case, they'll find some cool use, I am sure.

I brought my newly acquired treasures down to my basement workshop and started hammering. Um. It takes a lot of hammering to bend sheet metal around a cannonball. In short order my wrist was sore. Off I go to Lowe's to pick up an air hammer that will run off my compressor. Wicked cool, and only 20 bucks. Nice. I got some extra chisels to go with it, too. I came home, and cut the pointy tip of one of the chisels right away and began to use that flat tip as a hammer. MUCH easier than a regular old ball-peen thing. Very nice.

Only now I have realized that the ball is going to give me a very shallow cup on the bra. This is not good. I need a bra that looks like it actually might hold real tits, you know. So far my comparison process involves me hammering the steel for a while, then holding it up to my own breast to see if it even comes close to looking like an actual bra (it didn't), then placing it back on the ball and hamemring some more. Eventually, I turned the metal over, and began to bang it with the ball peen again, only into the ring of the cannonball holder. OH! That works really well. Only the ring is about three inches in diameter, and I need something bigger than that. Like a piece of 6-inch pipe. Maybe even something bigger. Hmm.

Saturday, after I picked up the shrubs for a client, I stopped at the hardware store looking for a section of pipe that would meet my needs. I told the hardware store guys I was hammering out a bowl. It was easier than dealing with the looks I'd have received. One guy, who apparently spends many Saturday mornings hanging around the hardware store, directed me to a local contractor. "The garage is open" he said "there's usually guys there on a Saturday working on trucks." Off I went.

I found the garage, and it was indeed open, but there were no guys around. I did stop to admire a Luna moth hanging out on the side of the building, though. That was really cool. After a couple minutes, a guy in a BIG dump truck showed up and offered to help. I told him about my quest for short pieces of scrap pipe, and he directed me to the boneyard.

A construction boneyard is where the extra bits of this and that land after a job is finished. A searcher will find all kinds of things there, including odd pieces off pre-cast storm drains, extra lengths of metal and plastic corrugated culverts, odd, twisted pieces of I-beam, and (bless my heart!) scrap pieces of metal pipe. I found three likely pieces - one four-inch, one six-inch and one eight-inch diameter pipes. None of them is a foot long, and all will work splendidly on my workbench. I was very pleased with my acquisitions, and particularly since they were free. Woohoo!

Now it is Monday, and I am still puttering. I am going to pick up my Shopsmith Mark V today, dropping off that book shelf that I built Saturday, and looking for a larger ball peen hammer that I can cannibalize into something that will do what I want. I have no pictures yet of the metal, but once I get going in a direction that I think will be fruitful, I'll take some pictures and put them up. I will certainly post pictures once the project is complete.

But now you know why I was searching for a cannonball and why (and how) I am making a bra out of metal. I only hope it will look good next to the others at the auction. Time will tell.