I’ve been listening to the audio commentary on Frankenstein: The True Story while I painted tonight and I was very amused when they explained the melting arm effect. Before they could say how they did it, I said “Acetone and styrofoam, obviously!”
It only then occured to me that most children don’t grow up melting styrofoam in acetone for fun!
The thing about growing up with a fiberglassing business in the back yard, and no employees but family, you end up playing there. Add in the farm surrounded it, the boat at the river, the woods, my parents’ scientific interests and gear, and my family’s relaxed attitude to child safety that amounted to “they have good sense, they’ll be careful” ** and you end up with kids that think risky stuff is just fun every day life.
I forget what other people haven’t done, or what others consider dangerous. I’m so sorry for kids trapped in scheduled and ultra safe lives. I would have been bored out of my mind, and the one thing I never was was bored! ***
**Which actually was pretty true. Neither my brother or I broke any bones or visited a hospital emergency room for an accident. Which is why I am so darn annoyed about the machete incident the other day. I was more careful when I used a machete as a little girl than I was when I cut my fool self this week!
***Except at school! I was bored like you wouldn’t believe in school! I used to fill notebook pages with the word “bored”, trying to come up with new ways to write it. I took notes writing upside down and backwards, often in little codes I made up, just to keep my sanity! In high school a teacher kept me after class to chide me for watching the clock, so I pointed out I had the highest grades in the class and did she really expect me to only stare at her face the whole time... She wouldn’t like that, BTW. I had developed a glare that gave one teacher a nervous twitch every time I used it on him. And yes, I know “best students”and “valedictorians” get depicted as school loving teacher’s pets, a bunch of Hermiones..well, fuck that! I hated that school so damn much!!!!
