"Too Polished" or "Let me just give you my card"

I will admit it, I'm afraid of people.  Despite being able to talk to random strangers, even the scary looking ones if my mom is telling the stories, I am afraid of meeting people if my own self promotion is involved.  Don't get me wrong, I cover it up really well, probably erring over to the side of coming across egotistical. Though maybe I just think that, and the false-self-awareness is what makes me nervous in the first place?  (Anyone else notice how easy my brain can morph anything into a circular, chicken or egg debate?)  But honestly, the most painful part of networking for me is getting and giving contact information.  It always seems so trite and rehearsed.  "Here, let me give you a card, which I have had made because I connect with a lot of people, you know.  I can't be writing my number out every time, I would get a hand cramp!" (insert double guffaw).

Anyway, fellow moon-light blogger, Jeannie Rose (of The Faux Gourmet and City Stories), asked me to go to the Brooklyn Blogger Meet-up at Bell House tonight.  I left my answer open ended, wondering if I could really show up and call myself a blogger when I hadn't posted in over a month, and there is so little of a theme in my posts anyway.  What do I refer to this thing as when introducing myself?  A theology blog, and cutting edge blog about a single girl in NYC? None of the specific labels fit, and it's not because this is so unique.  It's just not a very specific forum for me.  Anyway, all these things have been running around in my head, but ultimately, I'd like to pick up some writing, and I have to start somewhere.

So, last night I put together a new card.  Something that goes better with my redesign of Jromaniszak.com, up soon hopefully.  Which matches my imprint here, and on twitter, etc, etc.  Hopefully looking at my pretty design will distract people from my awkward delivery.

"Why, yes!  I would love to guest post!  Let me give you my information:  

Eat'n'Learn Round I: Pysanky Party

This is the first of several "Eat'n'Learn" events I will be hosting to generate some extra income for my self-employment dreams.  Future offerings will cover basic sewing, home canning, quilting, and other things I know how to do that people have expressed an interest in learning.  Want to learn something you think I may know how to do?  Let me know what it is!

 
Pysanky, pronounced peh-san-keh, with the emphasis on the "peh", is the Eastern European technique of egg dying.  Tradition goes that during the weeks leading up to Easter, eggs would be dyed in secret and revealed to others only on Easter morning when brought to church in a basket for the traditional Catholic Easter table blessing.   I taught myself how to do this last year and found it so entertaining that I thought I would offer to teach others this time.

I will have an "Eat'n'Learn" on March 26 at my apartment in Brooklyn.  I will provide a basic entree for dinner, and all the materials for 2 eggs for each pysanky-er; you bring whatever you would like to contribute to a donation bin for a "class fee" and you own beverages for the evening.  The class fee is a suggested $10-$15 donation or something of equivalent worth; I am open to barters.  If you are so inclined, you are also welcome to contribute something to share for the dinner or a desert.

YOU MUST RSVP by 3/24/2010 so I know how much supplies I need to pick up.  Please spread the word and invite any friends you think might be interested in learning.  I will have to limit class size at a certian point, though, I don't anticipate maxing out.

Don't let any creative fears hold you back; pysanky can be as basic or complicated, as traditional or modern as you would like.  Last year my favorite egg had a picture of a beet  and marshmellow peeps on it.  And though it is traditionally considered a feminine art, I see no reason gender should stop anyone in this case.

Some of my non-traditional eggs from last year.

The Basics: Making the eggs is less complicated than it appears, though you do have to "think backwards" during the planning stages  (kind of like a riddle).   Patterns are created by marking lines with kistka (a little metal funnel on a stick) which is heated in a candle flame and then dipped in beeswax.  You draw on a raw egg with the beeswax, marking out what you want to be a particular color (white=marked the first round, yellow=the second,... black= never marked off).  At the end of the dying process, your egg is all black.  You let it dry, and then melt off the beeswax by holding it over a flame rubbing the shell with a soft cloth when it is shiny.  You are left with a colorful egg.  The more skill you have with the kistka, the more detailed your egg gets.

"Shoreline" or "Why canoes and Water Taxi Beach make me uncomfortable."

 

I love the shore of Brooklyn. Be it Coney Island, Plum Beach, Red hook, Dumbo, or the small inlets of Dockside. The closer I get to the shore, the better I feel, the brighter and clearer the sun shines. I like going in the morning, before the nanny/child pilgrims and the surveyors. I like being alone near the shore.

I was afraid of boats for a long time, but really just deep water. I have always attributed it to a Fourth of July in Michigan, 1993 or 4, I think. We were spending the holiday with an older couple; my mom had been tutoring the wife and they invited us to their cottage on a lake near Holland, Michigan. It was evening and my mom and I were sitting on the top of a double-decker pontoon boat which was docked in the back. We were watching some teenagers two properties down, who were setting off fireworks towards the middle of the lake. One of the rockets went sideways and landed in the water a few feet in front of us. The neighbors yelled their apologies, but I was terrified that it was still blazing and was going to pierce one of the floats, like a torpedo, and sink us. I asked my mom if we should go inside, and she said it was okay. The boat wouldn't sink or and they were going to be more careful. A few minutes later, she slammed my head forward onto the AstroTurf flattening herself over me as another stray bounced on the turf behind us, leaving the smell of melted plastic before hissing into the water on the other side. I wasn't scared in the few minutes as we climbed down, just shocked that it had happened again, that I had forseen what my mom couldn't. I am not afraid of fireworks.

The shore line draws me now because it is a definition. It is an end and limit placed on development. House boats and pier resturants keep it from being an edge, but there is only a minimal blur. Everything here is expanding, trying to claim as much space as possible, but the water is there, steady and moving at once. It has no need for gluttony. Thus far, it remains uncolonized by permanent fixtures.

The closer you get to the water in Brooklyn, the further you get from civilization. Even from those western views that afford the grandest views of King Manhattan, you can feel separate. The trains, concieved of and laid down before ferry boats were obsolete, aren't close enough to be convenient. We are on an island, but you must be so intentional about getting to the edge.

+++++++++++++++++++

Sure shore: You are there, like the edge of the world; like when He separated night and day and you became the evening and dawn. I am bound to one side by my human nature, though I long to be enveloped by the mystery of the other side.

I love being alone near the shore.