OCD Nerdliness

I definite geek, nerd, and dork differently. To me, they are related but distinct categories.

 

Geek--someone who likes strange things, things that may not be "cool" or socially acceptable to a random selection of people. Geeks are weird but can still have social skills.
Nerd--someone who likes science, math, computers, videogames and other "nerdly" activities. Frequently socially awkward but is painfully aware of it, sometimes shy, has a hard time getting laid.
Dork--someone who is socially awkward but doesn't know it (ignorance is bliss). Likes silly or dumb things.

 

Many will disagree with my definitions, but that's my worldview and I'm comfortable with it.

 

I primarily identify myself as a geek (or geek beak, a special appellation given to those geeks with a tendency to get very silly. I think that's what my momma meant when she called us that, anyways).

 

But sometimes other traits surface. Particularily with items that strike the OCD cord in me. To me certain habits are really inner nerdliness making itself known.

 

For instance, at work I use a variety of colored highlighters. They reside in a metal mesh cup on my desk. They all have to have the caps facing down (to make them last longer) and they have to go in the order of the rainbow (see my obsession with rainbows here).

Other OCD things of mine:

• I own blue, green, yellow, orange, and red Fiesta dinnerware. The dishes must be stacked in order of the rainbow as well. Since inheriting additional green plate settings from my dad, it's been driving me nutso that I have more green than any other color since it disrupts my neat ordered world.
• When stacking things of varying sizes, they must go in order of largest-to-smallest.
• Square things out of alignment make me a bit bonkers, so I will straighten them to align with edges whether it's my property or not.
• Papers have to be completely squared when stapled, paperclipped, or stacked together.
• My closet is organized by the type of clothing--tanks, stretchy tops, sweaters, button shirts, tunics, etc. I use items that are a bit of both to act as "transition" pieces (I draw the line at organizing by color within these categories).
• My books, CDs and DVDs are organized not alphabetically, but by most favorite to least favorite. It's a system that makes no sense to anyone but me. I know if somethings out of place however!
• Folded towels--these must be folded in a certain way (hotdog hamburger hamburger), with every towel stacked the same way so that the big fold faces out. When my husband folds towels I have a hard time not going back & refolding them after he's done. He caught me doing it once and threatened to never fold towels again. Now we have an agreement that he washes & I fold them, and everyone's happy.
• Grocery shopping. I make a meal plan for the week and write down everything needed for the meals. Then I cross off whatever we currently have at home, and re-write the list so that the items are in the same order I would find them as I walk through the store. While at the store, I get out my little calculator and add up the item cost so I know where I'm at with my budget (and whether I can get that box of ice cream cones...)
• Keyboards. I have to type on a keyboard before I purchase it. If it doesn't feel or sound right, I won't buy it. If you see me in Best Buy or Office Max near the keyboards, you'll catch me typing on them just for fun.

There are other things but I think that's enough sharing for now.

I come by my OCD honestly. I can't say whether it's nature or nurture, as my mom has her OCD things too, and while I've picked up some habits that are the same, others are entirely my own, and some (like the coffee mug handles all having to point in the same direction) I somehow escaped.

What's your OCD nerdliness like?

This Is What Makes Me a Happy DM

I've been playing in the same D&D 3.5 edition RPG adventure since 2005.*

It's been a really great time. I've learned a lot since we started playing this game. My previous experiences with D&D was a much looser form of play, not nearly so much Rules As Written (RAW) like I play more often now.

Some of the players have joined & left since we started way back when, but a few core people remain and the last and current iteration of the group works really well together. We're a bit large for a normal D&D group. Like any team, the most effective size is 4-5 people. We have 7 currently, including myself as the DM. This game has been co-ran since it's inception, so although DM's typically don't get a PC to play, in this game they do because you will need your PC when someone else is taking their turn at being DM.

Did I mention that added to this large party size, we all had god-like ability stats to start with? That through one DM or another we've had access to just about every "goodie" a role-player could ask for? And that we have several NPC's that are badass all on their own?

For you non-role players out there, this would be like the equivalent of giving kids all the caffeine, sugar, ability and access to all kinds of mayhem they could ever desire, and then trying to get them to settle down and sit quietly.

All of these ingredients could very well turn our game sessions into one big disaster. Luckily for us, we are a group of people who really want to play and enjoy it. We've figured out a formula for our sessions:

1) Have a start time 1 hour earlier than you actually plan to play (this helps to ensure you get started within 2 hours of everyone's arrival, at least).
2) Potluck the food--no one person should have to pay for the Cheetos & Mountain Dew all the time.
3) Take mini-breaks to allow for socializing and off-track moments.
4) Have an awesome group of people who respect each other & just want to have fun.

Currently we're wrapping this game up. It's a bit scary--I'm the DM right now and there's a lot of pressure to end this game in spectacular fashion. We've had these characters for several years, watched them grow and change from 1st-20th level. Most likely we won't ever see these PC's again, unless a DM takes them out of retirement for future game use as NPC's.

But I must be doing something right...witness comments from our email chain after this Saturday's game:

That was just about one of my favorite games ever.  We got to crack Amanda and Sarah's secret language, we go to blow up a ziggaraut, and we got to do some awesome fighting.  It was like the perfect combination of puzzles for thinking, mindless destruction for fun, and combat for everything in between.  Keep it going Sarah!!!

Agree, kudos on the game! I was loathe to stop, it felt like one of those games I could play all night if it wasn't for stupid job... :P

Anyone call dibs on recap? Speak soon or I'll be starting it.

 Totally completely frickin awesome fun! Everything about it was great. I agree I would have kept playin if not for damn cheeldren! Playing as Kevel was a sweet bonus to go along with it!

This is completely validating for me as a DM. I've worked hard on the plot to keep everyone interested, to keep the sense of drama high, and to give our PC's a slam-bam exit and finish to this game.

We played for about 6 hours Saturday evening. The group got a chance to crack a code giving a clue for the next game session. No easy-out for these PC's by using the Skill Decipher Script here! (May my BFF forgive me for using our secret language developed in school to keep boys from reading our notes to each other).

Although I have to say, the boys who stole our notes in middle school either weren't very smart or very curious about their contents, even if they did steal the notes & complain about not being able to read it. My friends and hubby had that code cracked in less than an hour. (In my BFF & my defense, we were little when we created it and it was pure substitution, ie each letter had a corresponding symbol).

It makes me a happy geek girl. Especially since I once had someone give me the stinkeye when he heard I was going to DM. He actually had the nerve to say to me, "Oh, you're going to DM? I don't think girls can DM well. I haven't had good experiences in the past."

You can believe that I showed him the error of his beliefs that night.

*For those of you not "in the know" or who don't speak the geek dialect of role-playing, here's a glossary:
DM: Dungeon Master, the person who runs the game & is responsible for directing what happens and keeping everyone on track.
D&D: Dungeons & Dragons
RPG: Role-playing game
PC: Player-character, a character created and ran by someone playing the game
NPC: You guessed it, this is a non-player character. Could be a previously used & now retired character brought out by the DM, or someone the DM created for the game, or could be a PC's "follower" and is controlled by that player.

A Few of My Favorite Things...Pop Culture Combined with My Little Ponies!

A co-worker clued me into an artist who uses My Little Ponies as the foundation for sculpture art.
Mari Kasurinen is from Finland and I might be a little bit in love with her after seeing these. 

While inside I shudder a bit to think of the desecration of all those Ponies, I think this she is incredibly  talented and inspired to see the possibilities from each Pony body shape and transform her vision into reality.
Here are some of my favorites. What a concept and medium to work with! It's like a dream come true, having these embodiments of fond childhood memories remade into favorite geekery of other types. 

For some of them I can see the pony shape and guess which Pony the character started off as. For others the sculpture completely disguises the underlying My Little Pony.

My absolute favorite?

The time and effort this must take! My mind boggles.

I appreciate her dedication to the details of making each character turn out just so, with the end result so recognizable. Someday I'd like to buy or even commission one of these from her.

Maybe I'd even give up one of my precious Ponies for the cause. Then again, maybe I wouldn't.







Prismatic Influences

I love rainbows.

I've loved them as long as I can remember.



I take a picture if I can when I see them.

This winter has been a learning experience for me, someone who thought she knew winter's tricks and beauty. Thundersnow? Never heard of it or paid attention before, but apparently it happens. How cool! And there can also be winter rainbows, because that's exactly what I saw outside that one morning. I wish I had gotten a picture the other week when I walked to the bus stop and saw one. It was bitterly cold and the air was filled with ice crystals. The air itself glittered and the wind was swirling it about. I turned for a second to look around and saw the faintest curve of color in the eastern sky. I almost made myself late for the bus looking at it, not believing my eyes. It made perfect sense why I was seeing one, but to actually witness it was lightening and put automatic joy in my being just for the fact of its existence.

But unfortunately I did not get a good picture of it to show here. You'll have to take my word for it and instead enjoy this from pic just outside my front door after a nice storm this past summer.

I'm can't articulate clearly why I love them so much. But I can try to explain with actual pictures and by giving you mental pictures.

I was sort of surrounded by them growing up. Literally.

See that? I was a very bookworm before I could really read myself.

My bedroom growing up was a complete Rainbowland. Wondrous and filled with light. It was on the east side of the house and had windows on the north, south and east walls, covered in bright, cheery blue blinds. The carpet was a more subdued and textured type of blue. The bedsheets were meadows like the ones above or bright pink 60's geometric flowers. Bedspreads were bright colors, floral patterns or pink and purple quilts. The ceiling was shining white drop panels.

And the walls were covered in wallpaper patterns of clouds, suns, and rainbows. Maybe this is why?

Or it could be the rainbow sticker that was in the back window of our red Volkswagen Beetle with the moon roof. I always loved that sticker. And somewhere, I'm sure I still have that plastic piece off of a girl's gym bag that was a pastel rainbow. The bag is long gone, but I loved to hold and look at that little plastic rainbow. It felt like a talisman.

Rainbow Brite was another favorite childhood character. Coincidence? She had two things going for her--she was Rainbow Brite and she had a beautiful horse named Starlite who had a magnificent rainbow mane and tail. Like many little girls, I loved horses passionately. As a teenager I even had a Rainbow Brite bedspread my mom found for me online.

He's a little grubby but that just means he's well-loved.

And yes, Starlite IS a he.

Some of the first cosplay I ever did was going to Convergence as Rainbow Brite.

Don't ask what he did to have to wear the Cone of Shame.

Totally different kind of 80's flashback than
most people see when having one

The Convergence crew. My orange friend isn't
really a giant, the rest of us are just short.

Hasbro was another rainbow-pusher. All those My Little Ponies with their silken locks and pastel bodies with cute designs on the flanks. Was it any wonder that some of my favorite Ponies had rainbow hair?

 Wizard, on the left, is probably my favorite Pony of all time.

Even today I am addicted to them. I take pictures from the car if I see them. My car still has the furry rainbow CD holder on the visor and the puffy seatbelt pad that I had in my first car.

My first car was THE rainbow-mobile. I had rainbow fuzzy dice, visor CD holder, steering wheel cover, seatbelt pads, air fresheners, even furry rainbow worms from the Claw machine at work that sat in the dash and back window.

The kicker was that I went so far as to purchase bright rainbow fabric and put it all over the car. The entire backseat and ceiling were covered in it. I held up the celing fabric with push in tacks that didn't work very well. I drove an Oldsmobile Delta88 as my first car. That's a LOT of car translating into a LOT of rainbow. It was an old car with no AC, so in the summer the open windows had a tendancy to flap the fabric and cause the tacks to fall out. If you weren't ponying up gas money, the price for riding in my boat of a car (aside from the occasional tack in your ass) was to push in any loosening tacks that you saw (or reapply "found" tacks).

I used to think the rainbows had superpowers. I got pulled over almost a dozen times between getting my license and turning 20, and never once got a ticket. Not even when doing 85mph in a 55mph zone, driving without headlights, or being pulled over for having no tabs and the cop told me to "Take those animals out of the window," in a really mean voice. When he said that I thought for sure I was a goner. Maybe the sight of that sort of sad, fuzzy worm face with it's sun-faded rainbow colors made him take pity on me. Perhaps I just have an innocent face or my clean record saved me, over and over. But never a ticket in all those instances.

There's all my rainbow things, like my favorite winter hat EVER, the loss of which I mourn annually with the coming of every winter. It was a navy blue beanie with a rainbow circling the middle.



My friend T and his sister K, also my good friend



The Caution Fairy: Early cosplay?





I have a favorite rainbow sweater very similar in color/style to my hat, a rainbow knit purse, a rainbow assortment of Fiesta dinnerware, eye-blinding striped rainbow pajama pants, sweatshirts and a backpack; wore them as feather boas, and I love my purple visor with the sparkly rainbow on the brim and the white visor with the transparent plastic rainbow bill. At work my highlighters must be in the order of the rainbow to satisfy my OCD.

I'm a bit obsessed perhaps. But this appears to be a harmless obsession.

After all, rainbows also represent beautiful, happy, wonderful things. A leprechaun's pot of gold, a promise from the creator, that sweet thing that makes you sing "Somewhere across the rainbow..."

Growing up, Starlite and Rainbow Brite traversed a rainbow road, the Ponies' main defense was the Rainbow of Light and their friend Megan went over the rainbow to get to Ponyland. Good things come from or are associated with them.

It comes out after the rain to signal to the world that the storm is over, and everything has been cleansed.

Whatever the reasons, I like knowing that I'll always be able to take joy in something so stunningly beautiful.



Cabin Fever Will Strike Soon

Thank goodness this type of thing isn't happening in my neck of the Midwest anymore.

This was the scene on Lake Drive in Illinois on February 2nd. My department at work has a sister region in Illinois and we had to cover their functions while they dealt with this.

My sister's co-worker sent her this pic.

I'm happy to say that right now, it's shorts weather in Minnesota.

I'm joking, of course. Maybe. It's above 40°F right now, which is a heat wave for February. A temperature of 40°F in March/April allows Minnesotans to feel that it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and t-shirts again. The same temperature in October makes us reach for our bulky down jackets. It's all a matter of tolerance.

It's enough to make me feel like spring is just out of sight around the month's turn. Unfortunately this is not true--we're most likely in for a cold, snowy and mushy March, followed by a cold, rainy and mucky April. Still, it's hard to resist the temptation to think Spring really is here. It's made me brave enough to wear a few skirts to work this week (well, that and the fact that I need to do laundry badly). The yard is looking shrunken somehow. I never knew that height could make a yard look bigger, but the couple feet of snow layered on the front and back yards has been steadily declining and somehow the backyard looks smaller.

Of course all this wonderful melting has it's downside. The ugly part of winter is arriving--the part where all the snow is black from pollution and dirt (although it was sorta fun "finding" all the pine needles from our Christmas tree where we put it out for the garbage man). The part where your shoes are constantly wet and muddy and you have to do the skitter-walk to maintain your balance on wet melting ice patches.

I won't bitch too much however, because this thaw is short lived and we won't see this type of weather for a few more weeks most likely. It's especially nice coming off of the deep freeze of last week, where I "Princess Parked" downtown several times (phrase stolen unapologetically from my mother) in order to avoid losing my legs or other limbs waiting for a bus that is often late.

And either way, I can be happy that the snowstorm above didn't hit us (For Once!) and we didn't have to shovel more mountains of snow onto already huge piles. At least now driving in my neighborhood will be a tiny bit safer, now that some of the end-of-driveway mounds have melted down enough for you to see the car coming through the uncontrolled intersection.

Scary Times Ahead

There are some scary times ahead in the Doll-House (this name is a play on my new last name and how I affectionately refer to my residence).

My hubby jokes that I married a broken man. He & his father are both accident-prone and have a tendency to be clumsy. My father-in-law has fallen off of a ladder, twice, and broken ribs and during the subsequent hospital stays ended up with pneumonia. He also narrowly avoided death by e.coli when consuming some bad Dole lettuce a few years back (but boy, was he excited about the Dateline spot he got after an investigation was done). My hubby regularly has scrapes and dings from adventures at work or disc golfing and has broken several bones in his childhood. He's had two hernia surgeries before he was 25 and had a cyst develop on his tailbone (which were caused by his unfailing work ethic & desire to do things at 110%).

But despite all this, I sometimes forget just how broken my man is.

It's not all my fault! I swear. Yes, I'm forgetful and scatterbrained, but some of the blame can be laid at the foot of my husband's tolerance for pain. He has a high pain tolerance. I'm pretty sure I have a low one, but other than a small tattoo and some teeth pain once, I haven't had much opportunity to test my limits.

His tolerance for pain is directly linked to his addiction for things he likes. If he likes something, he's going to do it, pain schmain. So it's easy for me to forget just how much pain he lives with on a daily basis.

About five years ago, he was managing an auto parts store and they were increasing their inventory by a large margin. My hubby is not one to sit back & let the underlings do things while he sits cozy in an office, so of course he was helping to unload all of this freight. Much of which was heavy pallets of oil, batteries, brake cores, and various other things that require heavy lifting.

Around that time his lower back started to hurt. At first he brushed it off, thinking it would go away on its own. When it didn't, he saw various doctors. All of whom told him, "Pfffaw. You're too young to have back pain. Do some exercises." He diligently attended physical therapy, but his enthusiasm waned when nothing got better. Chiropractic visits either had him feeling nothing or he felt better for a minute, and then later on was worse off.

Fast forward to last August, when we went on our fateful annual camping trip to the Barrens (it's in Wisconsin. Enough said.). We aren't cool enough (old enough? No, rich enough!) to own a camper yet, so we do the tent-thing. I had a humongous 3-room tent that we stuffed with a queen-size air mattress and ourselves. The first night after sleeping on the air mattress, B was in serious pain. After the second night, I think he was ready to kill me and steal the car and go back home.

Shortly after our camping trip, the back pain became severe enough where complaints from him became more frequent. I'm not saying he never complained before, but the frequency definitely went up after we got back. Then his leg started going numb and alternating with shooting pains.

Mulishly stubborn Russian/Irish/German mutt that he is, it took a little bit before he went to see a doctor about it. This time, however, the doctors believed him. We figured that in previous visits, he didn't act like he was in pain at all. So it was probably hard for the docs to take him seriously. Now the pain was definitely showing. He was walking like an old man and stumbling on his numb leg like a drunken pirate. After an x-ray showed that something was up with his L5-S1 disc in his spine, the doc finally referred him for an MRI.

The results? My hubby's been living with a ruptured/herniated/degenerative disc for the past several years. The leg pain comes from the nerves in his spine being pinched between the L5 and S1 vertabrae.

This picture of fusion surgery doesn't show a fusion of the same bones the Big B

will need fused but does point out his vertabrae so you can see where it hurts.

After several months of trying this (both injected & oral cortizone treatments) or telling the doctors that he had already tried that, he finally got recommended for spinal surgery. Specifically, fusion of his L5-S1 vertabrae. My dad's lived with similar back pain all of his life, from issues in the same spot. He had the cutting surgery, where instead of fusing the bones they went in and cut out the scar tissue from the ruptured disc. He still has the back pain, but the shooting pains in his legs and numbness from the nerve pinching did go away.

But in my poor broken husband's case, fusion is the best chance at eliminating the pain or reducing to an amount that he can live with. We finally got the ok from our medical provider and in less than 2 weeks he will be going under the knife and hopefully making a big change for the better.

He's nervous; I'm nervous. He's stressed; I'm stressed. This has led to the bickering level to rise a bit around the Doll-House lately (see my previous post here about our "discussions"). We're both trying to be better about it--he to be less grouchy no matter how cranky his pain is making him, and me to remember that he is dealing with constant pain that never goes away so I should cut him some slack in the crabbiness department.

Of course, me being the eternally hopeful optimist that I am, I can see the silver lining in all this. His degenerative disc is a good spot for fusion--he shouldn't lose much mobility (and hopefully will lose no distance off of his disc golf drives!)

Here's what it'll look like after the surgery.



Also, B will be off work for several weeks at a minimum while his healing happens (it won't be fully fused for 6 months). While we're both a little apprehensive at what this means for our financial budget, there is a bright side:

We both get extended periods of time off of work!

Granted, he'll be mostly physically incapacitated the entire time and I'll still have school to attend, homework to complete, and all of the household chores. But still! More than a week off from work for me is a treat, no matter what's going on. And we get to spend it together.

My hopes are that we'll gain a newfound appreciation for each other during this time. I'll realize just how much stuff he does around the house that I don't give him credit for, and he'll see that I'm practically Florence Nightingale in the flesh.

Or we'll end up killing each other. My money's on moi, not just because it's me, but because how fast can a man in a back brace run, really?



Autopilot

Ever been thinking or daydreaming, and then realized some time later that whatever you were doing for the past X minutes, you were doing completely on autopilot?

I have.

It's most scary when I'm driving. You know, where you're driving for several miles and then realize that you haven't actually seen the road those past few minutes. Sure, your eyes may be staring straight ahead, your hands on 10:00 and 2:00 on the steering wheel (thanks Momma), and you look like the very model of a good driver, but in reality were a deer or small person to jump out in the middle of the road, your reactions would be slower than a lush having a really bad New Year's Eve.

Luckily it tends to happen most often when I'm forced to read something dry and technical. Like procedures at work or school textbooks (don't get me wrong, I find Supply Chain Management absolutely fascinating, but unfortunately Quality Management doesn't extend to considering that the customers of textbooks would love some humor once in awhile).

I'm always amazed when I realize that I've truly been multitasking with my mind for several minutes. I've heard of this strange phenomenon, that really smart people can be having a completely engaged conversation with you while solving complex physics problems in their heads.

But while I'm no slouch in the brains department (modesty is where I'm lacking, hee hee), I've never considered myself that intelligent. However, when I realize I've been simultaneously reading a book and thinking about all the laundry I need to do, and what I'm making for dinner tomorrow, etc etc, and I have still managed to retain the information I just read, I'm floored.

Go brain! Such a neat thing, really. I'm glad I have it.

Sorry, sorry, you can smack me with the droll ruler now.

More seriously however, how amazing is it that we can so effectively divide our brain power that way? Usually when I try to do it on purpose it's very difficult. But somehow I have no problem doing so if one of the tasks I'm doing is not very fun. I'm not talking just about the mundane multitasking, where you pretend to work when you're really goofing off or you're vacuuming while daydreaming about Hugh Jackman as Wolverine running around in a white tank, glorious hairy man-boobs protruding deliciously.

I'm speaking of the true multitasking, where you multitask inside your brain. I'd like to hear from you, fledgling followers. Does this happen to you?

Makin' Progress

The Steampunk party at the Doll House was this past weekend, and I gathered with a small group of friends to brainstorm and work on costume and accessory ideas. Nobody produced a whole lot in the way of physical results, but plenty of ideas were floating around. My roomie had eagerly dived into research for us and put together a slide show of pics to get us storming along. I can't lie; the evening did devolve into a game of Universalis, but I perservered and continued working industriously away while the cat-mafia on the space station battled for the Hand Drill in an epic adventure to keep the sun from blowing up and a time paradox to kill all the parrot people (refer to Universalis link above to understand this last bit more).

I did manage to get a few things done, mainly a pair of goggles that I'm particularly happy with. Now I have a direction to go in, and some idea of what I'll need to get there. But before I reveal them, I need to update you on my roomie's compass. He's made some modifications that I think improved it greatly and the finished product is detailed, functional and beautiful.

He changed the interior of the compass by removing the gear he had

added and allowing the compass needle to spin freely. Instead, he mounted gears into the compass covering  by heating them up and then melting them into the plastic for hold.

For more outside decoration, he placed a piece of circle of aluminum can in the center and twisted wire around in a cool design. I can almost see the electromagnetic energy powering this thing!

My roomie is so clever! He used a gear to make the cover movable so you can access the inside of the compass and needle. He even uses another gear at the opposite side to keep it in place.

Good thing too, because in taking all the pictures I made the needle

fall off its teeny tiny pole! Luckily for me, he had built in a way to fix it.

My roomie also got started on a gun for himself made out of a cylindrical flask & cigar holder combo and an empty air canister.

Its very rough but you can see the promise.

My gun, on the other hand, is mostly conjecture at this point.

It works pretty great with minimal effort. My cat Gizmo loves to play fetch and he thought that mommy had brought him home a new toy at first. But this toy is for mommy, my fuzzy one! My buddy suggested I set up a mechanism that holds back a spring that can be released with a trigger to work the pump. Which is probably exactly how Nerf guns work, I'm sure. At this stage I'm wondering if the effort of building such a thing would be worth it knowing that, but I'm not ruling it out just yet. It would be really cool to build a projectile gun around this cheap $2 toy that has some real heft to it. Just wandering around the garage that night, I discovered all kinds of interesting metal pieces and shapes that have future ray gun potential.

Finally on to the culmination of my evening!

I wanted to get my hands dirty but needed a small project to start off with. Eye wear seemed appropriate, and after a household scavenge I came up with some materials that had great parts that practically screamed "Goggles!" at me.

I started off making a template with some practice foam and getting the eye hole placement just right. As you can see, earlier designs needed some tweaking!

 The plastic cups were handily left behind at our Halloween party. Thanks Jello-shot Man, whoever you were!

Can you guess what the other cannibalized object from around the house was?

(Best sacrifice of a bra ever!) The straps could be used for two separate pairs of goggles, and my roomie gave me an idea on how to use the clasps to my advantage. We figured we could probably find a use for the pad and lace at some point too. Waste not, want not!

My final working prototype convinced me this was definitely doable.

I cut the clasps in half so I would be able to create two of these if I wanted. By cutting the goggles in half at the bridge of the nose and attaching the bra clasps, I would be able to make goggles that I could take apart and let hang down on either side of my neck. What airship crew member would be without these puppies?

Of course this move necessitated another tryout before moving to final production stages.

The next step would be adding the finishing touches, like metallic paint and the telescoped "lenses". Not as easy as it seemed! I must have burned my fingers with hot glue several times getting all the metal in place. Wire resists being twisted prettily, and if you force it, ugly crimps develop easily. I can already tell that wire will be an ongoing purchase during the next few months.

I am very pleased with the results. With extremely cheap materials, a little ingenuity and elbow grease, I have a nice pair of original goggles.

I think the ability to split them at the bridge of the nose is one of the coolest features.

I added the big gear to help camouflage the bump from the clasps and added some more for flair to the temple area. Even the staples from securing the strap gave it a nice touch (so far as we can tell, nothing sticks to craft foam except latex paint, and that apparently only to itself when applied to craft foam. Staples were my go-to solution. Some use duct tape, I use staples).

It's kind of hard to see, but I beveled the material surrounding the plastic goggles to make sure they didn't impair my eyesight. 

I'm not sure what costume these will end up being used on, but no matter where they end up I'm going to be excited to show off their functionality.

Of course they needed one final field test before I could consider them complete.

In the end I decided not to put lenses in this set. I did have some clear plastic that would have worked well but I prefer not to mess with my eyesight right now. I can always modify later on if I change my mind. My only complaint with these are that the end product feels very fragile. In fact, during the taking of the picture above I dislodged one of the metal circles on the left eye and had to re-glue it. (A couple of days after construction and they appear to be holding up).

My next iteration plans on solving the durability problem using leather. However, the leather my roomie had purchased is stiffened. I looked up some ways to soften old leather using household items and found a recipe that called for isopropyl alcohol and Vaseline. I cut out another front-clasping goggle pattern out of some of the leather and used the inner eye pieces as test subjects. Its hard to tell the difference in color with this photo, but the eye patterns are the original untouched leather, the piece on the left is softened using the homemade alcohol-Vaseline solution, and the piece on the right was done using saddle soap found at the pharmacy and used to soften shoes. I felt that the homemade remedy worked better, but my hubby B thinks the saddle soap did better. The saddle soap did discolor the leather less than the Vaseline/alcohol solution, and when bent doesn't ripple up as badly either. Clearly, more experimentation is called for here.

 I also decided that my next pair of leather goggles would be a more traditional one-piece in white leather, to accommodate one of the costume ideas I had. The new pattern is in orange, compared to the old pattern used for the overlapping and detaching goggles.

Also at the party was my buddy Jack's girlfriend Courtney. She's a talented sculptress and was playing with my roomie's modeling clay all evening. She created a seahorse and some spiders and I just had to have them cooked and hardened for preservation.

I asked her to make me another seahorse, thinking that perhaps I could put a flatter one on the bridge of the brown leather goggles in the same place the gear is located in my first version.

Check out the spiders she created later on! I have no idea how she was able to create those teensy little barely-there mandibles!

I still have a lot of work to do, this is just the beginning. I plan on doing my ambitious steampunk Demona costume and have added a steampunk Rainbow Brite to the mix as well. If inclination, materials, funds and time permits, I may do a steampunk for steampunk's sake outfit as well. Possibilities continue to percolate!

The event is over and I felt it was a success. The only sad part was that it was the last night I got to spend with my roomie for several months. His job requires him to be on the road for months at a time, and he was heading out Sunday afternoon. We shared one last pic before saying goodbye.

He's still in touch thanks to the digital world, and he'll be spending his time in some warm and tropical vacation areas, even if he is working. I wish I could join him in Florida and Hawaii, but will have to content myself with the knowledge that spring isn't too far away now, even for the snowy cold north.

Hopefully this will inspire you to try some steampunk creation or other cosplay of your own. I've found it's best to just look at everyday materials in a new light, have creative friends who live outside the box, and a willingness to experiment.

More to come as the weeks crawl towards summer and that desperately hot and humid month of July which is the exact opposite of February.