By Tom Merriman
Just noticed this achievement in my dashboard. Nine years ago today I registered with WordPress and launched myself into the scary world of Blogging. I keep saying this – but I love it!
Tomorrow, I begin Year Ten. Today, I celebrate completing Nine Years. I must have been very young when I started!
What makes a good character?
Someone mysterious? Boring? Risqué? Over-the-top? Untouchable? Surreal? Perfect? Ludicrous? Rude? Quiet? Professional? Heart-felt? Needy? Brash? Sexy? Offensive? Kind? Alien? Square? Thoughtless? Thoughtful? Dreamy? Inept? Quirky? Confident? Artistic? Argumentative? Stubborn? Creative? Constructive? Forward-thinking? Magical? Business-minded? Helpful? Shut-off? Energetic? Charismatic? Disabled? Old-fashioned? Forward-thinking? Imaginative? Colourful? Radiant? Beautiful? Ugly? Robotic? Moronic? Warm? Cold? Holier-than-thou? Devilish? Inappropriate? Risk-taker? Stick-in-the-mud? Comical? Interesting?
A mixture of all? Just one? Maybe a couple?
There are a lot of ‘interesting’ characters that call by this blog that could easily fit into the list above. Myself included… Tom Merriman’s a character, don’t forget. OK. Maybe ‘interesting’ was the wrong choice of word.
My characters are all adaptable. They try to fit into a number of different scenarios. Some they take to like a duck to water, and others they’re like a fish out of it.
But they are still characters. Surreal creations that exist in Universes far, far away. Surreal lives with surreal existences that desperately need for their surreal stories to be told.
But are they good characters?
I don’t know. They’re all a work in progress.
With beanie hat in tow (with a pair of old tights tied on top) Thomasina (my Inner Woman) reappeared this week demanding another portrait be made. You can’t refuse such a request. Really, you can’t. I have tried.
Ripping the Mona Thomasina out of the frame, Thomasina said “We’ll use this again. And for the next three.” Which was her way of telling me she wanted another three portraits doing. “For this run!” she adds. See? Refusal is not an option.
This rip off version of a classic is based upon Girl with a Pearl Earring, an oil painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, dated around 1665. There is a movie of the same name, starring Colin Firth (as Vermeer, not the girl!), which wasn’t the inspiration for this picture, as I haven’t seen that movie. The painting wasn’t named as such when it was first done, but this is the name it currently holds.
As with last week’s painting, this week’s is slightly similar yet totally different once again to the original to which upon it is based. Thomasina is looking the wrong way for starters. She’s also wearing that hat and tights combo, and her earring most definitely isn’t pearl. It’s a clip-on one. And this painting isn’t done in oils.
Just so you’re forewarned… there is a nightmare of a painting coming up. I almost replaced this one with that one, just to get it out of the way… but I think best left until the very last minute is the wisest option. Honestly, it’s the stuff of nightmares. Once seen, it can never be unseen. But Thomasina likes it.
And what Thomasina likes… well. Wait and see.
I shall apologise now.
There will, however, be another ‘respectable’ painting along next week.
Is it me, or are these weeks now zooming by at indescribable speeds? It’s the weekend, yet again! I know, here in the UK, this has been a shorter week than normal with the Bank Holiday on Monday, but it still had the same number of days as every other week in it, yet it seems to have gone by remarkably fast. Maybe we should have a ‘Leap Week’ every now and then, where we can spend it doing just as we please, just so we can recharge our batteries and allow ourselves a nice little break before we grab a hold of time once again and rejoin the whir.
I think the important thing to do, when we get those little moments where we seem to step outside of time for a short while, is to really grab a hold of them. Do something memorable; create something incredible; savour the moment. Record that magnificent ‘Ahhh!’ moment within our very core, so we can recall it when everything turns upside down. It’s good to dream, I find.
Speaking of dreams, I had an odd dream on Monday night. For some reason, I was in an episode of ‘The New Adventures of Wonder Woman’, from the late 1970s. Wonder Woman wasn’t in it, although there was a feeling of expectation that she would turn up at any given moment. ‘Oscar Goldman’ out of ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ and ‘The Bionic Woman’ was also in this episode, although the title characters from both of those series didn’t appear either. We were in an old house, moving boxes, of all things. I had to go outside to the end of the garden path, to wait for a delivery truck to arrive. Whilst I was there, I was the only person around, back in the late 1970s. Over the road was a group of Seventies style shops, and I was tempted to take a photo of them on my smart phone. Something told me that doing this would disrupt the space time continuum, so I decided against it. I was then pondering as to whether to delete the other photos I’d taken, when my bloomin’ alarm woke me as it was time to get up!
I’m still having timing issues with regards to blogging, although I think I’m getting slightly better. I’m getting a few more visits and comments in, which is good, and it isn’t taking as long for me to reply to comments on my blog either. Although, that said… hmmm… I’ll come back to that.
On Tuesday, I started my Epic Mythology series. My intention is for this to grow and grow, exploring an unknown mythological realm where there are no rules and anything can happen. I intend to write this in rhyming form, and tell the tales of anyone who happens to turn up during the course of events. Where it goes and how long it will go on for remains to be seen, but I would like it to become as epic as the Poetic Edda (and the Codex Regius), if that can be done. The Poetic Edda/Codex, for those who are unaware, details quite a lot about Norse Mythology. Obviously, my mythology is brand new, but I can dream. And I could also do with a few Leap Weeks to get myself ahead of this game as well! But, I shall get there!
It’s generally, otherwise, been a quiet week this week. Brexit’s still rumbling on, we now have to vote in the EU elections, which I have a feeling was planned all along since Brexit was ‘announced’ in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. I wonder what would happen if nobody voted? I know that would never happen, but what if it did? We’d have no representatives in a body that we don’t want to be a part of. That would make things, erm… awkward.
In other ‘news’ this week, babies have been born, people have lost their jobs, folk have been banned from driving for illegally using their mobile phones, and, if we read between the lines, we can see that we are being coerced into thinking one way or another. It’s fun when you spot it!
No direct links again this week, but please take a look at the ‘You May Like’ section over on the right to visit some posts I have enjoyed reading recently.
And that’s it for now!
Have a great weekend!
It’s important to keep on keeping on, to Feel Good about yourself and be happy with who you are.
Sonia Rykiel (1930-2016)
