The Ferrett (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} theferrett) wrote,@ 2008-03-28 08:37:00 |
|
A Very Special Request For You
I'm going to ask a very strange thing of you today: I want you to create art, and to send it to a girl you don't know.
Any art will do. If you're a writer, write a poem or a paragraph. If you're a musician, strum a tune and send her the MP3. If you're an artist, sketch something for her - and if you're none of them, draw something on a card or in MS Paint and send it on.
Because this woman is awesome, and for reasons I'll outline soon she deserves one hell of a birthday. And I'd take it as a personal favor to me if you did.
"But Ferrett," you ask. "Who is this chick?" And the answer is that she's the wife of Randy Bradakis, a good friend of mine who I met at Penguicon two years ago. We bonded at the con by swapping crazy sex stories and discussing good booze, and he's been my Pengui-Conbuddy ever since, and I was ecstatic to see him turn up at ConFusion. Better yet, he had his wife Sheryl in tow, who I'd never met before.
We got on like a house on fire. So I called in my wife Gini. "Gini," said I, "You gotta meet them both! It's a package!" And lo, we've been bonding as couples ever since, exchanging emails about Buffy and bizarre trivia in between raving about Rock Band. They're great people, and it's strangely mature to have good couple-friends where the like is completely four-square symmetrical.*
And Sheryl... Well, she's especially dear to my heart. She's like the little emo pal I always wanted to have in high school and never did. We constantly exchange emails about movies, squeeing, "Ooo! Have you seen this one?" and then talking about bad 80s hair metal and creating the secret history of the Spinal Tap-style rock band that we're slowly developing between us. She's totally awesome.
But she has a problem; she's afraid to ask for what she wants.
And what she WANTS is a big, stupid, splashy birthday party where it's all about how awesome she is.
Let me be clear: EVERYONE DESERVES THAT. By God, your birthday's the one time out of the year where everyone should celebrate the fact of YOUR VERY EXISTENCE. Birthdays are where the universe should get together to mark the delight of being you.
And yet for umpty-ump years, she's been a good girl. Doesn't want to kick up a fuss. She's just quietly let it all go without anything much at all when she really wanted fireworks and balloons and big whooping cheers. And this year, after many years of quietly wishing that people would just shove a cake in her face, she did the bravest thing someone can do: She ASKED for a big party. With lots of people.
Lo, Randy responded! He put out the call! And...
...well, thanks to scheduling conflicts, not much happened. Only a handful people could make it - people she liked, admittedly, but few folks isn't a party, it's a get-together. And she's had birthday get-togethers.
That didn't strike Randy as fair, and given my own annual birthday frenzies it seemed like a total loss to me, too. So Randy and I put our heads together. When you ask, you should get - and though she might get something later, it wouldn't be on her birthday. And what could we do to make her birthday E-special?
Well, we could ask the Internet. And so Randy and I are asking - but unfortunately, I have the larger audience, so I'm tasked with the actual post.
Send Sheryl some art to make her birthday special. Even if it's just a haiku or a stanza, send her something. And if you can't create? Then send her the most beautiful thing you've created. Or hell, just the most beautiful thing you've seen today.
Because somewhere in Michigan, there's this beautiful girl who's wanted that sweet sixteen birthday party all of her life. And it's time the world showed her that yeah, it's okay, birthday girl. Sometimes, if you ask for the world, you can get it.
Happy birthday, Sheryl.
* - We have others, of course. Kat and Eric. Brent and Joan. Wolfgang and Sandra. But it's always so delightfully odd and yet mature to have four people sync up simultaneously.
I'm going to ask a very strange thing of you today: I want you to create art, and to send it to a girl you don't know.
Any art will do. If you're a writer, write a poem or a paragraph. If you're a musician, strum a tune and send her the MP3. If you're an artist, sketch something for her - and if you're none of them, draw something on a card or in MS Paint and send it on.
Because this woman is awesome, and for reasons I'll outline soon she deserves one hell of a birthday. And I'd take it as a personal favor to me if you did.
"But Ferrett," you ask. "Who is this chick?" And the answer is that she's the wife of Randy Bradakis, a good friend of mine who I met at Penguicon two years ago. We bonded at the con by swapping crazy sex stories and discussing good booze, and he's been my Pengui-Conbuddy ever since, and I was ecstatic to see him turn up at ConFusion. Better yet, he had his wife Sheryl in tow, who I'd never met before.
We got on like a house on fire. So I called in my wife Gini. "Gini," said I, "You gotta meet them both! It's a package!" And lo, we've been bonding as couples ever since, exchanging emails about Buffy and bizarre trivia in between raving about Rock Band. They're great people, and it's strangely mature to have good couple-friends where the like is completely four-square symmetrical.*
And Sheryl... Well, she's especially dear to my heart. She's like the little emo pal I always wanted to have in high school and never did. We constantly exchange emails about movies, squeeing, "Ooo! Have you seen this one?" and then talking about bad 80s hair metal and creating the secret history of the Spinal Tap-style rock band that we're slowly developing between us. She's totally awesome.
But she has a problem; she's afraid to ask for what she wants.
And what she WANTS is a big, stupid, splashy birthday party where it's all about how awesome she is.
Let me be clear: EVERYONE DESERVES THAT. By God, your birthday's the one time out of the year where everyone should celebrate the fact of YOUR VERY EXISTENCE. Birthdays are where the universe should get together to mark the delight of being you.
And yet for umpty-ump years, she's been a good girl. Doesn't want to kick up a fuss. She's just quietly let it all go without anything much at all when she really wanted fireworks and balloons and big whooping cheers. And this year, after many years of quietly wishing that people would just shove a cake in her face, she did the bravest thing someone can do: She ASKED for a big party. With lots of people.
Lo, Randy responded! He put out the call! And...
...well, thanks to scheduling conflicts, not much happened. Only a handful people could make it - people she liked, admittedly, but few folks isn't a party, it's a get-together. And she's had birthday get-togethers.
That didn't strike Randy as fair, and given my own annual birthday frenzies it seemed like a total loss to me, too. So Randy and I put our heads together. When you ask, you should get - and though she might get something later, it wouldn't be on her birthday. And what could we do to make her birthday E-special?
Well, we could ask the Internet. And so Randy and I are asking - but unfortunately, I have the larger audience, so I'm tasked with the actual post.
Send Sheryl some art to make her birthday special. Even if it's just a haiku or a stanza, send her something. And if you can't create? Then send her the most beautiful thing you've created. Or hell, just the most beautiful thing you've seen today.
Because somewhere in Michigan, there's this beautiful girl who's wanted that sweet sixteen birthday party all of her life. And it's time the world showed her that yeah, it's okay, birthday girl. Sometimes, if you ask for the world, you can get it.
Happy birthday, Sheryl.
* - We have others, of course. Kat and Eric. Brent and Joan. Wolfgang and Sandra. But it's always so delightfully odd and yet mature to have four people sync up simultaneously.
