Saturday 20 September 2008

Unspectacularness

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I'm taking up a tag from GiGi called Unspectacularness.

The rough guide is to list six unspectacular things about yourself. I can only think of three, so I'm going to wander off onto some unspectacular speculations. (try saying that three times fast!)

First thing I thought of was how when I was young I thought the word extraordinary meant something extra ordinary -something more ordinary than even everyday ordinary - spectacularly ordinary.

I suspect unspectacularness is a lot like extra-ordinary. It's those tiny little things that mean nothing until you stop and notice them.

It's the light you see in a person's eyes when their heart smiles at you. It's that something that makes an ordinary girl invisible in a crowd, except to the one man who loves her. It's the way every newborn baby looks like a blob to everyone except its parents. It's the whiskers on a rabbit, dandelion seeds in the wind and the ten million colours in a handful of sea sand.

Spectacularly ordinary.

So what are my few meagre claims to unspectacular fame?

1. I hate making icing (frosting). I like eating it, I don't really mind baking the cake, I just hate making icing and I hate putting it on the cake. It's messy, it never goes where I want it to and worst of all - it is STICKY. It sticks where I don't want it to stick - on me.

2. I am deeply unspectacular with clay. My pottery classes finished with an assignment to create something based on ancient art. Other students made clay gods, urns... I decided to make an oil lamp. When it was done our lecturer looked at it and said, "Why did you make a soup jug?" :-\

3. I sing really bad when I'm happy and really good when I'm sad. Sad just seems to deserve more respect and effort than happy, I guess.

This last one proves my theory that the miracle of unspectacularness lies in how the ordinary is noticed. At college I sang badly with a friend = our class mates left the room. In my first month of marriage I was caught singing badly by my new husband... who rolled about laughing in sheer delight at how incredibly cute I was.

Admittedly, after six years of hearing me, he sometimes get this slight look of pain when I'm singing my happy songs. Unspectacularness doesn't last forever. It's the beauty in a simple mundane moment. Its whole charm lies in the fact that it is fragile and fleeting... unlike my soup lamp that weighed a ton and was labelled a lethal weapon by my fellow students.

So what are your list of favourite unspectacularnesses? ;-)

14 comments:

  1. LOVE this post, M!!!!

    1. I can't draw well.
    2. I suck at remembering maps from a bird-eye-view. I think it means my 3D ability isn't good he he he...If I go somewhere from a certain way and then I have to reach that point from the other way around, I get SO confuseeeeddddd unless I've done it over and over and over again.
    3. I suck at playing computer games, except when it's about typing or some word games HI HI HI...
    4. I don't know many bird, herb, vegetable, flower, plant, tree names.
    5. Come to think of it, I don't know anything much about anything!!!
    6. I have motion sickness and sea sickness. Thus I'm AFRAID of rides that go round and round and round and I'm VERY afraid of going on ferries or boats. Ugh...

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  2. How about the smell of the wind just before it rains? Seemingly unspectacular until you've noticed the pregnant clouds hanging in the atmosphere, and it hits you all at once.

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  3. This was fun to read, Michelle! :D
    As far as making the frosting for a cake--I just buy a tub of frosting already made from the store. HA! That's the easy and lazy way out. Of course, you still have to put it on the cake, so that doesn't solve everything. :D

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  4. It's a spectacular post Michelle! I like this para the best:

    It's the light you see in a person's eyes when their heart smiles at you. It's that something that makes an ordinary girl invisible in a crowd, except to the one man who loves her. It's the way every newborn baby looks like a blob (:-))) to everyone except its parents. It's the whiskers on a rabbit, dandelion seeds in the wind and the ten million colours in a handful of sea sand.

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  5. Haha, I sing badly all the time :)

    And I destroy any clay that's around me, let alone making anything out of it.

    Never tried to make icing yet... again, for fear of slaughtering the cake with icing :)

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  6. A tool in my hand is considered a weapon. My wife and I have an understanding: I don't work on the car and she doesn't file for divorce.

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  7. You made me chuckle, Cliff. I've a similar agreement with my husband and woodwork tools. ;-)

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  8. I've been spectacularly unspectacular my whole life. So, being so spectacularly unspectacular, there's nothing truly unspectacular about me at all!

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  9. Hmmmm - Hi Michelle!

    Unspectacular. Not necessarily bad or even mediocre - just averagely average and remarkably unremarkable, I guess....and that's me to a "T" - one of the proverbial "Great Unwashed" and wouldn't have it any other way.
    ;-)

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  10. Hello Michelle... thanks for your kind words and visit, lovely to meet you and your lovely unspectacularnesses
    All the bests from this bit of Scotland to that!
    Rima

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  11. Bello!...and for you...

    "I love you in silence
    and only the silence know."

    Kiss.

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  12. Oooh, finally I can get to this without a powercut stopping me. That's unspectacularness [shees, this word is still difficult to type!]

    I love that soup jug, how I laughed. Maybe it IS an oil lamp and your teacher never saw one.

    I keep hoping that more and more people will notice the unspectacularness of life, rather than focusing on the latest technology. Thanks for spreading the joy.

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  13. Hi G-G

    You think the soup-lamp was funny, you should have seen the coffee mug and ashtray. ;-)

    "I keep hoping that more and more people will notice the unspectacularness of life, rather than focusing on the latest technology."

    Ditto, Amen and yes!

    "Thanks for spreading the joy."

    Hey, that's the best part of blogging - sharing and spreading simple joys. Come to think of it... that's just like my icing! Spreading joy sticks to you and everyone you come into contact with.:-D

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