Bob Ross and Other Randomness

Let's talk about how I really like writing. Like, I am a crazy person who chooses English for their major cause I have this thing with words where I really like them and I miss high school solely because of Fab Vocab. (go parrish. i like your shoes.)

Everyone has tried to paint, right? Or at least draw something at some point in Elementary school? And there is that frustrating moment, or, you know, whole days/lifetimes of frustration when you have that perfect thing in your head and you can't get the freaking thing to come out of your hand and stay put on the dang paper! ( oh geez. my blood pressure is going up just thinking about this.) Well, I did that. And then I gave up because my seventh grade art teacher told me I was right brained or something and I am more analytical than artistic or some crap like that. And now I have that same thing when I write things. You know, like papers or essays or letters or blog posts. I have this beautiful idea in my head and then it all comes out as word vomit. Or at least that is what I feel like. And then I read things that other people write and I think, I will never be able to write as well as that. And then I start freaking myself out about it and think, I will never be able to write like that but also, her life is just cooler than mine, aka this person knows where she is going and what she is doing and I don't. And then I freak out even more. Which is the one thing I know for sure I am always, always good at. Ask my mom. Ask my therapist. Ask any random person in my apartment building who saw me bawling in the hallway in my pajamas last week.

Someday, I am going to learn to put all those ideas on paper and make them as beautiful and well constructed as they were in my right sided brain. And then I'll learn to make my life look like that well-constructed idea too. But in the meantime, I choose to be calm. Because bad things happen when your blood pressure goes up rapidly.

Step one in this endeavor may have to start off with the basic painting idea. Everyone knows Bob Ross, right? He is the guy with the painting show on TV and he paints landscapes with happy little trees and happy little foxes and happy little cottages in the midst of snowy mountain terrain. Basically, he is the coolest person ever and I want to be him when I grow up. Minus the man part.Anyway, I used to watch him paint when I was a kid and I love it. And then over Christmas Break there was one day of many that I spent at Erin's house, but this time she had gone to fix the car and stuff and surprise Ben, so I was at her house with the girls. Libbs was asleep and Emma was screaming and teething and getting upset cause I am just an Aunt and she wants mommy. There was lots of pacing and singing and rocking going on and then I realized that Bob Ross was on TV. Now Libby never did this but Emma watches TV. And I sat down on the couch and pointed her towards the TV and BAM. The crying ceased. We watched the calmest man this side of Jupiter paint happy little trees for a while and then she fell asleep on me. The man is magic, and he wasn't even in the room. And it calmed me down too. And at the end they advertise the full collection of tapes for every episode he ever taped and I almost broke down and bought the thing before I remembered that I don't have a job. But someday, the goal is to buy all the tapes and a tidy collection of canvas and paint the crap out of all my frustrations. Because I believe in Bob Ross, and he looked at that camera and told me I can paint. And maybe if I learn to paint, it will solve some fundamental issues and get rid of some frustrations in my life which I believe started when I discovered in elementary school that I don't have the drawing gene.

Take that, Seventh Grade Art teacher! You squashed my dream for good and now Bob Ross has resurrected it. I am going to paint, and in a more immediate sense (like now cause I have a paper due), I am going to write, and I am going to breathe and live the ideas I have instead of freaking out, and there is nothing you can do to stop me or smoosh anything else because I have successfully navigated, and graduated, the public school system. Which means that I am no longer obligated by law to go sit through classes taught by people I don't like.

(Now I pay money to do that, but that's beside the point.)

The point is, Bob Ross is cool/the ultimate role model which proves that television can have a positive influence on children. Specifically children like me who are trying really hard to be adults. Some of us might actually make it, too. Thank you, Bob.