Boyntonology: The Study of Whimsy

I've known for a long time that Sandra Boynton was a personal hero, but that was just based on her cute hippopotamuses and her sense of whimsy. I couldn't resist picking up her book "What's Wrong, Little Pookie?" recently even though I don't have kids yet. Now I've run across her website and can say that her Boyntonography reads like an essay titled "My Perfect Life."

...I couldn’t face the prospect of waitressing again, though I had almost perfected the requisite accommodating manner. Instead, I designed gift cards and Christmas cards, had my Uncle Bill, a printer, print them, and I trudged around to various East Coast stores selling them. In the summer between college graduation and graduate school in drama at U.C. Berkeley, I continued to sell the cards, did more designs, took them to a trade show in New York City, and at summer’s end, signed up with a Chicago company called Recycled Paper Greetings...

Over the past thirty-odd, odd years, I have designed, by varying estimates (none of them in fact mine because I’ve not yet gotten sufficiently motivated to start counting) somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 greeting cards. Almost all were published by Recycled Paper, 1975 to 1996. They sold 50 to 80 million Boynton cards per year in the peak years (1980’s)...

I choose the projects I do and products I design somewhat at whim, and only if there’s a company that looks interesting to work with. I only “license” what I can develop and design myself, rather than letting companies adapt my characters according to their own sense and sensibilty. I have no agent, no business manager, no contracts attorney. This is a rather haphazard way to do things, but it’s more fun than an actual plan. Since I’m not sufficiently committed to Optimizing Market Potential, I seem to be a bewilderment and, one hopes, a minor annoyance to many.

I'm Not Sure I Believe These Results

You Are 63% Skeptic

While you aren't always skeptical, you generally approach life from a skeptical viewpoint. You're open to any outlandish claim, but you need proof before you'll believe it. That being said, you're occasionally willing to go out on a limb and put your faith in idea. There's a few beliefs you hold because you hope they're true - not because they've been established as true.

Are You a Skeptic?

We're Number One!

We get excited when the Thoughts come up as the first Google hit for things. It's just cool.

• Colbert fan fiction
• Kevin Smith 37
• employee hierarchy of needs
• Ghost Hunters fan fiction
• maybe I'm a dreamer
• the Doobie brothers broke up
• hyperintelligent shade of the color blue
• monk's head cheese
  

When do you come up #1 on Google?

It All Suddenly Makes So Much Sense

Of course. Why didn't I think of that.

What Day Is It?

As you may have noticed, the blogging has gotten light again and I'm not keeping up with my "days," not even "God and Cheese Day." I'm afraid there is no exciting story to relate that explains this away with a proper amount of wit and humility. It's just the way it is.

So what have I been doing with my time, you ask? Well, I've spent a fair portion of it staring into space contemplating my existence. Another decade is winding down and I have to ask myself, "Is this what I meant to do? Am I on track to do anything I planned to do in this life?" I'm considering enrolling in a Master's degree program, changing jobs, and/or running away to the Caribbean.

The books I'm currently reading (yes, all at once) are How to Win Friends & Influence People (I first read Carnegie's classic when I was a shy, awkward 15 year old and it had a big impact on me), Creating a Life Worth Living, and A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch). I've been on a Connelly streak and have read six Bosch novels and two non-Bosch novels in about six weeks.

When online I check in on my peeps. That's why I know Sunday is moving to LA (we hates her! LA is my precious!). I also spend a bit of online time Stumbling, and finding entertaining little pages like Rip My Bodice. Oh, come on. You know you want to click.

So what have you been up to?