Mostly I am more vivid than this by a long shot.

[mrissa]

I accidentally opted into a meme on tiger_spot's lj last week: she gave me the color gray on the ten things you like in this color meme.

1. greykev. I would have associated grey with my brother even before he had his lj name, just because it is such a Kevish color.
2. My great-uncle Lloyd. Lloyd is Welsh for grey. He died when I was 11, but he was always good to me, and I have a couple of tricks/puzzles that I inherited from him, the wallet that switches sides and so on.
3. Gandalf the Grey. Way better than Gandalf the White. Puttering around making fireworks for hobbits is more my sort of thing.
4. Gray Lensman. Clearly the best color of lensman.
5. The tights I wore Sunday. They were silvery grey with sort of lines in the weave. They are gone now, but they were good Sunday.
6. The new towels for timprov's basement bathroom. Mostly due to their New Towel Fluffiness rather than their color, but still.
7. Rainy skies. My folks used to wake me with, "It's such a lovely dismal day," from the Addams family.
8. Gray areas. I am all about messing with Mr. In Between, cheerful songs aside. That said, I think it's important to distinguish between very light and very dark shades of gray--the fact that the things you're comparing are not wholly good or wholly bad does not mean that one is not a lot better or worse. (Also doesn't mean that one is a lot better or worse. That's the fun of gray areas. Down with total orderings!) See also: music note to this post

...I think tiger_spot did better with aubergine than I'm doing with gray. Look, in my first novel, The Grey Place was an evil soul-sucking magic construct that tried to eat the world. This despite prior association with Kev, who is the best Kev. Perhaps I should count things that are silver and things that are pewter and be done with it? Because I fear that listing gray hair on favorite people would come off as snarky in a way I do not mean it to be. No, no. I can do this.

9. The plaid in my favorite skirt contains gray. (Also green and black.) I love that skirt. If I didn't it would have gone to Goodwill ages ago, because the buttons are brass and shaped such that they wear through thread rather quickly, and I'm forever sewing buttons back on, which is bad enough if it doesn't occur in the middle of a social activity, but often it does. In anything other than a favorite skirt, that would be cause for it to depart my home posthaste or at least not get worn so often. It even requires ironing. But no matter, I love that skirt. And speaking of beloved clothing, I have it now:
10. My old physics department T-shirt, the one with a Psi on each boob and a star in the middle, comes in gray. I fear it is not long for this world. I sleep and work out in it, and it's still going after 13 years of frequent wear, but I fear this is soon to change. It also says, "Probably the best Greeks on campus." Because it's a probability thing, see? Ha ha? Ha? When this shirt was new and I wore it out in public, strangers would come up to me and ask if my sorority did babysitting or various other fundraisers. A) People. * IS NOT A GREEK LETTER. This was bad enough from random strangers, but a member of the religion faculty really ought to have known that * IS NOT A GREEK LETTER. I am sorry about my yelliness on this subject. But I think it's deserved. B) Really? Really? You find babysitters by approaching people in restaurants hoping they might be members of a sorority you've never heard of because it doesn't exist? Junior is going to turn out incredibly well-adjusted, I tell you what.

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

1. I am with you on Gandalf the Grey being a lot better than Gandalf the White. Others disagree.

2. Are tights a single-use item in your household?

3. Do not underestimate the sheer desperation factor when people look for babysitters. I've know several otherwise sane humans who would turn into screaming lunatics, roaming the streets shouting, "Babysitter? Babysitter? Are you a babysitter? Is ANYONE a babysitter?" when faced with this issue. It can apparently even cloud the mind to such an extent that the Greek alphabet suddenly contains the lost letter Asterisk, known only to a handful of peripatetic Etruscans.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

2. No, I had worn them several times before Sunday, but they are now run from hell to breakfast, which is neither inevitable nor surprising when I go from a church with middle-aged chairs to a convention to my parents' house, which was partially equipped with godchildren, all in the same day, all while having vertigo (=more likely to stumble into things that can snag and run my tights).

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Well done! I think you did a better job than I did -- metaphorically gray things seem more in keeping with the spirit of the thing than the "well, it's sort of purple..." I had going with some of mine.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

3 has improved my day. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Gray is easier to do that with than aubergine, though. Nobody has a wizard character called Barnard the Aubergine.

*goes off to write 50 lines of, "I will not write a wizard character called Barnard the Aubergine."*

[brooksmoses]

I am inclined to suspect that Barnard the Aubergine is actually a lost stray inspiration for an ursulav painting.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

But does he not already have a star named after him ?

..I think this goes in the same folder as the AH with Auguste "Perry" Rodin.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

[laughing] If your willpower lapses, I want to read what transpires!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Barnard Dashley, age 10, knew that all the best wizards had colors associated with them: Gandalf the Grey, to take the best example. He wanted a color that was vivid. Something original. Something that did not say "I slum around in shabby robes your grandmother might have made from the curtains."

"Call me Barnard the Aubergine," he said to his elder sister Susan.

She did not look up from her book. "And shall I be Susan the Cauliflower?"

"Aubergine the color, not the vegetable. All the best wizards have colors."

"Susan the Pale Lilac, then?"

Barnard considered. Pale lilac was just the sort of wimpy color that would suit Susan, if not her magic. "If you like," he said magnanimously.

"What about Susan the Gently Paisley Print?"

They were back to ancestral curtains. "I'd stick with the pale lilac if I were you."

Susan put her finger in her book and stared at him. "What's gotten into you today? First you tried to make toast with magic when we have a perfectly good toaster. Then you were experimenting and the dog had to be a frog for awhile until I could come fix him. And now you're on robe colors? Wizards don't wear robes any more. It doesn't matter."

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

Wizards don't wear robes anymore? ACK!

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

I think it's an Asterisk. :)

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

I now have "Touch of Grey" running through my head over and over. :) Which is nice.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Nice Scando touch there too. (The sign on the Carlsberg brewery in the center of Copenhagen, "Probably the best beer in town" still cracks me up.)

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

Write it! Write it!

Barnard the Aubergine sounds awesome.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

Even if he can't make toast.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

He can! Just with the toaster, not with magic.

Which is why they have a toaster: making toast with magic is way more trouble than it is generally considered to be worth.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh. Um, I hadn't even noticed that. Because it was such a natural phrasing for everyone involved.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I know several children who I think would be delighted at the prospect of being baby-sat by Asterix, if it could be arranged.

[avocadovpx.livejournal.com]

Will it turn out that Barnard has psi-powers?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, just magic.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Asterix would make a great baby-sitter. Obelix, not so much.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

woo woo #1!

I too enjoyed the snippit of Barnard, though I'd question whether anyone of that name would willingly associate themselves with anything resembling purple, given the dinosaur related mocking it would invite from one's peers.

[redbird]

Isn't that a David Gerrold novel?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am missing the reference here, possibly due to tired.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Barnard = Barny
+ purple = dinosaur & mega teasing

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. I just don't think of that nickname. When someone called the Bernard in my life "Bernie," I was startled and a bit affronted on his behalf. (He did not look thrilled either.)

[cissa.livejournal.com]

IN a purely practical way:

The buttons cut through thread, probably, because they have burrs. Burrs are like little sharp knives. If you de-burr the holes, the buttons will stop cutting through threads.

There are various ways to de-burr, based on what the thing looks like and what equipment you have. Rolling find (400+ grit) sandpaper into a cone and rolling it through the holes often works well. The idea is to smooth the sharp edges of the hole into rounded ones, so whatever might do that is a good choice.