Well, the honors program interview day was today. I kind of like interviewing prospective students, and it's a simple thing to include as a "service" to the university.

However, this year, it was kind of hard not to channel my inner Simon Cowell: "You call that a response? You didn't even answer the question!" or "I must say - of all the trite responses I have heard, that is the tritest."

I suppose I'm expecting a bit much - after all, these are seventeen and eighteen year old students, they've never had a situation like this before, and they're already nervous (some had to write an essay before coming in to talk to me). I try to be positive and non-threatening, but it's a bit disillusioning to think "these folks our are future" and then talk to the fifth person who sees the main value of education as being a ticket to higher pay.

There was one chap that I gave a high rating to; he gave detailed and intelligent answers and he was also fairly funny and charming. (I hope I am not grading the women harder than the men; that's something I have to watch out for. I think it's partly I expect a lot from people of my own gender (I don't want anyone to say they got in on the coattails of being female) and also, well, I'm easily charmed by some guys. More easily than I am by women).

As for last night, one of my rare free nights: I decided I wanted to do something different, and I was also inspired with my thinking about Bill the Lizard yesterday. So I made a quick trip south to the fabric shop (well, I needed to go to the Albertson's too) and obtained some light green and cream felt, as well as some wonderful black buttons - black, yes, but with a pale ring in the middle that is almost perfectly like the eye of a frightened and befuddled reptile.

I have Bill mostly done; I was too tired last night to sew up his second hindleg (I sewed him all by hand; machine stitching tends to be too stiff on felt, and also he is small, which makes machine sewing hard and unpleasant to do). I also need to do his face - I save the faces for last, as a treat after completing the boring step of doing all the legs and sewing them on.

As I said yesterday, I've pretty much ALWAYS done this, at least since I knew how to sew. I frequently memorialized favorite book characters as small dolls or figures, when I was a child. Partly for the fun of making them, but also partly to have a small avatar of the beloved character that I could move through dramas of my own, or reenactments of situations out of the story, or just to hold in my own two hands.

It's something that has always brought me great joy, and even though now as a grownup, the vast majority of the fun is in the making rather than the having, I don't see that I should have to give up doing it just because I'm no longer a child.

The funny thing is, it's hard for me to explain how I do it. It's almost like one of those idiot-savant type things. I can't draw worth a fig, so I can't make a two-dimensional representational drawing of what I want. But I can sketch schematics, and draw enough of a rough outline to get what is in my head acceptably down on paper. And then, the magic or the strange inexplicable ability takes over, and I start drawing out the patterns for the component parts of the critter or doll. Sometimes I make the whole pattern out on paper first; more often than not, I make one part - usually the most crucial one for the overall impression - and then design the rest of the body around it.

For Bill, I did the head first. I knew what I wanted - a lizard, sitting up on his hind legs, a bit like the Geico gecko but not as selfassured and confident. I knew I needed to do an underchin in cream, and manage the two "eye bumps" in the head gusset somehow. So I sketched and cut and put the bits together, and got something that resembled what I imagined. Next, I did the body, with a cream belly and a long, trailing tail. And then the front legs - little, and flattish, with three splayed "fingers". The back legs were a bit of a problem, I originally intended to do them somewhat like the legs on a typical jointed teddy bear but with flatter feet with toes (necessitating two separate components - a leg and a foot, and then sew them together). As it was after 9 by the time I got to it, and I was tired, I decided to go with a slight modification of the arms - which worked almost as well, I think.

This afternoon, I'm going to finish his last leg and then do his face.

If I were better at not doing cut-and-fit patterning, I could probably make up patterns for these critters and sell them. But you know, the majority of the fun of doing it is in the "looseness" of designing - it would be a drag to have to stop, and redraw each pattern piece with a's and b's and "leave open for turning" marks, and also write out instructions so someone else could reproduce the critter. And I actually prefer that my critters are "one offs" - that they are the only one exactly like that in the world.

And so, Bill will probably live on my bedroom bookshelf, the one where I keep all of my children's books, along with the little figures of Ratty, Mole, and Mr. Toad (I'm still not entirely satisfied with how Mr. Toad came out, but I don't think I'll change him now), and the stuffed fillyjonk I made years ago, and the doll called Flora who isn't actually representative of any single book character but is more of a Generic British Novel Heroine. And the small teddy bear that I made out of red plush to look like the famous Alfonzo teddy bear.