Une Envie de Sel

The charming and talented Tina Tarnoff over at Thought Patterns was so sweet as to give me an award the other day, and it has been such a busy couple of days that I nearly forgot about it...
I did mean to comply, though I knew this would be one that would make me squirm. The conditions are that I am supposed to state five things about myself that I find sexy. Well....like most people, I think, I have days when I feel sexy. I also have many, many days when I feel like the mommy in her pjs and sweats who hasn't showered in so many days she has lost track, and who doesn't want to let anyone get too close to her for fear she is beginning to smell. This is what it's like to be the mother of a 19-month-old. The plus side is that you're so freakin' happy all the time that it's hard to even care how un-sexy you look. One smile from that tiny, chubby-cheeked face, and none of it matters a whit.

Furthermore, I feel the need to warn you, I am not the traditional brand of "sexy". The things that I find sexy may not be what other women would consider pertinent to that word. I am not a Jimmy Choo girl, not a Brazilian Wax girl, not a lipstick-and-chiffon girl.

So, without further preamble...my five things that I think are sexy about myself:

- I like to sleep in the desert and, if I'm camping, I can go days without a blowdryer, a pillow, a working bathroom, or even a shower. I am as comfortable in the wilderness as I am in a luxe hotel.

- I know how to hand-draft and make a blueprint. I was probably one of the last classes in design school to learn hand-drafting, before autoCAD took over completely. I love the process of pointing leads, rolling the lead holder gently between the fingers so as to create a perfectly consistent line, brushing the pencil shavings from the page with a big, feathery brush so as not to get any hand grease on the paper. I still use a drafting pencil, leads, a pointer and a brush when I illustrate, purely because I love the instruments.

- I am very self-contained. I don't need people. This is both a blessing and a curse, since it's very easy for me to become a bit hermit-ish. I sometimes have to force myself to interact socially, just so I don't forget how. But on balance, I'd rather have that independence of spirit than to feel reliant on others. And I have a horror of clinginess, in either sex.

- I am strong, and I have a great deal of endurance. I can run for thirty miles if I have to, and I can climb a 14,000 foot peak, alone, with nothing but a sandwich and a bottle of water in my backpack.

- And finally, I am a natural at mothering. This is my greatest delight and amazement at this stage of my life, because I never wanted children, and if you'd asked me in my 20s I would have told you I was entirely unsuited to parenting. So it was to my great suprise and delight that I discovered, upon meeting our daughter, that motherhood comes to me as naturally as the tides, as easily as the sun rising in the morning. And yes, I think that's sexy.

It's hard for me to think of five people to tag with this award, since I consider everyone on my blogroll to be a sexy blogger, in one way or another. That's why they're on my blogroll! But let me just toss this into the ether and pick a few off the top of my head...if you feel like playing, go ahead! If not, just take it as a compliment and go on your merry way! Kisses to all my wonderful bloggers:

I pass the torch to
- Amber by Day
- Call-me-Heidi
- An Carol
- Yoli at Musings
- The Sheltering Sky
- Indigo Blue
- Fly in amber
- Susanna's Sketchbook
- Ms. Muse
(Ok, I'll stop..sorry, I couldn't pick just five).