Tom, those are very cute shoes! You are a great uncle.

I just found something marvelous on my flist: this political vid -- the Occupy movement set to Bruce Springsteen. It's fantastic and I hope it goes viral.

We just put up curtains in our living room- they are curtains we've had for years, we just needed to get two $3.99 curtain rods and get the installed. It makes a huge difference!

I am also making a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, because I need leftovers! Also, hopefully smonster will be coming by to partake.

My theory is that most kids don't need to be taught to be creative, instead we tend to stiffle it

Flowers are red

Green leaves are green

There is no need to see flowers

Any other way Than the way they always have been seen.

t /Harry Chapin

Also, hopefully smonster will be coming by to partake.

Hell yes, smonster is.

Cute shoes, Tom! Well done.

A friend of mine was selling stories and poems to significant pro markets when he was in his teens -- I'd say that yes, he was a natural talent. But he says he found it hard to transition to writing in his 20s when his life experiences changed so very much and found he was having to relearn (or learn for the first time) techniques and discipline he'd taken for granted.

FWIW, it's far more usual for pro writers to start selling in their thirties. It's something of a craft-learning, discipline-having, life-experienced period coming together. Innate talent to learn those lessons faster or have a better ear for word music might get you there sooner. Actually LIKING doing it also helps, which is also a part of 'talent.'

There seems to be almost no ability to reproduce sounds that resemble recognizable tunes in my family -- however, my ears have been well trained by living with a musician - and that even translates to having some appreciation for non-western music. I think talent - which I might call natural ability - has to have some sort of genetic component. I think various kinds of abilities have helped us in an evolutionary sense - physical things are more obvious , but other skills help with communication ( singing writing )for example.

And part of the reason it looks so complex - we can use David's example of hitting in baseball - is because one way of hunting, communicating , or building might have kept us from changing , and therefore kept us from surviving.

I'm having a really interesting discussion about whether or not talent actually exists, or if it is all just hard work.

Why are those the only choices? Certainly, some people have slight genetic advantages, and if there's the right combination of early childhood experiences and desire and effort, then poof, 20 years later people say "Wow, she was born to do this."

But the first months and years of life are critical, because they have a huge, lasting impact on brain development. And what happens (or fails to happen) then can't be balanced out with extra work later. That's not genetic or a matter of effort; it's pure luck.

JZ, did your singing lessons include ear training work?

I will get all this laundry done tonight. I will buy new jeans tomorrow. I will get up early enough.

I've been going all day. Marketed (ran into our lisah!) hit up Target and the Walmarts (they're the only place that still has replacement mop heads for my mops,) scrubbed out the litterboxes, vacuumed the upstairs and spot-cleaned the barf and other feline eruptions (Devi had an episode while I was gone,) laundried, swam, manicured.

Tired.

I'm a little worried about Mister Kitty. He dropped an awful lot of weight in the past week. Not the fault of the catsitter, I pretty much push food at him whenever I'm home, and I only asked her to proffer wet food the two times a day she came over. Not sure if it is that, or he's doing another dramatic decline. He's just so old. I'll pick up some high fat kitten food tomorrow. And call the vet monday.

Damn, sarameg, just reading that made me tired.