You Light up my Life

Candle Bookmark

Well, my sister thinks this looks so unlike a candle that she asked if it was the statue of liberty, so I doubt it'll sell. Of course, when I finished my first though was 'well, at least it doesn't look like a penis' but then I took care of that by making a penis bookmark. I still think this looks a bit like a candle.

For awhile, when I lived in Portland, OR, I would burn candles in the evening instead of using the lights. It was kinda nice, sitting there in the dimly-lit room, using my computer...okay, so maybe I wasn't doing it just to save electricity, but it was fun. Sometimes I'd even read by that light--for a few minutes, until I started squinting and turned on an actual lamp.

I would buy the candles at Good Will, and in purchasing them I always felt like I was doing the world a service by giving these candles a home--and buy using them up, not just letting them sit in a drawer, forgotten, until my presumed children or grandchildren take them to Good Will after my death. It wasn't a new feeling, either.

It's almost like decorative candles--the ones that are only good for decorating bother me. Here's a perfectly good functional object that you covered with asbestos paint so it couldn't be burned, thus ruining it's sole function in life.  I have the same strange relationship with decorative soap.

If it's pretty and you can still use it, I'm okay with that--even you never do chose to use it, like, say, a really beautifully-made dragon candle. Those I have no issue with, although I'm not sure what the difference is between unused and unusable. I guess maybe unusable things have always felt sad to me, like their place in the universe has been denied to them, whereas merely unused things simply have yet to live up to their potential.