Celebrity Bunny Bowling

Creativity requires a willingness to be a tad silly. When I find myself mired in a problem I can not solve, I try to give myself a little brain break. Answers to vexing problems usually pop into my head after about ten minutes of this silliness. My favorites:

• Train a video camera on a group of Bowling Bunnies by Schylling. Record the little guys as you peg bean bag cabbages at them. Use super-slo-mo, if you have it. Think of new ways to stack them up, and whack them again. Play back your video and study the faces of the bunnies as they fall. Find other characters & props to add to the mix, and whack 'em again. I usually laugh myself all the way to the bathroom. Repeat as needed.
• Fiddle with an Etch-A-Sketch. Start by filling the screen with a cross hatch of diagonal lines. Then trace over it a second time, trying to stay as close to your original lines as you can. Erase the whole thing. Draw concentric circles. Erase again, and write your name.
  
• Blow bubbles. Keep a cheap bottle of bubble soap & a wand on your desk. Blow and release the biggest bubbles you can. Take a deep breath and try to use the whole thing on a single bubble. (My 3 1/2 year-old tells me to breath in orange & blow out blue.)
  
• Put on a silly hat (like a beanie with a battery-powered propeller, or antenae) and try to write a trip or status report, or something more uplifting, like a dirge.
  
• Practice juggling. If you don't know how to juggle, pick up a copy of "Juggling for the Complete Klutz", which comes with three little blocks.
• Keep origami paper and patterns on hand. Make a few paper balloons & blow them up.
  
• Pull out a coloring book & crayons. Color outside the lines. Use unexpected colors. Work with your non-dominant hand. Also try using any small manipulative (magnetic poetry or dress up dolls, felt or paper shapes, lacing cards or beads, magnetic blocks) with your non-dominant hand.
• Other brain-relaxing toys: small pin ball or marble games, peg puzzles, blacksmith puzzles, Wheel-O, or Gyroscope.

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop thinking about it. (Whatever you do, don't look at the ceiling.) These games and activities distract the big brain, and let the wildly creative, intuitive small brain take over for a while.

Have fun!