To enter or not to enter...

that is the question. I'm searching for the answer. So what am I talking about? The Couture Doll Design Challenge. There are certain entrance requirements to meet in order to be selected as a contestant: pictures of designs one has made previously for one's dolls must be submitted. Hence the dilemma above which now I am forced to debate with myself.

Say I decide to enter this contest. Do I take pictures of old outfits I made some time ago? Do I try to throw something together now? Yes, to the first question because the answer to the second is a resounding NO! I learned a big lesson in the first audition I ever did: "Go with what you KNOW." Don't break out something for the first time in an unknown environment when you want to impress an audience of judges particularly vividly. You might do just that—but not in the way you had hoped!

Therefore, it would be best for me to take a picture of the peignoir I put together from scraps of lace and pink batiste years ago modelled by one of my first 16" fashion dolls, and/or to photograph the teen-aged Maggie doll (which I rewigged with a Gina Lollobrigida poodle cut—only shorter—and made up with painted india ink Cleopatra eyeliner) in the red wool trapeze dress and pill box to match I made when that style was actually in current fashion rather than struggle to design and make something in a week or so. Good design and good work(wo)manship are timeless, are they not?

But the real question is should I be thinking about entering a doll couture contest in the first place at this particular moment.

"If we are trying to: 1) put together a little online doll couture boutique; 2) get ready to go to the Hollywood Ahoy! convention in Long Beach by August 13; 3) design and make a concert dress, or two, while learning an inordinate amount of music and writing a script for our October 10 concert; with all of this involving an attempt not to lose our mind in the process," admonishes the stern and sensible Me, "don't even think about it—especially if our intent to make some sort of useful impression in the already-committed-to three projects above!"

As usual these days, I am able by gathering my many selves together for a meeting to come to an answer to any question posed by my particularly active idea machine. I couldn't always count on those selves to see eye to eye as I more or less can now. They constantly took on projects individually without considering what their sister selves had already committed to or were likely to commit to in the immediate future. It was mostly manageable in those early times because I, who housed, fed and cleaned up after them all and actually did the work they so blythely committed me to, was young enough to work 24 to 36 hours at a stretch and live to work another such stretch after a mere eight or so hours of recovery time.

No more. Now I need a week to recover from such a work-a-thon. Oh yes, these multi-selves still get me into trouble occasionally—we're just on the brink of the abyss now with the three projects outlined above. However, these days I have a husband who is retired, as well as willing and able to do much of the support work needed to make it all possible, at least in theory. Given my DH's loving support, let's see if I can realize these projects and live to tell the tale...or if I want to admit I was even there at the time!