The Fine Art of Folding Paper

Who needs paper roses anyway? bunch of crap if you ask me.

By Nicole Cater

As everyone who has read The Gilded Cage knows, my life is boring.  No, really, that’s an understatement; my life is abysmally, shockingly boring.  So what is a bored girl to do but take up a hobby?

I am a master of hobbies. The phrase Jack of all trades, master of none was written for me exclusively. I like to read. A good book can kill hours of unwanted time.  Sleep is a good option. You don’t even feel the time pass, and mercifully, I have been able to sleep lately… quite a bit, actually. There are Facebook games but somewhere around level 12 it gets hard and I just give up. If you’re wondering why I haven’t answered any of your gift requests, well there you go. I like word searches. I do mine with a highlighter.  Circling a world in some haphazard way offends my sensibilities. And nail painting. Base coat, color, color, top coat, quick dry, remove and repeat.

But not too long ago I bought a significant portion of origami paper. I bought six packs, because why do anything half-assed?  Go big or go home.  And there they sat, because all I know of origami is how to turn a dollar bill into a Chinese hat, a tip that bartenders love.  But I sat down with my stack of paper and got on the dream machine, other wise known as the Internet.  How hard can folding paper be?

That shit is ridiculously hard! Google, normally my friend, turned up a million or so links to directions of what I assume to be the British invasion of Normandy. Mountain folds, valley folds, this is paper, yes? Hell with it, I’m going to be a pro. I selected a website that had pretty flowers.  I accomplished two flowers, and only because there were three folds each and glue was involved.  I invited Jeremy to participate in this madness with me. Bastard folded a shark right out of the gate.  A shark!  Someone is messing with my head.

This thing is, the flowers look like nice little accordion folds.  Nope.  After folding this way and that you start to wonder if you are building a flower or a new Gotham tower. My favorite is the water bomb fold. Somehow, you fold a triangle, and then you take the side of that triangle and put them INSIDE the regular triangle.  Lord, sailors would blush. 

I watched a video of a twisted rose. Basically I folded the paper every which way possible until it was a big circle, some of which were mountain folds, some valleys. Who needs paper roses anyway? Bunch of crap if you ask me. I could literally twist a piece of paper and I bet it would look exactly the same.  Screw you YouTube.

I excelled at two things, the aforementioned three-fold glue flower and the crane. How can I make a crane and nothing else? This defies logic. I bet there’s someone with a fucked up twisty rose somewhere thinking “If only I could make a crane.”  Well screw you buddy, because after the third time, I didn’t even need directions.  Granted, my yellow crane was deemed a pterodactyl by Jeremy, but it’s got wings, it flies, and it counts.

So, basically this rant is, don’t do Origami. I don’t care how bored you are.  Find a hedge to clip or something…because you will fail. It’s not easy.  Videos lie.  Like a rug.  You can rewind and pause and still you get a crumpled piece of poo that you have to convince someone is a fucking daisy.  Just say no.  Origami is the devil’s hobby.  It will suck you in.  It will make you think you can succeed and you’ll just get one jacked up flower of varying size over and over.  And oh, how the devil will laugh,  “Got another one!”

---