Beads - obsession or cure?

Although I can't go into specifics because of confidentiality and all that, we had a student come in yesterday with a quite interesting problem. A problem that prompts today's title: obsession or cure? I remember my sister-in-law, Billie. A very odd woman, to say the least. She and her husband (my husband's brother) had already been married 12 or 15 years when Tony and I got married. Ten or so years after that, we found out that Billie had had a long-time affair with a man in their very small west Texas town. Apparently everybody knew, even the husband (they eventually divorced). Anyway, Billie was obsessed with recording music (back in the days of cassette tapes, remember those?), Elvis (no last name necessary) in particular. And I'm talking OBSESSED. As in that's all she wanted to talk about. Her apartment was stacked with recordings. You'd talk to her on the phone and she'd relate that she only had (fill in the blank) number of recordings to go before she had EVERY SINGLE SONG in whoever's music catalog. But, several years after they were divorced, Billie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And then music was all she had. No, it didn't of course cure the multiple sclerosis, but it provided her with a modicum of mental health through the roughest times.

So, beads. In many ways, beads are pretty much all I think about. I see a flower arrangement - oh, what colors of Moretti could I use to reproduce that? I see ornamental ironwork - oh wow, that would make a great scroll pattern on a bead. And all that's even before I sit down to look (drool) over the beads on Ebay, the beads on Lampwork Etc., even the beads on my desk (yes, on my desk - you don't really think I leave all my beads at home, do you?). I think I could safely say that yes, beads are my obsession. But after a rough week, all I can think about is getting to stay home for the weekend and make beads. I doodle new patterns in boring meetings. Beads get me through the rough, and sometimes tough, days, through the week. They're also my cure.