What's with the font stuff? You want to be the cool new kid on the block? Support fonts. (Georgia, Georgia, Georgia on my--oops, that's scheduled for later in the blog.) Heck, Blogger wants me to access my account with a Google email address, so y'all ought to be working together. I can get to my fonts in (polite cough) Mozilla Firefox. Need I say more? Now, please excuse me, for I must talk to my loyal blog followers (um, that would be Cathy & Bill & probably Sharon & Bruce & Helen & Nick & Chloe & Jeremiah & possibly Zach) so, Google Chrome, I say TTFN.
Semi-warmly,
Laurel Winter
Hi Everybody Else (Okay GChrome, you're included too),
Now this is weird. Georgia may have JUST started working. Not sure, because sometimes (in Chrome) it SAYS it's working & when I post it's a boring font, but we'll see... (When I started it wouldn't even pretend it was using Georgia.) ( p.s. I've posted & I see that it WAS just pretending to use Georgia.)
Okay,
Wow,
Shift in the universal energies anyone?
I've talked to several people, including myself (hey, I love talking to myself) about how it feels like a whole different universe since February started. Like time compresses & expands willy-nilly, that sort of thing.
I see that I am going to have to use a more concrete example of a dramatic change in the spacetime continuum:
I took a basket making class--2 of them, actually--out at the Arboretum. Involving needle & thread-substitute. (aka raffia) I only poked myself once. For those of you who have known me less long, you may be unfamiliar with the fact that the last time I played with needles, not-so-willingly, was high school home ec class, more than 30 years ago. Boy, did I not go to the head of the class for that! But I sat there &--under the tutelage of a wonderful Cherokee woman named Nancy Basket--made a cute little coiled pine needle basket. I'm not going to quit my day job (poetry, stories long & short, art, inventing stuff, designing stuff, guiding cosmic energy through people) anytime soon to make coiled baskets, but it was fun. Then, after a nice lunch break, we had a second class:
Freeform Kudzu Basket
I gave that a line of its own, because I am definitely going to have fun with kudzu again. & again. & etcetera. Talk about having the raw materials handy. & if my friend's yard runs out (not likely) pretty much anyone you go talk to & say, "Pardon me, but can I borrow a cup of kudzu? I brought my own clippers." will give you as much kudzu as you can carry & refrain from calling the mental hospital because they just hope you're crazy enough to come back for more.
little pine needle basket digesting
in belly of freeform kudzu basket
I've also been listening to some cds. (Yeah, I know, I'm probably one of the last 3 people on the planet to not own some sort of IPod or mp3 player--but that will change. I just got advice from my sons on which device I might want, so I can transfer songs & not be dealing with stacks of scratchable discs. [this is the camera speaking, I who still have complete control over her imaging capability. Don't hold your breath, cds.]
So, I got out my 2 disc Essential Willie Nelson & Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, vol. I & II (that's only good through 1985, so I bet there's more out there) &--because I have no Milli Vanilli to follow Willy & Billy--listened to The Proclaimers & John Denver & Don McLean (Bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my chevy to...um, don't want to violate copyright here) & Neil Diamond.
& as Neil Diamond says, "Good times never seemed so good." Here I am in Sweet Carolina, with Georgia on my mind (at least as my font) & Wild Montana Skies in my heart &--well, none of the songs were about Minnesota or Wisconsin, the other 2 places I've lived, but I've been thinking them (& all you who live there) fondly as well.
As Bobby McFerrin says (another recent companion of my ear) "Don't worry. Be happy." Good advice.
Blog alternative:
165. Listen to some music from your past. Bonus points if you dance around the living room.
&
a bonus:
166. Take a (short) class in something you used to hate/be-really-not-good-at/think-you-couldn't-do-so-never-ever-tried. Your single mission: to have fun playing with it. The great thing about this is if you're able to do it at ALL you're doing well. & it's good if you don't do it well the first time, because then there's nowhere to go but up.
