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Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

(about my bloggery),

The courage to change the things I can

(with the timing of my bouts of bloggery),

And the wisdom to know the difference

(between “life” and “bloggery”)!

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I woke up this morning (yes, just too “old” these days to have not slept)…wondering whether I could manage the first post of 2013…or…

…go on a New Year’s Day “cruise” up the Bosphorus – with my family!

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Choices…choices…choices!

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My inbox was full (“choka” yani…) of those “2012 in Review” posts that those lovely “happiness engineers” (still love that job title) at WordPress have been preparing for us blog-heads over the past 24-hours.

At first, I thunked to meself, “no” it’s just too much to look at all of them!

Put family “first”! Must fight the “urge”….

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I am a simple man…with many “guilty pleasures“…and an issue or three with impulse control!

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I started to “read”…“the girls” (and Dexter) were, after all, still asleep!

It is quite addictive…it is…shirously!

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It was interesting to look at all the stats from some of my favourite bloggers…even found a few posts I had “missed”.

Those happiness engineers at WP had pulled out a couple of “tricks” that worked really well.

For example, they suggested an “excerpt” for the “ready-made post” they had gifted me:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 310,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 6 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

What the heck did my blog have to do with Liechtenstein? Never even been there…maybe I should, now!

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Put family “first”! Must fight the “urge”….

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Ne se….

The Bosphorus…and family “won”!

…as they should…always!

But, the little buggar…sorry, blogger on my left shoulder…kept whispering I had to “do” somethink!

SO…

Click HERE to see the complete report.

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Take care – have a wonderful “day off”!

I will…

]]> http://seamrippedblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/whoa-now-calendar/ Tue, 01 Jan 2013 07:36:15 +0000 Charlotte Witherspoon http://seamrippedblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/whoa-now-calendar/ Oh, hi there.  How are you?  It’s been a while.  December was, shall we say, not my favorite.  The fall semester brought me five colds, four ankle sprains, a constant need for Kleenex, and a compromised will to live.  (I’m kidding about that last bit.)  Then December came and brought the death illness for all of the reading days, finals week, and beyond.  I suffered, my grades suffered, and now I’m pretending it never happened.  That’s healthy, yes?  I find myself inordinately glad to say sayonara to 2012.  2013 is set to be the year of “Let’s Not Do That Again, Shall We?”

Enough with this life business and let’s talk about sewing/fashion goals.  I have them.

1. Make a dedicated sewing space.  When I’m a good girl (um, fantastic strong and independent woman—huzzah feminism), I have to spend thirty minutes unpacking and setting up my sewing things.  Mama ain’t got a whole lot of free time, so that’s not great.  When I’ve been a horrible person, I have to hunt down seam rippers in kitchens and rescue pattern pieces from my impish kittens.  Let’s not do that anymore.

2. Buy and use more patterns from independent companies.  I’m a student; therefore, most of my money goes towards things like food and $200 textbooks I only need to use twice.  I have a really hard time justifying an $18 pattern to myself when I can just wait patiently for the Simplicity sale at the Jo-Ann.  Yet, I believe in small business and independent pattern companies and keeping the spirit of sewing alive.  Sigh.  Will I drop 30 bones on the Milano cape pattern from Papercut before it gets warm out?  We’ll see.

3. Clear up my UFOs.  I have five of them—all of which were tweaked to some extent over this weekend.  One needs facings and four (four!) need closures.  I am sans machine, as my Singer sucked in ways that will become legend, and I still have not decided on a sewing machine.  I’m using my mum’s, but it leaves a lot to be desired.  Namely, uniform stitch quality, a reliable back tack, and a zipper foot.  So the closures might have to wait until I. . .

4. Buy a damn sewing machine.  I’ve been agonizing over this for months and I just need to bite the bullet and make it happen.  I thought I had narrowed it down to three machines, but then I asked the good people on Pattern Review for advice and now it looks like I’m in for a month of research and testing.  I feel so much guilt about this, though.  More on that later.

5. Buy more fabric.  Yes, you heard me (er, read me).  I’ve actually been really good about stash busting this year (not that you’ve seen very many of the results), especially cottons.  A bad rayon lining experience caused me to give up on silk, which I now have coming out of my ears, but once I get over that business, it’ll be good.  I do need to pay closer attention to how I buy fabric.  I tend to buy loads of fabric at one time and then fabric fast for months afterwards.  No bueno.  I live in New York City.  A place with a real, live garment district.  I really need to shop more often and shop with a plan.

6. Take photographs.  Sweet baby james, this is hard.  Well it isn’t.  I actually just don’t take photographs.  I’ve been known to go off on solo vacations and return with one photograph.  (“But I took that photograph for you.”)  There are whole years of my life for which there is no photographic evidence that I even existed.   I am badass and old school, like a lady Ron Swanson.  Both being in front of or behind a camera kind of make me want to ralph.  Must get over that.  On one hand, I feel like I’ve lived a better life because I haven’t had to stop press to take a selfie.  On the other, I like looking at other people’s pretty pictures.  Also, this is weird because I am 11/10 vain and have never met a mirror I don’t like.  Odd.

7. Embrace the uniform.  In the summer, I lived in these cotton capris, button-front shirts, cardigans, and flats.  In the winter, I either did a dress, cardigans, tights, and flats or stovepipe-y jeans, button-front shirts, and cardigans with my old man Merrell mules.  Sure, we had the occasional marniere, or t-shirt/cardigan combination tossed in for good measure, but I pretty much just wore what I wore and liked it.  Bully for me.  More of that, I think.

8. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.  My mum and I constantly argue (actually, politely debate) about when it’s worth it to sew something instead of buying ready-to-wear.  I always want to sew everything; she thinks it’s a waste.  I do think that sewing certain things just won’t make my heart or budget sing.  Button-front shirts, jeans, t-shirts are on that list.

9. Buy fewer, better things.  Instead of three J. Crew cardigans, how about one from Brora or Elgin or Eric Bompard?  I don’t know how well this would work if instead of buying ten Old Navy button-front shirts, I bought one from Ann Mashburn, but how about we just take baby steps?

10. Be a better blogger.  See: photographs, sewing machine, space, and all of that jazz.  I read so many sewing blogs but I rarely, rarely comment.  I don’t spend nearly enough time taking care of my corner of the Internet or being supportive of people who are deadset inspiring.  I think I need to dedicate more time to being a productive member of the online sewing community rather than a deadbeat half-asser.

I have other general goals that aren’t quite resolutions.  I’d like to exercise more, be better at answering emails (so sorry, M!), learn how to ride a bicycle, read more books for fun, start writing creatively again, enjoy New York while I’m here again.  I’m sure these are the usual suspects.  Well I’m off to 2013 (verb).  Let’s do this, reader.

Her list got me thinking, not so much about knitting (although I can whip up a mean scarf…) or learning to speak a foreign language, but about setting real goals for the new year.

Goals.

Not resolutions.

Goals are plans. Resolutions are good intentions we have no intention of making good on–but they sound pretty impressive as we wait for the ball to drop over Times Square.

Curiosity is a killer, so let’s get to it.

Professional Goals for 2013
-Set up and maintain a sometimes-but-not-always-work-related-photography-and-fun blog.
-Work on a better description of the aforementioned blog.
-Update my website with new photos monthly.
-Switch lenses and spend an extra 5 or 10 minutes finding detail shots on real estate shoots.
-Start offering agent headshots.
-Increase aerial business.

Personal Goals for 2013
-Take the guitar off of the stand and play it.
-Scan and share old family photos.
-Establish family game night.
-Schedule time with extended family.
-Read no fewer than 6 books.
-Lose 40 pounds.

(Okay, that last one sounds dangerously similar to a resolution, but if I didn’t include it my sister/personal trainer would have my head.)

As we head into a new year filled with promise, I wish you all health, happiness and good friendship in 2013.

Happy New Year!

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 6 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Any one familiar with theater lore, tradition or superstition knows what a ghost light is.  In fact, depending upon which theater person is asked, any number of answers will be offered.  These explanations range from the practical to the supernatural.  I am not a theater person, but I do indulge myself in superstitions or symbolic reasoning more often than I care to admit to.  Here are a few of the origins and purposes of these lights which have become a stage fixture throughout the dramatic world.

1. The tradition is from the time of William Shakespeare.  A candle would be placed on the stage and left to burn during the night to calm the spirits of ghosts from previous performances, especially if the production was poorly received.
2. The light gives the ghosts that haunt a theater a chance to perform themselves, leaving them satisfied enough to sit quietly through subsequent performances.
3. The light is intended to scare ghosts away from the stage, protecting actors from the supernatural residue left by bickering spirits of unknown talent and intent.
4. Theater owners started the tradition to accommodate stage hands who either worked late in the theater or arrived early in the morning.  The preferred term among these more practical types is “equity light” to satisfy the Actor’s Equity Association’s requirement that theaters be always lit for safety reasons.  (There are no AEA requirements on record).
5. The Ghost Light is merely a safe-guard, releasing the pressure that would build up in gas lines that fed lighting systems in theaters before the introduction of electric lighting.  At one time all theaters had their own coal gas generators, and more than a few theaters burned from the buildup of pressure in the lines.
6. A well-known theater (which no one can name for sure) was broken into by a burglar.  The burglar stumbled over some props int the darkened theater, fell into the orchestra pit, broke his leg, and then sued the management of the theater for damages.  The burglar won his claim, the theater being condemned for providing an unsafe work environment.
7. All of the above are nonsense…including the mundane and the metaphysical explanations.  A Ghost Light is not really a concern that should take up this much space.  It’s a metaphor to be applied by each to her or his best advantage.

I am a believer in number seven, myself.  I have a picture of a Ghost Light as the screen saver on my computer.  It’s there every day to remind me that there is always a light on, a reminder that I – like the stage worker who arrives before the  actors…before the audience…before the critics – am to get to the work of writing a little something every day.  This may seem like a limp metaphor, one that could be better served by a strong work ethic or a series of sticky notes.  But, that’s what I’ve got to go with.  And, like the man said, “I’ve got to look out for my own skin, it’s the only one I’ve got.”

I grew up throwing fits until things were done for me, or did not do them at all. I am more or less the silent version of kid Stacey. I may not kick and scream but I forget I can do things for myself. For instance: My best friend Peter now has passwords to all of my accounts due to my lack of patience to set up my own blog.

Today my car was taken and impounded. I was pulled over because I have expired plates. The officer then learned I had no insurance, and my license is invalid. Kid Stace ran the battery powered car into a tree and was no longer aloud to ride it. Silent adult kid Stace has been to frustrated to fix all her technical issues so pretended they did not exist until forced to think about it.

I suppose this is a way of confessing, tell the world how irresponsible I am and justify it with upon trying to fix things I feel like my head is going to explode just like it did when I was young and my mom tried to help me with math. So I’d get the answers off the projector the next day in class or not at all and a failing grade hurt less than an exploding head.

I don’t know how to fix me and my dependency on others or my own stupidity. Sometimes I think things like a desk would help. I realize a desk is not going to fix my life long idiocy…but you see what I mean..I want a desk to fix it, not me.

With that being said I would like to start doing things I have always wanted to do, or have started and stopped doing. Not to be the best or even good at them, but to use my brain, and perhaps using my brain will enable me to fix my own small crisis. I’d never forgive myself for passing this on to my own child..and Lord knows no one wants to be known for anything that is so unglamorous.

Tomorrow I’m going on holiday to New Zealand where I will remain until New Year, but Robert and I wrote some comics in advance, which I’m going to draw while I’m over there. Expect some hand-drawn, phone-camera-photographed comics! We’ll still be updating the comic monday and friday, providing my internet connection holds up while I’m there (fingers crossed). The Zunfa Ephemeris will update on wednesdays the same as ever regardless, because I’ve set the site’s buffer to post automatically. I love the fact that we live in the future.

RagingTaipan

VIVANT ET SERPENTIBUS

• Forever a Student
• Text, Subtext, and Claude Shannon
• On the Killing of Darlings
• What Fiction Writers Can Learn From Moonshiners
• Stages of Creativity
• I’m Here For an Argument, Part 5: Ethos
• Instant Expertise
• Typing vs. Handwriting, Writing Profiles
• If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Control It: Are There Useful Writing Metrics?

Also, I’d still love to see responses for my A Study in a Study in Scarlet posts!

In other news, since last I posted, my application to SFWA was accepted, on the basis of my sale of a short story to Nature, which should appear some time in the next two months. I’ll update when that’s up.

[ETA: I also have other really good news waiting in the wings, but I'm going to keep that under wraps until the story's under contract]

1. Recently I stumbled upon two unrelated reviews of two unrelated books by unrelated reviewers, and they interestingly made the same point – that the books reviewed, whatever their merits, had become popular because it gave their readers the strong but false impression of having seen through the subject under discussion. This got me thinking – perhaps the books I had praised in my previous post were of this character.

I had said that the best way into a subject was often “by reading someone who wants to systematically overturn or revolutionise the subject you’re interested in” because their books make for more interesting reading, engaging in a battle with the ideas, not a dry exposition of them, while remaining rigorous and well informed. The problem is not so much with these kinds of books or their authors, but with the minds of the people who turn to them. (In other words, this is a self-critique, not a pop at the authors or their books.) And I’ve been devouring books like these ever since my late teens when I discovered The Blind Watchmaker in a library and felt very pleased with myself indeed for having seen through religion.

The authors of such books are indeed generally extremely well informed and their arguments are worth listening to, but lesser minds than theirs, looking over their shoulders as they go, can all too easily fall under the spell of the story, and, rather than using the story as a base for further reading and the development of their own arguments, learn instead by rote the arguments of the authority. The danger here is that the arguments learnt are, in the latter case, unsupported by strong foundations, so, at the first gust of wind, are likely to collapse, giving rise to hostility and anger rather than reasoned debate.

And the last thing the world needs is more anger, more smartarses who think they’ve seen through a subject on the basis of a cursory  glance at it. We need peace, love and understanding (and what’s so funny about that?), not divided, equally ignorant, aggressive, mutually hostile groups of men (it’s nearly always men), wielding ill-understood arguments as if they were swords. No: if you’re interested in a subject, you should not seek to see through it, like someone pretending to listen to a conversation while dreamily following their own thoughts, but to stand under it (stand-under, under-stand, understand). Only then can you take the subject upon your own shoulders, carry the burden, and share it with others.

As Marx pointed out, the paths to the summits of science are steep and make for a fatiguing climb. Those who attempt the climb without the advantage of an academic career, or the support of a mate whose dad owns a factory, understandably look for shortcuts. But beware: I have walked the road, and the shortcuts do not lead to the luminous summits, but to a bog – a bog of treacherous pools and mists, infested with midges and fell beasts.

So, with more noble ends in view, I abandoned (for now) Steve Keen’s efforts to help me see through economics, and I have instead decided to sit in on the undergraduate economics programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From my armchair in Leamington Spa. For free! And they say Communism is dead. The modern world is often a foul place, but it does also sometimes delight and amaze.

2. I also said in my previous post that it was one of the great tragedies of my life that I would never again be able to read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. The good news for anyone in my position and who feels my pain is that it is possible after all – all you have to do, if you haven’t already (and if you have I’m afraid I can’t help you), is read The Silmarillion.

There is a widely believed legend about this book that is far more fantastic than anything between its covers – that the book is difficult bordering on the unreadable, and boring. That’s why I’ve not read it till now, but the legend is utterly false. The Silmarillion is a wonderful book of Biblical power, full of magic and wonder and dark tales of the battle between good and evil, of the struggle between men (and elves) and the gods. The creation myth it tells, and the myth of the origin of the sun and moon, in particular, took my breath away – they are stunningly beautiful, better to my mind than anything you can find in real-world mythology. There is also of course the tale of Beren and Luthien, by all accounts one of the greatest love stories ever told, and one dear to Tolkien himself (his and his wife’s grave bear their names).

But the greatest thing of all about it, as already hinted, is that it reveals new depths and riches in the already profoundly deep and rich Lord of the Rings. Tales and myths and songs and histories and characters and places hinted at in Tolkien’s masterpiece are revealed in all their glory in The Silmarillion. It’s as if Middle Earth had a Bible all along, and Tolkien discovered it. How, says a reviewer in the blurb on the back of my copy, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people? How indeed.

3. My third mistake was to imply that The Economist magazine isn’t as consistently good as its Christmas issue. I have subscribed to the mag for about three of the past ten years, and I used to read it religiously, cover to cover, every week. It’s a habit I lost and had no intention of reacquiring.

But I’ve been drawn in again because, actually, it is a very good magazine indeed. It’s not of course consistently brilliant all the way through, every week. It would be an inexplicable miracle if it was. And it’s not without some serious faults – it’s often smug, inappropriately flippant, offhandedly confident and arrogant where I would prefer a bit of humility, balance, or, at the very least, an argument, and it breezily and cheerfully skips along the surface of subjects with chilling and grisly depths (you’ll need to search more widely, here for example, for the depths).

If you’re serious, you’d almost certainly want to go for the FT instead, if you have the time and money to invest. If, like me, your time for such things is more limited, and you’re reading as much for entertainment as for information and serious analysis, then you’d be hard-pressed to beat The Economist. It’s also, as the left should be, refreshingly uncynical about politics and the prospects for progress and freedom, and yet at the same time realistically economic-determinist. I’ve renewed my subscription and will be reacquiring an old reading habit for the New Year.

4. Finally, I promised in my last post that I would be shutting up from then till after Christmas. I didn’t. But now I am.

I needed me time, I saw a 20 hour window, so I took it. I have been learning that adventure is okay to have on your own. So with not much money or time on my hands I find myself here… Cheers to attempting to keep sanity. “Treat Yoself” if you have the opportunity.

…or maybe…it is just that “brown envelopes” handed over in dark, underground parking garages….really do work, after all!

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OK – to the real “business” of today!

The nominations are “in”…shortlists are being prepared (well almost)…and fans of bloggery around the globe are holding their breath…as I bang away at my keyboard!

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I have a “bad feeling” about this…Obi-Wan!

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Over the next few days…your twitter accounts and e-mail folders will start to fill up with messages like these:

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What the senders of these little messages “actually” mean is:

…or perhaps:

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You might even get one like this:

Please, please, please….do NOT vote for “that guy”!

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Also, do not be sucked in by messages like this:

It didn’t work for Romney…it ain’t gonna work for the #Eddies12!

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Some people will try to intimidate you:

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…”threaten” you, even:

Do not get scared!

If you ever met half of these guys in the “real world”…you’d know why!

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There will be others…“creative types”…that will peak your interest with their visual wizardry and IT skill set:

Do not be fooled!

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And then…there are guys like me…

…”nice” blokes that say:

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VOTE FOR MY NOMINEES…INSTEAD!

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Best individual blog

• dangerously!irrelevant – from Scott McLeod

Best group blog

• Inquire Within - from bloggers in 14 countries, across 6 continents

Best new blog

• Diane Ravitch’s Blog - from Diane Ravitch, yani!

Best ed tech / resource sharing blog

• Free Technology For Teachers - from Richard Byrne

Best teacher blog

• Venspired - from Krissy Venosdale

Most influential blog post

• Seven Keys to Effective Feedback – from Grant Wiggins

Best individual tweeter

• @ShellTerrell

Best twitter hashtag

• #eltchat

Best free web tool

• Twitter

Best educational wiki

• Educational Origami – from Andrew Churches

Best educational use of a social network

• Ana Cristina Pratas – from Ana Cristina, duh!

Best mobile app

• DropBox

Lifetime achievement

• Larry Cuban

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Good luck to all!

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And when I say the real world, I mean of course books. I don’t know about where you are, but here it is already very grey, cold, wet and miserable. It makes you just want to pull your duvet back over your head and escape to Middle Earth, which is exactly what I’ll be doing. My partner and I sat up till late last night over a bottle of whisky discussing the The Lord of the Rings in depth, including an analysis of why, contrary to the opinion of a few comic smartarses, the eagles could NOT have just flown the hobbits straight to the crack of doom and got it all over with in a fraction of the time. We also wished fervently that we had the technology to erase our memories – it is one of the greatest tragedies of our lives that we will never again be able to read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. And if you’re not reading it for the first time, although very many other pleasures will still be available to you, even on the tenth, twentieth, rereading, you won’t quite be party to the subtly building sense of threat and dread and excitement that hangs over the books, epecially the first one. What a Christmas treat, to be reading again the book I love more than all others.

I will also be reading Debunking Economics by Steve Keen. I have long wanted to deepen and broaden my knowledge of economics for obvious reasons. And if you want to know something about a subject, what is the best and most interesting way in? Often it is by reading someone who wants to systematically overturn or revolutionise the subject you’re interested in. These books make for better reading than basic introductory texts because they are engaging in a battle with the ideas, not a dry exposition of them. And because of the nature of what they’re trying to do, they have to appeal to and explain to  the layman as much as they must be rigorous and well informed to stand a cat in hell’s chance of convincing specialists. So if you want to know about classical economics, you’re better off with Marx than with ‘Introducing Adam Smith’. About anthropology, with this than with this. About neo-classical economics? Keen’s book seems to fit the bill.

Another thing I’ll be reading, something which has become something of a Christmas tradition in our house, as Christmassy to my mind now as Dickens and Christmas pudd, is the Christmas edition of this magazine. It’s always very good indeed and packed with fascinating articles. I’m just glad the magazine isn’t always that good, otherwise I wouldn’t have time in my life to do anything but read it.

Merry Christmas one and all, I will be seeing you in the New Year.

Update: I couldn’t in the end be bothered with Mr Keen’s book (which is no reflection on the book, just on my state of mind), but I did finally get round to reading this. It’s very good:

It is not a hard sell to anger the average leftist about the power and arrogance of the discipline, or to flatter them that they can see through it all. But it is an unfortunate attitude. “For – though no one will believe it,” as Keynes once wrote, “economics is a technical and difficult subject.”

OK, OK…

…I know I have been known to poke fun at the Edublog Awards – actually, for the 2011 Edublog Awards I did get a few nominations in – after the deadline and without using the suggested categories!

Yes…I still maintain that I am not a fan of “professional competitions”.

It especially makes me “sad” to see educators screaming “VOTE FOR ME!” over twitter…so sad!

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Please…don’t do that! Don’t be THAT guy!

Not cool – not cool at all!

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If people are blogging…and tweeping…for “awards” or “badges” – surely they didn’t get “the memo”…and miss the point totally.

Guys – it is supposed to get us off the planet…faster!

I blame the “KLOUT culture” (and the Kardashians)…

– Damn you, KLLLLLOOOOOUUUUUUUT!

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Ne se! Where were we?

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Last year I got me ear bent (for not taking the Awards as seriously as, say, a heart attack) – and it has been happening again this week…over the past few days (a lot)!

I am starting to see the light…at the end of the blogosphere!

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There is so much great stuff out there – and it needs to be shared…and thunk over!

The #eddies12 are a great way to pick up new blogs and folks to read – just going thru the (bloody long) process of reflecting on my fave blogs and sneaking a quick look at some of the nominations has helped me re-connect with a few people I shouldn’t have left alone these past months.

Sorry, guys!

But…here’s the thing…I’m even more sorry (sorrier – ???) that I cannot put everyone down on me list! This is really why I hate blogging competitions…

Sorry, gals! So sorry…

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So here goes everything – my 2012 Edublog Award nominations are:

Best individual blog

• dangerously!irrelevant – from Scott McLeod

Best group blog

• Inquire Within – from bloggers in 14 countries, across 6 continents

Best new blog

• Diane Ravitch’s Blog – from Diane Ravitch, yani!

Best ed tech / resource sharing blog

• Free Technology For Teachers – from Richard Byrne

Best teacher blog

• Venspired – from Krissy Venosdale

Most influential blog post

• Seven Keys to Effective Feedback – from Grant Wiggins

Best individual tweeter

• @ShellTerrell

Best twitter hashtag

• #eltchat

Best free web tool

• Twitter

Best educational wiki

• Educational Origami – from Andrew Churches

Best educational use of a social network

• Ana Cristina Pratas – from Ana Cristina, duh!

Best mobile app

• DropBox

Lifetime achievement

• Larry Cuban

Good luck to all!

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Remember - we are all far better off when we SHARE and LEARN from…and with others – so share-your-love!

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Look for snark to resume sometime this afternoon or evening. And thanks for playing.

LJ has experienced a completely ridiculous upsurge in spam levels in the last week or so. I am thoroughly bored by having to delete all these stupid, illiterate ads for far-fetched and unlikely products, although the essentially random re-introduction to all my own deathless prose over about eight years is … illuminating. A quick survey of the comments stats for the blog reveals that very few actual real live humans post anonymously to this blog, and when they do, a good proportion of them are people who actually do have logins and are simply not using them in the interests of hassle-reduction. I am thus, out of concern for my own sanity and the desire to avoid the inevitable karmic backlash from all the Evil Thoughts I keep having about spammers, going to switch the blog to login-only commenting. With apologies for those of you for whom it’s a pain. If someone finds a spray repellent or handy orbital nuke that actually eradicates spam-cockroaches, I’ll open the comments up again as a gesture of solidarity for the anonymous.

Right, October! A month of weeks.

• 1st: simply panders to my random love for the thoroughly wonderful phrase “in hock”, which is slang for being in debt or, more specifically, having all one’s belongings in pawn. It’s such a lovely word, hock. Solid and faintly unlikely. The OED seems to think it’s from the Dutch hok, “hovel, hutch or prison”, and it has lovely resonances with card games, specifically faro, staking everything on the turn of a card and losing.

• 2nd: Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey”. The Lake District appears to have colonised me good and proper with mad Romantic yens.
• 3rd: not a quote. I am contractually obligated to occasionally be original in subject lines. It’s in the Blogger’s Code.
• 7th: Douglas Adams. A quote from actual Vogon poetry, by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. I blush to admit a careless misattribution in a previous month: the poetic collection My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles by Grunthos the Flatulent (referenced on 11th September) is not, of course, Vogon poetry, but was the work of the poetmaster of the Azgoths of Kria, perpetrators of the second worst poetry in the universe. I apologise for this unaccountable slip, while remaining staunch in my belief that being hooptiously drangled with crinkly bindlewurdles is really the only description which adequately expresses the pain and despair occasioned by the particular batch of essays I was marking.
• 11th: as any phule kno, “arkle” is the noise of faint concern made by baby gargoyles, circa Sandman, “Preludes and Nocturnes”, the bit with Cain and Abel.
• 12th: a phrase from Avengers slashfic by scifigr147, specifically Clint trying to negotiate with a sentient toaster which hates sesame seeds and is refusing to toast him a bagel.
• 15th: the second line of “Me and Bobby McGee”. If this mention puts that wretched song back on my brain again I may actually give up this attribution thing entirely, because good grief.
• 17th: more Hitch-Hiker’s Guide, here Arthur Dent. The quote about never being able to get the hang of Thursdays was on a Wednesday post in which I was complaining about thinking it was Tuesday. It seemed appropriate.
• 18th: I must cope to quoting that sappy and irritating Coke jingle from way back in my childhood. I have, for some reason, very vivid memories of hearing that song on the radio practically endlessly, both in its jingle incarnation and in the subsequent actual chart-topping version. Even given the delay in things hitting rural Zimbabwe and its probable subsequent media lifespan this is quite an impressive feat of memory, I was two years old when the song charted.
• 23rd: the deliriously apposite I-hate-work title of the song by Belle & Sebastian.
• 25th: I am, of course, quoting the hero of Canton, the man they called Jayne, from the episode “Jaynestown”. He’s wrangling with Mal about the statue.
• 27th: Velvet Underground.

Sofia is my front man more than not and I have a way of making it look real incredible via the interweb! I capture most everything we do and throw it up on instagram with something ridiculous Sofia said during the moment I was snapping the photo. A picture tells a thousand words. I am learning it also leaves out a few thousand, give or take.

I am a blessed gal. Without my faith in Jesus I can’t say where I would be. But walking in the light is not always easy. Sometimes I am pissed, and I want to be pissed..and yell, kick, and scream. Being blessed and taken care of does not make me immune to bad days, assholes, and my child treating me like I am a red headed step child more days than not.

With that said, perhaps my “niche” is getting by with a smile. You will not read my blog and get parenting advice, you will not always be encouraged, but you will know you will be okay and more times than not it could always be worse. There is so much more going for us than what is currently on our plates.

That isn’t terribly far off the mark, when you consider all the places it’s been since I bought it in 2009.

I was wearing this jacket the other day when I went to the grocery store – the most banal American task imaginable, yet still one that throws a little skip-skip into my heart rhythm on occasion, even if I’m not always cognizant of why. In a crowded aisle, I leaned back against a towering shelf pasta to let a triple-wide stroller pass, and then I felt it. Prick. The faintest suggestion of a sharp point. And it all came flooding back.

More than two years ago, in June of 2010, nestled amongst the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, I was in the laborious process of making a new best friend. We met up one weekend to go to the market, and upon our return, my friend’s host mother was thrilled to see another Peace Corps Trainee and offered to show us something she thought we would find interesting: a water tower, built by European college students in the 80s. That’s genuinely all I can say about it, because in reality it WASN’T especially interesting. But we went along happily enough, following the host mother over the river and through the woods, hopping a couple fences, taking shortcuts through cornfields, winding down cattle watering paths – I swear to God, we were probably in Tanzania at some point – before reaching the anticlimactic structure maybe an hour after our little outing began. It was a water tower. Thrilling. Then, after a few awkwardly posed photographs, since lost to a stolen camera, we made a near-identical hour-long trek in reverse.

We spent at LEAST that much time afterwards sitting on the steps of the family homestead, picking burrs off each other and laughing about our experiences up to that point. We both looked like we’d been dragged backwards through a thorn grove after losing a dance-battle with an aggressive gang of corn stalks. We never DID get all the burrs, despite repeated close inspections, so over the next two years, we’d periodically be wearing whatever we’d worn that day and, prick. There’s one we missed.

My life now is so drastically, incredibly different today, that sometimes it takes the physical pinch of a thorn to remind me: Oh, right. All that didn’t happen to someone else. Today is my two-month-iversary of landing on American soil. Even surrounded by photographs and clutter from 35 foreign countries, my students’ portraits in frames in my living room, a Kenyan flag tacked up over my bookshelf and lesos draped across most pieces of furniture … even though some of my closest friends to this day are people I met in the Peace Corps … even though I still dream in Swahili more often than English … it feels as though it all happened a lifetime ago. If it happened at all.

It’s a very curious feeling.

I’m back now, I suppose. How long was I gone?

—-

I’ve wrestled mentally about what to do with this blog. Part of me thinks it would be a hoot to continue to write about the ecstasy and agony of re-acculturation, while part of me thinks it stands best on its own as a contained experience. I’ve decided on the latter, but first I’ll offer a few more posts about what I’m up to now, how you can get in touch with me, and some recommendations for travel. I will spare you my experiences at places like the World’s Worst Hotel (in a review for a travel website, I literally included the line “I wish I had a time machine so I could un-stay here”) but instead offer my Best Of list, so you can set yourself up for your own adventures.

It’s been a wild ride, folks. Remember to please keep your hands and feet inside until the vehicle comes to a complete stop.

Almost, but not yet.

Moderator: Alright, gentlemen: the agreed-upon format for this debate is the usual five minutes apiece on a series of major issues, followed by two minute rebuttals and a closing argument for each. Mr. Woody, you won the toss, so you’ll get the first five minutes. Is everyone ready?
Woody: Ready.

Woody: Ready.

Moderator: Very well then. The first topic is of course the economy. Mr. Woody, you have stated in the past that the economy is most certainly not your fault. After four years, do you still feel this way, and what do you intend to do in the next four years?

Woody: Okay, wow. Kind of two questions in one, isn’t it? Are you sure this is legit?

Moderator: five minutes, forty three seconds remaining, Mr. Woody.

Woody: Yipes. Okay, the economy. It’s hard, you know, to assume responsibility for something that was basically handed to you and having been told, okay, it’s yours now. Fix it. So I’ve been working hard on this very issue for several years now. I can tell you that I haven’t made anywhere near as much headway as I would have liked to after four years, but who among us, really, is as successful as we’d like to be? There’s always room for improvement, right?

Moderator: You have two minutes and twenty five seconds remaining. Would you like to continue?

Woody: Certainly, certainly. Can’t waste another minute, with the economy in this condition, right? And, uh, you know, I’ve had policies in place now that have begun to show results in key sectors of my personal wallet, although I know things are still tough for, you know, uh, my kids and um my wife and

Moderator: I’m sorry, Mr. Woody, but you exceeded your allotted time by a good ten seconds. We will allow Mr. Woody an additional ten seconds to keep things fair tonight. Mr. Woody, you’ve listened to your opponent talk about his unique approach to the economy. Same basic question to you, sir: what do you intend to do in the next four years?

Woody: I have always believed in a balanced approach to economic issues. The basic engine of the economy is work. Hard work. The harder we work, the better our economy fares. Of course, having the opportunity to work is a key element of that principle, and so I believe that we

Moderator: I’m sorry, Mr. Woody. Your clock ran out well over fifty five seconds ago and

Woody: I beg your pardon? I just barely got started and

Moderator: No, really. Clock says you ran over. Back to Mr. Woody, then. This is your two minute rebuttal. Mr. Woody states that he believes in a “balanced approach.” Do you honestly believe that any such balance can be achieved?

Woody: Absolutely I do, but not, you know, uh, in the um precise manner proposed by my esteemed opponent. One thing I know: the rich are still getting richer in this country, and the poor are not getting their share of the rich people’s money. At least, that’s how it is with my personal wallet these days, and

Woody: Excuse me, Mr. Woody, I hope you’re not inferring that I am in any way

Woody: Now, hold on, Mr. Woody. I’m still speaking and you’ll get your turn. As I was saying, I have a plan, vastly different from Mr. Woody, that will guarantee that those who cannot or will not agree to participate in Mr. Woody’s “engine” will still be able to receive free cell phones from key donors to my campaign.

Moderator: Nicely done, Mr. Woody. You kept right to the allotted two minutes. Mr. Woody, you’ve heard your opponent talk about those free cell phones. How do you respond?

Woody: Well, really, free cell phones are hardly a critical element of the kind of economic recovery that we need in this country, and I feel strongly that we need

Moderator: I am so sorry, Mr. Woody. The clock once again shows that your time has indeed expired.

Woody: It can’t have! I literally didn’t even finish my run-on sentence!

Moderator: Nonetheless, it is time now to answer questions sent in by undecided voters. The first question, from an undecided out of work dad with thirteen kids who all just barely qualified for food stamps is directed to Mr. Woody: Are you awesome, or what? Remember, five minutes, please.

Woody: Well, gosh, “awesome” may be a bit strong, but really, under the protection of the First Amendment, who am I to tell someone what they can or can’t think? Heck, if that were the case, I’d have a better chance of keeping Joe Biden from ever talking again!

[audience laughter]

[loud guffaws from Biden, with shouts of "God love 'im!"]

Woody: But seriously, as I mentioned on Comedy Central just the other night, I’m feeling quite optimal these days and am so looking forward to having the next four years as an opportunity to finally actually do some of the things I promised to do four years ago.

Woody: By my watch, Mr. Woody is a good twenty five seconds over the allotted five minutes!

Moderator: Actually, the official debate clock just reached the five minute mark. Well done, Mr. Woody.

[illegal clapping from the audience]

Moderator: We’ll move on, now, to the final statements from each

Woody: Hey! What about my five minutes on a question from an undecided voter?

Moderator: Well, apparently there are no undecided voters left in this auditorium, after Mr. Woody’s brilliant answer to that last question. We’ll move on, then, to closing statements from each candidate. Mr. Woody, since you didn’t get a question from an undecided voter, we’ll let you go first. You have three minutes, sir.

Woody: Thank you. I think we can all agree that four more years of a Mr. Woody administration would have disastrous conseq

Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Woody. Your time is up.

Woody: Of course it is.

Moderator: Thank you for agreeing. Mr. Woody, the awful burden of having the last word is yours, and we will therefore give you the full ten minutes that your team requested behind closed doors just moments before the debate began.

Woody: I thought so.

Moderator: Mr. Woody, please. You’ve had your say, and the time now belongs to your opponent.

Woody: Thank you. You know, we’ve had a rough four years. Many unexpected challenges. Finding time to work in nearly 400 rounds of golf has been no picnic!

[sounds of stifled giggling in the audience]

Woody: Oh, I’m sorry! I forgot this wasn’t the Alfred Smith dinner! But seriously, let me be clear. Mr. Woody is not interested in helping put more money in your pockets. Certainly not any of his own! And he will do everything he can to protect his own interests. My only interest is and has always been taking money from the rich people who don’t need it, not counting my own donors and super-PACs, and giving it to all of the wonderful special interests who have bolstered my campaign these past six years. Thank you all!

Moderator: This has been the final debate of this election season. The voters will decide to keep Mr. Woody in office for at least another four years, and we would like to thank MSNBC, NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, Politico, Yahoo! News, and in short every media outlet except Fox News for supporting these fair and balanced debates and for concocting enough numbers to make it look like Mr. Woody has his pre-election bounce to restore the obviously fabricated negative polling results since our first debate just a few short weeks ago. Thank you and good night.

Woody: Thank you, Mr. Axelrod.

You see how it goes in my mind these days? November 6 cannot possibly get here soon enough.

This video is a compilation of the events held on March 4, June 10, and July 22, 2012. I used some upbeat jams by the incredible and copyrighted band Caribou (don’t sue me!) and threw all my favorite clips together into a metric montage. I also used Rip City’s new logo for a quick and easy mo-graph at the end. Paths over the vector file layers in After Effects, tracing them in effect, add the Stroke effect to the paths (they’re actually called Masks in AE). Switch it so the Mask’s Stroke effect Reveals Original, and voila! Animate the Stroke’s amount of Reveal Original and you have a beautiful ghost-write effect.

I think I learned this from Video Co-Pilot. Quick and Dirty. But J.P. gave me a pair of Adidas and $100 to Rip City Skate for it, so maybe it’s dirty sexy, not just dirty.