Not Dead Yet: UJTU Late September 2012

I have sadly neglected the blogosphere as of late. I may well have missed any number of earth-shattering, life-changing, world-altering posts from some of you. One of these days maybe I'll find some time to catch up!

1. First off, this is rather marvelous. It's like a verbal banquet. I like words, too. Don't you?

2. I haven't been doing much writing. I have, however, been playing and listening to a great deal of music. Made it to quite a few local bluegrass festivals, some of which were mostly listening, some of which were mostly hanging out with friends and playing music. I saw this thingamabob at an old time festival in Centralia, WA in August, and tried stumblingly to describe it to friends...until it showed up at another festival in Rainier, WA a few weeks later and was able to capture photographic proof. It's half Ford Pinto (painted hearse-style) and half motorcycle. Fascinating.

It'd make for an interesting vehicle for a NaNoWriMo character, no?

The bluegrass season is over, but I'm still playing tenor banjo at the local Irish session, practicing mandolin whenever I can (working on various waltzes lately, mostly--waltzes go well with fall weather), and trying to get better at playing accompaniment/backup chords, which is something I struggle with. Not nearly as intuitive as picking up melodies.

3. Other things I've been up to: last weekend I made my first solo venture into canning, and made a batch of apple butter (partly using apples I got from a friend's trees, in return for which I'll barter them back some apple butter, which makes me feel all pioneerly and such). The making of the apple butter wasn't hard, but I was pretty terrified of the canning portion, based on all the dire warnings it is possible to find on-line and my own heightened ability to ponder Every Thing That Could Possibly Go Wrong. The jars must be filled full, or they won't seal, but not TOO full, or they'll explode when processing, and if you don't heat them long enough in the processing stage, the apple butter will become angry and toxic, stalk you while you are sleeping, and inject nerve gas into your bloodstream, whereupon you will die a horrible, painful death. Or something like that. But I did the best I could, and (wonder of wonders), they all appear to have sealed properly and they look kinda purty.

Only catch? After all that work, it seems a real shame to actually break the seal on one and eat the stuff...

4. As a final note, after a certain amount of soul-searching (and wallet pummeling), I believe I will be putting many of my typewriters up for sale. Much though I mourn a few of the ones that got away (mostly the Hermes 3000), I'm just not cut out to be a collector. The Lettera 31 will stick around, and I'll figure out a few others, but if you see any ads with my photos attached on Craigslist...it isn't a photo thief. It's just me, having lost my mind.

Imagining a Perfect Space

A quick blueprint style sketch of my imaginary writing room, sketched on the back of an envelope, 'cause that's how I roll.

Strikethru recently started a discussion regarding what one might want in an ideal writing space. I'm a little late to the party, but I had to respond. I love this subject. I've spent many, many hours when I could be writing or otherwise gainfully employed browsing through flickr photos of writing desks and articles on how and where "real" writers like to write.

As for me, I think I'd like something a bit bigger than a shack or trailer. This may stem from either the fact that I've pretty much never had anything *but* cramped and cluttered quarters, or my general tendency toward claustrophobia. In any case, I'll take a slightly different stance. Here's what I'd like in my (fairly airy and spacious) writing room:

- Big windows or French doors, set away enough from the rest of the room that I can avoid glare and weird shadows, and with good blinds for those times when I want to close out the outside world. There would be a view--not necessarily a vista (though vistas are nice), but at least an ever-changing panorama of some sort. Not close to a street: people-watching is all well and good, but if I feel like they're watching me back, I can't concentrate. I'd rather have rolling fields or cow pastures or distant woods, or maybe a nice water view. Having something like bird feeders on a patio just outside would be good,too: something to watch more or less mindlessly. I do love a bird feeder. (I need to set up my hummingbird feeder again one of these days, come to think of it.)

- A ginormous heavy old table--like a farm table or board room table, preferably with plenty of character--for spreading out papers and such as I write by hand or typewriter or on the laptop with nothing else attached. In real life, I know such a table would almost instantly become and remain cluttered, but in my writing room dream, it is a beautifully open and inviting surface, always at the ready and picked up tidily after use. I'd probably also want some equally well-lived chairs to go with it.

- A place for an electric kettle and coffee and tea supplies, and a water supply for making such. Enough said. Also a mini fridge. Good call, Speegle.

- A decent speaker setup. Though to be honest, while I like the *idea* of writing to music, I don't really listen to it all that often when I'm really trying to get things done--I'm too easily distracted, even by wordless classical music. But sometimes, you *need* a little U2 or Holst or Merle Haggard or what-have-you to set the mood. It all depends. Gotta be ready. Having a place to keep a guitar or mandolin on a stand for noodling on while I'm thinking could be good, too.

- A big leather recliner with a blanket draped over the back: a good place to read, and comfortable enough for snoozing whilst contemplating, but not quite bed-like enough to encourage escape-by-napping. I'd also keep a lap desk by the side of it for times I felt like writing or computing there, and a cup o' pencils on the side table.

Actually, on second thought make that *two* pencil cups, one for sharps and one for dulls, with some sort of system for making it obvious which is which (green and red, maybe?), and add additional dual pencil cups around the room.

- An old medicine cabinet type thing with lots of interesting nooks and crannies for storing ink and pens and pencils and other assorted supplies. Actually, what'd be really cool (while I'm in complete fantasy mode here) would be a custom designed cabinet with bookshelves at the very top for reference books and binders and used notebooks, little bitty drawers for things like pen nibs and pencil leads, slightly bigger ones for index cards and pens and pencils, and a space at the bottom for storing unused notebooks and paper. Yeah. That wouldn't cost much to do, would it?

- A fairly barebones computer desk, with space for a nice big monitor and logical places for my scanner and printer and all. I'd also want enough room to set out notebooks or papers I was transcribing, or reference materials, but I'd guess I'd do most of my initial writing at the big ol' table.

- A cat. Cats make for good writing companions: sleeping cats have a nice dreamy aura about 'em to aid in creativity. I'm biased enough to believe this is particularly true of Siamese. And fortunately I have one on hand, with a spare half-Siamese as backup. Some dogs make good muses as well...my current dog is, however, faulty in this regard, being as how he is sitting-still-for-more-than-moments-impaired.

So there you have it. No big surprises to those who've been following along for awhile, I don't think.

It's that big ol' table that most grips my imagination, for some reason. There's just something about a big ol' table. Maybe it's just the idea of having a writing surface that can be approached from all four sides? Or else it's the former homeschooler in me....

A Matter of (Sentimental) Value

I had to go out of town for work a few weeks back--an extremely rare occurrence for me, which made it all the more stressful (read: I am a total wimp when it comes to leaving familiar ground). We went to Eastern Washington, which (generally unlike Western Washington) is quite hot during the summer. Knowing that there was a good possibility my belongings would be exposed to being left in a hot car, pencil made better sense than fountain pen to bring along for writing. I also knew I'd likely be wayyy too busy and on-the-go to mess around with sharpening, so mechanical pencil it was. Finally, I knew I'd be going to multiple sites, under major time constraints, so the chances of my leaving a pencil behind were pretty much guaranteed.

With all this factored in, I took along a purple Pentel Twist-Erase: rugged, dependable, well-equipped in the eraser department, and not too pricey or difficult to replace should the all-but-inevitable occur and it get permanently borrowed or left behind. I stuffed it full of leads, and off we went.

It had a pretty tough week: heavy and rough usage, and not just by me. Since I seemed to always be the one who always had a writing instrument at the ready, it got passed around a lot. People broke leads, it was dropped, tossed in linty purse pockets, and left (as predicted) in a car hot enough to do this to the gummy vitamins I foolishly toted along:

A few times I thought I'd lost it, or that someone had wandered off with it. But somehow, it came through it all without a hitch. We're still together. It got me through what was, to me, a very tense week, one little thing I could always depend on.

And now...now I was just realizing I'm kind of nervous about taking it away from my desk, for fear I'll lose it. Because now it's special. We've adventured together, this little Twist-Erase and I. It's like the hero's horse in a quest: seems like now it deserves to be put out to pasture to live a life of luxury, lest something dreadful happen to such a well-loved and loyal servant.

OK, so that's all rather hokey. And I suspect I'll get over it sooner or later. Otherwise I could go broke buying inexpensive-ish mechanical pencils I'm afraid to take anywhere...

Scribble Tweet: Anonymous

But I can stop any time I want.

The Nice Notebook Dilemma

Some of the notebooks awaiting use

As has been well established within the pages of this blog, I am something of a notebook addict. I have scads of notebooks squirreled away: mostly cheap composition books, but also a second Rhodia Webnotebook (I used my first awhile back), an empty Moleskine, a hard bound Rite in the Rain notebook, a cloth-bound Clairefontaine, a Leuchtturm1917, and a hardcover Blueline, among others. Pretty much every time I finish a notebook, I take these nicer journals and notebooks off the shelf and finger them...and then ultimately put them back and grab one of the ubiquitous composition books.

It's not so much that I'm intimidated by them, I don't think. I've never been one to worry about ruining that first page with less-than-profound thoughts and messy handwriting. I think it's more that right now, they're mine as objects to be treasured (and gloated over). Once used, the notebooks themselves no longer matter--only the words inside matter. The notebooks fade into the background and become just another repository for my scribbles.

>
Some past notebooks, which I wrote about here.

I have a strange mental block against letting them go. Which, I suppose, is something of a hoarder mentality, and probably not very healthy.

I think I shall resolve to live more openly (recklessly?) and to embrace what my hoarded goods may become, even if it means letting go of what they are now. What have I got to lose?

Except for those lovely empty notebooks...

Oh dear.

Type Tweet: Pet Peeved

Not to mention "its" from "it's" and "to" from "too" and (particularly onerous) "loose" from "lose." I'd also like to require remedial education for those who insist on putting random apostrophes in plural words: "kid's" instead of "kids," for example.

Index Card Lovers: See and Envy

I went to Goodwill today for the first time in forever. No typewriters (except the ubiquitous late '80s electric), but I did find this:

Now *that* is an index card cabinet. I don't exactly have enough cards to fill it yet, but really, for eight dollars, could I resist? Of course not.

Steelmaster's logo is pretty retro-cool! I'm not sure this is actually vintage, since Steelmaster still appears to be making filing cabinets, but the styling is classic.

And I particularly like these little spring-loaded slidey thingies. They allow for easy expansion.

It stacks nicely, and will hold some of my smallish notebooks as well as index cards.

Type Tweet: On Using Real People as Models for Fictional Characters

New Favorite Eraser: Pentel Hi-Polymer

(Yes, seriously, a post about erasers).

NEWS FLASH: Pentel Hi-Polymer Erasers are TEH AWESOME.

1. When I first encountered the Mars Plastic Eraser a few years ago, it was a revelation. An eraser that actually...well, erased? And did so without leaving smeary crumbs like ye olde gritty pink erasers of yore? Whoa. There's a reason these are one of the benchmarks of eraserdom.

Since my eyes were opened to the possibilities, I've picked up a few other eraser varieties.

2. The Papermate Black Pearl (out sick the day the class photo was taken) is a great shape--if you use a sharp edge, you can get into pretty small spaces, but used lengthwise you can go to *town* with the thing. And being black, it doesn't acquire the grungy...um...patina of the white erasers. It does, however, produce more and messier residue than the Mars.

3. The Pentel Clic erasers get into small spaces and erase almost entirely--I think they're the same material as my new favorite eraser, actually. For things like math problems where you might need to erase one tiny character at a time, I imagine these'd be the way to go. Because they retract, they also can be kept pretty neat and clean--I keep one in my purse partly for this reason. But I like the solid, stolid simplicity of plain old block erasers, and (how shall I put this?) the way these sort of squish when you press down on them unnerves me.

4. Awhile back I picked up a Uni-ball "Boxy" eraser on a whim when placing a Jet Pens order, and this may be *the* primo eraser. Black, so it doesn't show graphite, and as you erase, the little shreds roll into a sticky little ball all by themselves, so they're very tidy. They also have that somewhat enigmatic little slogan: "The basic concept of Boxy always aims at a simple life style." Mmkay. Good to ponder. And, most importantly, wow they work well, even on dark and smeary pencil. They are, however, small, difficult to find, and rather expensive as erasers go. Also they are soft enough to damage by hard use if you aren't careful.

5. But the Pentel Hi-Polymer ZEH10 may be the Baby Bear's Chair of graphite erasers. Not only do they have a nifty '80s sort of style goin' on with the print on their little sleeve thingie, they're also large, long lasting, and work pretty much like the Boxy but are less easy to damage. As a bonus, they're available lots of places. I bought three of these bad boys for less than two bucks at Wal-Mart. I'm sold.

From the Realm of Realllly Bad Puns

The sentences are examples taken from old grammar text books, because the idea of doing so amused me.