Typecast: Honk Not

I might add, laying on the horn does not excuse the drivers themselves from slowing down and using a bit of caution at the crossing, let alone entitle them to speed up and blast through, as many of them do.

Throwback Thursday - The Big Old Tree

For Throwback Thursday, here's a link to a post I wrote a few years back regarding events of several decades back.

Little Flower Petals: Vignette #5 - The Big Old Tree

Loss of Perspective

Later this week, I'll be going from this view:

To this view.

I'm kind of dreading it. I love my windows. I get to see the trees change with the seasons. I get to watch weather roll in and out. I like seeing the same people and the same dogs walk by every day, like my own personal reality TV show. (Incidentally, when I was walking back from dropping the car off to have its tires changed the other day, one of the regular walkers said "Good morning!" to me, which was crazy surreal: like suddenly bumping into Jack Bauer or Lady Mary at the grocery store.) I like the sunshine, when we get it. I don't spend *all* my time staring out the window, of course, but it's nice that it's there.

The move is necessary: we have a new employee who will need to be next to the person who will be training her. So off I go. But yeah, I'm a little stressed about giving up my view.

I had a dream the other night that we were moving our office into the run-down underground NATO bunker I worked in for awhile in Germany, complete with guarded turn-stile entry, backed-up sewage smells and occasional power glitches. Definitely no windows in that place. Maybe my subconscious is telling me it could be worse.

I did joke that they should really get me a lava lamp or *something* to look at. And one of the other tech support guys suggested maybe he could rig up a webcam, so I could at least look out the window via my computer....

On the plus side, I'll be closer to the kitchen, so I can mainline green tea and Jif honey peanut butter without disturbing anyone else. Score!

Eeeevolution Resolution

Just wanted to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my recent post (now hidden) regarding the once and future Little Flower Petals. I appreciate the thoughts! My conclusion: I think I'm going to keep it like it is, and go back to using Thorns and Blossoms as originally intended, for more faith related and introspective posts. Of course, now I've already confused everyone, but hey.

For better or worse, Little Flower Petals is a reflection of me: rather messy, generally (but inconsistently) enthusiastic, occasionally morbid, tending toward self-indulgence and impatience but striving for generosity and kindness, and always eclectic. I suppose anyone who knows me well knows all these things already, and will not be shocked. And if they don't...well, I yam what I yam, and it can't hurt to reveal it.

An example of being what I is: I sold a typewriter today (the Olivetti Underwood Studio 21, since I need to raise fund for the road trip with my sister at the end of the month AND I don't like typewriters sitting around unused and I tend to use the Olympias). As I was getting ready to head out, scrambling to find some scrap paper and the typewriter dust cover and all, I realized my hands were all stained with fountain pen ink, and had to stop to scrub THAT off. Yep, that's me.

Incidentally, the Studio 21 went to a good, typewriter loving home. You know you've sold a typewriter to a real enthusiast when you bump into the buyer again five minutes later at the Goodwill down the road where you've headed to check out possible "new" machines in spite of yourself....

Starting the Day Off Write

Have you heard of morning pages? I can't recall where I first saw them mentioned, though in researching (to give credit where credit is due) I find it's an idea which was popularized via Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," a book which I admit I have not read and on which I cannot offer an opinion.

In any case, the concept is simple: first thing in the morning, as soon as you roll out of bed, before your brain has had the chance to fully wake and get its house in order, you sit down and write three full pages. Longhand. That's right: just you and a notepad and a pen or pencil.

What do you write about? Whatever pops into your head. Write about the crazy dream you just escaped. Write about your plans or worries for the day. Write about what you're going to eat for breakfast. Write about how weird the word "morning" looks to you right now, for some reason. Write about the sound of the rain and how it reminds you of sleeping in the back bedroom at your grandmother's house that July between sixth and seventh grade, when birds created a nest under the eaves and one memorable afternoon, a fledgling flew in though the window and about gave Grandma's fat old tabby cat a heart attack.

There are no rules. Just fill those three pages.

As you'd kind of expect, much of what I write is dreadfully dull or complete nonsense. However, in giving myself the freedom to explore whatever comes to mind, I've also found the seeds of short stories or poems or blog posts, wrestled with life decisions, and sorted out tangled scenes in larger works-in-progress. It's also a good way to work on writing discipline: simply sitting down at a given time each day, knowing you have to write something, no matter how sleepy and uninspired you may feel.

In a perfect world, I think I would always start my days with morning pages, and end them with writing down my "Three Good Things." In practice, I manage stints of three or four days at a time, but have never really gotten consistent about it. And I should.

Have you ever tried morning pages? If so, how have they worked for you?

When Typewriter Nerds Dream

Last night I dreamed I was meeting up with someone in response to a Craigslist ad. I don't remember the ad itself (as is so often the case with dreams, this one started abruptly at a given moment, with no history), but I do remember I was expecting a portable. Instead, she showed up with a HUGE Hermes Ambassador.

Or...kinda. Really, it was as if my subconscious took all the features I like about various '50s and '60s standards, slapped them together, and painted them Hermes green. It was sort of like a broad-headed Olympia SG-1 with Hermes keys.

Being me, instead of examining it poker face and coyly leading into a discussion of price, I gushed on and on about all things Hermes first, and then asked how much. "$73.58," I was told, and even as a dream price that seemed ridiculously specific. But I also realized that a) it was way out of my price range, and b) I hadn't brought any cash along anyway. I told her I had friends who sort of collected typewriters, and wanted to take pictures of it so I could show it to them, and she agreed.

But then I noticed a wall-sized mainframe thing in the back room and got obsessed with taking pictures of *that*, which was tricky because the lighting wasn't good and I couldn't get back far enough to get the whole HUMONGOUS thing into the frame. When I finally got enough decent pictures to satisfy me and went back to look at the Ambassador...it was gone. She'd taken it away somewhere. So, sadly, I have no proof and cannot promote the sale of this rare beast.

I think all this was brought on by the fact that we currently have some server room equipment (primarily a large enclosed rack) for sale on Craigslist, and said rack currently resides in a storage cage in the basement of a building where we used to have offices, and the last time I was down there, an IBM Selectric (III?) languished in another cage, and I coveted it mightily. Probably long gone, poor thing.

Rotation, Rotation

I appear to be in nerdy over-analysis mode for the moment, so here we go again.

The other day, I was writing with a ballpoint and realized I was rotating it slightly--sort of rolling it to the left--at the end of each line, or whenever I lifted my hand for a moment. It's something I do--something we all do, I assume--with wooden pencils without even thinking about it, so the point wears evenly, but it has no real purpose with pens except to sort of reseat your grip every so often. The only reason I noticed was because the clip on this particular pen kept getting in the way now and again, and I finally figured out it was coming around the rotation every so many lines and rubbing against my hand--until I rotated it away again.

I do this with mechanical pencils, too, to the point where when I picked up a Uni Kuru Toga pencil (which rotates the very point of the pencil for you to maintain a consistent point), we fought--because I couldn't break myself of the habit of turning the pencil, even though it was rotating for me.

Now...obviously I don't do this with fountain pens, or they'd stop working every time I got to the end of a line. So my subconscious apparently has it figured out that they're another species. Why, then, does it lump most other pens with pencils, I wonder?

Interestingly, I appear to rotate pencils to the right and pens to the left. That's even weirder.

Are you a rotator? Do you keep rolling in a particular direction or is it random? Does your brain distinguish between pencils and pens?

Identifying Bic Cristals

This is totally nerdy, and I may be the only person on the planet who cares, but here we go anyhow!

As I mentioned in the comments on my recent post about Bic Cristals, I ended up splurging (for about three bucks) on a box of the new Easy Glide variety. When I got them home, I realized I couldn't easily tell them apart from the older "writes farther" variety I already had on hand. They're clear, and they don't have any model number or anything easily visible on the pen. So...I resorted to a piece of blue paper. What will my boss think if she comes across pens labeled "smooth?" Unknown.

But today, as I was A/B-ing these pens again, something caught my eye. There *is* a difference! The "Bic" logo is farther back from the point on the "Smooth" model than it is on the older type.

Top: Bic Cristal Easy Glide. Bottom: Bic Cristal "Writes Longer"

So there ya go. If you come across one in the wild and are wondering what it is...here's your field guide.

How Does My Garden Grow?

This weekend friends with a truck helped me haul dirt and fill all my Smart Pots, so the garden is beginning to take real shape!

I have a few seedlings which may or may not survive transplanting (cucumbers and tomatoes), planted summer squash and delicata squash this weekend, and hope to get tomato plants, pepper plants, and onion starts in the next week. Sugar snap peas are already growing in the fake ceramic pot to the left in the top photo.

I've labeled the pots with index cards for now, with the descriptions written in bright blue, fade-proof Uni-ball Vision ink. Time will tell how the paper holds up to repeated watering and drying out. Hopefully it lasts long enough that the plants have grown enough I don't need ID--that's really all I ask.

And now...we wait!

Forgive Me

Forgive me, pen snobs and pencil fans, for I have slummed.

In my defense, the Internet has been conspiring against me. First Rhodia Drive got me feeling all nostalgic, then it felt like I kept running across these on Instagram and Twitter all week. I had to pick up laundry detergent today, and these were there...begging. And I was feeling down today, and when I'm feeling down, I have no resistance to begging pens.

OK, they're skinny. They take some pressure to move. The ink is less than perfectly black. They certainly aren't the best pens in the universe. But I can still stick a piece of paper with my name on it inside the clear barrel so they don't walk away. And they make me think of scribbling at the kitchen table as a kid. And, above all, they were CHEAP.

So there.