Yesterday, after completing my first blog post, I felt accomplished, savvy, and relieved. I wanted to tell the world (starting with my short email list) about my vast accomplishment - you see, any good friend of mine knows of my recently overcome, and sparsely at best, aversion to all thing techie.
Creating a link was my first challenge. I hopped to my email and began composing a general letter to be sent to everyone. Carefully drafting for both grammar and content, I dodge and skip over fragments and run-ons (how I love the semi-colon!)
The time has come to enter my link into the text. I highlight, copy, paste... Where is it? I search the text. Scanning, I find it has been dropped in the exact center of one of my eloquently concise sentences! Why? I try to realign all the data this link has brutally severed, but it is persistent, and will only continue copying itself, in a vain attempt to survive.
Still (moderately) in control of the situation, I use my trusty backspace key; he always does what he's told. I find adequate substitutes for the sentiments the computer has swallowed and proceed to the end, link firmly in place.
As I gather my little army of addresses and nudge them into a neat line in the "To:" box, something has happened to my draft. I mean nothing has happened to my draft, as in instead of my draft, there is now nothing. Ahhhh! My computer is hungry and is making a tasty treat of my words.
I consider sacrificing a doughnut to the laptop gods (spelled with the archaic ugh to as to be more filling,) but I know this will only make the keyboard sticky, so I sigh audibly and begin to recompose my letter, knowing it will never be the same again. If I were knitting this letter, I could have ssk, k2tog and they would have lined right up and met in the middle.
After completing my letter(s,) I pasted them into Myspace and Facebook and sent them away to all my virtual friends, family and acquaintances who may or may not take an interest. I take another look at by baby blog and realize that none of my line breaks have shown up. I observed this phenomenon in my thirty or so previews of my budding blog post, but thought I had cleverly skirted the situation with some cleverly placed asterisks followed by a series of five spaces. This fooled the preview page, but the true blog site is much smarter than that. I will have to find a more stealthy weapon.
I have a lot to learn about this blogging world, but I also have time and a little patience. I can knit a table doily in the round with lace inserts, and someone reading this will be chuckling at my frustrating adventures, knowing of the precise command that would have tamed the wild laptop into submission. This same person may be scratching her/his head at my use of knitting abbreviations as a metaphor for the reconciling of my lost literature.
We all have our things, and I just have to figure out how to be moderately adept at someone else's. I'll learn what I need to know, but until then I'll cringe at the absence of my line breaks.
04 August, 2007
03 August, 2007
It's too hot to knit...
* ...she says to me. I'm sitting in the shade, but it's above eighty degrees, and my lap is sweating from the slight weight of the wool table doily- number nine in a set of twelve I must complete for a Labor Day wedding. My first commission!
* Bride-to-be has asked me to make her a shawl to wear at the reception. "Two weeks? I think I can." If I want to do this for a living, I should be able to make a shawl in two weeks, but knitting without a pattern requires hours for trial and error. Each piece is a new creation; formed in my mind, shaped by the whim of my customer.
* I try to knit in public, outside whenever I can. Art needs to be where people can see it. My friends have art carts. They set up their displays, sell cards, prints, sometimes originals right off the easel. I have something less tangible to sell. The sweater that you've never found outside your imagination. A hand made birthday gift for that far away loved one.
* I am a locally-minded, eco-conscious, back-to-roots girl. I want to knit with local, natural fibers; I want to make a minimal impact with my practices.
* It is too hot for knitting, I think later. I'm at home and all I can think of is the fifth book in the Dune Series. I've been rewarding myself chapters, one for each small goal I achieve in my project. "Just get x more rounds, or to this point in the increasing pattern, and you can have another chapter."
* Reading is the onion in the ointment of my just budding knitting career. When I have access to big hardcover books, I can read while I'm knitting. Paperbacks are the real problem; they won't stay open. It's always one or the other with paperbacks - my passions are vying for my attention. The difference is that people are paying me to knit.
* So there I was, sitting on my porch, avoiding my knitting, devouring another tasty tidbit from sci-fi genius, Frank Herbert, and what shows up? My interchangeable knitting needle set! I was forced to look beyond my usual local circumference and search the world wide web for the interchangeable needle system that would change my life - make me organized, neat, professional, and all-around on top of things. Thanks Knitpicks!
* Here they are, 9 needles, 4 cords, and handy case for all, including removable pockets for needles and more storage for other knitterly devices. My drive to knit has been restored! The needles are so shiny and slippery; the cords so bendy and flexible. I have found the will to keep knitting for three more hours. Another doily almost done.
* Bride-to-be has asked me to make her a shawl to wear at the reception. "Two weeks? I think I can." If I want to do this for a living, I should be able to make a shawl in two weeks, but knitting without a pattern requires hours for trial and error. Each piece is a new creation; formed in my mind, shaped by the whim of my customer.
* I try to knit in public, outside whenever I can. Art needs to be where people can see it. My friends have art carts. They set up their displays, sell cards, prints, sometimes originals right off the easel. I have something less tangible to sell. The sweater that you've never found outside your imagination. A hand made birthday gift for that far away loved one.
* I am a locally-minded, eco-conscious, back-to-roots girl. I want to knit with local, natural fibers; I want to make a minimal impact with my practices.
* It is too hot for knitting, I think later. I'm at home and all I can think of is the fifth book in the Dune Series. I've been rewarding myself chapters, one for each small goal I achieve in my project. "Just get x more rounds, or to this point in the increasing pattern, and you can have another chapter."
* Reading is the onion in the ointment of my just budding knitting career. When I have access to big hardcover books, I can read while I'm knitting. Paperbacks are the real problem; they won't stay open. It's always one or the other with paperbacks - my passions are vying for my attention. The difference is that people are paying me to knit.
* So there I was, sitting on my porch, avoiding my knitting, devouring another tasty tidbit from sci-fi genius, Frank Herbert, and what shows up? My interchangeable knitting needle set! I was forced to look beyond my usual local circumference and search the world wide web for the interchangeable needle system that would change my life - make me organized, neat, professional, and all-around on top of things. Thanks Knitpicks!
* Here they are, 9 needles, 4 cords, and handy case for all, including removable pockets for needles and more storage for other knitterly devices. My drive to knit has been restored! The needles are so shiny and slippery; the cords so bendy and flexible. I have found the will to keep knitting for three more hours. Another doily almost done.
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