sunday

Just got home, am dead tired, more tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's a photo of Garrison (my nephew), Brittany (niece), and Olivia (niece) taken earlier today after we drove from Algonquin Park directly to Larkin's and Rick's place to help celebrate their engagement.

Larkin and Rick have invited me to play harp at their wedding, woohoo! I'm excited and terrified both at the same time! :-) It'll be the first time I play the harp in public.

Hey, and check out my very first Guest Entry. Thanks to Lissa of WD-40 & Duct Tape for the invite.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Poll: Oscar predictions?

No time to Blather properly today...we're taking off this morning for the cottage to hang out with our niece Brittany and Jeff's parents, back tomorrow night. It's Brittany's first time winter cottaging and we've been told she's very hyped about it.

We're leaving our cross-country skis at home this time and schlepping across in our snowshoes and Sorel boots, pulling Brittany and supplies on toboggans. Fingers crossed for good weather!

I talked with Casey and Riley (Paul's and Beckett's one-year-old twins) on speakerphone yesterday; I can report with all honesty that it was a dynamic conversation punctuated with outbursts of emotion. Their parents report that the twins both waved at me, too (or at the speakerphone, anyway)...and it was apparently Riley's first time waving (!!!). I was melting all over the place. It's a good thing babies don't realize how much power they hold over grown-ups, else they'd be ruling the world for sure.

Hm, or maybe they do after all... :-)




I've decided, sadly, to leave my laptop at home...it's likely not to like the cold. I'll be taking my digital camera, though I've noticed that the batteries don't last as long outside at winter. Anyone out there have any insider knowledge about digital cameras and the cold? How can I make them last longer?

Meanwhile, however, I leave with you a poll:

Do you care about the Oscars?
If so, what are your Oscar predictions?

Do you care about the Oscars at all? Do you plan to watch any or all of the Oscar ceremonies? Who do you think will win? Winner (person with the most correct predictions) gets five Inkspot pens and a very silly poem. 2nd prize: 2 Inkspot pens and a very silly poem. 3rd prize: 1 Inkspot pen and a very silly poem. The Inkspot pens alone are worth a zillion dollars, I'm sure, since Inkspot no longer exists. ;-)

See this CNN article for some background info to the nominees, this page for a concise list of nominees (thanks to Allison for the link!). Vote for as few or as many categories as you'd like of the categories listed below. Here's a list of categories if you'd like to cut/paste into your posting (or scoop them from here:

Best actor (lead):
Best actress (lead):
Best actor (supporting):
Best actress (supporting):
Animated feature:
Art direction:
Cinematography:
Costume design:
Directing:
Documentary feature:
Doc. short subject:
Film editing:
Foreign language film:
Makeup:
Music (score):
Music (song):
Best picture:
Short film (animated):
Short film (live action):
Sound:
Sound editing:
Visual effects:
Writing (adapted screenplay):
Writing (original screenplay):

Post your Oscar predictions here!

(E-mailing me privately doesn't count, sorry)
DEADLINE: MARCH 23, MIDNIGHT (EST)

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Today's Blatherpic:

These exciting visuals were recorded in Jodi's and my hotel room at Ad Astra. I noticed a weird wire thing sticking out of the wall. I poked and pulled at it out of curiosity, and one end came out. We never did figure out what it was supposed to be for. Fortunately, neither did we electrocute ourselves. I use "we" as if Jodi was involved in all this. And I suppose if you count her staring at me the entire time as if I had just suggested an evening of pork rinds and The Temptation Island Reunion Special, she was. :-D

journal software

Happy Birthday to Lissa Allcock and Beckett Gladney today!

Jeff and I are going to the cottage on the weekend with his parents and our niece Brittany, so I might not be able to catch up on weekend Blatherings until Monday. Unlike Greymatter, I can backdate and pre-date entries, making it much more convenient! Speaking of which, here's the journal software summary I promised a while back...

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Comparing Online Journal Software
(A Blatantly Non-Objective Report by Debbie)

Background: I've had an online journal since April, 1997. I posted my entries manually the first few years (i.e. worked with raw HTML), but then started experimenting with some of the available blog/journal software that would make it easier to manage administration and design layout changes. I started using and/or experimenting with Greymatter, Livejournal, and Movable Type.


* GREYMATTER *

Free (donation encouraged). You have to install it on your own server.

-- PROs: easy to install, highly customizable, software being actively improved by users in Greymatter community, good user documentation, can have multiple authors with their own password access

-- CONs: can't backdate or pre-date entries, no guaranteed support, not database-driven, can never truly delete entries, you have to install software multiples times for each blog/journal you create

* LIVEJOURNAL *

Free (pay for extra features and no ads). Most people use Livejournal's hosting service, but my sys admin installed it on his server.

-- PROs: good for blogs and for those who are happy to use provided templates, no installation worries (good for non-techies), database driven

-- CONs: recent server problems sometimes cause hosted journals to download slowly or not at all (so much that some have fled the official Livejournal server and are now hosted on my system administrator's Livejournal server), not suited to one-page-a-day journals, software not being actively improved, not as easily configurable as others, abysmal user documentation

* MOVABLE TYPE *

Free (donation encouraged). You have to install it on your own server.

-- PROs: easy to import Greymatter entries, elegant user interface, excellent user support (free in forum), software frequently improved and updated by the original creators (who interact frequently with users to find out what features need to be improved or added), highly customizable, can backdate and pre-date, can put entries on hold until you're ready to post them, excellent user documentation, you only have to install the software once and then can create as many blogs/journals as you want (with different users)

-- CONs: not database-driven, can be somewhat tricky to install, tricky to import Livejournal entries (I was never able to do so successfully so had to enter them by hand...this was more the fault of Livejournal than Movable Type, however)

Summary...

I'm happiest by far with Movable Type, was least happy with Livejournal. I liked Greymatter, but I didn't like the fact that you couldn't really delete entries and also that you couldn't backdate (which meant that I could never get my old archives into a consistent layout). I liked Livejournal's database-driven process, but found that it was much better suited to blogs than journals. I also found the software buggy and inconsistent (variables changed across different templates even if they referred to the same thing, much confusion here). I'm sure the bugginess is invisible to those who are content to use the readymade templates, however, and part of the problem could have been because of the version that was installed on my sys admin's server.

Many thanks to Josh Allen for pointing me in the direction of Movable Type in the first place. :-)

Writing Update

- Did manage to send out three queries on Wednesday (Marketing/Finance Day), got a tentative go-ahead (it'll be on spec) for one of the articles.

- Got a snailmail rejection, second in a row from the same publication (popular women's magazine). I'm taking this as a challenge and am going to keep sending them queries until they get so tired of seeing my name that they accept a piece just to shut me up. :-)

- Wrote and submitted two articles yesterday. I have a third one due today, one due next week, and another due at the end of the month. Cartoon to accompany my Country Connections article due at the end of the month, too.

- My novel writing is suffering, so I'm going to pick a an entire day next week just for it.

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Today's Blatherpic:

I got this picture from Graham Leathers, a publicity shot from "Lunar Prospects", a work-in-progress. Gray says that the projected debut is at Fringe Festival in 2003.

valentine

Today's entry was written as a part of an On Display collaboration. Assignment this month: "Send yourself a Valentine".

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The worst Valentine's Day in my life happened when I was in the thirteenth grade at Bramalea Secondary School.

Until then, I had really never cared that boys weren't interested in me. Or maybe I'm just telling myself I didn't care, subconsciously smoothing the rough edges of my childhood so that it's easier to talk about.

I had crushes in school, of course, but realistically never expected anything in return...the boys I had crushes on were always interested in other girls: the pretty, self-confident girls with stylish clothes and hair. Immersed in my schoolwork, Senior Band, and the Library Club (I'm sure that knowledge alone would have been enough to send any boy running in terror), I never had much real interest in the whole boy-girl mushystuff dynamic. At least until Valentine's Day in my last year of high school.

The school council had come up with the idea of a interclass rose delivery service. For about a buck, you could sign up to have a rose delivered to anyone in the school. I didn't pay much attention to all this fuss until Valentine's Day morning, in homeroom class. Girls all over the room squealed with delight as they found roses on their desks. My friend Christine had seven.

And then it gradually dawned on me...I was the only girl in the entire class who didn't get a rose.

I remember sitting rigidly at my desk, hands folded in front of me, pretending that I didn't notice, my face flaming. It was the first time in my life that I truly regretted being different from the other girls, regretted being known as a browner (class brain) instead of just one of the gang.

I think I must have missed "girl" classes back in my childhood. Makeup, fashion, parties and boys...they held zero interest for me. I was always much happier with my head buried in a book. But I never felt lonely or isolated, at least not until that one Valentine's Day.

If I had access to a time machine, I would send my younger self a Valentine as well as two dozen sweetheart roses, and in my Valentine would be written the following:


"It's good to be different.

You will eventually meet someone wonderful who thinks you're wonderful, too.

-Don't- go for the more difficult Calculus course next year in university."



(Okay, so that last bit has nothing to do with Valentine's but hey, if I have access to a time machine I figure I might as well take advantage of it)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. :-)

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Today's Blatherpic:

- The two boys in the Valentine at the top of this page were the heartthrobs of my childhood...Bobby Faltynek and Norm Brown. How I worshipped them (from afar)!

desires

Today's entry was written as a part of a Word Goddess collaboration. The assigned topic this month: "Desires".

At this moment, the word spins off a tumble of loose associations in my head: passions, lust, sex, chocolate...maybe even a combination of the above :-). The association with sensual pleasure is unmistakable...try to say the word "desires" out loud and listen to how the second syllable naturally slows down, lingers on the tongue, tantalizing and heavy with promise.

Yet it means so many other things, depending on the context. If you asked an eight-year-old about the word "desire", you'd likely get an entirely different answer. Desire? my childhood self would say. That's easy. Desire is the mystery present under the Christmas tree that I can't identify no matter how many times I shake it, a deliciously drippy chocolate ice cream cone on a sweltering day, a smile from the cute freckled boy with the Beatles haircut in my eighth grade class at school.

For a teenager, desire might be a new car, independence, recognition, raging puberty. In my own experience, desires have become more complex as I've gotten older. My concept of romantic desire used to be built on the soft-focus scenes you usually find near the end of b&w movies, with throbbing violins and tears and flowers and almost always with someone singing. I still love sappy romantic musicals, but I've learned they don't have much to do with the real world.

Real world desires, romantic or otherwise, don't always have satisfying endings. They don't come in pretty packages nicely wrapped in bows, and they're often messy and complicated. I'm talking about much more than simple wishful thinking here, though I'm sure some dictionaries include that definition as well. I'm talking desire as in knock you down, giant fist plunging into your chest and shaking you until you scream type of desire.

That kind of desire can hurt, especially when you desperately want something or someone you know you can never have, whether it's a cherished object you will never be able to afford, the ability to change a past mistake, a loved one who is no longer with you.

Sometimes I envy those whose desires are always in perfect harmony with their intellect. I can never have that, they think, so I don't want it. But other times I'm glad I'm the mess of unpredictable emotional chaos that I am. Desire keeps me from settling into a comfortable rut, inspires and motivates me. Desire reminds me to live.

Yes, I may end up hurt and disappointed, sometimes disillusioned. But at least I'm there in the thick of things instead of watching the world pass me by. And from time to time I am able to grab hold of a heart's desire after much effort, and those moments of pure joy make all the Bad Stuff pale in comparison.

If I ran into someone who told me they were perfectly happy with themselves and with everything in their lives, that they didn't want anything different, that they had no secret desires...my reaction wouldn't be one of envy.

How sad for you, I'd think. How dull.

And I'd leave them to their perpetual bliss, fleeing back to my turmoil of soul-wrenching spasms of desire and frustrations and heartache. I can't help but think I'm the one better off in the end.

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Writing Updates:

- EBookWeb posted an interview with me online today.

- Submitted my article to Country Connections magazine. It's slated to appear in their spring issue (published in April). I'm also going to be sending them a cartoon to illustrate the article; that's due at the end of the month.

- Found out yesterday that Cottage Life magazine likes my story idea, yay! Article due next Wednesday, should appear in the April/May issue.

- Rainy Day Corner bought my submitted article, slated to appear in April.

- I have three articles due by the end of this week to The Anvil, ArtCalendar Magazine, and Canadian Businesswoman.

- Nine article queries still circulating. I have articles slated to appear next month in Harp Column magazine and Applied Arts magazine. Today's Marketing/Finance day, and my goal is to get three more queries out there!