My Lonely City

It occurs to me that the times I’m most interested in blogging are when I have something to complain about. You know, “I don’t like this about that,” “I can’t stand when this happens,” etc. And while I enjoy a good whine as much as anyone, surely there’s enough of that going around that adding to the mix doesn’t really accomplish much. So instead, I’m going to go off into another Next Big Thing. (And griping about that instead.)

I’ve been on a kick recently about redecorating my living room. Now, I’ve only been married four years, and we’ve lived in this house two years, and we have stylish, new (the year before we married) furniture, and the room is actually pretty nice. I just got the bug, you know? So I planned it all out (down to CAD drawings of the living room to arrange the furniture, a PSP drawing to play with colors, and a detailed price sheet including links to specific products) and had a marvelous time, as you can see:

And of course I start fiddling around with colors …

And since I want to be able to visualize these items in my living room, I have to draw scale models of them …

…and it’s all downhill from there.

Now, however, that I’ve actually located every piece of furniture and even made some headway deciding about colors, fabrics, textures … I’m not going to spend that money, you know? It was a fun thing to plan, but not a practical one to do. (Of course, I’m not big on practical anyway, but this is pushing it even for me.)

So I’ve decided to shift this domestic focus outdoors, and begin planning this year’s gardening attempt. I say attempt because it’s a rare plant that doesn’t whither and cringe at my approach. I’m also tinkering with the idea of patio furniture, because (unlike, say, living room furniture) we actually don’t have any. Except those two green lawn chairs Jared got when he was in college, and which I keep expecting to disintegrate the moment I sit in them. And they don’t count. So, yeah, gardening.

To be continued!

I just read a book that I actually had bought for someone else, but never had the opportunity to give it to them. It’s called ScreamFree Parenting and it’s by Hal somebody. (I wonder, when he gives advice, how often he hears “I can’t do that, Hal” and chuckles – or wishes to scream.) My husband and I spent a few days last week caring for my cousin’s children. It was an … intense experience. Enjoyable, but also frustrating. Hm. Anyway, it made me think of this parenting book, so I dug it out of the armoire where I keep the gift things, unwrap it, and read it over the weekend.

So the premise of this book is that, first, we must focus on ourselves – rather than wholly on our children – and approach parenting as though it were as central a part of our own emotional, psychological, and spiritual development as it is for the children for whom we care. We are not, he continues, responsible for our children, responsible for making them into the kind of people they ought to be; rather, we are responsible _to_ them to give them the resources they need to choose for themselves to become “self-directed, responsible adults”.

When we feel responsible for our children, we respond by emotionally reacting (or overreacting) to their behavior – behavior for which _we_ feel ashamed. When we do this, we are actually pressuring them to change their behavior in order to calm us down. This response is counter-productive because it puts our emotional state, even health, in their power – and their responsibility, which is an overwhelming thing for a child to bear. It also, even more sadly, fails to teach them to make – and be responsible for – their own choices.

The book recommends giving kids their own space – both physical and emotional – while at the same time teaching them their “place” or their relationship to and among others in the family and beyond through healthy structure and consistent, reasonable consequences for the behaviors they choose. I liked the book a lot, despite its tendency to overuse the word “responsible”. I liked most of all, however, the idea that no one is responsible (again, that word …) for meeting your emotional needs but yourself. This is different advice from Harley’s His Needs, Her Needs which argues that in order to have a strong and faithful marriage, each partner’s primary emotional needs must be met by the other partner – or they will be met by someone else. I think both sets of advice are good. Where’s the balance?

I sometimes play guitar; I have for several years. I dabble, really. Acoustic guitar – the same one my Dad bought the day he got out of the Navy in 1969, which rode in the front seat with him on his way back from South Carolina. His cars have changed, the wife has changed, the job, haircut, religion have changed since then. The guitar has survived. I dusted it, when I was young; the neck was too wide for my fingers, then, but I tried anyway. It has three small scratches on the front where I tried to scrape off dirt that had been there for too long. The guitar sounds lovely, especially when my father plays it; round and lush, mellow and deep-throated, like Billie Holiday or that guy who sang Old Man River, whom Grandmama likes so much. Dad gave this guitar to me when I moved out. I play that guitar. Not well, and not often (which may have something to do with the ‘not well’) … but I play.

What I like about guitar playing is its sensuality. Here, you’re wrapped around this vaguely human-shaped object, warming the wood with the heat of your body, running your hands along its sinews, pressing your fingertips into it. Your arm sticks to the curve, making a slaaptching sound as you strum; your fingertips throb and tingle on the frets. You can feel the music, the rhythm, the energy of the sounds curled up and purring like a cat against your chest and belly. You can smell the slightly dusty varnish, feel the smooth dryness of its wood on your wrist. Of course, how you sound is rather variable, but … how you feel is great.

Really, there’s not a lot of practical information I can pass on about playing the guitar. Get a tuning thingamajig. If I can only find mine, I’m sure I will sound much, much better. Find songs you like – songs you enjoy hearing, over and over, and over again, and learn them. I took lessons for a while; they helped, but I don’t think they were quite suited to my … learning style. I like learning things that build on one another, like lincoln logs. Except I didn’t like lincoln logs. Scratch that, then. Anyway, the point is, guitars = cheap, obsessive fun. As long as you get the guitar for free.

Well. As you may be aware, my next big thing is changing the theme of my blog. (And my other blogs, too – Lit in Progress which you should only visit if you’re feeling masochistic, and On Wanting More, which is my … devotional journal.)

My blogs now look different. Yes. But they are not yet the visions of loveliness I had hoped they would be. They all now use the web publishing system Mephisto – but I cannot take credit for this. My husband migrated them for me. (I’m picturing my fledgling blogs, flying with outstretched necks in a wavering V-shape, calling down derisive comments in a language no one understands…) And I’m kind of sitting here thinking … now what?

I don’t do programming. I took a Pascal class at a community college while I was in high school (concurrent enrollment, savior and bane of my scholarly sanity) and made – gasp! – a B, because I didn’t begin any of my programs until the day they were due, and I forgot about one of the tests, and … so I decided that it wasn’t for me. Because I slacked off similarly in every other class and got at least an A-. (This is me rolling my eyes. Can you see me?) I actually quite enjoyed the class, but … failed to pursue that line of study, as it were.

And that was several years ago, all I did was little dribbles of codespeak that looked things up and did simple calculations, and it was Pascal for crying out loud. So I’m not in the best of places from which to begin creating a design template.

What I’ve done: Besides piddling around on the internet wasting time? I’ve got my designs into html, using Dreamweaver. (Yes, cheating. Guilty. Lea’me-alone.) I’ve downloaded a few different themes that I like – almost, but not quite, as much as my own – and even taken a cursory look at their innards.

Which are clean and list-like, full of important-sounding chimera words like filedto and commentsblock textarea, and completely incomprehensible. Spaces, people. They have a purpose. So my first thought was, oh, I’ll just have a stare-and-compare between my little page and the template’s main css dealymabob, and Bob’s your uncle. (Side note: my husband actually has an uncle named Bob. This kind of freaks me out.)

Hah ha ha. Yeah. Right. Perhaps I’m thinking that by staring at them long enough they letters will start to rearrange themselves into some kind of recognizable syntax. Or perhaps I’m waiting for myself to lose interest. Neither has occurred.

What I need to do: Go through that article about creating a template again, and, erm, follow the directions.

Bah. I thought the point of this exercise was not to be bored?

Next Big Thing

Jared suggested an idea that, as ideas go, has me very excited! For my blog (and my ongoing battle against excruciating boredom): a remedy. I could pick a “new thing” to try out every one to three weeks and then blog about my experiences and discoveries. I’d have a short amount of time to be completely obsessed, and wouldn’t have to worry about long-term commitment unless something really clicks. What a fantabulous (oh my gosh, MSWord recognizes that as a word … my work here is done …) idea! I’m excited! Can you tell?! It’s in the exclamation marks! They give away my emotion! Plus shipping and handling, no contracts express or implied, caveat emptor!

So, what things could I … try?

1. mephisto template creation (bwah ha ha ha)
2. piano
3. Spanish
4. writing: poetry collection
5. belly dancing
6. sewing
7. cooking: baking
8. Ruby programming
9. writing: short story
10. horseback riding (ongoing, or at least a full quarter to full year)
11. sculpting
12. cooking: Indian
13. shooting sports (without the, you know, death – more target practice and gun safety & maintenance, etc.)
14. ballroom dancing
15. gardening: xeriscaping
16. cooking: Japanese
17. acting
18. watercolors
19. camping & tramping
20. teaching – adults
21. graphic design – 2D
22. martial arts (tae kwon do, jujitsu, fencing…)
23. writing: novel
24. accordion
25. gardening: herbs
26. picking locks, hotwiring a car, getting out of handcuffs, disguises … (you never know when these skills might come in handy)
27. photography
28. teaching – youth
29. rock climbing
30. gardening: fruits, vegetables, & herbs
31. cooking: gourmet (read: mmmmmmm…)
32. figure drawing
33. massage
34. cooking: Mediterranean
35. guitar
36. gardening: flowers
37. floral design
38. macro- (& micro-)economics
39. oil painting
40. navigation
41. graphic design – 3D
42. cooking: Mexican
43. teaching – children
44. cooking: Italian
45. basket weaving ^_^
46. carpentry/woodworking
47. cooking: comfort food
48. tennis
49. cooking: desserts (I know, I know; a little backing, a little comfort …)
50. origami

&, for later –

languages

1. French
2. Italian
3. Farsi
4. Mandarin
5. Japanese
6. Arabic
7. Portuguese

instruments

1. violin
2. mandolin
3. trumpet
4. harp

other

1. bottle rocket building
2. architecture
3. ballet
4. knife-throwing
5. archery
6. composting
7. recycling

Why? Because I can. Well, I could, conceivably.

I want to update my blogs to look purty. I’ve done a mock-up theme (or three) for my various bloggy presences, and I want to see them in real life, so to speak.

Anyway, my husband (super computer genius – you have no idea) is using Mephisto to do his blogs (check them out here and here), and I want to copycat. And I like my new design ideas. And I’m bored. So … time for a new Next Big Thing!

Like I said in my last post, I’m going to start being even more flaky than usual, and taking up a new hobby/interest/passion/project every one to three weeks. (Not to continue them, though, unless we really really click, you know?) So my first one is going to be making and implementing new templates for my three blogs. Mostly because it’ll become pretty obvious whether I succeed, but also because it sounds like fun. Which is my major decision-making strategy these days.

So on that note, today’s quote for the day, from the article Creating a Mephisto Theme Using Liquid:

You need to be careful the folder is spelt exactly as written here as this is where Mephisto will look.

Spelt? As in, spelt? Ha ha. I’m mean. And I’m okay with that.

But here are the resources I’ll be looking over in the next couple of days, trying to get a quick handle on this Mephisto thing:

The article above, and
Using Liquid
Variable Reference
Overview of Tags in Mephisto

And that’s where I’ll start! Hooray for a new project!