Ah. Nothing like correcting code given to you by an official organization to make it work correctly.
What stuns me is ten months ago, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong or how to fix it.
Author Archives: Owldaughter
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Richard Harris is dead at 72. A ripe old age, but still, a loss for us all.
There’s just something wrong with losing the man who played King Arthur, Marcus Aurelius, and Professor Dumbledore. Such a man should be immortal, somehow.
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You may have noticed I’ve switched commenting functions. YACCS was giving me problems logging in, making maintenance an irritation.
Hello, Haloscan…
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I have now pulled the power cord out of my laptop three times. Not once, but thrice. Thrice have I lost the work I was doing on information sheets for the divination table at tomorrow�s MPRC Samhain Fair.
Grr. And this was supposed to be a relaxing break from the other freelance work I’m doing today.
Amusing here this afternoon (apart from the frustrating loss of data), what with cat upheaval. For example, kitten in office; resident cats outside office. Office door made of panes of glass set in wooden frame. Instant Cat TV for kitten; Kitten TV for cats.
Cat: [stands up like meerkat on other side to see into office]
Kitten: [puts paws up on frame, peeks through glass]
Cat: [taken by surprise] HISS!!
Kitten: eeek! [falls backwards]
Slapstick at its best, I tell you.
On Creating
So there�s gloating going on over at Ceridwen�s Cauldron, too. I really need to break this down, for my own sanity.
You have a vision. You design your vision on paper. You struggle with dropping far-fetched elements, or elements that would just be too difficult (as cool as they would be!). You research methods and materials, then purchase materials. You begin the process of bringing your vision into the tangible world. There are obstacles, challenges, mis-read directions, the discovery that the process you theorised would work in fact would defy physics. Methods are re-evaluated. Shortcuts are taken. Certain steps are lingered over. When a step is completed successfully, there is joy, pride, excitement. When the entire project is done, those emotions are directly proportional to the amount of time spent from conception to delivery, anguish felt during the process, challenges triumphantly defied. There�s a physical proof of your talent in bringing vision to reality.
Hallowe�en costumes aren�t about impressing people (okay, I grant that there�s a bit of thrill when people behold your work), they�re about having fun during the creation process; and since both Ceri and I are costume addicts, creating a new costume calls for more time and energy than the average person usually thinks is sane. Ceri and I aren�t building things up by gloating; we�re simply celebrating a couple of months of work, of fun, and now we�re anticipating even more fun when we get to share all that work with others and generally have fun at a party with friends.
Kind of like planning a wedding, now that I think about it. Except without the irritations of caterers and finalising food.
Champagne � okay, sparkling cider � should definitely be involved at this party, I think. It’s a celebration, after all.
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From the husband:
“So Jeff was asking about your costume.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I told him it was looking fantastic. He said, What, even better than the Promethea costume? And I said, As amazing as the Promethea costume was, she’s outdone herself.”
I feel all warm and squirrely inside.
Ed. note: The husband is biased. Terribly supportive and encouraging, but biased.
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Done!
Actually, I was done mid-afternoon yesterday, but I told myself that I was not going to sit down at the computer because I’d look up again and it would be time to leave for orchestra.
Besides, I’m reading a Christopher Priest book (you may remember my impressed-ness with The Prestige) called The Extremes. It’s taken me a little while to get into it, because it seems to be about the FBI and VR and people-going-postal massacres, but damn, it’s well-written. I got my husband’s vest done as well, and forty-five minutes of practicing that, to my astonishment, sounded fantastic. Ah, the things I can accomplish when not chained by e-mail, blogs, and the lure of the wilds of the World Wide Web!
I’m off to work today. Fnyeh. I’m very fnyeh about things at the moment. (You know, Ceri, this word is so fitting at times…)
In my fnyehness, however, I can look at that terrific costume hanging on my bedroom wall, and say, “I did that, wow!”, and “Two sleeps ’til the party!”.
I’m such a kid. And this costume thing is even worse now that I’m an adult, because now I personally know every hour that went into the creation of the costume, as opposed to watching a parental unit do it for me and getting excited about it second-hand.