mousewords

Well, it’s a big day—I am officially considered a webmaster.

 I was thrown into the world of computerdom when my three techno-savvy brothers went away to college. The support of the PC was left in my hands. Since then I’ve managed to stumble my way up from Word Processor and Web Browser to Computer Techie. No mean feat, and frustrating along the way, but mighty fun.

 Recently, I’ve discovered the world of HTML.  Once again, necessity drove me to expand my horizons. My sister and I began selling our work on eBay—my art, her photography—and it didn’t take long before I felt the need to have a fancy listing like all the other cool people. It became tiresome to have to pay for a template, when I just knew I could write one myself, if only there were some way I could see how to do it.  Well, you can find anything on the web, even an HTML tutorial.  So here I am, a few weeks later, tossing out terms like “font-face,” “div style,” and “bgColor” like they’ve had meaning to me my entire life.

I took the step up from eBay listing page to website page a few days ago…but today I made the biggest step of all.

 Today I am a webmaster.

I registered a domain name this morning.  It was a big step for me, even bigger because of what the new website will hold—it will be the official website of the novel I’m finishing up.  When the book goes to press, the website will have been up and running for some time, doing the wondrous work of ”teaser” marketing.

I’ve been working on this book for almost four years now, struggling to complete it while dealing with the side effects of chronic carbon monoxide poisoning.  (That’s a post for another day.)  After all this journey, the book is near enough to completion that I’m actually beginning the marketing for it—awesome.  There was a lot of meaning to that instant when I clicked the button to submit my domain name into the world.  Oddly enough, I was listening to Chris Rice’s album, “Short Term Memories,” while I worked, and at the very instant I registered my domain name, the lyrics said:

“Take your candle…go light your world.”

 Awesome.  

Tags: Internet, Journal, Personal, Technology by mousewords
No Comments »

           “Do you have a pencil?” my Dad asked, as he prepared to hang a picture on the wall.           

           That shouldn’t be an unusual question.  And it shouldn’t be difficult to gratify.          

            “…A normal pencil?” he added.          

            Ah, that’s where it gets tricky.  As I am an artist, I have a wide array of pencils at my disposal.  I gotcher wide lead colored pencils, I gotcher fine lead colored pencils.  I gotcher erasable colored pencils, watercolor pencils, oil-based pencils, metallic pencils, charcoal pencils, soft lead graphite pencils, mechanical pencils…but normally, not a plain yellow shaft in sight.

            I say normally, because—miracle of miracles—I had one writing pencil on my desk, for that very purpose.  Which is, writing.  I put it there about two months ago—before that, a plain pencil was a rare sight among my possessions.

             I don’t especially know why—I’ve never had a pencil handy, except when I collected ones with pretty designs on them and had them proudly displayed on my desk.  But those had never seen a sharpener.

             A half hour later, my sister asked: “Do you have a piece of paper?”

           HA!

           I got paper. I gotcher Vellum Bristol board, I gotcher Smooth Bristol board, I gotcher card stock, black Artagain, blue paper, red paper, yellow paper, green paper, earth tone paper, illustration board, acid free blank note cards…envelopes…          

           “What are you laughing about?”

            I was actually laughing about the irony of those two questions on the heels of each other—ironic, because in the past, a plain piece of paper on my desk was as rare an item as the pencil to write on it.  I just always had art materials around, I guess—if it wasn’t acid-free, I didn’t want it near me, because I knew I’d be tempted to draw on it. And I’m a big one for archival longevity.   Luckily for my sister’s sake, though, I did have plain paper on hand at the time.  Four whole pieces of it.  If I wasn’t selling my art on eBay, I wouldn’t even have that—they’re the remnants of packing slips I printed up.

           I’ve been an artist all my days, and a writer for most of them, as well; but I’ve never had a plain piece of note paper and a pencil where I can get at them.

              Did you say pens?

           I’ve got pens.  I gotcher acid free waterproof black ink pens, .20 millimeter, .25 millimeter, .35  millimeter, .45 millimeter, brush tip…I gotcher blue ink, silver ink, gold ink…

Tags: Art, Humor by mousewords
No Comments »

Is it just me, or does everybody’s first blog come with the default title of “Hello, World” ? I only ask because my last blog–no longer in existence–was entitled, “Hello, World!”

So here I am on wordpress, and I begin my account–and the first blog awaiting me has that title! I had to run through my mental checklist, to see if I could connect this blog to my last one in any way…e-mail address? No. Username? No. MY name? Uh, nope…I don’t think wordpress even asked me my name…and if they did, there would be no way to trace it back to the other blog!

That…is serendipitous. And mighty wiggy.

Tags: Musings by mousewords
No Comments »