Always an Editor

Green Friday--Out with the clutter!

2008-07-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

I didn’t write a Green Friday post last week because I was in this beautiful place without a computer.

Taken July 18, 2008, in Kelowna, BC.

July is “Enough stuff, already!” month here, and we’ve slowly been decluttering our house. We’re finding things we’d forgotten about or misplaced. We’re making a point of using what we already have (which gets much easier as we discover just what it is we do own) instead of buying new things. We’re sharing what we don’t use anymore with others.

How many times have I bought something I already own because (a) I don’t remember that I have one or (b) I can’t find it? How many times have I bought something I could make or fix because it’s just too much trouble to find the stuff or clear the room I need to do it? How many things have I bought when there’s something I could make do with right here already? How much stuff have we hung onto that could be used by others, so that they buy new things while ours sit in a box unused? How often have I walked away from my house because I’m overwhelmed or unhappy with it, and gotten in the car to escape? How many questions can I write in one paragraph?

So far, decluttering has had the usual green benefits for us. By cleaning out the hand-me-down boxes in Child Two’s closet, we found enough summer clothes in the right size that we didn’t have to buy anything new for her. And when someone posted in our local Freecycle group that her children had become obsessed with My Little Pony, we were able to give her Child Two’s collection and she didn’t have to go out and buy new plastic toys with their associated overpackaging. Instead of replacing our aging plastic kitchen storage containers, we’re making do with the five boxes of mason jars which, for some unknown reason, moved all the way to California and all the way back with us and have been living in the shadows of our shed (I prefer the jars to plastic anyway).

But it’s also having some less obvious effects. The less cluttered our house is, the more enjoyable it is to spend time here and the easier it is to enjoy the things we have. With our summer battle cry of “Use it or lose it,” we’re making a point of enjoying the things we’re finding: the games that got buried in the back of the cupboard, the DVDs the kids got for Christmas that still have the plastic on them, the boxes (and boxes) of unread books. Not only does this keep us from buying more, but it makes home a nicer place to be. More time at home means fewer car trips and less shopping for even more stuff.

Most importantly for the long term, I’m finding that as I put the work into decluttering and as I find out what I already have, I don’t want to buy more and more stuff. I don’t want my house to get more and more crowded. I want to make the projects I bought all the supplies for but haven’t gotten around to. I want to read the books I bought months or years ago with such anticipation. I want to spend time fixing the house and garden up instead of escaping.

And I am much more aware of how much stuff we’ve bought for the wrong reasons. Instead of providing enjoyment, that stuff results in frustration (as I trip over it) or guilt (as I realize we’ve hardly used it) or despair (as I wonder if there will ever be room for a bed in the guestroom).

A neighbour was commenting to me the other day that we could build another story on our house without blocking anyone’s view—in fact, the previous owner had plans drawn up to do just that. Right now, the stuff we own doesn’t fit well in our house. But this is not because we need a bigger house, nor do we need to use a bunch of resources to build and maintain more space or to buy complicated storage solutions. We simply need less stuff.

Wordless Wednesday #22--Jamie

2008-07-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Taken August 19, 2007, at home.

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

This photo is also being posted for Carmi's Thematic Photographic theme of "animals."

Improg word: Ponytail

2008-07-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

Every Monday a new word is posted on the Improgging site. Visit there to read how others have blogged about this week's word, ponytail.

Too bad this wasn’t the improg word when Child Two donated her ponytails. The Improgging Fool does allow links to previously written posts, but since that post was done for an improg word, I’d better do a new one.

Although my hair is long more often than it’s short (due to my inability to remember to get it cut on a regular basis), I don’t wear a ponytail unless I need to keep it out of my face—or out of the cookie batter, the bread dough, the paint, or the potting soil, or away from the fabric shears or the sewing machine mechanism (I learned that one the hard way—ouch!).

I used to put my hair back so often that I kept a ponytail holder in my pocket all the time. It’s not that I wasn’t busy with other things. I was a full-time student for a ridiculous number of years and I worked part-time and did volunteer work; I had a husband and friends whom I spent lots of time with. But somehow, no matter how busy I was, I sewed for an hour almost every single day. I baked several times a week. I did all sorts of crafts and potted up baby plants and worked in the garden. And my trusty ponytail holder was always at the ready.

The activities I tied my hair back for were the things I loved to do, the things that gave me a break from the reading and writing and working I did most of the time. The very act of putting my hair in a ponytail was a signal that it was time to relax, to have fun while still getting something done. And somehow, no matter how busy I was with work or other people, I made time almost every day for those things.

Now I hardly ever put my hair back. Even when my kids were small and needy, my hair was in a ponytail more than it is now. It’s been a gradual shift from having that holder always in my pocket to having to scrounge around the house to find one on the rare occasions that I need one.

Why is that? My “spare” (i.e., non-work) time now is usually spent taking my kids to an activity or running errands or getting caught up on the work that didn’t get done because my mother wanted me to do something for her—or collapsing on the couch or in front of the computer because after spending the day working and running around, I don’t have the energy for much else.

Slowly, though, during my Year of Living Differently, I’m starting to shift my time back. My kids and I are fixing up the “sewing room” (= room where we put everything that doesn’t have a home) with a table for each of us so we can be together while doing our own thing. I’m trying to spend a little bit of time each day—even if it’s only 15 minutes—doing something creative. I’m rethinking how I run my business and am putting together ideas for some major changes once my current batch of work projects is done. It’s a real challenge and it’s not happening as quickly as I’d like it to, but sooner or later that ponytail holder will be back in my pocket, ready for anything.

Wordless Wednesday #21--Garden fairy

2008-07-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Taken October 12, 2007, in Vancouver.

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

This photo is also being posted for Carmi's Thematic Photographic theme of "light."

Giveaway on Making Do

2008-07-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm hosting a very small giveaway on my other blog. If you're a crafty type, check it out!

Green Friday--Reusing magazines

2008-07-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

It takes a lot of resources to produce magazines. If I had more time, I would do some research and post all sorts of interesting stats here. But I don’t, so just take my word for it. There's a lot you can do with those resources before you toss your magazines in the recycling bin.

I used to be a magazine junky. Well, I still am, but I try not to use up so many resources to feed my habit. I let all my subscriptions run out because of the junk mail and plastic wrapping that came along with them. I no longer buy magazines automatically or based on the cover (no matter what miracles that cover promises). There have to be several articles I’m really interested in—with information I’ll actually use—before I plunk down my money. If there isn’t, I either pass it up, read it while waiting in line during the dreaded grocery shopping, or check it out from the library.

I belong to a not-so-secret magazine network. My mom and I share a lot of our magazines, and when we’re both done with them, she passes them on to a friend who, after she’s read them, gives them to her daughter, who passes them on to someone else, and so on.

I donate some to our library, where they’re sold on the Friends of the Library book sale table, or to the recreation center, where they’re sold to help pay for adaptive equipment for people with special needs. Other libraries we go to have boxes set up where you can leave your magazines and take others.

I leave them in places where people will be stuck for a while, like laundromats, hospitals, clinics, the car repair shop, and my kids’ music and dance schools. I used leave them in the laundry room of my apartment building or in the staff room at work, back when I lived in an apartment and had a real job.

You can use reuse magazines in other ways, too. Since it’s more efficient to run a full freezer than a partially empty one, use them to fill empty space. Or tear pages into strips to use as cushioning material for packages.

And, of course, I use them for crafts, including making envelopes and calendar journals. Child Two and I are planning to make our own magnetic poetry set from words cut from magazines and flyers and I’m collecting beat-up craft and knitting magazines for a big decoupage project. Both of my kids have done some great art projects at school with magazines, like paper weaving, color collages, and mosaics, and at home we’ve used magazines to make greeting cards and to turn shoeboxes into treasure boxes.

One summer, a little girl I babysat and I made an ABC book out of magazine pictures. (Oh, my. I’ve just realized that little girl is now 34 years old.) I stapled together blank pages, one for each letter, and we glued pictures that she liked onto the appropriate pages. This idea could be used to for all sorts of themes: colors, numbers, simple words, countries, foods, animals, etc.

There are tons of creative ideas for reusing magazines, from sophisticated art pieces to fun ways to spend an afternoon with your kids. I’ve posted some links on my Making Do blog.

We recycle magazines only when they’re tattered and falling apart. Along the way, we’ve shared them with others and had some creative fun—a much better use of resources (and money) than reading them once and throwing them away.

Wordless Wednesday #20--Not a typical mermaid

2008-07-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

Taken September 8, 2007, in Victoria, BC.

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

Improg word: Plethora

2008-07-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Every Monday a new word is posted on the Improgging site. Visit there to read how others have blogged about this week's word, plethora.

Earlier today, Child Two had an overabundance of hair.

Now it's gone.

She'll be sending her plethora of hair to Eva & Co. Wigs' Hair Donation program, the very place that gave our cousin a free wig just last week.

We can't quite remember how long Child Two's been growing her hair to donate--over a year, we're sure, but less than two. Although it was long enough several inches ago, we had to time the cut so that it didn't interfere with her ballet shows. Now, as the weather is warming up and the next show is months away, and as our cousin is going through chemo, it seemed like the perfect time.

This occasion marked her first real grown-up hair appointment, with a shampoo and a scalp massage and everything. Child Two was relieved that the stylist is as quiet as she is, so she didn't have to make small talk.

She's planning to grow another plethora of hair over the next year or two and then donate it again.

Thematic Photographic--Sky

2008-07-06T11:44:00.001-07:00

Taken February 22, 2008, in West Vancouver, BC.

I'm posting this photo for this week's Thematic Photographic theme, "sky." Vancouver, especially the North Shore, where this photo was taken, can be a gloomy place. But when the sky is blue and full of cotton-ball clouds, the rain (at least for a little while) is forgotten.

We're surrounded here by big things--the ocean, the mountains, the trees--and from some places you can hardly see the sky. But on this day, with my back to the water, the sky seemed huge.

For another Thematic Photographic entry, see this my other blog.

Wish me luck

2008-07-05T08:07:00.001-07:00

I am now officially the mother of a teenager.

Green Friday--The shopping question

2008-07-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

This is “Enough stuff, already!” month around here and the decluttering is in full swing. In addition to getting rid of what we don’t use, we try to minimize the amount of stuff we bring into the house in the first place. It helps that neither my husband nor I are big shoppers. Neither of us feels the need to own the latest fashions or the newest gadgets, and—luckily for us—our kids are the same, at least for now.

One of the most effective ways for us to reduce our consumption is to ask ourselves one question as we’re contemplating a purchase: Do we really need to own this?

Then, because I’m a wordy person, I follow it up with several more: Do we need it at all? Can we make do with something we already own? If we do need it, can we borrow it from someone? Get it from the library? Rent it? Find a used one? Make one?

I still use a bowl over a pot of hot water when I need a double boiler. We borrow or rent tools unless they’re things we’ll use over and over. A great deal of my kids’ clothes are hand-me-downs from their cousins. Child One and I recently made a path from old bricks instead of buying new stepping stones. We rarely buy movies. We share books and magazines with friends and family.

Very often the answer to the shopping question is a resounding “no.”

When my kids started getting an allowance, it came with a big string attached: With the exception of Christmas and birthday gifts, they were now solely responsible for buying their own toys. Now, many years and valuable lessons later, they ask themselves the shopping question. The result is much less plastic crap and packaging filling up our house and our garbage can.

I’m prone to buying certain kinds of things on impulse: notebooks, stationery, craft supplies, books, and magazines. But I’ve recently remembered an old trick I used to use. I walk away. If whatever it is still seems irresistible several days later, then I consider going back and buying it. More often than not I forget all about it.

The ramifications of the shopping question can be much bigger than an occasional magazine or plastic action figure. When we bought this house, we knew we would need to haul in dirt and haul out mountains of laurel branches, bring home new furniture (because we left most of our old hand-me-downs in California), and carry loads of wood and other treasures from the hardware store. We had every excuse to buy a pickup truck, but we decided that we didn’t really need to own one. We borrow one a few times a year or get things delivered instead.

Some people complain that trying to be environmentally friendly is expensive. But we find that the money we save by buying less far outstrips what we spend on green products. You can buy a lot of organic apples for the price of a pickup truck.

Improg word: Smitten

2008-07-03T10:57:00.002-07:00

Every Monday, the Improg site posts the word of the week for your blogging pleasure.

On long car trips, I tell my kids that they shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to use the washroom, even if they don't think they need to, just in case. I follow the same principle when it comes to dictionaries: I rarely pass up the opportunity to look up a word, even if I don’t think I need to, just in case.

As I do almost every week, today I looked up the current improgging word, smitten. And, as I do almost every week, I learned something new—or really, I realized something I hadn’t put together before. I’d always thought of smitten in its meaning of “infatuated,” but, being the past participle of smite, it means more than that. The primary meaning of smite is to strike something with heavy force. The various meanings of smitten share the notion of being struck forcefully, literally or metaphorically. You can be smitten by a thug wielding a hammer, by the plague, by fear, or, like Margerie, by the charms of your kitten and your children.

You might be able to tell that I am smitten by words. I mean this in the love-them-want-to-marry-them sense, but I, like everyone, can also be smitten in the just-got-smashed-in-the-head-with-a-rock sense when words are used as weapons. I’ve been smitten (in the good sense) with language for as long as I can remember—not by literature so much (while I love to read, I am not particularly highbrow in my tastes and will read just about anything), but by the nuts and bolts of language.

I remember the first time I skipped out of school, smoked a cigarette, kissed a boy, had sex, rode a roller coaster, and drove a car (not all at the same time—what a day that would have been!). But I remember just as clearly the first time I realized I was thinking in French—not thinking about French, but thinking my everyday thoughts in French—and the first time I learned about the field of linguistics and realized that I could spend a ridiculous number of years learning about language with people who wouldn’t think I was weird (or, if they did, it was for other reasons entirely). I spent many, many hours of my prime with my head in dictionaries and grammars, learning or analyzing how one language or another worked.

To illustrate just how smitten (= strange) I am, I ask you this: Am I the only one here who wonders why the American Heritage Dictionary and the Nelson Canadian Dictionary say that smite has two past participles, smitten and smote, but the Oxford says it has just one, smitten? Did North Americans start using the past tense as the past participle for some reason, or did the British stop?

And am I the only one here who wants to know why smite, smote, smitten (or smote) doesn't follow the same conjugation pattern as bite, bit, bitten?

And am I the only one here who owns several English dictionaries and looks up words in all of them just to see how they differ? Or who owns dictionaries in a variety of languages that she doesn’t speak, some of which are dead?

Am I smitten or am I a total geek?

Wordless Wednesday #19--Wild daisies

2008-07-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

Taken June 29, 2008, in North Vancouver, BC.

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

Enough, already!--Month five

2008-07-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Last month’s “Enough, already” theme was multitasking. My experiment in monotasking was illuminating. For the first two weeks of the month I was able to follow my plan very well. Each day I focused on just one of my large work projects, cycling through them during the week. I kept my email closed most of the time and didn’t drop everything when small, urgent jobs came in, but instead allocated time to deal with them. I got way more work done than I normally do—I even got my invoices done for the first time in three months—and I felt much more in control of my time.

Then the last two weeks of the month brought all kinds of end-of-the-school-year activities as well as increased family pressure. The number of interruptions to my work time increased by about a zillion percent. I struggled (unsuccessfully) to get my work done. I went back to feeling scattered. I constantly had a knot in my stomach. In other words, I felt like I usually do: like I’m about to be swallowed alive by demands and worries.

So obviously I’ve learned an important lesson about the better way for me to work.

Now, somehow, it’s July. A couple of weeks ago, my kids and I decided (well, I decided and they agreed) that this would be the summer of getting things done around the house. The theme this month is “Enough stuff, already!” and our motto (well, my motto, since both of them went quite pale at the thought) is “Use it or lose it.” We’ve already started decluttering their rooms, which are much too small for their packratty ways, and I’ve started on the rest of the house.

This theme applies to the yard, too, where we’ve declared “Enough weeds, already!” My work has been so busy this year (and the year before and the year before that and . . . ) that I haven’t been able to keep up with the garden, so this summer I’ve hired the kids to do a lot of the work for me. Child One has recently decided to save up for a Gibson SG guitar—the cheapest used one we’ve seen around here so far is over $900—so he’s motivated.

It won’t be all hard work, though. In the spirit of using it or losing it, we’ll be digging out the games that have migrated to the back of the cupboard. We’ll be setting up the croquet and badminton sets, both of which sat in the shed all last summer. Child Two and I are going to try to use every type of art supply we own at least once before school starts. Our goal this month is not to get rid of everything we own, but to pare it down to the stuff we really want so that we can enjoy it.

And as for my work, I’m definitely taking last month’s lessons to heart.

Thematic Photographic: Wood (again)

2008-06-29T17:13:00.001-07:00

Taken August 21, 2007, in Burnaby, BC.

This is another entry for Carmi's weekly Thematic Photographic theme. This wooden horse is part of a beautifully restored carousel at the Burnaby Village Museum.

Thematic Photographic: Wood

2008-06-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this photo for Carmi's Thematic Photographic theme of wood. This is the very roller coaster that I almost flew out of 27 years ago.

For another wood photo, see my other blog.

Taken September 2, 2007, in Vancouver.

Green Friday--Green Guide magazine

2008-06-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

Green Friday was pre-empted last week. The school year ended for us just yesterday, and as anyone with children in elementary school knows, June—with its year-end performances, field trips, and parties, as well as the last-minute panic to get projects done—is as busy as December, only without so much shopping. Between that, work, and a bunch of nonsense I was going through, I barely had time to brush my teeth last week.

This week I want to tell you about National Geographic’s Green Guide. What I like about this magazine is that it’s aimed at consumers like me, with busy lives and a budget, who want to know what they can do in their everyday lives to have a smaller impact on the environment. It goes beyond the information we’ve all heard a million times but doesn’t expect its readers to grow every scrap of food they eat, use nothing but pedal power, or dress in only organic hemp clothing. In the two issues I’ve read so far, I’ve found information that is immediately usable.

Each issue contains buying guides that tell you what to look for and what to avoid when you’re shopping for everyday items. For example, the summer issue has a guide for shampoos, including a wallet-sized “smart shopper’s card” that lists ingredients linked to health concerns such as cancer and hormone disruption. Other features include comparisons of different versions of a product (for example, is it better, from a nutritional and environmental standpoint, to buy juice as frozen concentrate, in plastic bottles, or in cartons?).

I found this magazine at the grocery store, but I discovered today that you can also subscribe online at the Green Guide website. Even if you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the buying guides, smart shopper’s cards, blogs, tips, and a free newsletter on the site. If you're looking for a way to go beyond curbside recycling and using cloth bags, check out the site or the magazine.

Note: No bloggers were paid in the preparation of this review.

Improg word: Nonsense

2008-06-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

When I saw this week’s word, I wanted to write something lighthearted, but my heart is anything but light and I can hardly string a sentence together, much less be entertaining or clever. Over the last several days I have experienced more than enough nonsense to last me years. I won’t go into details—those involved would only accuse me of whining or overreacting. Suffice it to say that I feel like I’ve been slapped.

Many years ago two people chose to walk away from a difficult situation, leaving me holding a bag of responsibilities far too heavy for me. I didn’t want to carry this bag. When I tried to walk away from the situation myself, I was reminded of the fact that I was the only one left and therefore didn’t have that choice. I was told outright that this bag of responsibilities was mine to bear. So I’ve carried the bag ever since—a bag which gets heavier every year—and now I unsuccessfully try to juggle these responsibilities with those of my family and my work.

One of those two people experienced what it was like to carry this bag for a week several years ago. He found it so difficult that he couldn’t wait to give it back to me and it took him a long time to recover from it. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that what he went through that week is part of my everyday life and that unlike him, I have no one to hand the bag over to. I would give a million dollars to walk away from this duty, to spend all that time and worry and energy on my own wellbeing and my own family if I could, but I can’t because someone has to carry the damn bag.

Last week, I was hoping to get some respite from the responsibility, from the fact that my role in this situation has been the one who has to stay behind while others go off and “save themselves.” I wasn’t expecting a lot and I knew that any help I got would be temporary, but I thought that maybe I would get a bit of a break from being in charge.

Instead, several thing became clear to me: just how much I’m taken for granted; just how little respect the people involved have for me, my time, my energy, my work, or my family; and just how little help I will ever get with this bag of responsibilities that by rights should carried by more than just me. I’ve also woken up to the absurd lengths I go to in order to please these people, to the detriment of my work, my family, and my own health and happiness. Worst of all, I saw just how far these people will take their passive-aggressive nonsense—so far that they will hurt my children in order to get back at me when I take one step away from my role or refuse to drop everything to meet their needs.

I had hoped to be able to write something lighthearted that used several fun synonyms for nonsense. But when these people hurt my children, leaving them disappointed, in tears, and wondering what the hell they’ve done to deserve being ignored by people they love, their behavior ceases to be nonsense or malarkey or flummery or absurdity or even bullshit. It’s just plain mean.

Wordless Wednesday #18--Tall Ship

2008-06-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

Thematic Photographic: Glass

2008-06-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this photo as part of Carmi's "Thematic Photographic" project. The theme this week is glass. This picture was taken through the window of an old building on the beach in April.

An open letter to late-night callers

2008-06-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

To the young woman who has decided to drunk-dial her ex-boyfriend and got me instead, I’m very sorry for your suffering. And if you call me back at, say, 11:00 in the morning, when I could really use a break from my work, I’ll be happy to listen to you weep and tell me what an ass he is.

To the socialites who call looking for Bob or Barbi or a taxi at 3:00 in the morning, I’m very happy for you that your social life is so full. I can tell you’re having a wonderful time at that party. The music sounds great—whoever is in charge of the stereo is doing a fabulous job. But Bob doesn’t live here, nor does Barbi, and there’s no way I’m getting out of my warm bed to come and pick you up so you can throw up in my car.

To those who are calling the Metro Vancouver area code from the other side of the world, please be especially careful with your dialing. I know it’s a lot of numbers and it’s easy to get one wrong, but consider what it’s like for me to fumble in the dark for the phone and to hear you asking over and over again for your intended party in a language I don’t speak. Here’s a handy tip: If the person who answers the phone clearly doesn’t understand you, you’ve probably got the wrong number. Shouting loudly will not help her find the person you want.

If you happen to be a client of mine and are sending me a fax from Europe or calling me from the East Coast, stop for just a minute and remember that I’m in the Pacific time zone. Where you are it may be a perfectly reasonable business hour, but where I am we are all snoring gently in our beds (except for those who are out partying and calling me for a ride). Keep this in mind: I edit much better and more efficiently when I don’t have to prop my eyes open with toothpicks because I’ve been woken up by your call in the wee hours. I’m also much less cranky when I’ve had a full night’s sleep and therefore less likely to write “Did you never learn grammar in school, you moron?” in big red letters on your manuscript.

I know you’re probably thinking I should just turn the phones off at night so that you don’t have to worry your drunken or thoughtless little heads over waking me. But we have elderly relatives and sick relatives and my husband is part of an emergency response team, so that’s not an option. When I hear the phone ring at night, my first thought is that someone has died or there’s been an apartment-building fire and 50 people need help finding food and clothes and a place to stay. And with all that phone-induced adrenalin rushing through my body, it’s really hard for me to make sense of your weeping or drunken slurring or foreign-to-me language or requests for a rush job.

Please, late-night callers, please, think before you dial.

Wordless Wednesday #17--Waiting for summer

2008-06-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.

Improg word: Fair

2008-06-17T13:48:00.001-07:00

Improgging is improvisational blogging. A word is posted on the Improg blog twice a week. Take that word and blog about it in anyway you’d like: happy, sad, thoughtful, funny, short, long, with pictures, with words—anything goes! To read other people's interpretation of the current word, go here.

Monday’s posted word was fair. I was thinking about posting about things that are fair and things that aren’t—I could go on forever about this, I bet. But then I started thinking all the fairs I’ve gone to. I grew up going to the county fair and for a dozen years lived in an area that holds a big agricultural fair every summer.

But the best years, fair-wise, were the years we lived in California when our kids were younger. Some people call the area we lived in Wine Country, but to us it was Fair Country. We usually went to five or six fairs every year, starting with the Apple Blossom Fair in April and ending with the Sonoma County Harvest Fair in October. We went to the fair (two, actually) in our first month living there and we went to the fair in our last month living there.

Now I live close to the grounds for the Pacific National Exhibition, known as the PNE. It has a midway and rides (they’re actually there all year), and there are some farm animals, but it’s much bigger and more commercial than the fairs I love. There’s no home ec building where I can see everyone’s strawberry jams or check how many ribbons a friend won for her crafts like I could at other fairs. The vendors are commercial ones. I can’t buy a wall-hanging for my daughter’s room from a member of the quilt guild or a hemp bracelet from a guy with dreadlocks. There are no displays of kids’ science projects or Lego creations. The PNE is fun, but it’s not a community fair.

My stepsister and I liked to go to our county fair during the day when it was quiet, because the guys running the rides would let us stay on as long as we wanted. I still feel bad about the time we were on the Octopus and, thinking we were the only ones, we had the guy keep it going around and around and around, until finally the short kid we hadn’t noticed before threw up.

We were also crazy about roller coasters. Take a lesson from me: Don’t wear a strapless top on a roller coaster, or if you do, don’t put your hands over your head as you go down the big hill. Hello, Santa Cruz!

My kids are not big fans of fair rides and for this I’m kind of grateful. For one thing, as I’ve gotten older, even one round of Ring around the Rosy makes me so dizzy that I have to sit with my head between my knees. I don’t think I could take the Tilt-a-Whirl anymore. For another, we rarely have to stand in line for an hour and a half and pay $5 each to enjoy a 45-second ride.

And once you’ve become a mom, the rides that used to seem so thrilling are downright scary. I was never truly frightened on a roller coaster—not even the time when, with my hands in the air instead of holding onto the bar like a smart person would do, I flew right out of my seat and the guy sitting with me had to haul me back down by the waistband of my jeans—until I took my three-year-old son on the kiddy roller coaster at the Sonoma County Fair. No safety bar seems safe enough when it’s your kid. When were those bolts last tightened? Is that seat belt frayed? As we rode around the Dragon Coaster, a good five or six feet in the air, I had a death grip on his little shoulder.

Soon my son’s class is going on a field trip to the PNE grounds. Having inherited the family pukey gene, he won’t go on the dizzying rides, but he is planning on trying out the very roller coaster that I almost flew out of almost 27 years ago. He’s smaller and skinnier than I was then and if the safety bar is the same, it won’t come anywhere close to his body. But he’s also more sensible than I was (and he’s heard my story), so he’ll probably be holding on. I won’t know for sure, though, because I won’t be able to watch.

Green Friday--Think before you print

2008-06-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

In my day job (which, unfortunately, sometimes spills over into an evening, night, and weekend job), I’m an editor. My work involves words, words, and more words. It also used to involve paper, paper, and more paper, but over the years I’ve cut way back on how much printing I do.

During the first half or so of my ridiculous number of years at university, I simply could not write directly on the computer (I mean compose. I’m not talking about graffiti here). When I tried, I would sit there, my mind as blank as the screen.

It didn’t help that there’s something weird about my eyes or my brain that makes me able to detect CRT monitors refreshing, so that to me it sometimes looks like the screen is scrolling 60 times a second. Given my tendency to motion sickness, this is not a good thing. I often had to go lie down (or worse) during work sessions. A writer and editor who gets pukey looking at a computer screen? About the only thing worse would be a car salesman who gets sick on test drives.

Anyway, when I wrote my master’s thesis, I actually wrote it. By hand. With a pen. On paper. And then I typed the whole damn thing into the computer, printed it up for editing, wrote some more, typed some more, printed it again—rinse and repeat several times. Over the years, though, I’ve developed the ability to think and look at a computer screen at the same time, which is good news for the forests of the world. And now that I have a flat-screen monitor, I rarely throw up while I work.

These days I work on-screen as much as possible. And recently I’ve been questioning every print job before I send it. Do I really need to print a book’s table of contents so I can compare it to the headings used in the text (what an exciting job I have—can you stand it?) or can I copy the TOC (fancy technical abbreviation) into a separate file and view both documents side by side? Do I really need to print a set of style guidelines or can I keep them open in the background and refer to them when I need to? Do I really need to print a whole email or can I jot down the important information on a piece of scrap paper? Do I really need to print a knitting pattern that I may never get around to making, or can I save it on my hard drive?

Of course, words read differently on the screen than on paper, so there are times that I have to print a job to get an accurate reading of it. Once in a while I have a client who prefers to work on paper. Sometimes I have to measure margins with a ruler (see "exciting job" above). And I still tend to print things I’m scared of losing, because my backing-up habits aren’t as good as they could be (shame on me).

Now that I stop and think instead of automatically hitting the print button, a package of paper lasts me an incredibly long time and I have less paper cluttering my office (not to imply that my office isn't cluttered—it's just not cluttered with printouts).

Wordless Wednesday #16--A needed reminder

2008-06-11T08:54:00.001-07:00

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's, see wordlesswednesday.com.