Monsters from the Id

I'll confess I've been naughty. I don't much read blogs. I've been, slowly, delving into the whole blogosphere thing over these last months, getting my feet wet, dipping a toe in the water, slowly, slowly, slowly immersing myself--the water's dark and deep, mysterious and more than a little scary. I have Artful Blogging magazine to blame--thank--for it, for thinking about me and blogging in the same sentence: you know, sort of a gateway drug. I found it, Artful Blogging, at the local Borders and leafed through it while I sipped my tea, my British Breakfast. Whoa, that's some kind of pretty. Blogs before had always existed in a world of argument, politics and celebrity gossip. Thanks, but no thanks, there's enough strife and loud discordant voices. And thus, so far, I have no favorite. I need a favorite, though, so I can be envious of it. I can tell you, though, what I have admired: those blogs that are pulled together, down to the last accessory, like a model at a fashion shoot, perfume layered and subtle, makeup flawless, seams straight, hair perfect, no spinach in her teeth. And they're not off the shelf, either. These are custom blogs or look it. Expensive. Not Wal-mart, not even the softer side of Sears. They're warm and welcoming and very very pretty.

Oddly enough, I'm often attracted to ones that have pearls and lace and doily-like things. To gauzy, fluttery curtains at a morning window, a teacup on the window ledge. There's often a surfeit of pink. There might be a weathered barn. A tumble of roses on a stone fence. I haven't been able to figure out how to work all that in with what I do. Somehow, putting the anvil on a large doily and draping it with long, luminous strands of baroque pearls, eh, well, I don't see it. A bit like something my mom said years ago, something about putting a tutu on a boxer.

That's the thing, isn't it? How to pull together the many threads of me, the seemingly contradictory, conflicting bits into a cohesive, meaningful whole and present them, a finished piece, a jewel upon a velvet pillow, complete, unerring and unchanging. And that's doomed to fail. Because I'm not complete, unerring or unchanging and never can be.

Things I do want and that are achievable--more control over the look of my blog. I've been studying, piecemeal, CSS and HTML but not applying myself enough. Little things frustrate me, discovering that the template I'm currently using--Scribe--does not have ordered lists, no way to do a numbered list until I figure out how to manipulate the template. Imagine my horror when I published the thing the other day and discovered the damned posies again. Posies! And they were indented this time. Since so much is happening behind the scenes (Edit HTML, my ass!), changing OL to UL did me no good. I had to strip everything out and put the coding back. It looked the same from my end but it published with non-indented posies. A slight improvement. Posies! They make my skin crawl.

Random stuff

The frost is on the pumpkin. Well, no, but when I went out to my truck last night, there was still ice in my tea. After two hours. Time to break out the parka. Brrr. On the other hand, it was too hot to entertain working in the studio this weekend. Temperatures anywhere above the mid-eighties and the room turns into an oven. Next weekend looks promising but campus might be closed for Labor Day. You never know. I'll have to check the schedule. I do intend to go in Monday night. I'll wait until seven or so; that should allow the new Fabrication students a chance to get settled in, to mark out their territory and for good spaces to open up in the parking lot.

Less than three weeks to the keuring in Weirsdale and I am so stoked. I don't know if I'll take any drawing materials or just the camera. There's plenty of time to decide. I'm toying with the idea, too, of driving up to Perry, Georgia, for this year's Feathered Horse Classic. Last year, my knee was still too painful to attempt such a trip. This year, God willing, I'll be fine. Friesians, boy howdy, and Gypsy Vanners, maybe other Gypsy Cobs as well. Loads of pretty horses with feathery feet. It's in October and who knows, maybe I'll even be able to see some autumn color.