6/5/08 html 101-patty griffen

i am a bit behind. not only this morning, although it is nearly noon and i'm only now beginning my second cup of coffee. breakfast time long gone, lunch ready and waiting.
no, not just behind this morning. today it seems everyone is sharing their ideas and thoughts and passions and smarts in a blog of their own. i'm still jotting my quirky spontaneous thinking down in a black book that i've been toting around with me for years. i wonder, does anyone journal anymore? have all the notebooks in the world slipped in line, marched off obediently, single filed themselves away onto book shelves to collect dust? or worse, are they sleeping in bins in garages? oh my god, were they thrown away??
if i had a karmen blog i would ask all my readers about their old journals. (i like to imagine i'd have lots and lots of dedicated readers.) lines? no lines? hard back, or soft? felty? leather? teeny weeny, or big and massive with 5 million pages? for words only, or is doodling acceptable when the words don't come? private? key and lock??? carried around everywhere, or kept quietly under the bed ONLY?? i have so many questions.
my bloggish behindness has me now forcing myself to learn html. old school. because, despite my faithful black book writing, i feel like journaling in this small, sort of public way is good too. i've been mulling over the idea for what feels like 100 years and i guess this morning is as good as any morning to start. so bring on the weird codes and bring on BBEdit (i'm SOOO good already, i swear). come on html! if 7 year olds can understand you, i can too. BRING IT. seriously though, i don't want to get crazy here. HTML, you're hard and i think you're weird. period. thank god for todd, who holds my hand through every freak out. thank god for todd anyway, and all ways, but the techie handholding is a life saver almost everyday. i hope everyone has a todd. especially those who, like me, are still looking at the ctrl. key sometimes, paralyzed by fear that if pressed might wipe out the entire precious hard drive in one fell swoop.

SWOOP

ooh. it doesn't take much these days....nope. not a lot at all. now i am thinking of swoops. swooping. swooping makes me think of sweeping, and that makes me think of being swept, as we say. swept away. swept up. swept BY. funny how we talk. funny humans we are. but seriously, i like the idea of "swept", as in being lifted up, carried up, like feathers following wind. weightless moving. these days, swept away in this lovely way i speak of, i find myself closing my eyes a lot, and allowing my head to relax, lazily falling from side to side. a lot. then, i listen. music sweeps me up, and all around, all of the time. i get swept up by big lush swells, orchestrated to do just so, and by quiet breaths between words, sung to melt the heart into one big pile of beautiful mush.
these days i am a big pile of beautiful mush. heart full, head on vacation.
today there is music i can't bring myself to go near because i know it would sweep me up far and away, much much higher than i could possibly take. it's a funny thing. i am so aware of the sweeping power music has on me...i'm constantly choosing the day's soundtrack according to how much sweeping i can handle. today i know i need at least one foot firmly planted on the ground. so, today there will be no joni, no sufjan, no jill, and no "useless desires" for sure. oddly, patty griffen's new album has working well so far. i'm listening as i write and can feel myself being lifted a little up off my big chair, but i can still wiggle some toes on the hard wood beneath me. so. so far so good. we'll see what i can take later. i may have to bust out the big guns and listen to some notorious B.I.G to get through the afternoon.
and, of course, the jumbo guild that is waiting patiently to my right is nodding now, daring me to snatch it up and sing something myself. true, THAT would be grounding, and full-footed, and is a good idea. true. but, well, swoops and being swept is mildly addictive and i am not kidding myself today. i am addicted. i want some floating with my footing. it is a tricky balancing act, but patty is helping and for now i think she and i will coast through all right.
journal