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Dignity and…
As a baby and a child you begin to demand your dignity, to find and expect to feel like a person. But, as you grow older, farther from childhood, you begin to lose your dignity. You become dependent, your body and mind forget and have to give in to necessity over dignity. Against your will.
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Cemetery…
Two of the interview questions from the Cemetery Travel site. Read the interviews and find more questions on the site. What’s your favorite thing to do in a cemetery? What would your epitaph be? If I were younger and still more romantic, my favourite thing to do in a cemetery would be a picnic. You would need to come prepared, not just the usual picnic things. You might check in with the people who maintain the land and be sure a picnic is welcome there. Next, once you are there, find a good spot. Cemetery land tends to be knobby and bumpy. You might think its all manicured, perfect cared for lawns, its not always the case. Usually they are knobby due to insects, weeds, and no doubt other things I don't know about. You won't want too much shade or sun and a sunny day will at least save you from mosquitos. I would not plan it as a Gothic looking thing. I don't see it as a gloomy event. Now, at this age, I like visiting cemeteries just for photography. Finding the oldest stones, even…
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Write Your Final…
Think of a fanzine you might have written. (Maybe you even did write one). After all the issues, the community you may have found, the new things you learned as you published about your favourite TV show, celebrity, type of fruit, grocery store chain, etc. How would you finish it all, a final goodbye? I thought this was such a great creative writing idea. Writing sort of a eulogy for your creative passion once its wound down. Maybe you ran out of things to say. Maybe you got tired of it. Maybe your opinion about the whole thing changed. Maybe it got to be too expensive. There are lots of reasons a small, self publication, a fanzine, would close down. Would that be part of your final issue, or would you leave it for people to guess at? Leave them wanting more? You might make a final grand statement, an epic summary of everything you have found and learned. I think I'd try to do that then change my mind when I couldn't make it short enough, or be sure I hadn't forgotten something and…
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"Inaction will…
"Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace."
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"And now that…
"And now that you don't have to be perfect you can be good".
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The Silent Book Club
"The Silent Book Club is a global community of readers and introverts, with more than 800 chapters led by local volunteers around the world. SBC members gather in person and online to read together in quiet camaraderie. Find a chapter near you or a virtual meetup at http://silentbook.club." My local chapter has gone dark. I think it happens a lot to groups like this. Someone gets inspired to start, works at making it go, then gets discouraged when it doesn't work as well or as fast as they would like. Some hang in there, a lot don't and move on to the next fresh inspiration. People don't understand, or don't want to know that nothing starts out big. The groups that hang in and trudge along are the ones with a chance to grow and become popular, or at least get a regular attendance. I thought about offering to take up the local group myself, to re-start it. But, I pulled myself back and waited. Its so easy to take on a new challenge when its fresh and you feel enthusiastic.…
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Have You Ever…
I have written in a book. A book I owned not one borrowed from someone else or a library. Also, not a book I was going to trade in at my local secondhand bookstore for more secondhand books. So, I didn't feel it was defacing the book, but it still felt as if I were breaking some kind of cultural barrier. Quoted from the Amazon book description of "The Reader in the Book: A Study of Spaces and Traces" by Stephen Orgel. "One of the most commonplace aspects of old books is the fact that people wrote in them, something that, until very recently, has infuriated modern collectors and librarians. ... The underlying question is at what point marginalia, the legible incorporation of the work of reading into the text of the book, became a way of defacing it rather than of increasing its value-why did we want books to lose their history?" I made notes about what I was thinking as I read the book. I made wonderful notes I wish I could read again now and be inspired by what I…
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750 Words
Inspired by The Artist's Way morning pages. An online group who write 750 words (three pages) each day. Writing is private, not published, intended to help people get into the habit of writing every day. Registration required for the site. Community forum and blog posts. Asking $5 a month for membership which includes features to inspire writing.
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Mudlarking and…
I read a post about mudlarking. What to Know About Mudlarking. From Archaeology Now, London, England. "Mudlarking is the romantic name for scavenging on the riverbank (also called the foreshore) when the tide is out." Things I learned about mudlarking in England: you need a license (even just to poke around), there are places you are not allowed to go, and you must report your finds. The writer, Jill Brown, suggests a catch and release plan where you don't keep what you find, just put it back. Take photos, leave it where you found it. I can understand, those are the general rules for urban exploration too. But, what if I want to keep it? I don't know if we have rules about beachcombing or mudlarking here in Canada, or Ontario. Maybe they do in Toronto, the city itself. I'm not sure if the same urban exploration rules apply for finding something washed up on a beach or forgotten under the dirt in a forest, etc. I like the name mudlarking, but I would think of it as…
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ldb ASCII Artist
My site with my ASCII art. Artist initials ldb.
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Ontario Heritage…
I'm interested in Ontario history, including our rural heritage. (I volunteer with Ontario Barn Preservation). Today I found several links about heritage apples, forgotten apple varieties and trees in Ontario, and information about pruning and growing trees from the seeds of the old apples you might find on a road trip here and there. My Mother and Grandparents talk about the apples they used to have for making pies and wonder where they could still find those now. They don't see them sold in farmer's markets and certainly not in stores any more. I found a few good links and then this book, by Sher Leetooze, "Identifying Heritage Apples Across Ontario". I bought a copy of the book. I'm hoping it will include greening apples. A variety my Mother mentions every year. She remembers them being the first, early apples available each year. They grow (grew) here in Ontario but we haven't found any yet. Orchard People The Kitchen Orchard The Ontario Heritage and Feral Apple Project…
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Trying Chyrp Today
I've looked at so many interesting things related to minimal web site designs yesterday and today. My mind is full of this and that. I created an idea for this site, doodled the layout I'd use. Then, I found this software, Chyrp-lite. It has enough features to work with my old site and yet its simple to deal with. So far. I've thought others were going to work, gotten enthusiastic and then found they just didn't work for one reason or another. I wondered if I was just being too picky. Or, finding ways to nitpick and procrastinate about getting the site up again. I hope not. Installing it wasn't difficult. Looks like it uses markup which I will have to get used to. Unless there is another option. This is my first post with the software. No problems found.
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The Dull Women's…
I joined the Dull Women's Club, on Facebook. When asked what I thought dull meant, I wrote: Simple, plain, normal, sane. Able to appreciate the smaller things in life, if not the better things. This is what I wrote as my self introduction: I'm excessively dull. Sometimes the highlight of my day is finding my backscratcher to get rid of an itch on my back. I live in Ontario, the small city of Barrie. At the end of this year I will be 60. I live with my Mother, who is now 80. I collect books, more than I can actually read. I make ASCII art. I have been a writer and editor online for years. I used to crochet and sew. I'm divorced with no children. I drink coffee. I couldn't find a photo of myself though I have easily a thousand photos I've taken of old farm houses around Ontario. I'm a volunteer with Ontario Barn Preservation, writing the newsletter, etc. A later comment about growing foot size as we get older: I think everything you don't want to grow, grows as you get older. Things you…
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Why Not Choose Your…
Listening to people, family, and the media go on about your life and health as you get older, some days it feels like living with a jack-in-the-box. Any time it could pop up and that's it your time is up. I'm going to be 60 at the end of this year. I do wonder how many days I still have. I don't feel stressed about it but, I don't like it. I wonder if there have been people who also didn't like the unknown date lurking in their future. Has anyone ever decided they didn't like the suspense and chosen their own expiry date? Not due to despair, or ill health. Just because you don't want to leave it random and unknown. I don't think its suicide. It's not a decision made due to sadness, or ill health. I don't think its morbid either. Younger people may see it that way. Your experience is different. But, unless immortality becomes an option, I think its entirely reasonable. Compare it to doctors deciding a birth date for babies by scheduling a caesarian for women. They don't know what the…
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One Way or Another
One way or another I've done what I wanted for the site layout. Not exactly as I envisioned it but its done. Sometimes I can get lost in the details and use that to procrastinate from the bigger work at hand. Not 100% wanting to start on the big picture. I tried using the FSE (full style editor) with WordPress. I even liked the idea of it. But, at this stage its more work to deal with it than to go back to GeneratePress, which I've gotten to know and find pretty reliable. So, that's what I did. Chalk it up to a learning experience as far as the FSE editor. I also added a contact form. Something new for me. Will see how much spam it gets and then decide if I want to keep it. I'm not even sure how it works yet. Does it need an email address? I didn't give it one. If it stays in WordPress that will work out well enough. I'm not expecting to hear from many real people versus spam, other than my Mother. Next I will start going through all my posts from the last 20 years to update them,…
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It Takes Bravery to…
It takes bravery to get old. Young people won't know, or may scoff at the idea, until they get here too. If they get here, not everyone is fortunate enough to get old. Getting old means dealing with your health in new and innovative ways. You take pills and don't really know what to expect from them. You go for tests and don't know what they're going to do to you. You trust people, professionals, who were in diapers and learning how to drink from a cup just a short time ago. Getting old itself. Knowing things aren't what they used to be. Knowing other people, younger people, look at you and see an old woman. They don't see the person you are. Every old face is a resting bitch face. You measure things differently, especially time. More of your decisions are about time than quality or quantity. It takes bravery to look at yourself in a mirror and see yourself, still there. To find yourself, as they said long, long ago.
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Wasting Time…
Is there something about getting older that I find myself looking for shortcuts. To make things simpler, less complicated and less trouble. Or, is it the loss of confidence, maybe bravado, from being older. I can remember being reckless (I've tended to caution, not a big dare devil all my life) enough to open my computer and fix it myself, things like that, in my younger years. Was it confidence or trust or that feeling of invulnerability that people say young people have. I don't know. These days, I look for shortcuts. Maybe its the idea or feeling that I just don't have as much time. I'm 59 now. Since December. Turning 50 was a big deal for me. Now 60 is coming around the corner, assuming I get there, and I don't feel too bad about it. Still seems an odd surprise, even though I can count past 60 even as far as being mathematically correct. The surprise is finding myself this old. I wasn't born this way. I used to be much younger and I looked different too. Younger people look at me…