I’ve recently resumed a blog whose intention is to focus on my studies and the factors comprising my real work. I hit a few misunderstandings back in the nineties and probably even earlier than that and well the work is more interesting than those misunderstandings I hope.
I tried blogging soon after I got the computer. It’s taken quite a long time to know where to look and to understand what this acronym or that means. Oh yes, I’d read all the early cyber philosophy books back in the seventies. I dreamed of computers back then and Science Fiction had strong imaginings about what they would be and how they might change things.
But nothing is ever quite as we dream or imagine it will be.
It's disappointing that Computer Media can be so incredibly trivial. Celebrity sagas aren’t simply an occasional curiosity concerning the notable and more. They seem to have become the entire imaginative content of some people’s lives. Even some of the trivial people who become celebs believe they are doing something more than their vacuity would suggest.
I’m just glad that I was brought up with a grounding in Literature, History and Real Life and so on.
Yes, computers were an essential part of several of my former workplaces from the eighties onwards. I fell in love with them then (as it were). No longer did I have to re-type an entire manuscript sometimes several times in order to create the perfect essay or radio script. I remember my Seventies seminar paper for Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein arguing with Bertrand Russell, his former mentor:
I wrote out all the relevant quotes from both parties, cut up each quote separately and spent a long time sorting and rewriting before I literally pasted onto blank paper. Yes, if something complex needs to be said, it’s far better to cook it on the computer than to write and rewrite where there is the need to correct.
Many great writers simply wrote and rarely corrected. That's not me at all. My first draft is inevitably raw clay requiring much work and considerable time.
Some of my essays and works have succeeded and the best ones developed from notebook stage and then via much correction and polish.
This business with blogs and websites is thoroughly exciting.
Yeah, I worked on that old blog on Saturday and I’ve decided that some of the strange things that have prevented my work as well as some of what I’ve had to learn since I first became ill will go there. I’m building up to post some essays, a process I first thought might be simple.
(Local friend John Butcher suggested I advertise my writing on ebay!!!
Oh yes? Would people really buy an essay or a poem on ebay? I said I want to keep copyright of my work & he reckons there are so many people hitting ebay that some would just love to have and interesting essay just faxed or posted to them. Is the world that strange? I explained that I want to find a publisher who’ll push my work, and my one nibble feels pretty good.)
Today I have a streaming cold, not helped I suspect, by Saturday and twelve hours straight stuck at the computer. Possibly eyestrain didn’t help much…the cold seems to be going round capturing friend after friend and I’ve got to the point of conceding that I probably need some rest.
I’ve just returned from sitting in the front garden with a cup of tea, sunglasses and a big hat. Even with my blocked nose, Jasmine, Violets and Freesia’s were bliss (though I wish last year’s Boronia had survived). The sunshine was divine, cats were basking beneath geranium and daisy bushes purring while I thought about how I’ve managed to learn some computering a little sooner than Anna expected.
I liked Macintosh from our very first encounter and I especially like its visual capacity. I also did some work with my collection of photographs on the weekend.
I’d have loved to include some garden pics here, but the camera needs a new card and that is that, so my only new pictures are today to be detected within these words.
(Blossom, beautiful, beautiful blossom has begun with firstly the cherry tree down the road and today, the first plum blossom in the big yard. Come to think of it, this must mark the anniversary of my camera because it was last year’s first plum blossoms inspired me to get the camera in the first place….)
I’ve wanted to properly introduce the Grey Cats and to tell their story for some time.
While I was still trying to work out the bits and whatnots about blogging, I began a Word Manuscript about them all. A quick look today revealed that I have a considerable editing session to complete before I post and I don’t feel up to a major editing session, O No.
So I’ll just include the kitty pics as a teaser for now. My head is spinning and the eyes are swimming and I’m feeling as if a lie down might be nice. So glad I rarely get a cold, I hate them. (‘Scuse me, AChoo!) Thank Goodness Anna brought extra tissues yesterday!
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Grey Kits: From Left, Clock Wise, Grace, Sylvio, Fred, Baby, Zorro.
