Dangerous Water

No Telling


These Somali pirates aren’t the ones from Treasure Island or even from the old swashbucklers I watched on Saturday afternoons. Remember those old films? The Black Swan was my favorite and I wanted so badly to be sassy Maureen O’Hara loving/hating Tyrone Powers.

These Somali pirates have satellite phones and rocket launchers. They stand to make a fortune hijacking merchant ships. Millions of dollars, in fact. And it doesn’t seem to take a whole lot of them to overthrow a big merchant ship, either. Pirates have been taking ships off the coast of Somalia for so long and with such success that they’ve become cocky about it. Now they have an American captain hostage in what appears to be a toddler’s tub toy surrounded by U.S. naval ships. It’s a hell of a mess and will certainly get messier as the hours pass. These pirates are accustomed to getting what they ask for.

These Somali pirates don’t always choose the big ships. A recent and tragic story involved a French couple, their three year-old son, and two friends. Florent Tanit, father of the little boy, lost his life during the rescue of their yacht. There’s been a little talk here and there about the sailing adventure this family attempted, and the blog they kept that ends just as the Somali pirates took their boat. I found the blog here, although you’ll need to remember your old college French to read it. The pictures are enough anyway.

Pirates aside, I can’t event talk about a man who would put his wife and toddler in such danger. I’ll leave that alone. He can’t fix it now.

While I hope the U.S. Navy /orange plastic tub-toy standoff turns out well, it looks like it may be the beginning of a much larger problem. Black Hawk Down is a terrible memory, and I don’t know how provoked we need to be to go back to Somalia again. This isn’t a costume swashbuckler or kid’s novel, and no one out there is Tyrone Powers.

Captain Richard Phillips, I’m rattling the beads for you.

UPDATE: Captain Phillips has been freed!

Take Care of Your Knees, Whippersnappers

No Telling

You only have two, and it has been my experience recently that while you can get by with one good one for a while, two good knees are preferable. Trust me on this.

All those foolish things you did when young and vigorous? Well, they’re going to come back and haunt you when you’re older and less springy. There’s no talking to the idiocy of youth, however, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have listened two seconds had someone warned me. We’re all bullet-proof and immortal until we reach our forties, and little can be done to stop that train.

I had my knee surgery on Friday, and there’s more to such a thing than I’d imagined. On paper, it sounds cut and dried, but I didn’t have my scope on paper. I had it in the hospital like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, it seems I tend to wake up once put down. This happened once before during a carpal tunnel surgery, but that’s a funny story and involves me – in medias res – illuminating the surgeon on the finer points of correct procedure. I woke up in recovery to a gaggle of laughing nurses and other amused onlookers.

Luckily, I don’t remember much about waking up during Friday’s knee surgery. It appears I woke more than once, however, and they really put the anaesthesia to me. The result was a tricky 48 hours of scoline pain. I don’t wish that on my worst enemy. It’s right up there with labor pain, except everywhere – I couldn’t get out of a chair or even hold a pen.

All that’s over now and soon I expect to be better than new. Better than before all that damage I did back in my late teens and early twenties, anyway, when I was limber and bullet-proof.

The Iron Whim: Recuperative Reading

Fresh Ribbon


A very good friend gifted me this afternoon with a little something to read while I recover from knee surgery this weekend. Because it’s likely I’ll be ridiculous from pain meds, I’ve already peeked a bit inside The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriters by Darren Wershler-Henry.

I promised myself I’d only read the first chapter or so and save the rest for later, but so much for that. How could I help it? The intro is a haunted machine and hashish-motivated writing jag. Chapter 1 is the infamous Royal Road Test. I finally put the thing down after Chapter 2’s nostalgia as religion – pages dedicated to those crazy folks who haunt Ebay (can you imagine?) to snag a bit of mechanical history.

I’m stopping right here. I swear. Not another page until after Friday’s surgery.

Thanks, Steph!

Seven Things I’ll Miss About Spring Break

No Telling

1. See picture above.

2. Lounging around in unattractive sweats all day.

3. Reading whatever I want, whenever I want.

4. Leisurely coffee in the morning from a pot I made myself.

5. Unhurried, inspired scribbling at odd hours.

6. Extended, guiltless Ebay searching.

7. Snuggling up on the couch, watching the Backyardigans with that boy in the picture.

Moleskine and Etsy and the Seven Stages of Cahier Grief

Fresh Ribbon

I’ve been a little put out ever since Moleskine discontinued production of my beloved black, extra large, ruled cahiers. A friend who went to the AWP conference gifted me with Moleskine’s 2009 catalog and – adding insult to injury – now there’s a glorious, deep red XL cahier – in blank and gridded paper only. No! Moleskine also added an 8×11 hardbound ruled “folio” notebook, but I can’t find this one online anywhere. There’s the barest mention of it here, but no picture or price.

I need to make peace with this loss. There’s a reason people make fun of Moleskine addicts. There are seven stages of grief, you know, and I’m floating somewhere between #4 and #5. It’s not a pretty place.

So off to Etsy. I figure if Big Business isn’t interested in me, I can send my couch-cushion change to someone who cares. I love supporting artists and they love making art. It’s a match made in heaven.

There are so many gorgeous choices. It’s taking me too long to figure out how to link the pictures to each site, so I’ve included the links below each one. (A little help, techies?)

Neilsonhandmade has a stunning How to Win Boys “upcycled” book. I may need to rob more than just my couch-cushions to get it, but it’s a contender. The Trouble book is another, but there just aren’t enough couches to bankroll that one. When I win the lottery, this will be one of my first stops.

Allibell has handmade journals are a little closer to my price range. Thirty pages of mulberry paper and all that vintage ephemera for only $9.00.

Ah, Afiori. This jewel is only 4″x6″, but it has a hundred pages (x2 of you write on both sides) of mixed papers. The cover is one of Afiori’s prints on frosted plastic, so it doesn’t have to be so preciously guarded against coffee spills and such. Only $12. Lovely.

There are literally hundreds more upcycled, recycled, hand sewn, vintage, breathtaking journals on Etsy. I even found quite a few artistically enhanced Moleskines there. Sadly, none of them are extra large, ruled cahiers. When I’ve moved ahead a bit in the grieving process, I’ll give them more attention. Right now it hurts too much.

Recession-Fabulous Free Typewriter Fonts

Fresh Ribbon

I’ve got quite a few (fairly) harmless addictions. Collecting old manual typewriters, for example, will not land me a stint in some lock-down rehab. I don’t think. I guess dropping a Hermes 3000 on my foot might buy a little time in the ER, although I’m sure I’d be more worried about the typewriter than the foot. At any rate, it’s a harmless addiction as long as I don’t need government bailout money to keep me in fresh ribbon.

One of my other addictions is collecting computer fonts. It’s true. I have thousands and can justify every last one because I’m the faculty adviser for an undergrad literary magazine. The magazine requires layout and layout requires nifty fonts now and then. I might as well share a few fabulous free font sites, because at this point it’s starting to feel like hoarding.

You know, like those people who turn their houses into a maze of newspaper stacks and olive jars. If you opened up my hard drive, I’m afraid that’s what it would look like.

Urban Fonts has a nice collection of the usual typewriter font suspects, as well as some of the more down-and-dirty broken fonts. Some of the classics are Adler, Love Letter, Metalic Avacodo (that’s the spelling), Royal Pain, Traveling Typewriter (cleaner than the others), and Uncle Typewriter. There’s a nice one called My Old Remington that’s a good blend of the clean and dirty – much like typing with a fresh ribbon on a machine that hasn’t been cleaned in, say, sixty years.

Font Parade is a great site for some of the standards Urban Fonts carries, with a few more. Take a look at Dislexi, Fox Script, Hammer Keys (a favorite right now), Junko’s Typewriter, Maszyna, and Type-Ra. Those of you who have special love for that blocky, sci-fi look some Hermes 3000s have can download Typewriter a6o2. Not my thing, really, but it might be yours.

One of my favorite font sites right now is Misprinted Type. Some of these are typewriter fonts and some are just plain art, but you simply must stop by and take a look at the free offerings as well as the buy-only fonts. The picture above is Dirty Ego, but you should also check out Astonished, Print Error, and Horse Puke. That’s right, Horse Puke.

Just because you may or may not have a functioning manual typewriter is no reason not to have typewriter font-love. God knows you miss out on the overall aesthetic clank and zing delight of the old beauties, but you can be forgiven. The real thing can be pricey. During WWII my grandmother painted eyebrow pencil lines down the backs of her legs to mimic stockings. It’s the same principle.

By the time this recession is over, I figure jewelry maker key choppers will have “recycled” too many old typewriters. Collecting whole machines will be iffy at best. It’s good to have the fonts as a backup should – God forbid – we have to typecast in eyebrow pencil.

Warning: Whining Woman Ahead

No Telling

It’s been a very long day. It’s been a longer five weeks and I feel like having a little bit of a whine. I’m due.

I’ll keep it brief. I limped around for a few weeks on a bad knee before one day it just quit me with a loud pop. Lots of drama, x-rays, nine days in a wheelchair, now a fancy rolling walker, MRI, knee specialist, more x-rays, knee specialist scratching head, that sort of thing. Maybe cracked bone, certainly bruised bone, maybe torn meniscus, osteoarthritis from old injuries, Doppler for blood clots, found none. Like that. Surgery on April 3rd.

April 3rd. The pop heard round the campus was five weeks ago. April 3rd is 2 1/2 weeks from now. The rolling walker, not nearly as sexy as the one above but almost, is getting old. The pain is getting old. I’m also getting old. Rapidly.

I’ve kept a sunny disposition thus far, but I’m flagging. Everyone has been helpful beyond words – all my classes moved in one building, folks helping with Em and The Perfect Grandson, rides to and from work, even concierge service in the rain since I can’t hold the umbrella and the walker simultaneously. Em has been my legs around the house and an angel.

I know there are people out there much, much, MUCH worse off than I am. This is temporary and I’ll get over it. But in the meantime, I can’t pick up The Perfect Grandson or babysit him while his mom’s in class. I can’t lift him out of his bed in the morning for our conspiratorial, dark-thirty goofing off. I miss it all something terrible.

I’ll probably wake up tomorrow morning with a new and grateful attitude. A little sleep does wonders. So do anti-inflammatory drugs. Eighteen more days. I can do this.

Note on the Fridge to my Daughter

No Telling

You’ve become an amazing woman. I’m just lucky to be your mama.
The Perfect Grandson, in all his no-pants glory, is going to have a fine life. It will all be due to you.
As for the rest of you out there, go read How Girls learn About Freight Trains and you’ll see what I mean. This should be required reading for Bristol Palin and every other young woman out there staring down life with a baby on her hip.
I love you, sweetie. You’re going to make it and you’re going to shine.