alas poor blog

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I'm trying something new for posting because the new and degenerated blogger won't let me cut and paste.  Ever.  

Oh well. To no avail. uuurrrgh. 

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hehe

yes! I can edit in html! I knew there was a way out.

Here's the procedure:

Write something or other in the new post window. Hit preview, then hit "edit hml" and you get a page in which you can cut and paste to your heart's content...

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see? :)
Whew! Here I thought I would have to write off the top of my head until blogger got its act together and fixed the safari issue. no more pain.

Toasted

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I've been noticing a giddy air of silliness sweeping around the blog sphere like a virus. It seems especially prevalent among NaBloPoMo-ers. I speculate that it is correlated with the "hump day" of NaBloPoMo. Everyone has been posting for days and weeks, and we are getting a little punchy from the effort. Can't sustain perfectly serious-thoughtful-well-written-humorous output every day.

When I went to a special seminar/ week-long camp a couple years ago, my coach there warned us early on that most people would get "a little toasted" mid way through the week. It was inevitable that everyone would stay up too late, try to do everything, engage in all sorts of concentrated work and silliness... and then get emotional, irritable, wacky, go a little nuts and/or retreat.

And that's exactly what happened. Everyone had their signature breakdown moment, some more noisily, some more quietly. It was just human nature to react to the extended push, especially as we were pushing ourself away from our usual familiar environment.

And we had been forewarned to give ourselves and others a little slack for just such an occasion. But, whew! That was a little stressful. Because our usual trajectory was what? a long weekend? We are not used to running on creative adrenaline for long stretches, unless we have worked up to it and have learned strategies to pace ourselves.

Notice anything this week? Yes, some of us are getting a leeetle bit punchy. It's funny, this mostly cheerful wailing. Fortunately, we've been forewarned to give ourselves and others a little slack. haha. Bullet points do not offend me! The synapses are firing madly, trying to keep up with demand. New synapses are being built all the time. It's physically tiring work, I always tell my students. And yet we keep on, even when we falter. Keep on keeping on!

A toast! To all NaBloPoMo-ers heaving themselves over the hump! There. You've been officially toasted.

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Isn't this so typical of me, running the deadline down to the wire? I think about my post all day then squeak it in at the end. It's also that I have so many choices for topics, and most of them need or deserve more thought than the blogging driveby. But on the other hand, let me let go of expectations. After all, part of NaBloPoMo is the actual posting every day. That's the main accomplishment. The quality is not necessarily the main point. Or to put it another way, to make great art, you have to be willing to make bad art. It's part of the process...