the World of Webmistress Ming

Hello old friends!

If you can read this, you're a good buddy who just happened to remember this old blog. I've put it back online ONLY so that I can generate archives from old stories.

I've begun a fresh new blog here:

http://cynthiaewer.me

Come see what I'm up to these days!

Cynthia

I woke this morning to a quote from A.A. Milne's book, "The House at Pooh Corner":

Now it happened that Kanga had felt rather motherly that morning, and Wanting to Count Things--like Roo's vests, and how many pieces of soap there were left, and the two clean spots in Tigger's feeder; so she had sent them out with a packet of watercress sandwiches for Roo and a packet of extract-of-malt sandwiches for Tigger, to have a nice long morning in the Forest not getting into mischief.

Ming's made it into the new century: I'm now active on both Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter was for business. Facebook is on account of family.

In brief, rumblings from the relatives in Reno (in the direction of my grandchildren, no less) mean that I need to be "out" out there.

So find me on Twitter and on Facebook as username cynthiaewer

Despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio of this means of communication, I want them all to know that I Am Watching.

Reading an article from Neal Stephenson recently, I was struck by a similarity: like me, Stephenson shuns the "social-networking, build-a-platform" author model.

Best exemplified by Stephenie Meyers, this truism holds that authors should be out, about and available for importuning readers.

Stephenson bucks the trend, and explained that his best and highest use is to write, not hang about message boards, follow friends on Twitter or attend conferences. For him, interruptions are the great productivity killer; give him an uninterrupted week, and you get a book chapter.

Such a long, strange winter it's been.

Holiday-season travel, I've decided, is like everything else that happens that time of year: far more disruptive and involved than if you'd simply nipped off on a cruise in March or September.

Between getting ready to go (while cramming all holiday chores and most holiday celebrations into the same timeframe) and coming back (to add "take down decorations" to the laundry mountain and the work catch-up), it's more akin to moving than it is to vacation.

I came so, so close to ditching this blog. Just opening the database and letting the bytes blow off into the wind.

It wasn't so much a reasoned decision, as simple inertia. Having blog entries become the center of a distressing conflict with a friend took the heart right out of me; Q4 madness multiplied by a holiday-season vacation blew poor Ming's Blog off the front burner.

Friday morning at dawn, I will roar out of town on a 2700-mile, two-week solo driving trip, so what is Ming doing today?

Packing. And I am NOT packing light.

The trip will include a stay at a St. George, Utah, health spa (and temps are in the 101-degree range there all week), visits with relatives in Arizona, a side trip (maybe) to meet with a prospective literary agent (about whom I have great, GREAT vibes), another family visit in San Jose, and a final stint (yes, please) in my beloved Mt. Shasta retreat center.

I plan to enjoy myself.

The more Drupal I do, the more Drupal I love.

To wit: string overrides. A marvelous little module that lets me replace the generic "access denied" message with one more, well, Ming-like.

From here on out, it's invitation-only.

Today, I am thankful.

Eyes are "stable". Whatever was growing in the blind spot a year ago looks like testing variation. I still have to be followed, but with no new change, we can stick with the original diagnosis: just a quirk of anatomy.

I can't say I feel reborn--both eyes still feel as if they were sanded. Funny, too, that I'll have to have a passport photo taken today, and with all the swelling, it will match what I look like post-air travel quite nicely.

It's going to be a vulnerable week, and the day is Thursday.

Simply put, my ears have already checked out. On Thursday, I find out whether my eyes have decided to follow them.

It's a diagnostic mystery. Three years ago, I had a single, unexplained episode of visual blurring. My eyes were poked, prodded, dilated, lasered and examined ... and the process found an area of blindness that was symmetrical to both eyes in my peripheral vision.