Apple geek...

Alright...I gotta say it again.  I LOVE my iPad.  I love the funny pictures I get to take of Roy's kids.

I love the beautiful pictures I get to take of the world around me  I love that I can actually write on it (see earlier post) AND listen to Pandora while doing so.  I love looking at the stars with the kids, taking a picture of a constellation, having it identified, and then telling the kids the story behind it.  I love that I've got everything at my fingertips when I'm working on my book.  

I love the portability, possibility, and functionality.  It's been a creative revelation to me.  It is simply amazing how one little device can so drastically change your life.  It has wiped out the majority of my creative excuses.  Everything I need to write this blog, work on my novel, or capture snapshots of my life fits in my purse.  And THAT is a marvelous kind of freedom.

Curly Girl Confessional

I have a confession to make.  I am a curly girl.  I always have been...and I always will be.  But now I'm out and proud about it.  

I haven't touched my straightening or curling irons in over a month.  

Or wore a shower cap on days I just need to scrub my butt.  

Or used a brush.

I no longer worry about what's happening to my hair on humid days (not that there's many of those in the dead of winter in Idaho), or how I look when I'm done at the gym (vain, I know).  Instead of crushing and frying those curls into submission, or bemoaning the weather, I just go with it now.

All through my life, I've had straight girl envy (being jealous of girls with straight hair).  I still do to a certain extent.  I still catch myself coveting that head of beautiful, glossy, easy-swinging, stick-straight hair I see when I'm out and about...but I'm learning to love my head of schizophrenic hair.

I was thinking back to growing up and spending summers in Ventura and how, after a day of surfing or just being a kid at the beach, I would wash my hair with whatever product my grandmother had gotten me, vigorously rub my hair with a towel, and then proceed to blow-dry AND straighten my hair...a process that maybe lasted a few hours.  If the fog rolled in, I was screwed.  All that time spent fighting nature, thinking I just had crazy frizzy hair when I could have been out just being a teenaged beach bum.

I still remember the one time I had my hair chemically relaxed.  I was about 15, and as if life wasn't already difficult enough before I sat down in that chair...sweet Jesus.  I ended up having to lop my almost waist length (straightened) hair off to my shoulder blades because it was fried beyond recognition.  Not that I learned my lesson.  When I got out of the military, I seriously considered doing it again.  Thank God I didn't.

Back in November, I went to get my hair trimmed and colored.  When I walked into the salon, I had just let my hair do whatever I wanted and it was a crazy mane of kinks and curls.  That was the smartest hair move I ever made.  The stylist recognized the potential and then worked with it.  She then turned me onto a book that changed the way I view and deal with my hair:

My hair has a mind of its own...I'm learning daily how to accept and work with that.  Finding products that enable me to achieve something other than a mess has been handy.  Do yourselves a favor, curly girls...treat your hair right.  May those straight girls get curly girl envy.  

Technological monster in the making...

I just got myself an iPad the other day, and let me tell you...it might be the greatest thing I've ever done for myself creatively.  Between Evernote and Penultimate...HOLY SHIT.  Gone are the days of lugging around pen and paper, camera, and laptop.  This is sheer genius.  Being able to actually write longhand (see "The pen is mightier than the pillow") on a digital medium and not having to worry about losing it or it getting destroyed...AMAZING.

Granted...my handwriting on the iPad does leave something to be desired (as it does sometimes with a pen and paper), but it's a happy tradeoff...I'm writing again. I'd almost forgotten how liberating it is.  I could go on and on.  

I've got Pandora going in the background (I have a station set up to play selections from movie scores)...who cares that it's 32 degrees outside and foggy?  I think I'm the happiest biped in my zipcode right now.  

And seeing as how it's Saturday night...that's saying something.

The pen is mightier than the pillow...

Funny...I've been staring at the tab for this screen for the better part of a month trying to figure out what the hell to write.  Sitting at the keyboard, nothing came to me.  Then about twenty minutes ago, it hit me.  I was thinking about this while lying in bed trying to get some much needed sleep, and I caught myself scribbling on the pillow with my finger.  EUREKA!  I prefer to write longhand and then edit on the keyboard.  I can't seem to get the story I want to tell out even semi-coherently if I type it.  I have to actually create the letters, watch them flow together to become words, and string them into sentences.  

All by hand.  

Same concept...I write by hand (and anyone who's seen my writing comes away feeling loopy) and edit on the computer.

So...here I am, listening to my pillow throw a tantrum while the words pour out.  And the could very well be drivel, but dammit...they're my words.  And they're the first ones I've managed in quite awhile.

So there.