This is one of my favorite shots from Yellowstone. Very little tweaking of color was needed as the sulfur and microbial mats radiate yellow and orange while the water is a surreal and bewitching shade of turquoise. This was with my Nikon D5000 (Nikon AF-S DX Zoom- Nikkor 18-55mm.) Although this was just my kit lens, I can still get a ton done when I travel without worrying too much about damaging expensive gear.
“Sometimes even terrible books are good for you.”
I mentioned that I was interviewed on a podcast recently. That podcast is “The 9th Story”, done by good friends Jeanette Andromeda and Immortal Alexander. I’m a prodigious reader, traveling with my mind when I can’t with my feet. If you want to hear me chat about my favorite books, how I choose books, why reading is important, or what makes me stick with a book once I’ve picked it up, you should give it listen.
“No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.”
Damn, Seth Godin, you know how to get a girl right in the feels.
So I love to talk about travel with people. I ADORE talking about places I’ve been, making recommendations, comparing notes, finding out about places I hadn’t heard of or visited yet. I love comparing cultures and languages, talking about books and movies and music. I talk all the time (just ask my husband.)
So why then, when I started this blog in September, did I put in a few measly posts and walk away after January? What on earth have I been doing?
Honestly, I was overwhelmed. I was intimidated by the endless list of chores to do with a self-hosted blog, the unreachable perfection of posts I will never finish editing, the perfectly processed (and captioned) images which, of course, were taken by yours truly. I hadn’t built a photo gallery yet. I hadn’t fixed my mailing list or found the best spam filter. I hadn’t done laundry, cleaned the fridge, or fed the cats.
It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re procrastinating doing something you want to do even less- I’ve written tons of reviews on Goodreads(and?) drawn-out and thoughtful posts on Facebook (so what?) tiny quips on twitter (#140forever) and won a few photo competitions (okay, that last one is kind of cool. I am proud of my photography.)
And, of course, I’ve done some more adventuring. I volunteered in residence at a Monastery. I was interviewed on a podcast and sent a complimentary pre-release copy of a book I was really excited about. I was in the bridal party of a full Hindu wedding. I worked fashion week (Nicole Kidman and Adrian Brody!) I luxuriated in the silence of a Scandinavian Spa in a small Canadian ski town. I wrote an original score to a puppet show. I did a Southern Fried Road Trip to New Orleans for my birthday and got a little broken doing remote volunteer dispatch and data entry for Harvey in Houston. I went from feeding zero cats to feeding eight of them (explanations forthcoming, I promise.)
Honestly, I can’t wait to tell you all about it. And I see my perfection, my ideal word count, my precisely formatted posts just aren’t getting done.
So like a potter at the wheel, I’m going to throw me some clay and see what sticks. Maybe, like Seth, my posts will be shorter. They may be slightly less on-brand. They may not include eye-catching pictures and SEO-tailored keywords. But they will exist and that’s better than where I’m at now.
Do you know what got me back here? I made a bet with my husband. If I could publish FIVE entries within the next two weeks, he would indulge me with the greatest $10 spicy crunchy thai chili-dipped calamari on the entire planet.
Do you think I can do it?