My good online friends include an Episcopal minister in British Columbia, his brother the attorney in Winnipeg, a variously employed fellow from the East Coast who is the most creative and brilliant writer I know in person, a divorcee in Northern California who loves to knit, a computer guy in Atlanta with a wife and a baby, and a kid (well, he’s probably 20 now) in Ohio who is, well just really cool. All of these people are writers, and we have not only spent time gaming together but also writing collaboratively the stories of our characters in a world where magic and dragons are real — but love and anger and fear and boredom and insecurity are real too.

But of all my online friends, the one I’m closest to is Shane. Shane and I wrote a story together that become kind of epic, and an epic friendship evolved from there. There is a big difference in our ages, and plenty of other differences too. In fact, he may be the only friend I’ve ever actually had fights with, but we survived. He also was instrumental in the current layout of this blog, and put his own stamp on it with the tag line in the lower right corner of the banner. (How many people have an inside joke about spelling?)

Shane is a good writer, but since he refuses to maintain his own blog I can’t direct you to it. However, he has introduced me to two others that are worth checking out. One is Untitled Records, which is his girlfriend Rachel’s blog mostly about new and lesser-known musicians. I’ve discovered more than one new artist there to add to my playlist.

The other blog is by his sister Tara, who is an amazing professional photographer. She has a real gift for beautiful photographs of families and kids, unposed and gorgeously authentic. I stop by her blog at least once a week, and there is always something there to remind me that, no matter how depressing the news may be, the world is full of beauty and love and happiness.

One is a blog my husband has made about his trip to Glastonbury and other parts of England, in search of fine music.  Or any music.  He’s a bit of a fanatic about music.  It’s a pretty exciting adventure for him and if you are also a fan of music and/or travel and/or Jon himself, you might enjoy taking a look.

The other link I’ve added is to one of my current favorite sites, Futility Closet.  All sorts of puzzles (which I skip, I’m horrible at such things) and jokes and quotes and anecdotes, many from times long past.   The perfect amusement for an aspiring pseudo-intellectual such as myself.

More memoir stuff coming up over the next week or so, as I have time to edit and what not.

Since I’ve been working on the memoir,  I have changed the way it’s posted here at the cabin, also, so if you are interested in reading it, or parts of it, you can find the sections listed on the left under “Pages.”

The other big change is that I’ve finally decided that getting a Master’s degree is important enough to me that I should just dive in and get it done, so I’m now officially, despite my advanced age, a student.  I’m studying Organizational Psychology, and I have to admit it’s pretty interesting even though it’s a lot of work.  Still, I’m committed to the memoir so I will keep working on it, especially when I have breaks between classes.

This may surprise you, but there is a lot of incorrect information out on the Net.  So I was pleased to find that the people who make Cymbalta have their own website.  It is very informative. There was even a link to provide an explanation of how the drug works.

I find things like this fascinating, whether I really need to know them or not, so I clicked on the link. I highly recommend that you do this now. [update, you can get there directly by going to this link.]
There’s a little sort of slide show.  Go ahead, do that now, then come back here.

……..

I realize they don’t know exactly how the drug works.  But how does this particular graphic help?   Do they think it makes blue and yellow bubbles in your head?  Bubbles that eventually run down your spine and are expelled?   Would that be a good thing anyway?

The thing is, I just know that someone designed an informative site, and some executives reviewed it and said, “It needs to be more interactive!”  Or, perhaps, some Web designer just wanted to show that he knew how to make a cool graphic.