*shakes head to clear the spinning stars*
I hid from the internet all day yesterday…overwhelmed by the sudden explosion of visitors, subscribers, and comments. A massive “Thank you!” to Carina, over on Feeling Stitchy, for the friendly little post that started it all…and then another “Thank you!” to the readers and bloggers on WordPress’ Freshly Pressed, who all came over to see what the fuss was about (and who—when they found that it was just some garden variety post about stitching, and the picture of a half-finished green camera—were really nice and encouraging about it).
Seriously, my stats charts look like Arizona…a long, low, flat land that runs for, oh, a few years, and then a steep mesa that climbs straight up into the sky for the duration of a day. So many questions everyone asked! So many great points raised, tips shared, warm or humorous anecdotes thrown in…and everybody was so nice…it was the strangest thing. 
I feel I should reply to every single comment that was made…but, as Floresita of Feeling Stitchy says, “How about I hire someone to live the rest of my life?” I am aware that serious blogs and sites get 10-times this traffic, pretty much every day of the year, and so I will get over this day.
Instead I sat on deck yesterday and put Secret Message Ninja journal together.
Her name is Lulu, poor thing…not a good name in Japan, where it would be pronounced “Rrurru“. Well, this so frustrated Lulu as a schoolgirl that she became a ninja, instead…and she writes funny, touching, or surprising notes to her mother, in between quietly strangling people who can’t say her name correctly.
Ready and waiting in my ETSY shop for her rightful owner to come along and claim her. So delighted with this journal…definitely must make some more, not least because I want one, myself!
Also thrilled because Kris had been moving old things off the sailboat and onto our houseboat, and he dug up our old typewriter! So happy to see it again, and it’s in good condition—no rust anywhere—sliding, clicking, clacking, and dinging its bell like clockwork.
I love the old typewriters…Olivettis, especially, are so well made. Kris typed his first two manuscripts (Monsoon Dervish and With Mermaid…) on this machine; the second book was written just two years ago. We still use typewriters to write with when we are sailing—we don’t always take our laptops along, and we haven’t got the electricity to power them, if we do.
Related articles
- Secret Message Ninja (smallestforest.net)
- Last words on the typewriter (guardian.co.uk)
- It’s Official: Typewriters are Back in Style (treehugger.com)
- Timeworn Typewriters (streetsofsalem.com)
- Why the typewriter will never die (guardian.co.uk)
