Standing on the ground of a distant shore on a day far removed from now we shall meet again.
We will smile, awkwardly, as the moments since those last embraces melt away.
We stand before one another and together again.
We will be changed, yet the same.
You will be the steadfast friend, unwavering in your belief in and commitment to me.
You will be the earnest artist who sees the meanings painted betwixt the scripts you write and read.
You will be the eidetic eye who captures our imperfect moments perfectly.
I will be the steadfast shoulder and honest heart that belongs to you all.
The years will take their tolls upon us.
A million minuscule miseries will make us weep.
A thousand tiny victories will empower us.
Everwhen and everwhere we finally reunite there shall be no accounting of time.
There shall be only the soft knowing laughter and shared smirks of conspiracy amongst friends.
The Once Wonderful Wizard
Weary from their westward walking, our wanderers reach the Wizard
The Wonderful Wizard
The one who made the town emerald and the eyes green
The Wonderful Wizard
Who is larger than life
Whose compassion knows no bounds
The Wonderful Wizard
With several tongues
Wearing the story of life on his skin.
Weary from their walk, they wrestle with the Wizard.
The Wonderful Wizard
Who projects himself as strong and all-knowing
Who turns out to be a mere mortal after all.
The wall has fallen and the Wizard looks beyond
Wondering if he should seek his own rainbow.
Our wayward travelers continue west.
Weary from their walk, our wanderers realize
They never really needed the Wizard after all.
They'd walked so far on the saffron road together
Wondering how this would all come to end.
The straw woman wizened on her journey
She now knows she cannot stay in Oz.
The last we heard, she let the wind take her west.
The maple colored leo was searching for the antidote
The one to cure his pussycat ways.
This lion, once thought to be a coward,
Was right to turn tail and flee in the rain.
The metallic automaton was on a journey to find emotion.
The thing to make him fully human.
The Wizard chided him, called him scrap.
Told him to oil his own joints.
The tin woodsman cried back:
I am indeed a
clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk.
And one day I'll take off this tin armour streaked with rust
And follow the gilded road home.
On that day you'll realize that I do have a heart and you
Wizard
have no magic.
And that girl
The infectiously chipper girl,
(And her little dog too)
was disappointed most of all.
But at the end of this journey, the long westward walk
She learned that what she was seeking
Was with her the whole time
She learned though she's not in Kansas
or Kansai
anymore, she is home.
So she stayed. And they smiled,
The girl and her armoured companion.
What about the Wizard
The once Wonderful Wizard
The once Wonderful Wizard is searching for blue birds.
And he, like our wayward wanderers, needs to follow this road through.
And we hope to see the Wizard soon.
And we hope the Wizard can tell us his stories.
And we hope the Wizard finds his magic too.
But he will never be the Wonderful Wizard again.
Nothing's changed much except the weather.
The job is... routine. Presently, I'm averaging reading a book a day while there. I've already re-read all of the books I have here and have started scouring the library for new selections. I was asked by the trainer who taught my class to assist in training the class that was hired after mine, and spent a week supervising them as they got acclimated to the business and various lines of service. Also, this past week I've been working on a focus group project and documenting discrepancies in service from partner companies. It's... not what I want to be doing for long, but as it stands I've already been noticed as someone who pays attention to details and is the go-to for those around me. As my supervisor put it to me, "It's hard for you not to stand out, isn't it?"
My private life may as well be dead. Friday night means having a few drinks at the bar with my friends Chris and Steve. Aside from that, I'm at home reading or watching television. There's been the odd occurrence of company, maybe twice in the past two months, but otherwise my time is spent solitarily.
The holidays are approaching and bringing with them everything I wish I could avoid. Simply going to keep my head down and my "bah, humbugs" to myself.
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I'm not much given to flights of fancy when it comes to folklore, tending to view it with a grain of salt and interest in the story, not the origin. However, as last night was the year's end festival of fire (Samhain) on the traditional Irish calendar, it also marked the fourth move of the courts of the aos sí (people of the mounds, or, in other words, faeries). If one looks at the old calender, the court would have last moved May 1st (Beltane), which coincides with the beginning of a lot of a long string of odd, bad luck for myself. This was punctuated with my being run off the road early Halloween morning and spending several hours in the rain waiting for a tow truck.
Faeries are mischief makers and a lot of the things that have happened in the past six months do seem rather Puckish. Additionally, this morning as I rose and all day I have experienced a feeling of... change? Something in the air seems different.
Perhaps it's too much reading lately. Perhaps it's the distortion of time from daylight savings. But something genuinely feels different and I just cannot put a finger to it, save for old folklore. I laugh at the idea that the Fool and his Unseely court might have been having their sport of me, but I have heard stranger things. Seen stranger things.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
It is cold and so am I.
As Summer has given way to Autumn, so too has one phase of life given way to another. Three weeks ago I started a new job. Nothing glamorous, but it will keep a roof above my head and let me replinish the savings I lived off this Summer. There's the faint possibility of advancement, but at this time I'm simply glad to be doing something structured.
The redhead from this summer tired of me, ending things with little communication. We remain friends, though I am still a little irritated at her choices in handling the situation. So it goes.
I'm puzzled by memories that have been coming up lately. Triggered by smells, locations, songs. Perhaps it's the time of year or something more, but I've been horridly nostalgic and maudlin. It's not all bad, though. The memories are good and the introspection does no harm.
The only real thing troubling me at the moment is my weight. Over the course of my unemployment and the depression triggered by it, I relapsed into binge eating as a coping mechanism. While I am still far away from the size I used to be, I still see myself in that state and the scant few pounds I've gained in the past few months only exacerbates my negative self image.
