Guess I'm that old

But first, and by request: One doofy Christmas hat.

What? You thought you were going to get to see my doofy face, too?

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I've been doing my usual internet fiddling around here this morning, and again as usual it's led to me not bothering to think of a blather topic. Old familiar tune, right? Then I read about Vaclav Havel's death.

Oh, and if you're young enough to not know much about him, the CBC's write-up (Associated Press, really, but I found it on the CBC) is a pretty good summary.

I remember watching the events in Czechoslovakia unfolding. I remember being amazed that this man and his associates were able to accomplish such incredible things peacefully (and I still can't believe that he was never given the Nobel. If they give it to him posthumously I'd consider it almost a crime, especially considering some of the other people who've since been given the so-called Peace Prize). I remember the power of his words.

And then I remember that when all of this was going on, a large portion of my two fans weren't even born yet.

Selfishly, that caused almost as big a lump in my throat. I say selfishly, because I'm about to leave reflections on Vaclav Havel and his legacy to those far better qualified and start blathering about meeeeeee.

When I was in high school, one of our major units in Social Studies was an examination of the Soviet Union. Hands up if you remember the Soviet Union? Well, I didn't study it as history when I was in school. Perestroika was just getting rolling as I entered university. Words like glasnost were bandied around with mix of disbelief and confusion (seriously. We weren't exactly brought up to trust what the Russians were up to, even here in Canada). We watched people climb on top of the Berlin Wall and it was like we'd entered an entirely different world than we'd been trained for, somehow. It was as exhilarating as watching our troops go to Iraq (for what's sometimes now called the FIRST Iraq war, which it certainly wasn't) was scary.

And so many of you weren't even alive when all of this was going on.

Guess I'm that old.

That's boggling to me, because I don't feel old. I'm not old. The world just moves that fast these days, that's all.

When I was growing up, we had a next-door neighbour who was born close to the turn of the century (LAST century. Sigh.). My mother would sometimes say things like, "imagine all of the changes she's been through. The world's a completely different place now than it was when she was born." True enough, yes, but politically and technologically I think I've seen more changes in the last twenty years than she could have imagined in eighty. I won't bother to enumerate them -- you all know what I'm talking about -- but seriously. If I was able to take one of today's twenty-year-olds back to my childhood, that person would be in disbelief at how "primitive" things were.

Forty-some years ago.

Man, that's just sad.





You kids get off of my lawn, now.

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Now, question time. And hi, Ces. Thanks for all your comments! I look forward to seeing your work every week for IF. Let's see what I can answer...

• Shortness, right? I'm 5'2". Not tiny, really, but not tall enough to be easily mistaken for a boy. And, of course, there's that whole matter of the having-breasts thing.
• Yep, I never put a Follower gadget on this blog even though I did on the other one. No particular reason why, I suppose. Maybe just that I already had enough toys on the sidebar, or maybe that my ego couldn't handle waiting to see if anyone actually followed me. Probably more likely the latter, since this place is (as advertised) pretty pointless.
• And yes, I do have a slight problem with Micron addiction, although I've managed to limit myself to a set of sepias and a set of blacks. Only because I have a set of Prismacolor Premiers in my purse, though.

 I guess that's enough typing for now, especially since my stomach's telling me that it's lunch time already dammit. Should I mention that this whole time I've been listening to songs from Hugh Laurie's album that I probably should have asked for for Christmas since I don't seem to have gotten around to buying it yet? Want my verdict, such as it is? Good music, good band, great introduction to New Orleans blues for those who are curious... but Former Singing Teacher hopes that he learned to loosen up on his vocals a bit when he was touring with this stuff. He tends to be juuust a little tight, and that can lead to problems later. I'm sure he's figured it out by now, though. I'll be curious to hear the difference on the promised second album.