Black Line Therapy

Fit To Ride

 

One of my projects is to learn to swim well enough that I can use it as a moving mediation, focusing on the line on the bottom of the pool and letting everything else float away, aka black line therapy. Right now, there is too much gasping and floundering and checking of the clock.

So. Had a swim lesson. Technical notes below. Have things to practice. Got in hot water.

Each branch of the YMCA in the area is different. For example, the lesson pool is colder than the one I usually swim in. It is also murkier. Rationally, I trust that the Y has safety standards and that opacity has nothing to do with the cleanliness of the water. Crystal clear water may still harbor all manner of exciting pathogens. Emotional, it is reassuring to see across the pool underwater.

Changing rooms are also different. The lesson Y has family and adult dressing rooms on opposite sides of the building. Since the family rooms are next to the pool, they are also for those using the pool.

Or so the sign says.

In reality, adults and kids are not allowed to occupy the same space. I can use the dressing room, as long as no kids are present or if I hide in the showers. I have to wonder if this monastic separation fetishizes nudity. It sends the messages that bodies are to be hidden, to be ashamed of.

There is a time and place for this debate. The time and place is not when I am standing in front of my locker, with my ass hanging out, dripping wet, trying to see my combination without my glasses, and some woman is yelling at me ‘You can’t be in here!’

Where exactly would you like me to go, Ma’am?

Technical Notes
For my reference. Advice from actual swimmers welcome.

Legs. During kick, bring knees behind (above) hips. Bringing your chin down to your chest will raise your hips. And vice versa. That one was pretty cool to discover.

Arms. Elbow up and out. Drag finger tips along the top of the water. Note to self. Stretch. A lot.

The instructor also told me to relax my shoulders. Good luck with that. Riding instructors have been telling me that for years.

Head. This is where I’ve always had trouble. I never seem to get enough air. By the end of the lesson, I could do 2 or 3 in a row before getting it wrong &/or getting water in my mouth/ears/nose.

Turn my head far enough out of the water. Look up to the ceiling, sky, over the building, as applicable.

Keep the back of my head, i.e. where a man-bun would be, out of the water so that I don’t have to push myself up with my arms.

Follow my thumb.

It would be easier if I kept moving. When I get to the breathing part, I cease all activity while I figure out what goes where.

Stay long. In addition to pausing, I apparently scrunch up when I take a breath.

Coda
Although I liked the lesson, I will go back to my regular Y for practice. Just as soon as my right shoulder forgives me for flinging it in new and unexpected directions.

Update: In case anyone decides to take umbrage and thump on me with their sword of righteousness, I understand the reasoning behind the separation. I’m sad it has come to this point.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Schooling Decisions

The Gray Wonder

Go hither? Go thither? There is no right answer, only the art of training.

Last Thursday, we finally got back to Falcon Hill Farm for the group lesson. By the time we arrived, the others were jumping the big sticks. Okay, medium sticks, but too big for us. So, Milton and I chilled in center ring. This is good practice for him. We had our lesson after.

The original plan for the weekend had been shipping to Full Circle Horse Park to begin work on riding in the open.

Stay with plan or take more lessons?

At FHF we would continue to work on cantering and jumping.

At FCHP we would be adding a new skill. Mostly strolling around, maybe trotting. Definitely not ready to thunder about.

Method 1: Consolidate canter and jumping in the ring. Then add riding in the open. Downside, if we wait until we are ready, we may never start.

Method 2: Start small. Even if we have to keep it to a walk at the far edges of the cross-country course, we can at least introduce the concept. Variety is good. Downside, why ship and pay money to school somewhere when we can’t happily hack in our own pasture?

Deciding that repetition was good for horse and rider, we opted for FHF.

Jumping Diary

All at Falcon Hill Farm.

Thursday. Lesson. Cantered crossrails.

Saturday. Schooling on our own. Mostly sets of ground poles. One crossrail. Rode outside of the ring, down the hill in the trailer area [Winning The Warm-Up]. Cue nerves.

Sunday. Lesson. Lots of time, too much time, on flat work, mainly canter transition problems. Coach Molly got on for remediation, whether for horse or rider was not clear. Got back on. Got both leads. Cantered crossrails. Ended with two-foot vertical. Twice. PR for Milton & me!


 
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Writing Graphic

Writing About Writing, Miscellaneous Visuals

 

A graphic to go with the website [Branding Without Having A Brand].

Process notes. Because I conflated the blog post with the business content, I used horse colors for a business graphic. Milton, red; Rodney, green. The thick black lines are to tone down the Christmas effect.

I’ll have to figure out what my biz colors are.
~~~
Draft post at last minute (graphic done earlier).
Realize error.
Twiddle with Inkscape for a few minutes.
Result.

Journalism is traditionally considered Black & White, as in ‘It’s all down in B&W.’ ‘What’s black & white & red (read) all over?’ Plus gray for nuance? Age/wisdom?

It’s a work in progress.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Branding Without Having A Brand

Writing About Writing

 
ttdr: I have a writing website, willwriteforfeed.com. I don’t know what to do with it.

Blink and a year goes by.

What Have I Done?
Reviving my writing career is going even more slowly than progress with the horses, which I would not have said was possible. About this time last year, I made grand statements of intent [In Which I Stare, Blinking, Into the Future July 2018]. Notable lack of activity ensued. Then in January, I bought/rented my domain name through Blue Host. Maybe outlay of actual money would galvanize me. Uh, nope.

After several months, I made a feeble stab at starting my writing website & got immediately overwhelmed. Somehow, I connected the business site on WordPress.org to the blog on WordPress.com (note letters following the dot). One of the first questions it asked me was, Did I want to connect to a Gmail account? I guess so? Whereupon it downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from the blog.

One service I offer is grant writing. I may not understand what an XYZ is. I know that if you have two, you need a plural verb. Let’s say you want me to edit your grant. You click on my writing page. You are immediately confronted with my most recent whinings about my horses. Not a professional look.

I have no problem with people reading my most recent whinings. I would not blog if I did. However, I want it to be a clear subsection of the business site. Here’s all the wonderful things I can do for you! Here’s all the wonderful things I have done! Oh, by the way, if you want to know more about me, click here.

Right now, the willwriteforfeed.com About is the same as the blog About page. The Archives tab lists 109 posts, all from 2011 & 2012 for some reason. As best we can tell, these are COPIED from the blog not LINKED to the blog. The difference is important.

It wasn’t a computer problem so much as me not understanding the ramifications of the question I was answering. The program simply did what I told it to do. Increased flexibility is one reason to switch to WordPress.org. It can also trip up the unwary user. With moderate computing power comes moderate responsibility.

According to the nice folks at Blue Host, the best course of action to fix this is to delete the WordPress segment of my Blue Host account (confused yet?). Then I reinstall WordPress to my account without letting it know about the blog. Since the posts are copies of the original blog posts, nothing should happen to the blog. Should. We hope. You can see why I reluctant to do this.

For the moment, I have paused to consider.

On a separate note, Blue Host has been great. I spoke to two different people at the Blue Host call-in number. The first one sorted out simple domain name & login questions without making me feel stupid, which is an admirable skill in tech support. The second took over an hour attempting to figure out exactly what I had done and how to undo the snarl before coming up with the Gordian Knot solution.

What Should I Do?
Speaking of all the wonderful things I have done, I am also stuck over what to put on the page.

Take clips as an example. I have several hundred. I think 300+ at last count? Almost all of them are pre-digital. So no convenient links for me. I would have to get permission, scan the articles, and host them on my site. Not an insurmountable problem.

Unfortunately, most of my clips predate the collapse of the publishing industry, along with everything else, in 2008. That makes them all over 10 years old. My first freelance assignment was in 1989. Some of the clips are 20 or 30 years old.

At any time, old references are an issue. At this historical moment, the publishing industry has changed beyond anything we could have imagined back in the day. I remember faxing articles in. Who even remembers fax machines these days? I would essentially be waving stone tablets and asking folks to admire how well I chiseled my work into them.

Every aspect I try to address seems to lead me in this sort of circle. What services should I offer? How do show my digital savvy when I don’t have any? How do I get jobs without current references? How do I get current references without jobs?

I’m not going to starve. This is an administrative problem at most. But I do get overwhelmed and go back to hiding my head in the sand.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

What Does Your Phone Say About You? Instagram Recap, June 2019

Photography

 
Posts through mid-June 2019 from my blog Instagram account, @myvirtualbrushbox. Previous [Looking Back, Milton & Moonlight, Instagram Recap, April 2019].

Posts By Subject
Five Horse – Milton 3, Rodney 1, Other 1
One Horse Adjacent – hay trip
Two Cat
One Other – roses

Posts By Location
One Home – tabby kittens
One Barn – Milton’s ear
Four SSF – Rodney, Ricky & Lucy, Milton in bunny ears, roses
One FHF – Milton & poles
Two Other – Clydesdale, hay

Most liked – Clydesdales

Process Notes. I use my latest Instagram photo as my home screensaver both for variety and to remind me to post to Instagram. I posted the rose photo mainly to get the Budweiser theme song out of my head after 10 days of looking at the beribboned, big, bay butt [Even The King].

My lock screen saver is a quote from Psalm 118, This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. The Bible Gateway, Psalm 118:24, page list 53 versions. It’s fascinating how a slight difference in wording alters the tone of the phrase.

When a local evangelical got on my case about being saved, I wanted to wave my phone in their face and ask ‘Is this religious enough for you?!’ But that felt like praying on a street corner, so I made noncommittal face gestures and hoped they went away.

But I digress. On to pictures.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Philosophical Reflections, Rider

Last week, I talked about coming to terms with the horses we have [Philosophical Reflections Following My Post-Show Snit]. It is equally true that I need to come to terms with the rider I am at any given moment.

I know folks are not happy with the speed I have brought Milton along. I can’t say that I am thrilled with it either. I thought it would go better. I’ve done this before, with an OTTB who had far less retraining than Milton. As for why it didn’t, that is a topic for another post, or the rest of the blog.

The point is we are here. These are the horses we have. This is the rider we have. Barring crisis, none of us are going anywhere.

There are days when I feel bulletproof. I can get on strange horses. I can scorch a jump-off. I can blow around the show ring to the extent that Coach Courtney has to remind me, ‘This is not a chariot race.’

Other days, not so much with the Kevlar. I can barely get on Sam. I fret over crossrails. I dread … well, everything.

On the days when the weenie is strong, all I want to do is walk. I feel like the stereotypical little old lady who potters around, wasting the abilities of her fancy horse. Except in my case, I have two nice horses. The voices are loud on such days.

Stop. This is not a productive way of thinking.

If my current mood is that I only want to get on and walk, well then, I will get on and walk. I can’t do anything about who I am, anymore than I can do anything about who the horses are. Modify? Sure. Improve? Hopefully. Change the basic nature of? Not gonna happen.

In my lucid moments, I know the weenie days come and go. We will ride in the 2′ jumper class. It may take until next year. So be it.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott