Unpacking

I stole this metaphor from Lois McMaster Bujold and her Vorkorsigan series. If you're going to crib, crib from the best, yes? Her protagonist has a mind like a bag of cats--the strings loosen, and all the words rush out. He's so busy with getting everything out there where it can be seen that he often forgets the conventions of communication, i.e., that the receiver cannot always see the pattern that seems so very obvious to the speaker.

So often, several times per book often, Bujold will have him stop and mutter "Unpack." as a reminder to himself that the fractal he's developing may be intuitive, obvious, and painfully clear to him; but he lost the listener several iterations back. Why burlap? How can we obtain herring? And what does this have to do with a plan to wrest control of the space station back from the villains?

So. Unpack.

I've been dying to share some of this with my audience, but I need to take a deep breath and step back and, well, unpack so you can see the coolativity of what I've been up to while I've been away.

To begin with, this is all Xerhino's fault.

I have multiple blogs, this one here that anyone can find, another one tucked away that only gets updated under a full moon when I sacrifice a black goat over the keyboard, and a mindwipe journal on LiveJournal where I stick stuff I don't need now, but would like to have handy sometime. Think of it like a ten year old's pockets after walking on the beach, full of shells, pebbles that turn bright colors when wet, and bits of sea glass worn to frosty velvet drops.

And, see, Xerhino is on LiveJournal.

So every time I trot over there to deposit the latest bit of treasure, I'll get a note that he saw I'd updated, and hey howdy, what's going on, and will I post a picture of the driftwood Zozobra I'm building in his fair isle sweater? Xerhino has never seen a sweater for a fifty-foot flaming statue, and is curious.

So there's the first part, multiple blogs, and this is my project blog.

Which you'll probably note, has been awful empty of late.

It's not that I'm not knitting; it's that I've, er, been unfaithful. But I promise -- pinkyswear promise-- to mend my evil ways.

Next week.