Nothing funny about feldspar

OK, People! What is up with women’s tops these days? Or rather, why aren’t they up more? Why is it that I only have a choice between looking pregnant (empire waists are really unflattering to most women, even those waif-like models) or looking like a slut (tight fabric with a plunging neckline)?

I mean, I have a decent bosom. Really, I do. I don’t mind emphasizing it on occasion, but when I buy a top for work, I don’t want to be worried about flashing clients. Am I supposed to be buying some lawn handkerchiefs to stuff in there, like in the 18th century?

Some people say it’s “winter,” some say it’s “heating season.” I say, “Pass the lotion!”

I’m going to be taking a one-day class in letterpress printing. We’re supposed to come with “Some text for printing: ideas may include, small collection of words, business card, short poem. Less is really better!”

Right. I know less is better, because it takes time to set type if you’re unfamiliar with reading things in mirror text, let alone trying to figure out how to set it on the page, and actually get the paper into the press, &c., &c.

But here’s the thing. Though I’m quite capable of writing short pieces for the web (I use Twitter, after all), they are ephemeral — no matter that Google and the Internet Archive may or may not have squirreled them away. A printed thing, especially something I’ve made with my own hands, has a physicality and permanence that web-writing doesn’t. It’s imbued; possibly even fraught.

So I’m trying really hard to find something that when I run across it in a couple of years I won’t wonder why I set something so stupid, like “Hello World” or “Trying out Letterpress Printing!” or even just my name.

I have a few books of aphorisms and epigrams around here. Maybe I’ll skim those. Otherwise, it’ll just be “Orthoclase couldn’t come up with anything, so she just set this.” Hmm… maybe if I did that in a swashy font with lots of sorts…

This Week’s Challenge: Take a common three-letter word, move each letter three places later in the alphabet, the resulting letters can be re-arranged to spell a new word that is a synonym of the original. What are the two words? And here’s a hint: all three letters in both words are in the first half of the alphabet.

This one was harder for me than usual. I think I was thinking too hard, as I was looking for obscure synonyms and these words are anything but obscure.

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