m wood pen

this is a little freaky.  but the cool, good kind of freaky as opposed to the maniacally, bad kind.

i was just settling in for some shut eye, and thought check into the mechanical side of my blog headquarters.

typing the word mechanical just now totally sidetracked my train of thought: from my blog and the point i was going to make…smack dab into the swirling, clockwork, wheels, pistons & whatsy-who-sits that made up so much of the set of marty scorcese’s fabulously inventive “hugo”…which i was mesmerized by yesterday.  i’m still a bigger fan of my new boyfriend, jean dujardin & “the artist”….both movies looked amazing, which to people who are totally visual like me, means quite something.

but, the aspects of “hugo” that drew me in, more so than the sad situation befalling the little orphan boy (so sorry not to have more of jude law in the picture!) who’s over-dyed hair distracted me during the entire movie, was the focus of the physical mechanical bits & pieces that whirred the story along.

so much of our world now is invisible to the eye, not because it’s hidden from view, say, in those great clocks that acted as beacons to entire generations of progress, but because our technology has become invisible: wireless, no plugs, no whizzing wheels or ropes to pull bells.  here i am, typing away on a schnazzy white keyboard and these words will, really magically, be sent to all points in the globe by the push of a button.

i don’t know how it works, and it hurts my brain to even consider understanding it.  the intangible components of so much of life now, while super cool, is super confusing and super removed from us.

i guess that’s progress, and it is mind-boggling.  but the stuff that really gets me fascinated is what goes on behind the scenes, what makes things work, and how each small piston, gear and wheel can power these grand clocks, the enormous, powerful locomotive trains, the teeny coiled spin of a wind up mouse.

yes, i was drawn in immediately for the mechanism portion of the film, and find that my curiosity is piqued anew, as is my awe for the smarty pants who figured all of this stuff out so long ago.

so, it’s the behind the scenes that got me started on this writing jag, and as i was checking out how many clicks i had accumulated on this crazy blog of mine, i noticed a new information option hidden somewhere on my dashboard.  lo and behold, i found myself staring at a map of the world, stretching dabs of colors to lands far beyond the coasts of the atlantic and the pacific.

in disbelief, i realized that this nifty guide was showing me where my blog visitors were coming from.  are you kidding me?  see that map up there?  can you see that??

so, totally mind-blowing, a natural high of trying to grasp the mechanics of this impossible-to-grasp concept: i sit in my house, i sketch, i scan a drawing, i upload it onto this page, i type some weirdly whimsical or personal or goofy bit of gathering thoughts, and push ‘update’, then go back to my day of creating, parenting, reading and sleeping….and then, soft as a whisper, the humming wizardry of wireless internet satellites internet wireless ping ping ping sets to work, sending messages off to the wild blue yonder of this teeny tiny gathering of kindred spirits, of curious adventurers, of faceless open minds who, if only for a moment, are layering their minds upon mine.

so freaky, so cool.