beating heart

I had my first press OK today. For those of you who don't know what a press OK is, it is essentially a visit to the printer while your book is printing to ensure that it is printing correctly, which is useful if a book is high profile, or has tricky elements in it that a publisher wants to keep a close eye on. Working in office jobs my whole life, I forget that some jobs are more hands on. I forget that there is more than administration, litigation, emails, and phone calls. When I walked into the printer's facilities, the first thing I saw was 10-15 cubicles. Ordinary enough-- and then I am led into the pressroom, which seemed about 20 times more spacious than the area the cubicles were in.

A pressroom is an extraordinary place to be. You are surrounded by machines; by different kinds of printers, binders, trimmers, and other amazing pieces of machinery. When they are running, your ears fill with the sound of the machines humming and thrumming with life and motion. It's a wonderful noise. It is the sound of books coming into existence, of thousands of books being printed and bound. It's the sound of a strong beating heart. It really is something beautiful.

Printing is still very much a hands-on trade. Of course technology has changed it immensely, but it wasn't that long ago that everything was moved from film to digital files, and even if everything is done digitally today and less needs to be manually adjusted, a bad pressman can still ruin a book. This is what I love about books. Every title that is printed has this human element, it has someone behind it who took the time to color correct it, to edit it. It has a pressman who loaded the paper and ran the job, it has a shipper who wrapped it tight with cellophane to ensure safe transport. There are so many hands that a book needs to pass through to become a product that a person loves to read, to become something with neatly trimmed pages that are aligned properly and doesn't fall apart at the spine or rip with every flip of the page.

We're living in great times. This is what the president of a leading paper company said to a group of us on a plant tour. He's right. Look at all the things we can do. Look how far printing has come. Look how far technology has improved not just the print industry, but every industry. Yet, there is so much more to look forward to. See how far we have come, and how limitless it is. We are definitely living in great times.

vittles

I've been feeling extra tired lately, and I'm not sure if it's lack of sleep, being preoccupied with apartment stuff, or just plain winter.  I couldn't focus at work yesterday, so I went to Rite Aid and bought some adult gummy vitamins.

I'm pretty bad with taking vitamins.  I don't actually take vitamins.  The only time I took vitamins was for my tattoo and piercings because they were supposed to help me heal faster or something.  I hated swallowing those damn pills and wasn't very consistent.  They're so freaking huge.  These gummy vitamins are so easy to take though, and they taste awesome!  It's a shame the recommended amount is only 2 a day.

I've been falling asleep on the subway standing up.  I feel like I'm becoming narcoleptic.  My knees buckle and the vertigo wakes me up mid fall.  It's quite disconcerting.  Maybe these vittles will help.  Or maybe it's the placebo effect, but the result is the same either way, so I haven't got anything to lose!

metal rabbit

 The start of 2011 was pretty anti-climatic for me, but since I'm not a believer that the way you bring in the new year is any indication of how the rest of the year will go, I am not disappointed.  Beginnings are always exciting, because there's so much that's unknown, but also because there's so much to look forward to.

Here's what I'm looking forward to in 2011.

01. For this winter to be over!  Winter is my least favorite season, and this blizzard sure kicked it off with a bang and I'm sick of cold and snow already.

02. Making soba noodles this summer.  There is nothing like cold soba noodles on a hot summer day.  It's filling, refreshing, and so yummy I could eat it all day every day for the whole summer.

03. Cooking more often.  I was never big on cooking, but maybe that was because I never gave it a fair chance.  It turns out I positively enjoy cooking, and although I'm no master chef, I am certainly getting better the more I cook.  I love planning out meals and figuring out how to best use the groceries left in the fridge and cupboards.  There's a bunch of random groceries left in the kitchen and I want to use them up so the fridge will be empty when I clean it.  This is forcing me to learn new ways to use different ingredients and I am absolutely delighted when I make something that both I and my boyfriend think is delicious!

04.  Learn more about photography and take more pictures.  I've always been more into describing things with words than with pictures, but photography definitely has its merits.  For starters, it is generally faster than writing down memories.  Unfortunately, I broke my old digital point and shoot, but my boyfriend hasn't used his old Canon G9 in a while.  Since he's not using it, I might as well make use of it.  It's a good camera for me to start out with, too.  My old point and shoot wasn't that bad, but it definitely had its limitations.  This camera is much better than my old point and shoot, so I'll have much more to learn and I'll have to fiddle with it quite a bit in order to capture beautiful pictures.

05.  Catching up on the Wheel of Time series.  I only ever read up to book 10, and I read these books with so much time in between that when I moved on to the next one I had forgotten what happened in the previous one.  The 14th and final book of this series is due to release early 2012, so I definitely need to reread the first 10 and catch up this year!

Here's to a wonderful 2011.  Cheers!