blisters are inevitable

I remember what I forgot.

We practiced everything you know, all the gear, boots, socks, toe caps, mole skin, powder, vaseline, water bottles, hats, shirts to keep you cool shirts to keep you warm, shorts, suntan lotion, spanish, lunch with and without wine, long distances, short distances, sun rain wind fog, flats, hills, sunglasses, resting, not resting, handkerchiefs, chilly willies, and we were ready.

And when my sweet husband, in spite of it all, late in the 3rd day after 8 hours and 16 miles (just on that day) in his boots, got a blister on his heel, he took it really personally. He fumed. It wasn’t supposed to happen, we had prepared. We had practiced not getting blisters. But he did. And I got a respectable hotspot. Nothing that slowed us down, but when all was said and done and fingers of blame and irresponsibility were wagged, and glances of reason at possible purveyors and portends of blistering were examined, it was really pretty easy. Fact is, blisters are inevitable, the point is not to let them fester, and develop, and ruin your day, ah so there it is, the don’t let it ruin your day shot over the bow…

In spite of all my years of publishing, and all that I know about proofing, and all the proof reading I did, and did again, and again, ‘a kindness of strangers’ will harbor a typo, (only one I have discovered so far, the other one, rather a major snafu I had to correct, even though it meant resetting two pages already printed and distributed, which meant at least an extra day’s work…in spite of the many warnings never to distribute type before its time which I didn’t so much ignore as decided I didn’t need to heed the warning because I wouldn’t print the backside upside down, or mismatch pages in the signature, which I didn’t). It was a mistake of another kind altogether—

Where was I? Oh yes! Confessing that ‘a kindness of strangers’ will harbor an error. Hosts an error. Boasts an error one could say. Boasts an error I will say, and at first and second and third glance, just as I didn’t, most won’t even notice it, except for those who go looking for such things. And there are those who do.

Anyway, I remember what I forgot. Blisters (and typos) are inevitable. And my books such as they end up will not be perfect, and it’s not perfection to which I aspire…

whew

from DRUM

that said, I remember now, I can now leap chortling with excitement enthusiasm and perfectly reckless abandon into finishing the project.

What small thing stops you?

(typographer’s note: typeface of perfection is poliphilus.)
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