Beavis and Butthead Moment
How do I layout again?
Something weird happened to me yesterday while I was laying out additional content for the Hawaii musicians union newsletter.
I forgot how.
The day before, my finger locked in the straight position (not bent) in the middle of eating dinner. I don’t know why, I could only guess. The entire day after, I was trying not to overuse it. Pressing down tends to activate the lock, and Mon. was sourdough prep day. I probably got too aggressive stretching and folding.
Brushing my teeth was a lesson in restraint. Look what you can look forward to when you’re older, kids.
Maybe I was preoccupied with whether it would lock again in the middle of typing and proofing and manipulating blocks of text and images.
The Beavis & Butthead moment (when they forgot how to pee) reminded me of a few years ago in Edmonds, WA, driving home at night after picking up Pagliacci pizza and suddenly not knowing where I was. I didn’t recognize what should’ve been familiar streets and landmarks.
That scared me to death.
Here we are again.
Today, I woke up thinking I should try again when I saw in my mind’s eye how it’s supposed to be done and how I’ve done it in the past. Marq, the publishing tool I use, saves everything, so, if I don’t like the layout, I can start over without losing what I did on Monday.
I also saw references from past issues I never bothered checking because it was lost on me. Why didn’t I think to look at the Winter 2024 issue? Why did I just do a Google search on magazine layouts, which led nowhere but to more confusion?
I made the layout work. I fixed it. Everything’s right again. Took me 20 minutes, max, my normal speedy time (instead of over an hour yesterday).
I’m back, everybody. It’s okay.
Please pray my finger doesn’t lock later when I’m about to pick up a piece of fried chicken or won tons. I made the bed and have laundry to do.