(littlebk)

HOW TO MAKE A LITTLE BOOK

First you have to marry a computer programmer, although in the process of living together you will discover he has this magic software in his computer and you will wheedle him into experimenting with it to help you with a project you are trying to figure out.

That done. You marry the programmer. In the process of marrying him you decide you want to give the wedding guests a copy of the vows.

You have to walk around the house for years saying I want to learn how to use the magic software.

Next you nag, wheedle and whine.

In between you get busy with other things and forget hat you were trying to do in the first place.

Periodically, however, extract a promise that the coming week-end you can receive the magic software lesson.

Later try to figure out how and why it didn’t happen.

Repeatedly conduct a conversation about what is required, preferably in a language you do not comprehend, in order to have your own magic software.

Over and over and over and over again try to keep a running tab of the projected cost.

Lapse into an enormous existential confusion about time,a and where exactly your life goes?

Ask again, with a shrewy pitch, why the magic software lesson never gets done.

Wait another year.

Sit down at his computer and realize his chair breaks your back and you can’t read the print on his computer screen.

Re-think your objectives.

Consider the possibility that powerlessness and dependency are all they’re cracked up to start to feel defeated.
think maybe the old cut and paste methods weren’t so bad.

Try to develop the ability to be good at seeing things upside down and backwards, so you don’t need software anyway.

Wait a little longer. Decide maybe getting it done is as good as doing it l Allow for differing talents, let him do it instead of teach it until the mysterious time in the f future wh en the unknown source of money gets spent on the things you don’t understand, so you can have your own ;magic software.
having met with such encouraging success with the magic software, decide to put the little book in a tape box, since the tape recorder is broken.

find a woman to prod you and extract promises of completion from;you. find another woman to make the tapes for you.

Announce your intentions happily to him, devoid of history.

Start the whole process again.

Allow the wheedling to evolve into full scale heel digging in, embellished occasionally by the hands on hips posture.

Justify yourself with external sources, that is you need access to the magic software to make a little book you promised other people.

Finally begin some Sunday night when you’re tired and the television is playing loudly, preferably with a science fiction show that makes you crazy .

Have an enormous fight.

Go to bed crying and afraid.

Awake wounded and diminished.

Try again and eventually reach hard copy.

Realize the handmade paper makes the book too thick.

Stitch it together and discover the know is too large.

Experiment with the Xerox machine until you get it placed just right.

Realize that each little book takes nine cuts.

Find that the paper cutter is inadequate for the task.

Make all the cuts by hand.

Ruin your plastic straight edge. Search for your metal straight edge without success.

Drive across town to replace it, only to find it is not in stock.

Search about the neighborhood for a straight edge and days later find one.

Figure out precisely where to line up the sheets to make the cuts.

Fail many times.

Leave your cutting board. tools & supplies on the kitchen table.

Pray you will remember the process you’ve just learned by the time you get back to it.

Rummage through your book arts note book for stitching instructions.

Try one and realize it isn’t pretty.

Rummage through your book arts baskets for samples. Try to figure out how they’re done.

Realize your favorite metallic thread makes a knot that fits in the box.