What does decorating sugar cookies and formatting Word docs have in common? A little goes a long way.
I loved decorating Christmas cookies when I was a child. Sprinkles, chocolate chips, silver balls, dried fruit — the more the merrier. I didn’t like to eat them, but I had a fine time making them. Apparently no one else in the family liked eating them either. I recently asked my older sister to send me her recipe for sugar cookies. Older siblings have a penchant for comment and this occasion was no exception:
“Please do not allow yourself to do any decorating. This is NOT an opportunity to express yourself. I still gag at the thought of all the crap you layered on — dried fruits, sprinkles, candy pearls, cinnamon toppers, more frosting… Remember: Less is more in the world of sugar cookies.”
But like many of the words of wisdom imparted by my siblings, I ignored the advice when I set out to format a company newsletter. I didn’t stop with bold and italics. I mixed typefaces and fonts. Of course, color — of text, of “fill”, or lines. Wow! I discovered I could make text curve up and down, make letters shadowed. And bullets — who knew I didn’t have to settle for the round dot? Yes indeed I found other bullet types and used a different one in each section of my newsletter. I turned text sideways and tilted images. When I was done, reading my newsletter was akin to a ride on rough seas. My spouse suggested my efforts might be more suited to a ransom note.
So I toned it down. Damn near killed me. Then I went to bad and DeAnn (one of my inner voices which will be the subject of another post) reminded me until I fell asleep that I was no graphic designer. Once she got tired of that, she told me I was no writer and had no business doing anything I’ve done of late.
Want to hear more about DeAnn.
She sounds like a bitch.
Do not hang out with her.
Harsh words, but yes, she could be so described. My other inner voice is Desiree and she is a lot of fun. The problem is that Desiree talks me into things, then skips out and there is DeAnn shaking her head.
Recently I submitted a description of DeAnn and Desiree to a writing contest. The only requirement was that the entry had to be 100 words or less. Here it is:
Two foes tussle over my psyche — one wears putty-colored SAS shoes, bras with wide, supportive straps, polyester pants, and tops that “go with everything.” She drinks skim, eats from all food groups, moisturizes with Eucerin, arrives on time.
She doggedly goes toe-to-toe with her nemesis who buys berries out-of-season, likes noisy bangle bracelets, only irons the part that shows, laughs at solemn occasions, and once embraced blue denim platform shoes. Her nemesis eats cookies for breakfast, strains suitcase zippers, doesn’t always recycle, buys scented soaps and clothes marked “dry clean only.”
No détente is on the horizon.