Opium | A Collaboration with Lauren M

© 2021 Lauren M | theweesmirk and Michael Raven

A little over a week ago, I had featured Lauren’s site in a Follow Friday post (which due to circumstances beyond my control, not limited to losing power for part of the day, did not get replicated last Friday) and we chatted a bit since then and discussed working together on a few pieces.

In ways, Opium is more her poem than mine. I just went along for the ride and she didn’t kick me out of the car while it was still cruising down the road at many miles an hour. But seriously, this piece was in her style and I tried to fit my stuff in. As per usual, I don’t care for obvious delineations for who contributed what, so I did my best to emulate her atypical approach. The result is the image shared above.

Why an image? Well, Lauren’s use of white space and alternate emphasis wreaks havoc with your standard post editor. She was having problems getting it to look good and I said, “I have an idea”. I proposed the above and she gave me the thumbs up. I took some liberties with the formatting when I pulled it together, add some color to mix it up, a suitable background image. And, like that, it became a picture. Problem with formatting and fussy editors solved.

Except… it didn’t. Thank you, theme creators for not making all pictures dynamic and responsive [/sarcasm].

So, anyway — this really belongs more on her site. And I think we’ll get it so that the internet gods accept our goat cheese sacrifice (feta works wonders, let me tell you) and she can have it on her site — but we’ll have to tease it into working, I think.

Lauren drove the car, I went along for the ride. I look forward to future collaborations when she has the time. i can’t tell you just how pleased I am with the result.

Yes, the title of this piece was influenced by the song I had posted earlier. It seemed to fit.