How hard can it be?

Blog layout editing... la dee dah

2010-01-05T23:13:00.005-05:00

This has effectively become a test blog at this point, but if you pop in, well... Hi! How are ya?

I had some heinous green enter my blog. You'll still see it upper left in the sidebar. I couldn't figure out, at the time, how to fix it. Tonight, I guess my brain had cooked it enough (for many, many months), because the solution took about 2 minutes.

Here's how it HAD looked, when I first came upon it:

And here's the fixed version, for posterity, because I will undoubtedly be tweaking:

There's still a box of green. I shall have to find that in the CSS somewhere.

This reminds me. Figuring puzzles out is COOL!

It's alive!

2010-01-05T22:59:00.001-05:00

Heh. My Photobucket account has expired. THAT's now long it's been since I looked at this.

I shall make some changes shortly. But I couldn't just leave it with no new post.

Here is a new one.

Happy New Year!

A lovely shade of green

2009-07-12T11:28:00.002-04:00

I've been away a while. All of a sudden I wonder what I said, the last time I posted. So I take a look... and would somebody please tell me how it is that I have not touched my blog for months on end, and in my absence what used to be white background has become a bright green?!

IT WASN'T ME.

Election results

2008-11-09T09:29:00.004-05:00

Funny thing about a candidate I really do like actually winning --which has never happened for me before-- is the rather lost sense. Like a lot of people, I'm wondering... "Well, what NOW?" The answer turns out to be that I have a new West Wing show. Every day or so I get a snippet of an episode, as the new POTUS assembles his team and starts working on their plans for the end of January. The fact that it is all real is both exciting and frightening.

But this election was not without the familiar sense of defeat. I knew that Florida voters (my new neighbors) would pretty overwhelmingly vote to ban gay marriage, but I had hoped, even briefly expected, California voters to vote against such a ban. Alas, Prop 8 passed. Unsurprisingly, really, it appears the African American voters that poured out to vote with all that good "Yes We Can" passion... by and large decided that freedom is not for everybody. I do understand why that happens, but it's still so sad.

You already know that I make the mistake of reading comments on articles online. They are often so full of ignorance and hatred (and impossible spelling and punctuation), but I do find them fascinating for some reason. I can tell you, however, that sometimes I am honestly and pleasantly surprised by what I read. Here is an example, in a comment by somebody who calls himself Biggreyoldman on an article about Prop 8:

In a democracy 10 hungry cannibals can vote to eat the 11th cannibal. We live in a Consitutionaly limited Republic where the 11th cannibal has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You don't vote on eating the 11th cannibal.

Here with our Consitutional limited Republic you don't vote on the rights of people. Gays want the same EQUAL rights as straights, not special rights. They want to marry one of their choosing, two people want a legal union between consenting ADULTS, just of the same sex. It is their right and liberty to do so. You do not vote on what a person wants to do with their life with another consenting adult.

If you do not like gay marriage, don't marry another gay. One cannot vote to say what rights the gays have. It's voting to say you can eat the 11th cannibal. Laws that limit the Consitutional rights of others should be overturned by the courts. If they don't, we live in a mob rule where the mob dictates who can be eaten.

(from comments on the Detroit Free Press site)

Biggreyoldman

Just after reading this, Luther called up Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech, from back in March, given in Philadelphia. Neither of us had watched it in its entirety before. You can Youtube it yourself (you can get the full text on huffpost as well). It was beautiful --and interesting to note that it was given long before he was any kind of sure thing. We sat back and sipped our coffee and enjoyed a passionate presentation by a man who will now very likely spend the next four to eight years (please can we have eight? pretty please?) disappointing us, because how could he not?

He'll still be grand. And it's going to be very, very interesting watching it all unfold.

I dreamt I got my hair cut, and Cheryl and I went shopping

2008-10-22T07:46:00.003-04:00

One of the things I really like about our new house is how close it turns out to be to that wonderful patch of Queen Street that has all my favorite restaurants and cute shops, and all my old friends can be found there fairly often. That is, of course, only in my dreams.

I must say my permanent and revisited dream landscape gets ever more complicated! While I have not recently visited my once-usual mountain-to-valley walking trails and either been mauled by the tigers or returned to the crystal house where I'm dead and stand before the corpse throne, I know it's still there. And a good tornado or alligator is always available. But lately I've been favoring my visits to my city, Toronto, but it's a Toronto where the major thoroughfares keep coming unglued, twisting around, and connecting back up in really uncomfortable ways. I never do manage to get off the train or subway at the right station, but I do fairly often manage to arrange my path so that I can stop and do some shopping at that Bay-and-Bloor mall (which itself is getting fancier as the years go by) on my way home at night.

That patch of Queen Street, which is sometimes a patch of Bloor Street, where the really great little restaurants are up a side street, and where I almost always see my friend Cheryl Zalameda... last night was somehow only a few blocks from our house near the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Pretty neat!

Cher and I connected first by cell phone. This was after a period of cat-sitting... which... is another story, but I can tell you that my cell phone was easily as complicated as the entire rest of the dream. Then Cher and I met. One cool thing about my dream Toronto is that apparently we're getting around the problem of stores moving around, so now, for instance, Cheryl's favorite and VERY EXPENSIVE clothing line can be purchased on the city bus. She was going to a cocktail party later that rainy evening and had picked out the dress she wanted by shopping online. So we flagged down a city bus, and we got on, and she tried to purchase her dress.

Okay, so the information design of this store is just dismal. The way the items are listed on the Web site is not how they're listed on the bus driver's manifest. After it became clear he had NO IDEA what Cheryl was talking about, he handed the thick wad of paper to her and she tried to figure it out herself. She found the dress on the list, and beside it was noted the compartment where we'd find the actual clothing item. But when I opened the compartment in the dash near the door, it was empty! Oh no!

"But I need it tonight!" So she started going down the list, and finally chose a beautiful chocolate and cream affair, not quite what she'd intended, but I assume she looked ravishing in it. There was indeed one of these in stock, in a compartment under the front-most seat behind the driver.

I might note that we were not RIDING the bus. We were cabbing it. So the actual passengers on this rainy night were a little annoyed at how long we were taking at our shopping.

Off we went. Cheryl and I parted ways for the dream, as she needed to get ready for her party. And Luther took me to get my hair cut. Luckily, my new (real-world) hair-cutter-person's salon has a branch location in that patch of Queen/Bloor Street with all the nice stuff. It's a little humbler than the (real-world) Dunedin salon, but very friendly and quick. They gave Luther a glass of wine. Chris did a nice job, though he left the back too long, which is a little unfair after (real-world) he'd made the comment about Georgia and all at my last appointment.

It was still rainy. Come to think of it, it was rainy and somewhat dark for the entire dream. That's unusual.

Next door to the salon, a new roti place has opened up. It's just a little stand, really, and it's all vegetarian except the very first item on the board: Beef roti. The rotis come in lovely Chinese-food boxes, hand-dyed in swirls of color, each with a real flower tied to the top.

What's difficult about all this is that it is all so FAMILIAR. I wake up, and I know I've been dreaming, but as I begin to think about coffee and the work I should do instead of writing a blog post, I try to separate the dream from reality, but the process is fraught with error. That "very best" little restaurant on that side-street off Queen/Bloor, for instance: I almost always "remember" that as real, so as I wake up, I try to sort that real thing from the dream stuff.

But it's not real. It's just a permanent and often revisited part of the dream landscape. Like the mountain-to-valley hiking path and the crystal house, that restaurant is one of my anchors. And no wonder I go back there so often. The food is really good (I think they serve that palm-and-artichoke heart salad that I used to get at Kalendar), but also... my old friends hang out there.

So in my dream landscape, I can now apparently walk from my Florida house to an anchor-place that is frequented by my Toronto friends, who now themselves are as far-flung as ever. Nice, isn't it?

The "C" word versus the "A" word

2008-10-13T08:12:00.005-04:00

Oh
My
God

Says the atheist.

I CAN'T HELP IT, she replies.

Anyway...

If you've been following the U.S. political news, you've been confronted recently by some secret codes. So let me spell things out for you here, where we're unlikely to be censored. *Spoiler alert* There will be words that you might not actually use in public. WHATever.

The McCain campaign has been seesawing over the past week between:

Energizing their "base"
- Riling up ethnocentric fears and sensibilities, what's also known as racist and anti-anything-vaguely-foreign sensibilities

Maintaining a mere shred of cool
- Insisting verbally that everybody remain "respectful"
- Insinuating that "Arab" is the opposite of "a good family man" while calling the opponent a good family man
- Continuing to broadcast commercials that suggest the opponent is a terrorist

The media, which have been falling all over themselves to appear balanced and as a result appear STOOPID, have nevertheless managed to publicize the fact that McCain supporters are getting riled up in sometimes pretty ugly ways. I mean, the woman in line with us outside the Obama rally in Dunedin, FL (on my birthday!) who said, "drop dead" to a McCain supporter across the street did so in a respectfully Jersey accent, clearly indicating that the "drop dead" was what people with other accents would phrase more like, "oh, would you please shut up, dear?" That's one thing. The person at the McCain rally, in response to some of the candidates' rhetoric, shouting "Off with his head"??? No. Uh... no. I'm sorry, but I think even the most die-hard Republican knows (though he or she might not admit it) that there're a good number of really frightened/angry racist individuals on the Republican side right now, and we don't need that element any more fired up than they already are. Sheesh. I mean, REALLY! (to paraphrase SNL)

It's not just me that's making the comparison. With the media pointing out this "dangerous rhetoric" in the McCain campaign, we have bloggers all over the place (could I link? yeah, but I'm lazy) saying HEY, WHAT GIVES? about the media not noting "similarly" bad behavior on the part of Obama supporters.

The "drop dead" lady notwithstanding... one of the examples I saw raised was of a group of young people at a Palin rally. They were "using the C-word."

They had t-shirts proclaiming that Palin is a cunt.

Yeah, I said it.

Here's the thing: Said blogger suggested that we'd see it all over the news if some McCain supporters showed up at an Obama rally with t-shirts calling Obama "the N-word" (that's code for nigger, in case you didn't know).

WHAT?!

First: Sorry, ladies, but calling somebody a cunt is not the same as calling somebody a nigger. Why is it different? Because we have no respect in this society for cunts. Yes, that's right. Calling somebody a "cunt" is saying that person is worthless. In contrast, calling soebody a "nigger" is saying two things: 1. That person is worthless, BUT 2. That person is dangerous and should be lynched.

It has ever been the case that niggers have been looked upon with this kind of twisted (lack of) logic: Stupid, lazy, and yet somehow quite likely to beat you in a fight, possibly plotting to take over your country, cuz we know that stupid and lazy people are capable of such things.

So I'm sorry, but calling the vice-presidential candidate a "cunt" is liable to incite... laughter and sneers. And calling the presidential candidate a "nigger" (or worse, apparently: the "A" word, aka Arab) is liable to incite assassination attempts.

Stop patting yourselves on the back for being just as maligned. You're not, sadly. You should be, but you're not.

And they eat it up

2008-10-10T07:47:00.003-04:00

"The crowd showed equal disdain for the media, fueled by comments from Palin, who encouraged the Republican supporters to take the campaign's message around the media. 'I can't pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrel,' she said. 'It's dangerous territory whenever I suggest the mainstream media isn't asking all the questions.'"

Washingtonpost.com: Anger Is Crowd's Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally

Let me get this straight. Palin is complaining that the mainstream media isn't asking all the questions? Palin. The same Palin that would, if McCain wins, become president if McCain dies, but her campaign has permitted only a few interviews and NO QUESTIONS OTHERWISE???

And the crowd, naturally, ate it up.

A heartbeat away from giving hockey a bad name

2008-09-29T09:00:00.002-04:00

I have developed a terrible tendency to read some of the comments left after a news article or opinion piece, mostly on political news (I'm an election junkie). I guess I picked the comment-reading up in blogland. It's "terrible" because a lot of the people who leave comments on news articles are apparently UTTER MORONS. Also, the comments are often trolled by... well... trolls.

But what gets me is how the ~~trolls~~ fervent defenders of the Republican ticket have a problem with spaces and capitalization (let alone reason, logic, and that other thing... what was it again... oh yeah: spelling). I mean, who in the world has the ability to put a space between two words, but can't be bothered to include one between the end of one sentence and the start of the next? Here's a relatively mild example from the comments of a Christian Science Monitor overview of last week's Republican funnies (I love Tina Fey!).

There is no prof anyone can find of him changing to Obama.Go look it up not one news person can find anything on it.Why did it take him 20 years to leave his church. A church that promotes hate. You don’t think he took a little of that hate with him. 20 years of being told to hate. give me a brake.If he wasn’t running for president he would still be there.He voted against money for the military and said we need to get out because we would never do good there. now he says we have done good. he can’t make up his own mind how can we let him tell us whats good for us?Mccain might be the best choice but he is really our only choice.

I've seen worse than this. Worse by far. And almost always pro-Republican, or rather, anti-"Liberals." Quite often distinctly racist as well. So what's up with that? Is this some kind of proof they're anti-elitist or something?

On a separate (but related) note:

I am really, really tired of "a heartbeat away" now. Can we use another cliche, just to mix it up, maybe? Palin would be "very close," maybe even "next in line." Can we find something other than "a heartbeat away"? It's just got to the point that everybody says it, and it's icking me out.

That is all.

Growing up

2008-09-19T12:58:00.004-04:00

One thing the Web is piss-poor at, in my opinion, is envisioning the future. It's become quite like TV in this respect. It works well at connecting people with the things they already know, and it's not quite so good at connecting them with new things, things that they didn't expect.

My example: The boy-child living in my house.

Now, Wil has this Web address, as does his father, and so I mean it in quite practical terms that I mean no disrespect. In fact, the opposite of disrespect: I respect the fact that Wil's life is not like that of similarly-aged people of previous generations. Or perhaps better described, similarly-aged people of the same "class" of previous generations.

I'm sure there were young people of very wealthy parents as far back as... forever... that had trouble figuring out how to motivate their children. And what I'm learning from obvserving Wil is that the children likely were not oblivious to this problem. In fact, when I think back to my own teenage years, I was not oblivious to this problem. People around me seemed to have ambitions. I was not at all clear on how to get some of my own. Wealthy parents' children must always be a problem, obviously, because it's hard to argue that they can't be supported. But the other thing that many of you will have already experienced (yourself and/or in raising your own) is that it is difficult for ANY child in this day and age (and society) to really BELIEVE that they can't be supported indefinitely. I mean, they've been supported THEIR WHOLE LIVES. How can anything else make sense?

So here we are. A few years ago, Wil said he wanted to get a job, instead of bowling. So he quit bowling.

Recently, I had occasion to ask him why he wanted to learn to drive. He answered that he wanted to learn to drive because he knew that it was something he was going to need to know.

And that's so freakin' significant! Something he knew he would need... versus something he DOES need, let alone something he WANTS.

Motivation is such a BEAR, isn't it? Because really, how do you do ANYTHING that you don't WANT to do in some small place in your brain?

So I'm left pondering... why would this young man, all of 18 years old, want to learn to drive, find a job, save money, move out, make his own meals, make his own plans, live his own life? I mean... it all goes contrary to how his life has ALWAYS BEEN, and it goes contrary to what he's being given RIGHT NOW. When you boil it all down, it'd be kinda reasonable to think him an idiot if he wanted to do those things. I mean, WHAT FOR?

We come back to the Internet because, before the question about driving, I did a little poking around for advice on how to teach driving. And most of the driving-teaching advice pointed to the "fact" that a teenager thinks only about what they want to do with the car, all the freedom they'll obtain, and the problem of teaching them is in bringing them down to the actual details and responsibilities of driving. I couldn't find one bit of advice for trying to help a young potential driver who doesn't want to drive, who isn't all that interested, and who is so aware of the potential threats that he's afraid of getting into the car.

I didn't learn to drive, when I was a teenager, because it didn't make any SENSE. It was scary AND it was useless. We didn't HAVE a car, and I could get everywhere by transit and walking. Later, I added biking.

But I wanted money. Oh boy. I was, still, delayed by my father being quite generous in supporting me as a teenager --I got to shop for my own clothes, on a bit of a budget, and travel and do things that I wanted to do. But I wanted MY OWN money, and I'm not sure how I got that urge, but I did. So I got a job.

So what do you do when an eighteen-year-old hasn't got really expensive interests, gets a ton of money from distant relatives at Christmasses and birthdays, and gets a meager allowance as well? WHY, IF HE HAD ANY BRAINS AT ALL, WOULD HE WANT A JOB?

Pffffffffft. He wouldn't. It would be unreasonable for him to want one. Wil's a smart young man and he knows he will need a job. But flat-out, that's not the same thing as wanting one.

I have an idea. But I don't think there's a chance in hell his Dad would go for it.

Still... the whole thing is perplexing, is all. I mean, I'm trying to get motivated to write a screenplay, work out, go to a doctor to get my feet fixed, learn a language, and work harder at my job. And I really, really, REALLY know that knowing these things "need to be done" is quite different...

...from wanting to do them.

P.S. In reviewing this, I see I am the same old bekbek after all. I remember saying, as a young teenager, that I didn't want to learn a language. I wanted to HAVE LEARNED it. Now, at 41 years old in a few days... I want to HAVE DONE all these things, or have them at that lovely point where it is all fun in tweaking and finishing up and celebrating accomplishment. Getting from here to there? Pffft. See you in another 30 years...

Mondays are fun days

2008-09-15T08:06:00.006-04:00

Sometimes the trivial things are worth mentioning. Trivial = TV.

Last year, I planned to watch several new shows as they were launched in September-October. Of all of them, the only one I continued to enjoy was Pushing Daisies. The show does have some charm, though it got a bit tiresome by the end of the season, being essentially too cute all the time. The main character can bring the dead back to life with a touch... but a second touch kills them again. So he doesn't pet his dog, who died once. And he doesn't kiss his girlfriend, who is supposed to be dead.

Meanwhile, two other shows snuck up on me. How I missed them in my search for new shows, I'll never understand. I absolutely adore Chuck. He's a nice, "ordinary" guy that works at what's obviously a Best Buy store, but he has a bunch of spy stuff embedded in his brain, so by force of circumstance he is an unprepared and unwilling spy. It's exceptionally well crafted, in my opinion - and plain fun. Then there's The Big Bang Theory, an unassuming little half-hour sitcom that doesn't deviate from the sitcom formula... except that the main characters are geek geniuses, with the obligatory hot girl living across the hall. I ought not to like it, but I do. I really do.

And then halfway through the year, with a great deal of fanfare, we got another new show: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I thought this was a terrible idea, and I was sure it would disgust me, but how could I not watch? And upon watching, I was really distressed with how skinny the actress is (playing Sarah), which really shouldn't be as distracting as I found it to be. And really, how can a drama about cyborgs and time travel be a serious contender? Well, sorry, but dammit... I like it! Phooey, so there, etc.

So this year, Pushing Daisies is back, but I'm not really interested. It's run its course, in my mind. And nothing new that's been announced has really caught my interest, unless possibly My Own Worst Enemy. We'll see about that one. But that leaves us with what? Three shows from last year that I want to watch this year: Big Bang (CBS), Chuck (NBC), and Terminator (FOX).

Just the three shows.

And that's not all. But first, there's more. WE DON'T EVEN HAVE CABLE. We decided to save the money, so we have a nice antenna. Remember what antennas are? Here's a clue:

And with our antenna and our new digital conversion boxes (because U.S. TV broadcasting is going all-digital early next year), we get a perfect, clear signal (I'm convinced it's actually better than what we used to get with cable) on all three channels necessary for watching my three shows! WOOT!

So here's the fall schedule. Pay attention.

Monday, 8 p.m., Terminator (FOX).
Monday, 8 p.m., Chuck (NBC).
Monday, 8 p.m., Big Bang (CBS).

Anybody see a problem???

Selling My Comic Books

2008-09-13T15:18:00.003-04:00

Here's something aggravating:

The current prices for collectors' comic books are dependent on printing. A 1st-printing copy of Batman: The Dark Knight gets considerably more than a 2nd-print copy.

I bought my copy when the book came out at the Silver Snail in Toronto, as far as I can recall. Is it a 1st-printing? No idea. There's no COPYRIGHT in the freakin' thing, let alone a print number.

Why can't comic books have some of the same info as normal books get?! It's damned aggravating. Apparently you have to be some kind of Super Collector to be able to tell the print number, and that's not me.

But I'm selling the thing. That, and my Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. And my Elfquests. And my Wolverines and X-Mens. So I gotta know!

McCain-Palin lies

2008-09-12T09:11:00.002-04:00

Paul Krugman, "Blizzard of Lies."

Mr. Krugman says, about the blatant lies repeated --long after they've been publicly declared as untrue-- over and over again by the McCain-Palin campaign, "they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs."

I disagree. Oh sure, that's played into their hands. "Balanced" apparently means, these days, "let them lie if they want to - all is fair, yadda yadda."

But what I'm seeing, and this was backed up yesterday by some nice interviews on NPR (I'll add the link when I find it), is that there're quite a lot of people in this country that have been successfully convinced that the media --all of the media except possibly conservative talk-radio-- is "out to get" Palin and is itself lying.

This tactic is probably as old as dirt, but I first became aware of it with the Bush campaigns. What's being (erroneously, as far as I can tell) called "the base" has been led down a lovely little garden path on which it is not necessary --it's even a bad idea-- to read the news or assess facts critically, since any source of critical information other than those that obviously agree with your own worldview is immediately suspect.

If a news article in a highly reputable newspaper says Sarah Palin is lying, the newspaper article is by definition a pack of lies.

These people want to believe not only that McCain-Palin are the right choice, that their own choices are the right choices, but that any normally reliable source of opposing (or "fair") information must be ignored or slandered.

Which takes the pressure off, eh? It's not necessary to judge things critically. Don't worry about it. Don't think about it. Don't question. Just BELIEVE.

Sounds familiar. :(

Politics: The Reality Show

2008-09-04T13:32:00.002-04:00

Is it any wonder that the entire country seems to be in love with Sarah Palin? Unlike the "elitist" uber-celebrity Barack Obama, Sarah Palin is a "hockey mom" celebrity. It's like she won a contest to be a contestant on "Politics: The Reality Show," and millions are tuning in each day to watch how "the mom next door" fares in the world of politics. Yay, Sarah! cheer the fans. You can do it! We believe in you!

Uuuuggggggh. This is blechy to the max.

But for a population that apparently prefers to watch really ignorant, unskilled, ill-equipped, talentless people stumble through fake obstacles - which is the "script" of all reality TV, it seems - we really cannot be surprised that Sarah Palin the celebrity has way more appeal than someone who actually might be able to lead this country out of the awful mess it's gotten into.

Pffft. Please, somebody tell me it's all just a dream.

Boxes are for sleeping

2008-07-28T12:30:00.005-04:00

There is still a bit of unpacking and organizing and optimizing to be done in other parts of the house, but in terms of actual stacks of boxes, we are down to just one final stack, in Luther's and my bedroom.

The Simplicity-cat is not, strictly speaking, allowed in our bedroom, so she has to sneak... but in the absence of any other tall stacks of boxes, she just had to get in there, clearly!

And, for perhaps no other reason than to prove (after that last photo) that I can at least sometimes take a photo that is in focus... Here's something that Luther brought home from the beach one morning:

I am reminded that we have yet to find a really good sushi restaurant here. We may have to go all the way to Tampa! That, or... fish more of these fellows out before they make it to an unhealthy beach landing.

Dark Knight and paying for college

2008-07-19T14:06:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet. I loved Batman Begins like there was no tomorrow --it rocked. So I've been looking forward to the next installment. As usual, though, I've been avoiding reading too much of the hype.

Today I saw, via Google News, a headline that (for once) suggested not everybody loved The Dark Knight. There is, after all, a LOT of hype, and apparently a critical reception is considered unwelcome by fans. The critic in question is one David Edelstein. So I thought, "Let's see what he said about the first movie, Batman Begins."

I looked it up. Here's one of his reviews: A Dark and Stormy Knight. As much as I really dug the movie, I'd have to say I agree with his critique --and with where he praised the movie. The beauty was in the character. Well, what the hell do you do with a sequal in that case? You can't do the same thing --because then the character isn't growing. But you can't ignore the character altogether, or invent some easy new conflict, because then it's fake. How do you inject the same kind of emotional realism?

I am guessing The Dark Knight failed. And for me, a crazy bad guy doesn't make a movie. (I will note that I understand others will love it. Lots of people are enamored of crazy bad guys. Great.) I look forward to seeing it, nonetheless.

In the meantime, Luther and I are navigating the world of student finances. Wil starts college in August, and we are paying. Heck, we're paying through the NOSE. Florida is quite strict about residency --not surprising, really, given the number of people who could claim to be residents based on a grandparent or real estate investment. You have to be able to prove you've lived here for a full year before you will be allowed to pay the regular in-state tuition. We moved here in the spring, and we're going to have to pay out-of-state tuition. Wil's first year is going to cost about three times what his second year will cost, isn't that nice?

It is an interesting process. We are leaving no stone un-turned. We are recognizing what a boon this would be to somebody who had nothing (we're not eligible for grants and "forgivenesses" and so forth, because despite being broke as hell, we have too much... but others are not so fortunate as we). I am really freaked about how probably most truly poor people never learn of all these opportunities that are available to them, however. I know from experience that the less you have, the less people talk to you. There's money there, for somebody that is willing to really commit to education. But boy oh boy, it's all phrased in language that is inaccessible to those who don't already have that education. Watching Wil stare blankly at some of this crap is only a reminder --he already knows more than most.

What we'll be doing is taking out student loans, which Luther and I will later pay. I get to defer my panic about my own lack of any kind of retirement plan. Well, actually, it's fine: The plan remains the same. I must die first. That is all.

Life. She continues to be amusing.

The curtain came out great!

2008-07-13T19:21:00.002-04:00

Wetwork

2008-07-07T07:49:00.005-04:00

Here we are in July already, and Luther's son is due to join us in just a few days. This means the pressure is on, now, to get some non-functional things functional. This includes somewhat unfortunate changes to one of the nicest rooms in the house: the main bathroom. This lovely little house has been perfectly set up for a couple whose children are grown up and out, and in Luther's case the "up and out" is only 50% complete at this time. The other 50%... is going to need to take a shower now and then, and the beautiful main bathroom is only set up for baths.

Normally, not a big deal. Who hasn't added a shower head to a bath before?! But in this case, there's also NO TILE. Yup, that's right. Oh yes, and there's the added factor that our old house still hasn't sold... so money is even tighter than usual.

Nice, isn't it?

Because of the window, we had already decided not to tile. We'd thought about covering the whole thing with one of those fiberglass surrounds, as ugly as they are, "for the time being"... but this would be a custom job and even if we did the work ourselves, not cheap. So I ordered a shower curtain ring from a shop in Ohio, with the idea that we'd just run a curtain the whole way around. That'll work!

Except...

Except there's still going to be water hitting the wall behind the tap. We insist on having shower handsets, and everybody who'll be living here is used to being able to use that feature, so it won't just be random spray that hits the wall, but also dripping hands reaching for the shower head. That wall is just going to get wet. Ultimately, I think the right thing will be to tile that wall and corner, in something nice that matches the minimal tile in the rest of the room. Curtains can be draped aside artfully when the room is not regularly being used for showers, and then they'll hang down again for showers, with the tile wall where water is likely to strike. Right now, though, there's no time and no money for a tiling job.

What to do? We thought about waterproof paint, but such a thing doesn't appear to exist, at least not for applying over existing paint on sheetrock (or whatever is under there - I'm ignorant of such things). And we could get a really cheap plastic surround kit and just put up part of it... but the cheaper they get, the uglier they get, and I don't know that we can bring ourselves to do it.

Other projects are underway. This weekend I did a whole "killdisk" thing on our old desktop machine, so that today or tomorrow I can figure out where to take it to sell or donate. We don't need it and frankly don't have anywhere to put it in this new house! And I also somewhat refurbished my old, old laptop so that it can act as our "legacy machine"--because we've had occasions where our work called for older versions of software, or at least being able to build screensnaps for teaching somebody with older software how to do something. The little laptop can stay tucked away, with just a little footprint, only to be pulled out when needed.

It may also be a handy Internet-access station for guests (hint, hint), provided they're patient with the slow machine.

We're also making some changes to what will be Wil's room. It is a really cool room in what used to be a carport or garage, and one whole wall is closets. Right now, the wide center section is set up with a wire clothes-closet system. We're putting a clothes rod in one of the side sections, so that both sides will be the clothes closets and the center section... can become Wil's "entertainment station." We'll run power into it, and he can set up his TV and all of his game systems and games, and then hopefully when he's not using them, he'll actually be able to close the doors and have the room almost instantly in order again. We'll see how that goes...

...but you can see, at least, that we're not getting a lot of help from Simplicity, who has discovered the little study nook in the corner of the room.

Movies Movies Movies

2008-06-26T16:43:00.003-04:00

I went to school with some marvelously talented people. This is true of both undergrad and graduate school, but lately it's been the undergrad crowd that I've been catching up with --through Facebook, believe it or not.

So here's a plug for some of the cool things my old buddies have been up to recently. This is by no means a comprehensive list --everybody seems to be doing something extraordinary right now! But these will get you started:

First, Sylvain Lavigne: He has a new short film up on Youtube, and I think it's fabulous - plus I get to see Sylvain in his undies, which is always a treat! Watch it! Crap (subtitled version of Simonac)

Next, we have some features that you should definitely plan on renting from your local Blockbuster (or whatever), or better yet, try to find copies to buy! Yeah!

Jeff Renfroe's Civic Duty. Dylan Macleod did the cinematography!

David Ray's Fetching Cody.

And Julia Kwan's Eve and the Fire Horse.

I tell you what, it is an honor to know these people. Plus I seem to recall --vaguely-- that they're kinda fun to hang out with. Hmm. Is it time for another reunion yet?

A declaration of anonymity?

2008-06-06T08:55:00.004-04:00

And now for something just a little different from recent posts about education, eco-friendly technologies, and the aggravation that is Hillary Clinton... This is a little odd, in my mind:

There is apparently an organization called "Anonymous" that protests Scientology. Now, from the little bit I've been learning, it's not in the least bit odd that one would protest Scientology (although as usual I'm left wondering: Couldn't we just cut to the chase and protest religions and cults in general? But I digress...), but I admit I'm finding it odd that Anonymous presents itself in a little bit of a... hhhmm... cultish manner.

I worry that it's awfully easy for some people to want to belong to something, and that when they jump ship from something as apparently icky as Scientology... they're awfully tempted to just sign up for something new, which seems counterproductive to me.

Why can't we raise more people that just want to be themselves? Themselves could be pretty cool, you know.

But there, these last few paragraphs will now have pissed off absolutely everybody, yay! (I just don't understand religion I just don't understand I don't... ~sigh~)

ANYWAY, despite that little ick-factor, I think Anonymous is kinda neat. Cathleen posted a link to a post about their upcoming worldwide protest (June 14), with accompanying video. Will there, I wonder, come a day when homemade videos on the Web used for organizational/advertising purposes have to actually recognize the copyright on things like James Horner's terrific Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack? Stay tuned, but DO NOT hold your breath.

But the real reason I, of all people, am posting the same link is... CHECK OUT THE VERY NICE FLAG DESIGNS! I mean, it's a great logo to begin with (though I sense it has perhaps had a good upgrade fairly recently), and then it works so well on some of the country flags. Nice design job, I must say.

And for my last "ponder" of the morning... Isn't there something odd about calling oneself Anonymous and then designing a logo that can be recognized everywhere? Hmm...

Arrrgh!

Teaching Eco-Friendliness

2008-05-25T12:35:00.002-04:00

Today I am working on some supplements for a textbook on Philosophy of Education. As usual, my brain is "cooking" the little tidbits I pick up as I work through the supplements. In the background, I have a television turned on. The show is a wandering feature that seems to have gone from eco-friendly architecture to elementary-level education on global warming (or climate change, if you prefer) and new eco-friendly technologies. The kids in the probably-Californian classroom seem very engaged.

I find myself remembering corresponding lessons from when I was a small child. The big topic then was, believe it or not, littering. We did talk about energy efficiency (turn off the lights when you're not using them), and we did talk about recycle-reuse (although that might have hit its stride later, when I was in high school), but littering stands out for me because in my mind, littering is what we've been doing all along, on a grand scale. The lessons on energy efficiency and the lessons on recycling and reusing, and now the lessons on global warming and all the new "green" technologies are just about finally cutting back on all the littering we've been doing.

In the Philosophy of Education supplements, I've been going through U.S. education history. Normal schools, common schools. The shift toward female teachers. Assimilation. Nationalism. Democracy. States rights.

And here's where I believe we're really running into problems with solving our littering problem:

We now see that we need to address the littering we've been doing as a society, versus just the littering of individuals. We now see that "littering" isn't just about the empty soda can thrown from the car window, but also about the exhaust fumes coming from the tailpipe. We are now beginning to see that our whole way of life rests on littering, from the waste and pollution generated by the vehicles so that we can live at great distances from where we work, to the waste and pollution generated on our farms so that we can get steak and potatoes even when we live nowhere near cows and potato fields.

But when I say "we" see this, I mean, "we, the educated." We, who understood that littering was bad 35 years ago, and are now able to extend that understanding to a wider, more far-reaching sensibility. And the trouble is... I just recently moved from an area where, it seems clear, the idea that throwing your empty soda-can out the window is bad... isn't being taught.

In middle Georgia, I'd have to say that most people haven't got that message that is now decades old. I've seen so many things thrown from car windows, I lost track in sheer amazement. Cigarette butts to cigarette packages to banana peels to partially-empty fried chicken buckets; tissues, newspapers, ashes, and peanut shells; fast-food wrappers; fast food. And this doesn't even count the stuff that comes flying out of the beds of pickup trucks, whose owners apparently use their trucks as refuse containers until a handy wind comes along at 70 mph to clean it all up for them.

So when I watch some keen, bright students enthusiastically exploring global warming concepts, and enthusiastically embracing eco-friendly technologies, with wide eyes and practiced mouse-clicking fingers, I can't help but think that it's all going to just remain some kind of "fad" until the less-than-enthusiastic kids of places like middle Georgia, with access to far older technologies and far poorer infrastructures, are at least taught that littering JUST CAN'T HAPPEN ANYMORE.

My Philosophy of Education, unfortunately, cannot reconcile itself with this states' rights thing, because the values I think a public education should instill are values that deal with long-term issues like climate change. And frankly, I can understand that a population that doesn't get that throwing shit out their car windows is bad... probably isn't going to wholeheartedly embrace the idea that they should stop driving cars because they're part of a lifestyle that's destroying our planet.

Not gonna happen. Not unless we develop a curriculum that applies equally to the students in northern and southern California and the students in middle Georgia and Alabama. Because it takes the whole society to adequately support long-term changes.

(In the meantime, while people continue to stick with habits and values that only recognize the short-term and the known and familiar, we have judicial systems that consider the larger context based on things like constitutions, and make decisions for us that appear to be against the popular consensus. And there you go, that's my comment about gay marriage -bravo!- in California, just as much as it is about efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.)

Hillary continues to run in the wrong party

2008-05-24T08:07:00.002-04:00

Soon enough, I'll get back to the important matter of kitty cats and the fact that I can now walk to the water (and will be doing that in a few minutes if I know what's good for me). But I keep getting distracted by the ongoing soap opera that is the current Democratic nomination race. I say race, but it's been somewhat stalled lately.

As a follow-up to my previous post, Hillary apparently does, in fact, think the GOP is the better party for her. Yup! Mr. Boudreaux of George Mason University breaks it down for us in a delightful way in the Wall Street Journal:

'Nothing but Misogynists'

My problem is this: If she doesn't pull out now and start rooting heavily for Obama, there won't be enough time for her to drag her faithful followers to his side before November. I am, of course, assuming that she'll even be willing to do so. Many of the faithful on both sides in this race are getting quite venomous toward the other candidate, and because of all people the GOP chose McCain... these Democrats think they have a moderate alternate choice! Yikes! Talk about a bad idea! So ONE of the Democrats has to pull out and throw his/her full support behind the other, telling his/her followers, "okay, cut the crap, you know you can't vote for McCain, you just can't." Otherwise, as my own dearest and bestest friend pointed out in his myspace blog, we're looking at a long, hard future with a very conservative Supreme Court, given the people McCain would nominate. That's much more dangerous, long-term, than just the bunch of other horrible things that McCain could do in the next four years.

Hillary apparently NOW thinks that she is being expected to be the one to pull out because she's a woman. It's sexism. WRONG. It's far more likely a reflection of the fact that she's RUNNING AS A REPUBLICAN. Pfffft.

Hillary Rodham Bush

2008-05-20T03:57:00.002-04:00

I quite liked Hillary when all this started. Well, perhaps "liked" isn't correct, but I admired her, and I thought she seemed strong and capable. On Obama's worst days (not recent days at all, frankly), I was tempted to see Hillary as the better candidate. And the way she keeps on fighting has some appeal.

But all of a sudden, I now see that she's just another Bush. Not in that "all politicians suck" kind of way. No, I mean, really: The same deal. Rules don't count unless they support my decisions, and truth is what I say it is.

We had hints of this with the issue of Florida and Michigan. I'm sorry their respective Democratic leadership were too stupid and put their voters' numbers on the line, and obviously a compromise should be reached. But Hillary has all along insisted that the delegates be seated based on the states' results - and Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan because *gasp* he was following the rules...

Now, she's insisting that the entire nominating process should be thrown out the window, and why? Because she's losing, according to the rules. So let's ditch them.

Clinton: 'This Is Nowhere Near Over'

I'm guessing she has some supporters who just adore this approach. They're probably prepared to argue that a president like this will get things done, and damn anybody who gets in her way. But the problem is, this is what we've had for the past two terms; somebody who thinks he is above the laws. The rules don't apply, and if the rules do get in the way, we can just destroy the rules and who the hell cares what happens to the country in the process.

Charmingly, she has almost come right out and promised everybody that she will be another Bush: "If we had the same rules as the Republicans, I would be the nominee right now." And oh yes, she's the stronger candidate, offering this proof: Karl Rove says so.

A lot of people are afraid of a Clinton presidency because they think she'll be another Bill Clinton. We should all be so lucky. She's another Bush.

All tied up and everywhere to go

2008-05-13T08:09:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Luther and I went out to Clearwater Beach in the afternoon, to play in a bit of storm surf and get the Honda's seats wet. The sky was blue, the sand was soft, the water was warm, and the Honda with its roof stowed in the trunk is a sweet ride.

When we got home to the Clearwater house, that poor Simplicity cat was in her spot at the front window, on the sagging futon, in quite a bad state. She had somehow managed to get her squirrel-on-a-string-on-a-stick toy wrapped around her neck, something that can only have gotten worse as she tried to escape the heavy stick, dragging it and squirrel from the back of the house to that spot in the front, where she waited for rescue. We have since taken the squirrel off the stick. Imagine if she'd had this accident occur while we were away on a longer trip!

Afterward, she hid. I think she had hurt a toe or something, but there is also her pride to consider. This morning she is in better spirits, and it is the bekbek that is a little blue. Luther has left once again for Georgia. ~sigh~

So on that note, the update: I now live in Florida. It is lovely. A good deal of our household things are still in Georgia. Luther graduated from college last week, but his son will not be finished high school until the very end of the month. So as a household, we are living in two places at once --me on a futon on the floor in Florida, but with an almost-complete (and looking lovely) office; Luther with the bed and the wireless network in Georgia. Another three weeks or so and we should be able to do the rest of the move, but of course the really big day, when we have well and truly finished with Georgia and live completely in Florida... will not happen until we have sold the house.

Want it? It's looking awfully nice these days... come on, you know you want to!

I like screen doors

2008-04-30T13:43:00.002-04:00

I
Like
Screen doors
And I cannot lie
Those other brothers can't deny

Er...

So here I am in Florida. I arrived Thursday, was shocked on Friday to realize I'd only been here for a day, got paid in the mail at my new house (and did the corresponding happy dance with bad singing accompaniment), got more work via Fedex, locked myself out, paid somebody to break the lock, replaced the lock, went for walks, discovered my bike is all but broken, and made a surprisingly nice chicken tikka masala, albeit with too much onion. And I sweated. I sweated lots. It was hot.

Then yesterday the temperature dropped, so much so that I left all the windows open last night, which led to my waking and prowling like a bad security guard several times during the night, but ultimately was a good choice because the house is nice and cool and I didn't run the A/C the whole time.

Today is gorgeous. In the 80s outside, but still getting there inside, all the windows open again. And yet I feel shut in.

I like screen doors. I want a lockable screen door at the very least on the back bedroom door (there is a door to the outside in the walk-in closet of the master bedroom at the very back of the house) and on the front door. It just seems like that'd make it feel more like I were enjoying the outdoors while I'm inside, working.

That is all.

Facing my mortality

2008-04-27T18:14:00.002-04:00

A strange thought today:

Simplicity is finally starting to relax after the move. There she is, sleeping in the early evening, purring when she's petted, yawning and stretching. I said to her, "I'm not moving you again. You'll grow old and die in this house."

And then I felt tears come to my eyes. And in a few moments I realized that I was sad not for the cat, but for me. I fully expect to move again, so it's not that. But I am on that side of my life, now, where the plans are at least in part about where I'll be when I stop making plans.

How odd, how beautiful, how sad.

Of course, it is worth noting that I am melancholy to begin with. My Luther is more than six hours away! Yuck. Got to fix that.

The house is marvelous, yadda yadda. More later.

Moving Day 1.0

2008-04-21T12:15:00.002-04:00

Moving Day 1.0 is complete. Luther and I spent several hours loading the U-haul truck on Friday, spent the evening in utter amazement at how tired a person can be, and got up the next morning to spend a day driving and then unpacking the same truck. Needless to say, I am sporting several new bruises - and am happy as a clam in a garlic cream sauce! Er... well, happier, really.

The house is so perfect for us that I am actually feeling homesick now. We returned to Georgia on Sunday, since there is work to be done on the house here, and I didn't feel good about leaving all of that to Luther and Wil. I will spend the next few days working (yay, I have work!) and working (boo, I need to finish painting the bathroom), and then we'll have Moving Day 1.1: I will pack up my little del Sol with my work stuff and Simplicity and head on back home to the boxes and the futons and the gorgeous lawn that needs mowing.

Today, I am leaving a comment on the blog kept by Cathy, one of the previous owners. Honestly, it tickled me pink to find her blog in the first place, and I am actually envious of hers and Kimball's new adventure even while I am in the midst of enjoying mine and Luther's. I remember once I was standing in a line in a CIBC bank in Toronto on pay day, and I was planning to deposit my check, and the fellow in front of me was planning to make a withdrawal, and I wondered why we couldn't just cut out the middle man and exchange our moneys right there on the spot. Sometimes we all find ourselves trading places with strangers and feel a little connection that is so quickly lost to the realities of daily life. Wouldn't it be nice to stop and have a drink together?

Moving Day 2.0 is TBA. Luther and Wil both have to finish school first! I hope we can find a buyer. And I admit, despite all my complaints about middle Georgia, I will miss this house - even while I am happily enjoying the new one.

Pictures later. I left my photo upload cable in Florida!

Utter foolishness, and a new home

2008-04-16T12:18:00.003-04:00

Today I spent an inordinate amount of time on Google Maps, using the "Street View" feature to travel virtually along some streets in our new neighborhood. I am eager to see the house and the water and the local stores.

Then I suddenly realized what I was doing and how utterly foolish I was being. I mean, we're moving there. We now own the house (and accompanying debt). We'll actually be there in person this weekend, and in another week I will be living there full time. I will be able to actually WALK on those streets.

Yes, we bought the house. We are moving to Clearwater-Dunedin, Florida. Woo hoo!

A classic case of conflict of interest

2008-04-04T14:26:00.005-04:00

Well, we are coming down to the wire, now. We close on the new home in just 11 days.

One of the things that excites me about the Tampa Bay area is all the wildlife. In particular, I love the little lizards!

I saw them for the first time on the other coast of Florida, near Patrick Air Force Base, south of Cape Canaveral, accompanying Luther on a "TDY" where I got to hang out by the pool while he and others in uniform talked about Things Somehow Important inside. Around the pool, there were pests - little lizards, darting here and there. I instantly fell in love, no doubt partly inspired by the sense of romance that went with the two of us everywhere we traveled, but in no small part also tinged with the exotic. Pests that aren't mice, rats, or bugs?! Pests that EAT BUGS?! What could be more magical?

In some parts of the Tampa Bay area, these lizards are so common that when one walks along a sidewalk, one must get used to the fact that little creatures will be darting across your path from the edge of the road to the bushes in the yard, startled by your presence. You just have to accept them and have faith that you are unlikely to step on them, as they move very fast.

Well.

As I look forward to the little lizards, I must face a certain conflict. Simplicity, also, quite enjoys little creatures that move quickly and enticingly. To prove the point, and warn us of things to come, this spring we are already seeing a far greater number of the little lizards in Warner Robins than we ever have in the past. Some of them are GORGEOUS - bright green, with bright orange neck pouches they thrust out in a flirtatious manner. But Simplicity has already taught me that they turn a rather sad, dark brown after they've been captured and punctured. Right now, she appears to be playing hockey on the back patio - and her puck is a very slick little baby lizard that skids quite excelently across the smooth pavement when struck with a skilled paw.

My poor, poor little lizards. ~sigh~

Simplicity has found her voice

2008-03-11T10:48:00.002-04:00

She only knows one word: MILK.

But who can resist a silent black shadow of a cat when she sees a white plate come out of the cupboard and suddenly brings music into the world? MEOW? MEOW!

Playing house

2008-03-07T11:53:00.004-05:00

Luther and I are back from Florida with a little tale to tell. One day, were looking at some houses. The next day, we were buying one.

We have a contract. Having been through this only once before, I am still hesitant to say that the house is ours, but presumably it will be so, and fairly soon. Now my life is supposed to be all about selling the house I am in right now, but it is difficult. A million times a day, my mind goes to the gorgeous little home near the water, a good six hours or so away from here.

Another thing about not feeling the house is "ours" has to do with the sellers. We met them at the house, and they were fairly marvelous. Not only was their pride and care showing in every corner of the house itself, but they also showed it in the sparkle of their eyes, and the willingness to laugh with a couple of strangers in their kitchen.

It is really nice knowing that, unlike all the other houses we saw, knowing more about the previous owners in this case only makes the house seem cooler.

Oh Daddy I'm so glad to see you but the Moustache Man is gone!

2008-01-29T08:21:00.000-05:00

Just poking my head in here to say hi to anybody who may be lurking. I will likely be resurfacing more properly in the coming weeks as I get used to the fact that I'M FINISHED SCHOOL YIPPEE!, but that resurfacing will likely involve ending this blog and starting something new. If you're a "regular," I will definitely let you know where to find the new digs.

Speaking of new digs, we are moving. T minus 5 months or so. Specific address yet to be determined, but it's looking pretty SWEET!

And I graduated.

That is all.

Is it to be believed?!

2007-10-15T19:51:00.000-04:00

I just caught a snippet of one of those "news" shows designed to outrage, and it worked. I was outraged at the guests who were expressing their outrage. The topic? A movie coming out, entitled The Golden Compass (I had to edit my post, because I'd called it the Golden Needle. Needle, compass, whatever...)

According to the guests, the movie -and moreso the books upon which it is based- is "dangerous" because it promotes atheism. One of the guests went so far as to pretend to care about freedom of speech by saying that of course everyone has the right to promote his ideas, BUT the author/publisher/producer should have to be up-front about what they're trying to do - in this case, to promote atheism to children.

Did I miss something? I haven't been in a bookstore for a while. Have "This is Christian propaganda" stickers been placed on the covers of the Narnia books?

I feel ill.

As time goes by

2007-10-02T14:37:00.001-04:00

For the past few days, I've been working on a test bank for a book entitled "Nation of Nations," an American history text. Some pretty interesting stuff. I have to say that the chapters pre- during- and post-Civil War, when talking about the South... describe attitudes and customs that are now FREAKISHLY familiar. Nothing has changed in the South except the costumes. Don't be fooled. This is just another remake, and not even a good one, at that.

But it's interesting. We talk about getting sick of the same old histories over and over again, but the truth is, Luther and I tend to be fascinated. If the boy is driven nuts by it all, well, that's all to the good. He needs to push himself onward and outward, and the best strategy I can come up is to do as we damn well please and see how that goes.

Take, for instance, the whole clock thing. The whole preoccupation with regimented time that took over the nation. People started to think in terms of time and work and play broken up into increments, and deadlines to be met at every turn. Interesting turning point in history.

Right now, I am downloading "2nd pass" (pre-production with artwork and page numbers) textbook chapters via FTP. I can't download the whole folder, so I have to do the chapters one-by-one. Each one takes long enough that I think about how I'm wasting my time, but each one is fast enough that I can't really get something else started in the time alotted. So in fact, at this moment I'm NOT downloading, because I've paused in order to blog.

The thing is... When did we start being frustrated that we couldn't do two things at once? I mean, when did it become such a habit that NOT being able to do two things at once - talk to a friend while driving, look at porn on the Internet while enjoying TV with the family in the livingroom (to give a few not-particularly-wholesome examples) - was such a damned PROBLEM?

Doing one thing at a time takes too long. I get bored. I want a snack and a backrub.

b

No racial divide

2007-09-21T07:39:00.000-04:00

Been busy lately. Gotta work. My partner in crime is soon to be retired again, so I better try to make some money, eh?

Meanwhile, I've been following the Jena 6 story, and I wore all black yesterday in protest (although it must be admitted that wearing black is not exactly unusual for me in any case). You can Google or Google News "Jena 6" for background. This morning's news has this:

Jena resident Terry Adams disagreed with any accusations that there might be a black-white divide in the area.

"We are not a racial town. We get along with each other, we get along fine. This is something that got out of proportion. It really has."

Jena's racial tensions were aggravated in August 2006, when three white teens hung the nooses the day after a group of black students received permission from school administrators to sit under the tree -- a place where white students normally congregated.

The guilty students were briefly suspended from classes, despite the principal's recommendation they be expelled, according to Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

A member of the LaSalle Parish School Board -- which had a role in supporting suspension instead of expulsion -- insisted the board is not prejudiced.

The panel felt it took the appropriate action, Jonny Fryar said.

"I talked to one of the parents, who called me and said their son thought it was a prank and naive to the fact of what it meant and he was sorry," he said.

"I hate to see people label us as something we are not. Because we have black students and white students playing football together. They shake hands, get along. This is an unfortunate incident. We hope that the community can heal." Source

Interesting.

Why did the black students need permission to sit where white students normally congregated? Had the white students previously obtained permission?

And then the kid saying he was naïve about what the nooses meant: So, he would have hung nooses there if some more white students had sat under the tree?

Yeah. There’s no black-white divide. None whatsoever.

Work snippets 3

2007-09-12T08:56:00.000-04:00

Working on Armesto, The World. Not a bad title. The World.

Item number 1:

They were anti-evolution. They didn't want to evolve. Their grandaddys never did it, they sure as HELL weren't going to do it either.

Item number 2:

15. The world’s first true democracies, offering women the same political rights as men, took shape in
a. Britain and the United States.
b. France and the United States.
c. Norway and New Zealand.
d. India and Sweden.

Interesting take on the word "true," isn't it? We still don't give everybody the same political rights. Here, at least, convicts can't vote. Children can't vote. Permanent residents can't vote. Only "citizens" vote, but hasn't that always, essentially, been the case? It's just that we're forever changing our definition of "citizen."

The actual text says this: "In politics, too, the new century opened with new departures. The world's first full democracies--full in the sense that women had equal political rights with men--took shape in Norway and New Zealand."

I'll edit the question to use "full." But it is still highly subjective. I would argue that if we distinguish the citizen from other types of residents, and if democracy is an activity by and for only the citizens, then a "full" democracy is one in which each citizen verifiably has a voice in the process, regardless of the non-citizens that have been left out altogether.

We don't have that now.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be inducted into an honors society. Don't hurt yourself as you fall out of your chair, laughing.

The Tops

2007-08-31T07:46:00.000-04:00

Gotta make this quick so I can get to work, but... My friend over at fatbrain.ca already posted a nice blog entry on a little phenom we've observed on Facebook, and I wanted to add my own little notes.

With Facebook, you can belong to a couple of "networks" decided by your school (if you have a school email account), your region (whatever you select), and your workplace. I've selected SPSU as my school, and Tampa Bay as my region, since I'm in the countdown to moving there. Facebook has now helpfully posted "stats" on the networks, based on what individuals have posted in their profiles with regard to favorite movies, music, books, etc.

My SPSU network's Top Books holds no surprises. As Diane (she of the fat brain) succinctly pointed out, the list of nine books includes a religious text, a book written for children, movie tie-ins, and books one is forced to read in school. I enjoyed comparing my SPSU list to Diane's LA-region list, actually. Perhaps it is significant that the Bible is in first place at SPSU, but drops to second place in LA, behind (of course) Harry Potter.

The main thing is that these are not lists that suggest a group of real "readers." What's your favorite book? I am a devout Christian, so it has to be the Good Book. And I love, love, love me some Harry Potter. Hmm. What else have I read? (Look at DVD shelf with those few books next to the DVDs.) Oh yeah! The novelization of Star Wars! I LOVED that book! It was exactly like the movie, but with WORDS! Hmm... what else? What was that book I read five years ago in High School? What was it, what was it...

I'm exaggerating. And using far too many words, yet again. But still...

Here's the part I found really interesting this morning, though: My Tampa Bay area network has ONLY SEVEN BOOKS in its Top Books list. The LA area and SPSU each have nine books listed.

At first I thought the Tampa people couldn't come up with more than seven choices. The odd thing about this is that their "Top Interests" has "reading" in the third spot.

And then it hit me: There were not enough agreements on Top Books to get true 8th and 9th place books in Tampa. There's um... something called... diversity of opinion! Their third-favorite interest (after music - apparently R&B ugh - and movies) is reading. READING EVEN COMES IN BEFORE FOOTBALL. And they're not all reading the same thing.

I am tentatively hopeful.

Fifteen for a moment

2007-08-20T13:32:00.000-04:00

As you know, I have yet to figure out why I'm blogging. With less and less of a sense of purpose, the post frequency is dropping. Oddly, at the very same time I am close to paying for a couple of domain names and have already signed up for a new blog space on... one of those other blog sites. Don't ask me why. I don't know the answer.

For lack of anything better, here's a quick update on what's going on in my life:

1. School has started again. This is supposedly my last semester before I graduate, and it is certainly my last semester for at least a year.

For my Information Architecture class, Dr. Shauf is doing podcasts, and wants us to subscribe via iTunes. I already have iTunes, though I rarely use it. Naturally, the subscription process is not working - just for me - for some unknown reason. Troubleshooting has led to my listening to my very small collection of ridiculously pop songs. Let's see how long they keep repeating before I kill something.

2. For my other class, Applied Graphics 1, I finally purchased my very own legal copy of Photoshop, as part of Adobe's Creative Suite 3, Design Standard. I very excitedly went to install the package... and I did not have enough RAM! WTF? My giant machine is apparently a weakling. So now, in addition to messing with an unhelpful iTunes, I am waiting for my 2-GB, $160 purchase of new RAM to arrive from Dell.

It turns out the ability to track your packages online is a bad thing. Painful. My RAM has been in Macon since early Saturday. For some unknown reason, DHL still doesn't plan to deliver it to me, a half-hour drive away, until Wednesday.

3. There is a little dog running around the neighborhood. He's ADORABLE, apparently a young Jack Russel, though the size of his ears suggests he may be mixed with something even cuter. He lies in the grass, eagerly watching me mow the lawn. He has lost his tags and clearly lost his people, and Simplicity, our poor cat... is FREAKED OUT.

They're about the same size.

4. Work is going well. Actually, I feel like it is going badly, but everybody I meet says that one cannot possibly expect it to go smoothly the first year, and so I am somehow not supposed to worry that I'll get to the end of the year and discover I've only made something like $5000 instead of the $30,000 minimum we need. Right now, I am trying to balance tight deadlines against the lack of 2nd pass pages for page references... okay, nevermind.

Luther has been working for me, much more productively than I myself work. If we have our druthers, he will leave his part-time co-op job sometime this semester, and starting next year he will be doing the same work I've been doing, editing and writing and all that jazz, and we will both work from home and drive each other happily insane.

He keeps telling other people that we are also going to be doing web design and perhaps some film work. I hope he has a plan for our figuring out how to do that stuff.

5. In two weeks, we're going to Tarpon Springs again, to start scoping it out in earnest as our future home. Wil is going to come with us; he has not voiced an opinion of any kind on his own future plans, so I've given up waiting and am going to plan MY life on the assumption that he'll be moving with us. If he spontaneously decides he has his own ideas about his future, I may kill him.

Luckily, we are going to look at mini-apartment buildings - a duplex or triplex. I already have my eye on a little place that is probably a complete dump, but it has palm trees in the front and I KNOW there are little lizards in the yard, so I'm all set. Since I doubt Luther will ever forgive me for killing his son, I think it will be convenient that we can have our own apartments with the office in the apartment in the middle. Perhaps over time, if I pretty myself up a bit and start making some decent money, he'll find a way to overlook my murderous ways.

Love is love.

Trust

2007-08-13T15:46:00.000-04:00

Simplicity had her annual shots today. This makes her an estimated three years old this month - based on our guess of "about a year old" on her first appearance on our back patio. Now that I see how she looks as a "grown" cat, however, I think she is probably a good deal younger. Can she have been only 6 months and have had a litter of kittens, when we gave her that first taste of the heavenly sliced ham? She was so tiny, then. It wasn't just the starvation thing going on.

This time, I didn't want to take her to the vet's in that cardboard box from Petsmart, so I finally got around to trying out the harness and tether I'd got for her several months ago.

It went okay. She hated it, but I don't know that she hated it any more than the box. She explored, rather frantically. She found that she had just enough leash to get around the back of the driver's seat and halfway up the fabric wall to my shoulder - but not enough to then claw her way into my lap, which is really just as well. She looked out the window. She decided the view was too alarming, and sprawled on the middle row of seating. I did pat the passenger seat beside me and convince her to come forward and leap up - but no, that was clearly not for her! Back behind me she went. Too much window in the front, I think.

Here's the thing: She trusts me. She was scared, and she was crying, but I'd talk to her and she'd quiet down. When I could stop and look back at her, she was always looking right at me. I think she sits there and stares at the side of my head, and just waits to see my eyes so she knows we're okay.

At the vet's (LOVELY doctor, whose name I've forgotten again - Critter Fixers in Bonaire) it was much the same as the last time. She was fine as long as my hand was on her shoulders. Then they took her into the back (this time, for ear mite drops, ewww!), and when she came back out, she looked like a tasmanian devil, all legs, all claws, all flying fur and teeth... and then I put my hand on her shoulders, and she was fine again.

The look she gives me, completely direct gaze, almost a searching gaze as she seems to actually look into my eyes for something... I've seen it once before. Amber: the kitten Mom got for me and Sarah when we lived on Alcina. Amber wouldn't go have her kittens without me. I was sitting on the toilet, and she ran out of her bed and lay down on the bathroom floor and started to have her first kitten. I had to pick her AND the stupid halfway-kitten up and run back to the bed under the desk. Amber trusted me. Simplicity, for some unknown reason, trusts me.

She has her territory. She is not going to like moving to Florida. But the key landmarks of her territory... appear to be us. So she should be okay.

Uninvited guest

2007-08-09T08:12:00.000-04:00

Apparently I cannot sleep after Luther leaves for work, at least without frightening dreams from which it is hard to wake up.

This morning, I got up and it was very quiet. I came through the office, and for some reason Luther had set up two cots, overlapping each other, neatly made with sheets and blankets and pillows all perfectly tucked and creaseless. I went downstairs, and there were lights on. There was food on the counter – refried beans and rice – right there on the counter, and as I looked around, the refried beans were kinda spattered everywhere, like someone had had a food fight. And there was a hole in the pile of rice, like someone had stuck a finger in it to make a hole for some reason. I realized the fridge was open, and I looked in the fridge, and there were egg shells – like someone had gone in there and eaten the raw eggs and left the shells. The place was really trashed.

It was still dark out, and the light on the patio went off, which made me look, and I went and tried to turn the light on, and it’d go on for a second and then flicker out again, so I couldn’t really see anything. I was kinda freaked out, because I’d thought maybe somebody was in the house. And then I thought, this has to be some kind of animal, but what animals around here can open refrigerators? So then I looked around, and as I got to the top of the stairs to the downstairs bedrooms, I looked down, and there was a really big skunk in front of the bathroom there, and I said, “oh no,” and I was really torn between fright and laughter, and I went upstairs and closed the doors, looking for my phone…

…and then I woke up, and I went downstairs, and the light in the kitchen was on…

Harvard boat yard

2007-08-08T08:34:00.000-04:00

Had a bad dream between the time Luther left this morning and the time I got up. Still feel kinda weird, now. I went down the street to sign Luther up for his P.E. sailing class at Harvard. He was taking a grad course there, and we were living there. Streets looked like the age and relative style of some of the little Greek-area streets in Tarpon Springs (and some of Toronto), concrete retaining walls straining at the seems along the cracked and buckled sidewalk, little lawns, little houses, short chain-link fences – but the houses were bigger and there was a definite Northern Atlantic feeling about the place. Harvard had bought and was renovating a Victorian next to a ramshackle boat yard, and the office for the sailing club was supposed to be there. I got to the Victorian with a couple of others. We had to climb a metal ladder (a la monkey bars) to the second-story landing to get into the house. This is where it started to go weird. When I set my foot on the landing, the wood gave. It was quite soft. In fact, the whole house was apparently made of some kind of papier mache, and it was rotting a little, and I said as much to the guys, but they were being all no-nonsense and talking amongst themselves, and then the two of them left and said that I and the one other guy, young skinny black guy, would carry on with whatever it was. So he and I went inside, had to open a window and climb through, and everything we touched or stepped on was giving that little bit, like it would fall apart any moment. And then we went through a doorway and I saw the hornet. There was a hornet in the corner of the door-jam, and I realized there was a nest built in the wall, and I sorta just started to think about the possibility – that it was a giant nest that filled all the walls of this paper house… and then we climbed out again and the dream ended.

Then I got up and went downstairs, and the sound of the fan in the den was like… lots and lots and lots of insects.

Good morning.

Adulthood

2007-08-05T22:38:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me how it happens. Sometimes, "Welcome to the world of adulthood" means "I'll pay you five bucks for something that adults do because it has to be done."

I'm trying to figure it out. I'll let you know when I do.

The three amigos

2007-08-04T08:57:00.000-04:00

There was a time when I much preferred the Periplaneta americana over the Blattella germanica. I now no longer have a preference - they're equally disgusting.

Over the past few weeks, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, go downstairs for some water, and be confronted by the three amigos - three two-inch-long cockroaches on the kitchen counter. They'd stop what they were doing as soon as I showed up, of course. You could see them pause, consider their options, glance slyly at each other. And then they'd scram. Stupid things are huge but nimble - they can get away via the tiniest crack in just about anything.

And you just knew that they had a pre-arranged meeting time for the next night, an hour or so after the humans went to bed. Chattin' it up, climbing all over everything, pooping and laughing. You see, our cockroaches are as big as field mice. And they poop a lot like field mice. Everywhere.

Also, they can fly.

Luther did eventually get them, one by one, but they have cousins. Lots and lots of stupid cousins who yes, live outside, but insist upon venturing into indoor territory upon occasion, just to make trouble.

Last night, Luther got up for a bit and went to the den to play on his computer. I was pretty restless too, so I got myself a soda (aka pop) and sat down in the dark in the office, with just the glow of my computer screen. So I'm sitting there, with my hands on the keyboard, and in the blue light... I see movement to my left. Damn gigantic cockroach has come scurrying up beside my arm to the edge of my desk and is LOOKING AT ME. Hmm. Whatcha doin? Wanna play?

I jump up and turn on the overhead light - and he is gone. No sign of him.

A while later, I go and say goodnight to Luther, and I come back upstairs and go to the bedroom and lie down. I decide to leave my light on just a little. I put my head on my pillow. And the damn cockroach crests the hill of the little pile of clothing on my bedstands. And stops. And looks at me.

I jump up and throw a clothing item across the room. I turn on the overhead light. And the bastard is gone. No sign of him, at least not until he suddenly appears on the other side of the bed.

Half an hour later, all the overhead lights are on, all the bedclothes have been torn off, there're magazines and lamps and clothing and books strewn across the floor and down the hall, the clothes hamper has been tossed down the stairs, and I'm standing beside it in my underwear with a flyswatter in one hand and a pillow case in the other, roaring in rage because the damn thing refuses to be caught and killed.

Luther is a better hunter-killer than I. He got the thing. But that crazy fellow got the last laugh. This morning I sat down once again at my computer, and I started to type... AND THERE WERE POOPS ON MY KEYBOARD.

ARRRRGH!

Work snippets 2

2007-07-29T16:39:00.000-04:00

From the forthcoming revised companion website content for Solomon, Introducing Philosophy, 9th edition, Oxford University Press:

One of the most important basic rights is the presumed right to own private property. John Locke listed three basic rights that would become the main ingredients of both the American Declaration of Independence and a political philosophy called liberalism: “life, liberty, and the right to own private property.” For Locke, private property is the bulwark of freedom and the basis of other human rights. One’s own body is private property in the most basic sense; no one else has the authority to violate it or use it without permission. But then Locke adds that the right to own property that one has helped cultivate with his or her body is also basic to freedom and human dignity.

"One's own body is private property ... no one else has the authority to violate it or use it without permission."

I’m surprised I haven’t seen abortion pro-choice arguments that speak in these terms, in terms of the right to own private property and, ultimately, to own that which you cultivate. The argument tends to focus, instead, on other rights, such as the right to privacy. Are they connected? I suppose that they are.

I can well imagine some extreme conservatives arguing that to “cultivate” a woman’s body is to plant seed in it and bring that seed to fruition. But I think in the modern world where our babies are not ensuring our survival in the same sense as they once were, we ought to be able to recognize a woman’s body may cultivate other things – a woman may cultivate ideas, arts, sciences, knowledge, creations with her hands and her mind, rather than purely with her womb. But really it comes down to who we consider “real citizens” in our world. If each citizen has the right to own and cultivate property, and if one’s own body is considered “private property,” and if a woman is a citizen... then no matter who may plant the seed, a woman's body is her property to choose to do with as she wishes.

The ONLY problem worth discussion is the relative value to the society versus the value to the individual, where we withdraw individual rights for the greater good. I must consider these actions as viable, since there are many individual rights - such as the right to gun-ownership - that I do not embrace, in favor of concerns for the health of a wider society. Is there value to the wider society in denying a woman's right to her most private property, such that this value is greater than the value to the individual, or, in fact, greater than the value of the individual?

Fundamentalists are, I suppose, arguing for what they perceive is the greater good. The trouble is that they seem unable to prove, outside purely religious justifications ("God said so"), that denying women the right to decide what happens with their own bodies is "for the greater good." My suspicion is that the society they desire to protect is a society in which women are subservient. Women cannot be truly subservient if they own their own private property and cannot be forced to use it to their masters’ benefit. So if the "greater good" is a society in which women "know their place" and the value of individual freedom stops at the nursery door... then abortion cannot be allowed.

If, on the other hand, we actually believe in and intend to protect freedom and equality, the answer must be otherwise.

A lesson in physics

2007-07-27T08:34:00.000-04:00

If the watched pot does not appear to be boiling, you have to ask yourself:

Is the stove lit?

Does the pot feel the fire?

Work snippets 1

2007-07-25T15:23:00.000-04:00

28. When Aristotle wrote about the soul, he was referring to
a. the unconscious mind.
b. the form of the body.
c. the spirit within the body.
d. the bottom of the feet.

Breaking the spell

2007-07-16T20:25:00.000-04:00

My Mom and Paul used to be pretty negative about some of my interests when I was a teenager. They didn't think much of science fiction and fantasy. I should really spend time on activities of better quality.

Somehow through my travels and college and all my friends as an adult, my world did expand. I still treasure some of the books, but they represent one of a million possible interests. Now, a book has to be really good. It's not enough that it's "the kind of stuff I love."

And now, I live with Wil. Wil likes fantasy and video games and Japanese-animated TV shows to pretty much the exclusion of anything else. I think fantasy is still amusing in small doses, but the "I am a devout follower" attitude Wil sometimes displays is... icky. We were at Target the other day, and he fairly snapped to attention when an ad for Harry Potter came on the TVs for sale. Good God, you don't have to swear your undying devotion. It's not like you hadn't heard Harry Potter was coming out.

Luther seems to pretty much hate it, too. From saying Japanimation "sucks" to Wil's face, to outright dismissing the fantasy and the games, he's pretty clear: "Real" things are better, and "fantasy" is not "real." If Wil had many interests, I think it would be fine. But the be-all-and-end-all thing is unacceptable.

The other night, Luther's channel-surfing landed us on C-Span, for a speech Garrison Keillor was giving to a library association. It was a really good speech. Garrison was talking about the magic refuge of a library in the face of all the horrors of his youth, and that magic extended to all kinds of books, and I thought about how great it would be if Wil developed a passion for something like reading in a library. Normally I can't stand how Garrison Keillor talks, but this particular speech was so good, it was casting a kind of spell. It wasn't just me; Wil made some responsive noises. He was actually listening.

Then I made a big mistake. I got up to see if I could coax the cat inside. When I came back in, Wil was putting his shoes on to go try to get the cat. He'd stopped watching. I'd broken the spell. I insisted we stay on C-Span, hoping Wil would sit back down. But after he came back inside, he went and got his laptop computer.

Right now, as I write this, I am sitting in front of the TV. But I'm beginning to think laptops should be banned in front of the TV. Do one thing or the other. You cannot do both, and there is something... rude about pretending. It's like the old headphone thing. I don't know you can hear me, and I assume you're not listening to me or don't find me interesting enough to put the headphones down. It's rude. And I'm just as guilty of this, with the computer and the TV.

In Wil's case, he is patently not watching TV. With shows he actually likes and used to watch constantly... he turns them on, but he's not looking at the TV, and he's not listening to the TV sound. And the other night, he was no longer listening to Garrison Keillor's speech. He was playing a game or looking at his favorite web sites.

And I'm torn. (If nothing else, one must consider the irony of being frustrated that a kid is not watching the TV.)

I know that I learned a lot from my interest in sci-fi as a teenager. I met a lot of people, and I gradually broke out of my shell while leaning on the safety of limited challenges. "Limited challenges" says it all. You didn't have to try hard to be accepted among - I'm sorry, but sci-fi and fantasy fandom isn't exactly brain surgery. It didn't take long for me to figure out that I could do better, but it was easy. It was safe.

So I say to myself, "it can't be bad that Wil has interests. Encourage him to pursue them, and he'll meet people, make friends, and learn. And then he'll move on, just like I did."

But it's so frustrating. It turns out, when you live with a young person, you want to share things that you think have value. And the blank stare, the dutiful "okay," and the completely false "I'm going to go to bed now" [I'm going downstairs to watch shows I like and play games that interest me] are all so disappointing.

And now I'm faced with a new problem. I'm only just turning 40, and I am honestly beginning to dislike "all these newfangled gizmos and technologies."

The laptop in front of the TV is a prime example. Wil doesn't ever have to really pay attention to anything that isn't in his interest area. We can watch a TV show, and he can "be with us" but enjoy his own interests. Now if he reads the news at all, he accesses it by using his Wii video game - and the stories are so obviously already filtered for what a Wii audience will likely find of interest. In the past few days, I've been pleased to discover that Wil is playing one of his video games while on the phone with a friend. I was thrilled that he actually was socializing. And this evening, I heard the name of his friend - and unless I completely misunderstood, it's his cousin in North Carolina.

The cell phone makes it possible for him to have a playmate without going out and making new friends. He doesn't even have to use the internet and make computer friends! He can just use the old friends that were given to him by family.

These technologies were supposed to bring us together. They were supposed to make things easier. And they are, they are! But... they also make it increasingly easy for a kid to completely surround himself with his safe zone.

So... I'm not sorry I had the fun I had, when I was younger. And I know that I learned some wonderful things and read some great books that Mom and Paul would still never consider reading. And maybe if Wil comes with us to Florida, where there are nutty things like sci-fi and fantasy conventions that he could go to, he'll stretch a little and see a bit of the world. But I have to say, I have a newfound understanding of the challenge this stuff represents.

I broke one spell the other night, clumsily. The Garrison Keillor speech was cool, and I broke it. But Garrison was also talking about running away to a safe zone. Hiding among the books. I'd like to see the larger spell broken, now.

Thank goodness it's Luther's problem and not mine, eh?

Survey about childhood

2007-07-16T13:27:00.000-04:00

I haven't filled out many of these surveys lately, but it's that kind of Monday and I need a little break. So here we go:

1. Are you a child of the 70s, 80s, or 90s?
60s and 70s

2. Where were you born?
St. Joseph's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

3. What city did you grow up in?
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

4. Did you have a good childhood?
Yes. (So far this is a pretty boring survey, I must say.)

5. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A famous author or an astronaut. A hero.

6. What do you want to be now?
Rich. It would be nice if I could get to that point by being a famous screenwriter, an actor, or an astronaut.

7. Name the first memorable vacation you took as a kid.
Vacations were all memorable - they were VACATIONS. Feeding squirrels and chipmunks in my lap in a campsite at Silver Lake definitely ranks right up there, though. Any trip by myself by bus to Ottawa was cool. England and France and Scotland with Mom and my sister when I was 10. Easter egg hunt on Easter weekend in a posh apartment hotel in New York City. That kind of thing was always great.

8. What was your first best friend’s name?
I'm not sure. I guess maybe Dina, though we weren't friends for long. There were the kids on my street, but we were just thrown together by geography and ageism.

9. Are they still your friend?
Not a chance. My oldest friend is Liz Bischof, from grade 6.

10. Can you name all the schools you ever attended?
Nope. I don't have a clue what the name of the Montessori school might have been [edit: Dad wrote to tell me it was York Montessori School]. And I went to a couple of different High Schools for summer and evening classes, but I only remember West Toronto for sure. Other than that, let's see...
Alpha, Toronto, Canada (free school)
Dewson Public School, Toronto, Canada (elementary)
Hillcrest Public School, Toronto, Canada (elementary)
Lord Landsdowne Public School, Toronto, Canada (intermediate)
Harbord Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Canada (secondary)
Subway Academy II, Toronto, Canada (alternative secondary)
West Toronto Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Canada (secondary summer school)
Central Technical School, Toronto, Canada (secondary)
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada (post-secondary, undergraduate)
Southern Polytechnic State University, Marietta, Georgia (graduate school)

11. Were you closer to your mom or dad as a kid?
I really think it was about the same. We each had things that we shared independently.

12. What was the first record, tape or CD you remember buying?
The first I remember... probably Star Wars, on vinyl.

13. How old were you when you first heard of Chuck Norris?
No idea. Twenties? I am not a fan.

14. Are you scared of anything?
Yes. Every time Luther is working with the saw or a big knife, I am completely unreasonably afraid. I'm terrified of the unseen under-the-surface environment of water, especially murky, muddy, weedy water. I'm scared of a lot of things, actually.

15. How old were you when you wanted to get your ears pierced for the 2nd time?
A couple of weeks ago I thought about it. I was 39.

16. Did you buy school lunch or bring your own?
There was no such thing as school lunch, until the cafeteria at Harbord. I brought my own, or bought a sandwich or pizza slice at the store, or went home for lunch. Sometimes at Lord Landsdowne I would buy a sandwich (bologna on a fresh, crusty kaiser roll with mustard, yum) and trade it in the schoolyard, usually for fried rice.

17. Broken any bones or had any freaky accidents as a kid?
I fell off a swing once and went to the hospital. I'd hit my head pretty badly. I was very little...

18. Were you a mean kid?
No, I was a sucker. I didn't even want to be mean. I wanted to save everybody.

19. Favorite board game of all of all time?
Pictionary.

20. Did you play house or pretend to be a super hero?
We put on plays in the back yard, and we pretended to be in the Lord of the Rings. Long before the movies, I might add.

21. What was your favorite class in elementary school?
Ancient History. Although I liked math quite a bit. Actually, I think I liked all my classes. Except maybe gym.

22. Seriously, are you still just a kid at heart?
No. Yes. Uh... yes. I still think I'm a little kid and everybody else knows more than I do and is more confident than I am.

23. Did you ever come close to dying?
I thought so at the time. I had pneumonia. In the emergency room, I tried to give messages to my Mom to give to my friends when I was gone.

A recovering book-a-holic

2007-07-15T13:14:00.001-04:00

In 30 seconds flat, Diane Wright got me hooked on Library Thing, and the funny part is, I don't read.

I am not a reader. But I used to be one. I could play one on TV, given half a chance and perhaps some plastic surgery.

When I was much younger, I shared a library with my Dad. People we knew, and people they knew, would come to our house, browse our collection, scrawl their names on a sheet of paper, and go away with artifacts from our bookshelves. Often, they returned them.

I learned to see books and bookshelves as reflections of myself. Other people might put photographs of their grandchildren up, or set out their fine collections of miniatures, or decorate their kitchens with cute cow-print items. For me, good bookcases full of books I decided I liked enough to keep offer an opportunity to say something about myself to visitors.

Alas, Luther and I do not do whatever it takes to have visitors, and my books and his are in cupboards and closets. And my book collection has shrunk, due to the pressures and necessities of moving. And, since I don't read, and since when I did read, I read almost exclusively science fiction... my book collection is not what you'd call "impressive" among the literary set.

Still, the books say something about who this Becky person is, or was before she became bekbek, certainly before Georgia. And when there's a newer edition in the mix... they say a lot about how much I loved them, when I was a reader. Enough to buy them again, even though I don't read them again, because they simply ought to be on my shelves.

Now it is July Ninth

2007-07-09T21:08:00.000-04:00

I am finished my summer semester. Luther has three or four weeks left to his summer semester. Wil has been on summer vacation for several weeks, and goes back to school in almost exactly a month. It is tempting to insert some dig about what he may have accomplished in that time, but whatever. Why shouldn't he look bitterly back upon his first 20 years and wonder why he wasted them just like the rest of us?

I still don't know about the blog thing. I am about ready to purchase a couple of domain names. I'm tempted to move to Wordpress because that's where all the cool templates reside. I still don't have a purpose for keeping a blog, and I don't "keep" it regularly in any case.

But I am a semester away from having my Master of Science in Bullshit*. So I figure it is time to celebrate.

Bring on the dancing monkies.

*I have had some questions about this statement, so allow me to explain: I am essentially getting my degree in rhetoric, which is not quite the same thing as bullshit. However, on most days I feel like I'm pulling a fast one, just tricking my way through it all, just like when I was a kid and discovered that as long as an exam required an essay answer, I was getting an "A" regardless of whether I ever read or studied the class materials. I do study, now. I do work hard. I have somewhere developed high standards for myself and for others. On the really good days, I remember this and am proud. Most other days... ~shrug~ Bullshit.

2007-07-06T22:32:00.000-04:00

I have this idea that the movie, Pleasantville, is like... an American studio version of Antonioni. I shall pursue this. But there is all the joy of reality and chaos... in a controlled and tied-up tale. All the ideal with none of the... experience.

Thinking about it. Percolating, if you will.

An exceptional mind

2007-07-01T09:27:00.000-04:00

Luther is doing some work for me, revising a supplement for a textbook on African-American History. Meanwhile, in my class on Medical Communication, one of the ongoing discussions over the past few weeks has been about race and children's learning materials, prompted by our analysis of an asthma management simulation prepared for black kids in Atlanta. This morning, once again, our activities crossed paths in a little discussion.

I was a bit fired up (I know, it's difficult to imagine, right?) about the whole idea that a kid wouldn't "see herself" in the simulation unless there were a kid of the same skin color in that simulation. Why wouldn't a kid identify with another person, regardless of skin color?

The whole thing brings to mind how often I heard, growing up, that "girls don't have any good role models." The idea was (and still is, no doubt) that a girl couldn't aspire to be an astronaut, school principal, mayor, or mob boss unless she saw women in those positions. THIS DROVE ME NUTS. When I saw an astronaut, I never thought, "wow, if only I was a man so I could do that." Kids don't limit themselves like that unless we tell them to, such as when that guidance counselor told me I was being ridiculous for choosing "fireman" on my careers survey, because that's a man's job.

Luther listened patiently. And then he said: "You also have to take into account that you have an exceptional mind."

I said: "But I really don't believe that!"

And he said: "Well, that's because you're stooopid."

Wise, wise words for a Sunday morning.

New car

2007-06-20T17:34:00.000-04:00

I fell in love with a new car the other day. Check it out:

It's actually way cuter in person than in pictures. "Adorable" is the word I kept repeating. At about $8500 used, with 60,000 miles on it, I'm sure not going to buy it, but wow. It gets 50 miles to the gallon. Hybrid gas-electric.

Truly adorable. Luther said, "but it has no back seat!" and I said, "That's how I like 'em!" (Okay, I didn't, but it was something to that effect.)

Anybody want? Come on down and visit. I'll take you over there.

Ragin' Cajun

2007-06-04T17:15:00.000-04:00

Does James Carville have a fan club? Paraphrased: "I am not going to ask for lower taxes when there are American children out there without healthcare. I am not going to ask for lower taxes when U.S. troops don't have the equipment they need to survive in Iraq."

I don't want you to miss my stirring story about the arrowhead I found, so don't be thinking this is my only recent post. But I had to rant. I just had to.

He rocks.

Cupid was a litterer

2007-06-04T15:02:00.000-04:00

I found this in the backyard yesterday (June 3rd, 2007).

What you can't really see in the scan is that there is a ridge down the center, and another two fainter ridges at the top. Though clearly well-worn and not conclusively (to my eye) man-made, it appears to be an arrowhead.

For those of you who haven't been here (insert guilt trip for almost everybody), we have a fairly large yard for a city property, the largest in our neighborhood. The house was built in the 1960s, and before that, these would have been woods with trails and not much else. We're "downtown" by virtue of the city having grown so very fast.

The yard is notorious (among the small sample of Wil, Luther, and myself) for the number of bricks, marbles, and army men that we manage to pull up from the soil. We have also found cinder blocks, railroad ties, oyster shells (that shine startlingly in moonlight when they are first exposed by the rain), and the occasional piece of concrete yard art in the form of frogs and rabbits, their shapes marred and chipped over years of tumbling in the dirt. A rock that looks -and moreso, feels- like it could well have been bound to a stick as a primitive weapon actually seems quite a reasonable find.

But is it really an arrowhead? Couldn't it just be a rock? I've no way of knowing, but I lean toward the arrowhead, as does Luther. Recently, it finally rained after several months of dry spell. After the rain, the night was loud with frogs. I had forgotten the frogs. They've been quiet since last year. They had no voices until the rain. And their sound all through the night... speaks of wilderness and history.

###.....@.....K...............$....##

2007-06-02T16:03:00.000-04:00

**disclaimer (and warning): the version I've found does crash pretty readily. I am pouting as I type. You should be able to save your games, but damn... if it's this unstable, I don't know...**

I found Larn to play on Windows. I used to play this as a teenager at Softquad, on a UNIX mainframe. If the past hour is any judge, it still has the power to hook me. COOL! It's text-only. I mean, not some kind of story game. No, I mean... text characters define the visual landscape.

If you must, look it up on Wikipedia. If you just want to play, go here to download the game. Save it to your computer. Unzip it. In the Win32 folder, double-click on the *.exe file. (It might not work if you already have Vista, but it does work on XP.)

I am totally happy. This is just the treat I needed!

p.s. Type ? to get the commands.

Moving day

2007-06-01T14:39:00.000-04:00

I never expected to be in Georgia for this long.

I wasn't against the idea. I didn't think staying was really a possibility, so I didn't think much about it. My boyfriend was in the military. We'd have to move.

I think that's part of why it feels so odd to watch others leave, while we stay. I want to feel sad, because they won't be my neighbors anymore, and I like having them as my neighbors. But I don't feel sad, because I never thought we'd be neighbors for long in the first place.

Anita and Anita's husband were from Texas. Mr. Anita got a job here, with the base. Then Anita got sick with cancer and went back to Texas. After she died, Mr. Anita gave me all their frozen food. Luther was deployed, and I lived on this huge stash of frozen, homemade tamales. They were and always will be the best tamales ever.

I think the man that moved into their apartment still lives there. But we bought this house, and got new neighbors.

Steve and Stella live across the road from us. They are Greek Americans, but they're Greek like I'm Welsh. We went over there for ice cream, once, and they showed us pictures of their kids and grandkids and great grandkids, and they talked about who in the pictures had passed away, and who had what disease or condition. We pick up their paper whenever they go away to visit their kids.

Stella doesn't walk much anymore. Steve works on his lawn, slowly but thoroughly. Only lately, the lawn's been getting a bit overgrown. Today, there was a moving truck on the driveway.

And me? I feel like a little kid with my chin on the window sill, watching people leave but not really understanding they can just be gone from my life, and no longer be my neighbors.

Like I said, it's odd.

That's SUPERstar, thank you!

2007-06-01T08:20:00.001-04:00

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Shopping for a new home

2007-05-31T06:55:00.001-04:00

I would tell you that working at home is nice, and it is, but I'm stressing out this week and am having some trouble summoning the enthusiasm. The workplace where one is told what to do, and most of one's time is wasted, is emotionally draining. But the stress? Low. Being at home and self-employed is emotionally satisfying, and often intellectually stimulating, but... AAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!

More on that later.

Meanwhile, I have also discovered that my adorable little office, the second room of our little "Master suite" of two small bedrooms with a bathroom between them, with the desk at the window so I can see the daylight and the trees and the squirrels... gets very, very hot from around 2 p.m. onward. Hot like, my hands start sweating on the keyboard. And this is with the A/C going.

As a result, I have now moved to the downstairs den, the disgarded, 2nd-class office space, very nice, visually warm, lots of space, good furniture, TV... but no real window to look out of. One ought to feel cut off in this room. I guess I'll find out, but I now know this:

When we start shopping for houses in Florida, windows ALL the way around the office might not be a workable plan.

Tuesday morning idiocy

2007-05-22T07:51:00.000-04:00

Haven't been blogging. Work is piled up. School started again. But I'm around, and I do take the time to read a little casual news with my morning coffee.

Today's gem: Yet again, the Bush administration is suggesting that it's important to choose your words carefully.

The Bush administration is lecturing others on the importance of words.

One more time: Bush

It

Is it just me?

It is to shake one's head at in disbelief.

How many morons does it take to elect a president? And then do it again?

From CNN.com, Carter: Anti-Bush remarks 'careless or misinterpreted", "Deupty White House press secretary Tony Fratto, with Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, said Monday: 'I think it just highlights the importance of being careful in choosing your words.'"

Wow, that's some kind of strategery, eh?

Neighborhood Walk program

2007-05-20T16:49:00.000-04:00

You know, when you get a puppy, you should be committed to walking it, right?

If you have children, I think maybe you should be committed to at least that level of commitment to their exercise.

But that's a bit of an aside.

I was thinking about how Wil walks home from school every day. He takes the bus in the morning - which is probably a wise control on his time. And he walks home in the afternoon. I think he's taking some pride in having done this now for three semesters in Georgia. He's now 17.

What if our neighborhoods that say they're so much about families and children were to implement a neighborhood walk program? Volunteer-based, with maybe some assistance from the city or county depending on the need. Two adults, preferably from different families, for each day and each route, to walk children home on a set (and published) route. It could even be one adult volunteer and one High School Junior or Senior volunteer - giving our older teens who AREN'T into sports a chance to participate in something physical. They could even win awards, at least certificates, but certainly could have some volunteer work and responsibility to report when applying for jobs.

The idea would be that people who are uncomfortable with having their kids walk home would be able to allow it (or more likely, mandate it) knowing that the walk was supervised. Even better, the walk would be a community involvement for the child.

There are a lot of kinks to consider. The kid across the road from us is learning to play the trombone. That sucker is more than half her size, and she's not all that physical to begin with. That's where I'd start looking for neighborhood donations and other assistance. Professional musicians can get instrument cases with proper straps for one thing - so they can carry over the shoulder or on the back. But would it be enough to, say... have all the kids in the group take turns carrying the heavy loads? I dunno.

And there are other little things. What if one of your neighborhood walkers wants to read from the Bible while the kids walk? What if another one dares to mention he's an atheist?

Each neighborhood could sort something out. Their ability to do so ought to be a fair indication of their real willingness to invest in their kids.

Just a thought. I like the idea, but would I volunteer? Hmm.

Let me consider that AFTER moving to Florida.

Craving order

2007-05-11T22:25:00.000-04:00

I'm really starting to loathe the media. It's sad, because I actually generally think the anti-media hype is stupid. But this thing of constantly shocking people is ridiculous.

I just watched a segment on TV about young women taking vows in a strict religious (christian, not that it matters) order. WHY would they do such a thing? WHAT WOULD DRIVE THEM to sacrifice a future of love and family? WHAT KIND OF RELIGIOUS PASSION goes into such a dedication? Oooh, it's so shocking and weird!

Duh.

It's not weird.

Any 20 year old ought to be able to tell you it's not weird, actually. I did it. I felt it at 15, but I couldn't face telling my parents, so I did nothing about it. What was I considering? The military.

Yeah, I know, it's weird. But I thought about it. I never figured out there were recruiters to talk to, or it probably would have been a done deal. I had NO IDEA how the military thing worked. But I knew this: Once you join, all the answers are their answers. You no longer have to come up with your own, and in fact, you're not supposed to come up with your own.

It's so SEDUCTIVE!

I think any sane person who stays in the military finds some reason, some purpose. It might be "I'm supporting my family," and it might be, "well, who else is going to tell me what to wear?" but when push comes to shove, young people who join the military do grow up.

And I think sane people who join a religious order go through something of the same. They develop a sense of purpose. It may be twisted and weird to us, but given they've been living in seclusion, it probably feels like it makes sense.

In both groups, I think quite a number started, by and large, here: Wow, I have no purpose, and I have no power, and my current course of action seems so.... meaningless. If I do this other thing, no matter WHAT I do, people will honor me for the choice I've made. My life will MEAN SOMETHING.

It's seductive, as I've said. Especially since you have to make NO personal sacrifice to have it. Yeah, yeah, the show I was watching talked about how these young women had to "give up" their relationships... and I cry, "bullshit." Relationships are HARD. Show me somebody who doesn't think so. Talking to other people is hard. We all know it. I know people who've totally DITCHED other people just cuz they can't be bothered, cuz it's too difficult, because other people have expectations, ugh. So what do you give up when you join a special little nunnery? Oh that's right. You give up...

...all responsibility.

100% of the time, your decisions are made FOR you, by somebody else. You never decide. God has made your decisions, or the order has chosen for you how to relate to God. You're done. The clothes you put on in the morning. The food you eat. The books you read. The time you have to talk to your parents. Decision made.

The show picked on young women that were educated, like education should somehow negate religious passion. Education doesn't provide security, especially for young women. But a religious order?

All the certainty in the world. There will no longer be questions. You'll be safe forever.

I think there's some of that for the soldiers, especially the young soldiers. I understand the financial decision, and I certainly understand the lure of the culture (a little bit of unabashed socialism in an otherwise capitalist society? shoot, I gotta say, I love the military when I'm here in the States). But for some people, I can't believe they AREN'T swayed by the certainty. Here, the rules are set. You do what they say, and you'll be taken care of.

There are no questions.

No wonder this country is so religious.

Freaky.

Instinct

2007-05-11T13:58:00.000-04:00

As a near-40 woman with no babies of her own, I've reached that special time in my life when I wonder things like, "do I love the cat TOO much?"

Thank goodness I'll (probably) outlive her. Yeesh.

Color me drab

2007-05-08T14:20:00.000-04:00

I have pretty much settled on the colors for the exterior of our split-level ranch house. It's been in dire need of paint since before we bought it, and now that we've added some patches of white primer over the baby blue siding, we really are going to have to get it painted fast, before we become permanent "bad neighbors."

I showed my colors to Luther, and he said they were pretty boring.

But here's the thing: A split-level ranch IS BORING.

Quick, try this: Go to your nearest paint supplier and look at all the brochures with pictures of houses. Or if you're lazy, do some web surfing on "how to paint your house," and look at all the pretty photos showing examples of how various color combinations work. And tell me, do you see any ranch houses in the examples?

No.

Because they're BORING.

A long time ago, I decided that a small room should be painted a dark color. White paint is not going to make a small room bigger. It's just going to raise the light levels so that you can really see the clutter of trying to crowd your belongings into such a small space. Dark paint... is cozy. It's right for a small space.

Our house is a split-level ranch in an oddly woodland setting in the middle of town. Let it be simple and calm, with colors that blend inoffensively with the trees and the leaves.

That's it. That's my plan.

Supernova

2007-05-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

Last night I had another super dream in which I was a super spy or cop or something or other. It was clear this morning, but I decided not to blog about it, and now it is unclear. If you read my previous blog entry, please note that there is uncertain and unclear, and the former is okay, but the latter is just plain annoying.

In any case, near to the end of the epic dream, I was walking down my street (not at all Virginia Avenue, not quite Alcina in Toronto, not Grace, not... anyplace, but a combination of all), and it was night time, and the sky was crystal clear, and I was looking up and saw one star blink.

It blinked.

And then, it exploded.

I saw a sphere of red light grow out of the star, and then sharpen, and then pull back inward, and the star faded to a dull red, where before it had been white and bright and large.

Then the star fell. And I caught it. It was a mechanism about a foot in diameter. Later, as I was walking up my walkway at my house, the weird guy from halfway down the street came up in a miniature golf cart and didn't say a word about it, just grabbed the mechanism and handed me a floppy credit card and said, "call that number and give them your bank account," and took off down the sidewalk back to his house.

Luther said he'd go watch TV in the basement, so I could call the number. Obviously it would be classified and he shouldn't listen. I scoffed at the whole thing. But I called the number. I was hoping for a big payoff.

I woke up thinking about the lottery.

Again.

And then tonight, upset about something and not quite wanting to go to sleep yet, I read the news.

CNN: Giant exploding star outshines previous supernovas

I'm in my jammies. I'd like nothing more than to go for a walk, especially since I can hear the teenager's voice downstairs and don't have my own TV to drown him out. But... I'm in my jammies. And I'm already sleepy. And it's probably cloudy.

But I'm thinking... my exploded star was talking to me.

My very own exploding star.

Cool

Shifting gears

2007-05-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

Somtimes I am overwhelmed with the anti-uncertainty movement, everybody so certain that "good" can only be defined as "certain" or "reliable" or "dependable," known versus unknown, expected and even required versus unexpected and completely voluntary or even unnecessary or even arbitrary. I feel like the surprising, the frightening happenstance that is the real world has already slipped away, now out of reach, and if I don't concentrate very hard, I'll lose even the memory of truth.

But the truth is this: Sometimes, when you're driving to work at 7:30 in the morning, the clutch in your little Honda del Sol decides to self-destruct. And it's scary because you're in traffic and your car doesn't exactly not-go, instead making rude noises and behaving quite erratically, if that's even a word. Later, after several nice socket wrenches have bit the dust, and your boyfriend has a bruised rib from where the transmission fell on him, you'll get back into your car to drive to work once again, and you won't feel certain about the clutch.

You'll wonder if it could happen again.

And the movement of your car at 75 mph doesn't seem like quite as good an idea as it had previously.

But you keep driving. And when your brakes fail on the way home from work, you still don't actually crash into anything, but you consider the possibility on several occasions. And the next time you get to drive the car, you put your foot on that brake pedal and cringe inwardly, almost certain that it won't work, and the car will not stop after all, even though it has a brand new (actually, refurbished) brake master cylindar. You're almost certain that there is never a way to stop, ever again.

The truth is this: There is no certainty at all, even about the bad and scary things. The brakes will work most of the time, and sometimes they won't work, and you'll drive to work at 75 mph knowing this. And really, isn't that pretty marvelous? What an adventure!

But I'm surrounded by people who don't want to be on an adventure, you see. And they'll insist, every time something scares them, that the world must be changed to ensure that this something can never, ever happen again. So they close their emotional fists around all the somethings, and they shut out possibility altogether, leaving only a sweaty palm and darkness.

I'm going to put this blog to rest soon. I might start another. Or I might not. I really don't know what will happen.

Semi-live blogging: The GOP debate

2007-05-03T20:37:00.000-04:00

8:39 pm

They were all looking surprisingly good for a bit, there. I disagreed with them on several points, but I was impressed with some on several other points. One fellow - I think it was Huckabee, but I'm not sure - actually said what I've been waiting for: "What we did with Iraq was wrong. It was a mistake. But we can't leave, because we have to clean it up." I'm paraphrasing. I'd go further. But I was surprised to hear it.

Sadly, they turned to Roe v. Wade. All but Gulianni made me ill. And Gulianni left it up to States' rights, which I don't believe in.

Made me ill. I can't help it.

Now (8:41) they're talking faith. Ugh.

I'm thinking, could it be that the U.S. shows that I watched as a child were Canadian-version U.S. shows? Because I remember when the U.S. was founded on reason, not faith.

But the GOP says it was otherwise.

8:45 pm

Okay, Gulianni needs to stop talking about what he DID, and start talking about what he thinks and believes. Yes, a record is important, but we can look the record up. The news people will surely do it for us, when they've got some down time. This is an opportunity to respond to some questions, and when you veer away from them, you better have something more to say than, "when I was Mayor of New York..."

8:48 pm

Wow, they're totally losing me now. I mean, I could never embrace a GOP candidate, but now I'm creeping out on them.

Also, let us note that McCain had better be GONE after this. He's been tanking already, but tonight he totally lost it. Yeah, let's attack Iran. Good choice. Way to go.

8:57 pm

One thing I've liked about Gulianni in this debate is that he's at least once said, "it's up to the judges." I am sick to death of these "leaders" failing to recognize the rule of law and the constitutional role of the judiciary. "Activist judges" indeed --it is their JOB to decide how the Constitution applies to present-day matters. You don't like it? Tough.

We just had a break. We left the TV on, but we talked about Obama. He worries me. I'm about ready to buy a t-shirt, and he worries me. I'm not sold. Mainly, I don't think that I can "vote" (support: I can't vote, so it's a virtual thing) for somebody who says we have to get out of Iraq. I agree, yes, we have to get out. But we can't JUST LEAVE. We put them where they are, and we made a mistake. As I said earlier, we need to admit the mistake --as a nation, we ought to apologize to the Iraqi people, actually, and bizarrely I think that would help, at least with the educated population that understands how this representative democracy works. We made a mistake as a nation, but now we're going to stay because we have to help clean it up.

NO democrat has the nerve to do this, yet. But Luther makes this point: There are stages to the nomination and election process. Now is not that time.

That's fine, but Obama better leave that window open if he wants to do something grand. Leave it open just a crack. Say you want our troops home. But say you need to become leader first, before you can get all the intelligence necessary to figure out how to do it best.

Back to the stupid GOP...

9:03 pm

WOW. Mcain, paraphrased: We have to make the tax cuts permanent, and we have to cut some expenditures.

I used to semi-like McCain. That's what started the Obama talk -- Luther and I were talking about how McCain has to win so far before he can show his true colors. And I'm sorry, but no. He's too much of a whore now. It's sickening. Whey would we have any reason to think he wouldn't be like this as a leader?

9:08 pm

Wow. This is actually pretty interesting! But the wine with dinner is hitting my brain to the point that even if you were interested in this topic (which you probably weren't), I wouldn't satisfy you. I shall add links to any pertinent blogs I find.

'Night.

b

9:11 pm I CAN'T HELP IT

Is the time oddly freakish?

Are there any of you who don't believe in evolution? Three GOP candidates reased their hands.

McCain said he believed in evolution, but then spouted some nonsense about a sunset in the Grand Canyon.

Expletive expletive expletive.

Expletive.

The question was flawed, of course. One doesn't "believe" in evolution.

THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT.

ARRRRRGH!

Okay, really, I'm done.

I just won $10,000,000! Now I know it's real!

2007-05-02T16:26:00.000-04:00

I've been entering Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes lately. Anybody with half a brain knows that the odds of winning are... ridiculous. But then again, it takes 10 seconds to enter.

In today's entry email, PCH reports that they awarded a winner and got a less than satisfying response at the door, and it made it to the television, and they're awfully disappointed. So for this sweepstakes, they've created an acceptance script. If I say the lines when they come to my door to award me $10,000,000, I'll win an extra $5000 on the spot! Woot!

"I just won $10,000,000! Now I know it's real! There's no way in hell I'm going to win anything, but I'm rehearsing my lines JUST IN CASE!"

If I win, I'm giving the $5000 to charity. But I'm keeping the $10,000,000. All of it.

Tips and tricks on a Sunday morning

2007-04-29T09:55:00.000-04:00

It was nice to see Anne drop by and leave a comment! Hi, Anne!

She noted the little Twitter box. Yes, it is a little fun, but I get the sense that I'm not experiencing the full value, because A) I don't use text messaging --it's not part of my phone plan, so each message would cost extra, and B) I don't have a Mac --for which there are apparently some nice messaging and other applications through which you can pop a note over to Twitter without having to log in to the Twitter site.

For me, instead, it's mostly a new way to keep in touch with my friend JamesJames in Toronto. He's a very nice and smart guy, this JamesJames, and through his little Twitter posts I feel like I "see" him all the time, much like the old days, a friend walking in to work, yet again proclaiming his undying passion for his Starbucks coffee.

Dmitry Chepovetsky, by way of cleaning up the mystery left by my previous drunken post, is an actor who was studying in the Ryerson Theatre program when I and my friends were at Ryerson's film school. I'm sure to this day he'll say that his greatest role ever was in Stephen Ayres' film, "When I Grow Up," YEAH! That was such a fun shoot! (Stephen, I swear I still don't know why my underwear was on the rock outside the cabin. I swear!) Nowadays, Dmitry is a big TV and movie star, but I hadn't been paying attention, so when I saw him in Man of the Year, I was quite astonished and thrilled. Yay, Dmitry!

Meanwhile, I am now officially finished my semester, and I seem to have managed to squeek by with my silly grad-4.0 (because it sure isn't 4.0 if you count undergrad) intact --official results due later today. One cool trick that came in handy for both my classes was Google's Page Creator, suggested by a classmate named Michael Wood. I can build a static web site from scratch, of course, and I do have some web space through school and our ISP, but when I had a couple of different assignments for which I had to "present" either a recorded voice presentation or a web page... Googlepages was so very much easier than building my own. When you just need to put a couple of pages out there quickly, try it --it is FREE, which is just the way I like it. All you need is a Gmail account.

Finally, because this is a tips and tricks post, let me take a moment to shout out to my friend, the restickable glue stick. You would not believe how useful this is. It's kinda like... it's kinda like when we bought our multi-purpose printer-scanner-copier-fax machine, and I thought the one thing I really would never use is the copier, and wouldn't you know we probably use the copier every day? I use the restickable glue stick to put stuff up on my wall beside my desk: Luther's class schedule for the next two semesters, the colors I am thinking are right for painting the house, the notes from a halfway finished job...

...which I should finish now.

Dmitry Chepovetsky

2007-04-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

Buzzed and sleepy, and I have a Luther two rooms away that...

Well, let's leave that to the imagination.

Meanwhile, look up Dmitry Chepovetsy. I love this man. Check him out. I am so STOKED to see him in Man of the (okay, the name of the movie sucked and I don't remember it, but Robin Williams became president).

Dmitry.

I swear I was freaking out. Yay, Dmitry!

Getting a grip

2007-04-25T23:21:00.000-04:00

I'm up at 11:20 p.m., which used to be pretty early but has been pretty late for quite a while.

I have a screenplay to read and a screenplay to write. I have French CDs and Greek CDs to comprend et katalaveno, et je comprend un peu, mais then katalaveno. Oh boy do I ever then katalaveno, sheesh.

I know it's a tired phrase, but I'm not getting any younger. And the gym isn't getting any closer.

I've been planning to paint all the closet doors since we bought the house that we bought four years ago. Or has it been five? And the bathrooms need painting. The fan downstairs has been halfway-installed for millenia, it seems.

A friend of mine asked about business card designs and I had a whole clear idea about cool, creative things to be done, and I have the Photoshopping to prove it, just... no actual designs. I got my cousin's phone number last week, because I think my cousin actually lives not far from where we plan to move to, but I haven't tried calling him. I installed Skype after two months of procrastination, but I don't turn it on.

Is it just me?

On the up side, I have a presentation to attend, and a short exam, and I'll be finished the semester. My next class starts in three weeks, and I intend to graduate in the fall. I am working; I am working from home, which makes me feel like a slouch for all the things I could be doing and am not doing, but on the other hand I am working and occasionally I even get paid. I submitted another little short story to Jason's new and lovely contest. I helped one of Luther's school friends write a letter, and for some reason she sent me some money when it was done. I mowed the lawn... twice. Sometimes I remember to water it.

Yeah. It's just me.

If only we could come up with a reason to go to war

2007-04-25T08:19:00.000-04:00

First, I want to say that "these people" is not a good way to refer to any group, but in the case of Bush et al, I just don't think "this administration" is necessarily correct in all cases. Some of his buddies aren't precisely part of the administration, and I have a vague (perhaps unfounded) notion that some members of this administration aren't part of "these people," either. So I'm going to use "these people," and you can imagine who I am referring to.

These people just amaze me.

Do you remember when Saddam Hussein had engineered the attack on the World Trade Center? No? Why not? It seems to have faded from the public record, perhaps because shortly after that reason to go to war against Iraq, these people had to admit that Saddam Hussein wasn't directly responsible. But then he had at least aided Osama bin Laden, and was perhaps sheltering him in the aftermath. Later, he hadn't actually given aid to Osama bin Laden, but it was clear that he was a really bad man and we needed to save the poor, oppressed women in Iraq. I remember the few weeks when it was all about women's lives. What? You don't remember that either?

It seemed like every time we turned the radio on, there was a new reason for attacking Iraq. These days, they're even losing their grip on the completely hopeless "bring democracy" mission, so it's all about the country being a haven for terrorist activity, nevermind the fact that this situation is exacerbated by the fact that we attacked in the first place.

But I'm not here to talk about Iraq today. No, I'm just reliving the shifting sands of untruths. Check this out, and tell me it doesn't sound awfully familiar:

The Office of Special Counsel is also responsible for protecting the job rights of National Guard and Reserve members who are called away for military duty. In that capacity, Bloch is looking into whether David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys dismissed earlier this year, was punished for missing work to serve in the Navy Reserve.

Iglesias, who was the U.S. attorney for New Mexico until he was replaced in February, was cited as an "absentee landlord" in a Justice Department document laying out reasons for his termination. William Moschella, the No. 3 official at Justice, told a House subcommittee in March that Iglesias was fired because he delegated too much responsibility to his deputy.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Iglesias was added to the list of prosecutors to be replaced after the midterm elections, and that Rove had complained Iglesias had not pursued voter fraud cases aggressively enough.

Iglesias has said he felt "leaned on" when two Republican members of New Mexico's congressional delegation, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, called him to inquire about pending corruption cases against state Democrats before the election.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/rove.probe/index.html

When the firing-of-attorneys thing finally fades from the news cycle, I wonder what the last reason will turn out to be?

Defeat in Iraq? Mission Accomplished!

2007-04-23T09:18:00.000-04:00

I don't understand why Bush et al are so freaked out by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement last week that the "war is lost."

I mean, with this administration's vast experience of meaningless statements about the war - Mission Accomplished anyone? - why should they fear anybody would take this latest one seriously?

Angry people get angrier when they're told they're too angry

2007-04-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

This morning, the Virginia Tech shootings finally got to me. I'm not sure what it was. All of a sudden, there were tears. Last night, I was laughing while watching Bowling for Columbine, and this morning, I was crying for a crazy young man and what I can only assume was a kind of desperation that led him to wantonly destroy other human beings.

Luther and I have talked about it all a few times. I roll my eyes at the simultaneously consoling and alarming messages about grief and security from my school, Southern Poly, and Luther's, Macon State. Life for these Georgia students is no different today than it was yesterday, but school administrators seem to delight in insisting that everything has changed. A crazy person with a couple of guns could shoot you at your work as easily as at your school, and it's not a new thing. I was standing at a gas pump a half hour ago remembering that somebody with a gun can shoot me from where he is hiding in the trunk of his car much more easily than he could shoot me in a classroom on a college campus. The fact is that it is all easy. Practically everybody has access to a gun, and when you're not worried about getting out alive, you can take a lot of people with you when you die.

It might be the gun arguments that are getting to me most of all. I don't really believe that guns are a necessary part of life. We have them. We rarely even think about them, let alone take them out and use them. But the other day I read an article in the National Post that quoted a young woman in Montreal, whose school had witnessed a shooting last fall, and in response to Virginia Tech, her question was, How can people be allowed to own a gun like that? And I laughed. It was the kind of question I can't imagine hearing from an American, even now.

And then I read in today's junk on CNN.com, an article by Ted Nugent, who in my limited experience talks like every other "gun nut" in this country. You'd have to be crazy and by the way, dickless to suggest that we shouldn't own guns. He goes on to talk about the examples of gun owners who have saved the day, preventing other gun owners from shooting other people.

You can argue the whole gun thing both ways, but THAT particular argument is what makes this whole thing stink. THAT argument is what makes this country a voilent and selfish and frightening place to live. Because what Ted Nugent is saying is that if we are to be responsible, if we are to do the RIGHT thing, we must counter gun ownership with guns of our own. The more guns there are out there, and the more willing people are to use them, the more guns we ought to have, and the more willing we ought to be to use them.

That's just plain sick.

This kind of violence will only get worse if we maintain and encourage the mentality that the right answer to our fears and the dangers we perceive around us is to arm ourselves. And if this is what Mr. Nugent really believes, then perhaps he would like to step up and take the blame for a young man that conquered his enemies and himself at Virginia Tech the other day. Because I won't blame the gun.

I'll blame the asshole.

The "Endless Hour" Short Fiction Contest, Woot!

2007-04-19T11:20:00.000-04:00

Come one, come all, and join me in giving Jason Evans far too much to read. Yes, he is hosting another short fiction contest.

How much can you say in 250 words?

Visit the Endless Hour at Clarity of Night for details on the rules of the game, as well as the photograph that will be your inspiration.

And don't forget to check out the past entries for Jason's fun contests --you'll find the links in his blog.

Thanks, Jason! Now, to shake out my memories of the days before dishwashers...

June Callwood

2007-04-17T07:27:00.000-04:00

"I’m all right with the doom questions," she said, adding that she was not afraid of death. "I don’t think there’s anything to fear. I do fear dependency, and I’ve talked to my doctor about that: ‘Don’t you leave me lying there in a diaper with tubes all over. No, no, no.’ Most of us, my generation, share the same feeling that we don’t want to be dependent and we don’t want to be undignified. You’re going to go, and if you can find a way to go quickly, that’s the best."

At the time, she also chuckled about her poor family who, she said, did not share her enthusiasm for dying. "They’re showing a little grumpiness about this, although they’re getting a lot of preparation. Every time they open the damn newspaper, I’m dying again." Then she laughed, that silvery sweet laugh her friends and family knew so intimately.

When she was still around nearly two years later, her tumours having stabilized, she joked about it. "I'm finding it rather embarrassing that I'm not dead," she told The Toronto Star in January 2006. I'm not the least afraid of dying, but I'm beginning to be concerned about not dying."

National Post: June Callwood, author and activist, dead at 82

Nappy-headed hos

2007-04-16T19:35:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big rap fan. And I agree that the "rap culture" and the lucrative businesses that trademark it pretty much rests their money-making power on putting down women and minorities. Yep. Swear words don't scare me, but ugly, violent attitudes as displayed on a constant basis... what is one to do?

I disagree, however, that the Imus faux pas should be related to rap music and any other entertainment genre.

Imus is a radio personality. And he's made a name for himself by "speaking his mind," which translates in a public sense to "saying shocking things in order to convince people that I'm speaking my mind and not being all PC and stuff." But when he was talking about Rutgers' women's basketball players, he was delivering some sports commentary. And he was talking about real women who can be identified by name, who have fans, who have families that might be listening; young women who might be listening themselves.

They're not generic "hos" in a rap song. They're basketball players. And if he doesn't like that they're strong, and they're proud, and they're rough, and they're tough... that doesn't excuse labeling them as prostitutes.

In a rap song or stand-up comedy routine, sure, the concept ugly enough. It's just not personal. And it's not nationally syndicated. And it's not married with a racist slant.

Get over it everybody. Pick on rap if you want to, but understand it has nothing at all to do with Imus. Imus is getting his knuckles rapped because he was just a little bit more of an asshole on the air than he is paid to be. Rap musicians are barely scratching the surface of what they're paid to be.

Film school

2007-04-05T08:26:00.000-04:00

I keep wondering what Wil studied in his "film" class in high school. They watched movies, including movies such as The Matrix. That's about all I've gathered.

I'm watching Mulan, the animated movie, on TV. Research questions immediately come to mind, for young students watching this American movie that makes use of a cartoon version of Chinese traditions. These should be opportunities to gain some perspective on the world, but also on film, on American storytelling, on how "foreign" is often used to depict situations we won't deal with in our own culture.

For example: Mulan is told that she should "learn her place." Men go to war, women make a home. Research women in combat in present day United States. Do women hold combat roles?

Childhood obesity

2007-04-04T18:49:00.000-04:00

There was a quick piece on the rise of childhood obesity on the news this evening. In the piece, the news organization said childhood obesity had been on the rise since 1963.

I blame convenience food. I've been blaming convenience food for quite a while. I remember being a teenager, and how easily I could have eaten a can of Chef Boyardee spagetti for every meal, without fail, if given the opportunity. It wasn't because I loved the food. It's because it was sweet and tart and easy.

Easy.

"Easy" in those days meant washing a pot afterward. And a bowl and a spoon. Nowadays, "easy" means throwing out the paper napkin you used as plate and napkin both, for your corn dog that came individually-wrapped in plastic. Where I used a stove (a gas stove, I might add), these days' kids use the microwave. Put the pre-wrapped item in the oven, press a button, wait 60 seconds, and then put the item on a napkin. When you're done, the waste goes in the trash. No preparation. No clean-up. Just eat.

Just eat.

I think it's significant. I live with a kid that is remarkably conservative about how much he consumes, and he's additionally willing to walk home each day from school (to the point that I worry that he won't take the bus when he needs to do so, but that's a different story). I'm pretty happy with where he's going with his health, except that when he's on his own, if not taunted by my comments, he'll eat... canned pasta and frozen corn dogs.

Canned pasta and frozen corn dogs aren't good for you. And kids who start their lives eating this stuff are in a real bind.

I know some parents. It is clearly not easy to get kids to eat stuff that's good for them. Then if you're busy, to get kids to MAKE stuff that's good for them? It's practically hopeless. "Honey, I'm going to be busy studying for my doctorate tonight, so I'm going to need you to make you're own dinner. Can you chop up some fresh vegetables for a salad instead of eating two of those frozen corn dogs from the freezer?" COME ON.

It's ridiculous.

Anyway, they said "1963."

When did the microwave become affordable in the average household?

Early 1960s.

When did TV dinners become common? When they started including desserts.

In the 1960s.

I don't think I'm crazy. Convenience is killing our kids.

Thank goodness I don't have one of my own, eh? Be drivin' me nuts.

Form 4562 is fucked up

2007-04-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

Seriously. Look up IRS form 4562. Does it make any sense?

I dare you to tell me, what is "section 179"? Because my understanding is that I can take a "1st year expense" for my business that covers such things as the new computer (and the software to run it). But all 179 roads lead to form 4562, which has instructions attached, and the instructions say things like, "Section 179 property is property that you acquire by purchase ofr use in the active conduct of your trade or business, and is one of the following.
Tangible personal property."

Well, hell, wouldn't that cover everything? And if so, why do web sites all over differentiate between "equipment" and "first year expense"?

Ack. Argh.

April Fool's Scavenger Hunt

2007-04-01T08:56:00.000-04:00

First item found 8:56 a.m.

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Serious matters

2007-03-29T17:35:00.000-04:00

Wow, this is bizarre. It's a quote from a news piece about the testimony of a former aide to Alberto Gonzales on the firings of U.S. attorneys. But doesn't it encapsulate so much more?

Leahy accused the Bush administration of "a series of shifting explanations, excuses, lack of accountability or even acknowledgment of the seriousness of this matter."

Ex-aide contradicts Gonzales on attorney firings

A Lost Dog Ate My Brain

2007-03-29T02:27:00.000-04:00

Alright, I'm good and spooked and up, sipping a Diet Coke. That's my current middle-of-the night vice: Diet Coke and the Internet.

Had a doozy of a dream tonight, starting with a chat with my Mom, Paul, and Aunt Donna, a literary analysis type of chat (because who doesn't have those?) about a specific book.

In the book, a man grows old and ultimately dies. He has a rich social circle, but he has a keen desire to pass something on to a direct heir. Unfortunately, his immediate family -especially, his son- go before him. As the story progresses, he winds up with his only "descendant" being the girlfriend of his son, a woman he never approved of, but late in his life, comes to respect and love. She is his posterity.

There are visuals, so I pictured Mom and Paul and Donna, the ice and... Calvados?... in our glasses, the printed words on paper, the old man -can't quite place him, but know him- and his "daughter," who is played by Helen Mirren. I've been a fan of hers since 2010 and that stupid pen fiasco, so don't go all The Queen on me.

Well, Donna wants to know, have I read the short story that is in response to this book?

Okay, so another author wrote a short story that is a commentary on the first book. In the short story, the main character is a funeral director. A large part of his job is talking with the bereaved, being a sounding board for them, listening. Listening and being still, being... nothing.

You know how when you're selling your house you're supposed to leave it mostly empty, nice-looking but with as little of your own life as possible? It's supposed to have enough room for the potential buyer to be able to picture their own life in it, instead of yours. That's this guy. He has so little of himself, he has almost none of himself, so that he can be there for these bereaved individuals. As a result, on his own he is almost not there. Plastic, still, sticks out like a sore thumb visually (black suit, white shirt, black slicked hair, white face - a wax museum young Al Gore -and I like Al Gore!), and can sit in a chair 30 feet from a graveside service and nobody will see him there.

So, he watches. And he figures out that there's something wrong with the characters in the first book. He figures out that he can sit there at the funeral and watch them, and he'll figure out what's wrong. What wasn't said in the book. Something underlying, unspoken, unwritten. Something not quite right.

This is where my dream shifts. Mom and Paul and Donna and me, we are no longer in the dream. Instead, the major character is the author of the short story, but with a narrator. This is like a third story, a story about the writer of the story that was written about the book.

And he is Bill Cameron, author of Lost Dog.

And the short story comes out, and it creates quite a stir, being essentially a whole new take on the original book that was so well-received. Remember Rosencrantz & Guidenstern? It's a little like that.

In the middle of the night, the short story author gets a phonecall from a fan. The fan wants to "interview" him about the story. The line is breaking up quite a bit, but the author, tiredly, is determined to see this through, to play the author role. And the "fan" is a grinning, maniacal, corpse.

Yes, I said corpse. Think back. Didn't I start this post by saying I was spooked?

Flesh rotting on bones, corpse. Grinning. On the phone.

That's it. I don't know what happens next. But I don't think it can be good for Bill.

A Taxing Woman

2007-03-26T14:54:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I was wrong. The connection between God's creation of the world and Donald Rumsfeld is even closer than I thought. God made the world in six days. Six! On the seventh day, that slacker-loser-bedwetter rested.

If he had actually worked on the seventh day... he would have had to pay taxes.

So here I am, doing our taxes. I spent all day Sunday on our taxes for 2006. Very interesting stuff, as you can imagine. Everything about Georgia, as usual, is stupid. I'd done our federal taxes, and then I turned to the Georgia form, and it's little things, you know? Like the fact that they've now managed somehow to hire somebody who can build a fillable PDF form, but you can't save the form with data in it, and some hidden codes cause several of the number fields to be replaced with big, black, plus signs when you go to print. Given last year's fiasco (Georgia said we didn't pay and therefore owed them several thousand dollars, even though we had our little receipt and everything), I am unwilling to trust our fate to some big, black, plus signs. And the envelope tore when I tried to get it out of the booklet. And the address label is bigger than the space alotted to it. And it's next to impossible to figure out their schedules, or tell when they're referring to federal forms versus state forms.

I finally got the damn tax envelopes out to the curb, and I came back in and did a little work, and then it came time for...

...wait for it...

2007 taxes.

Yes, welcome to self-employment. I must now estimate my tax burden and pay taxes on a quarterly basis. To do so, I must essentially... do my 2007 taxes now, with made-up numbers. I'll have business deductions, and income from several different sources. When you boil it all down, in order to figure out what to pay to the government in the next few weeks (1st quarter), I have to do taxes all over again, only today's taxes are more complicated than yesterday's taxes. How is an honest sole proprieter supposed to make any money, when she spends all her time doing taxes?

What's the big deal? Apple, Obama, and cancers for president

2007-03-23T14:50:00.000-04:00

I've now read and heard several news reports on the YouTube Obama-for-president ad, modeled after a 1984 Macintosh ad. And I have to say, I'm disappointed in the reporters. Across the board, they've been expressing excitement over the amazing things people can do with a computer in a living room at home.

If you search YouTube, you can watch not only the Obama ad, but also the original Macintosh ad. And what's the difference? Hilary Clinton's face plastered over the screen image. Not even top quality. Her image is degraded -a common technique for handling the fact that you are using a borrowed image to begin with- to look like a bad video signal.

If I've had one disappointment about the Obama campaign thus far, it's been that he is quoted as saying his staff don't have the capability of doing something like this. The fact is, they probably do. It's just not that hard.

On the up side (as an Obama supporter, which tentatively I am), if the media response is to be considered at all representative, I am not your usual audience and it shouldn't be a problem for the campaign.

Meanwhile, the media is freaking out over John Edwards and his wife's cancer. Now, I applaud their apparent sympathy. But they seem to be eager to cast this cancer as a campaign weakness, and I admit I'm sitting here thinking, "what gives?"

The man is putting a whole lot of his campaign eggs in the health insurance basket. And his wife has cancer. I may be cruel and heartless, but it seems to me that this can only help his campaign. He either understands what real people face (true: His wife has cancer; also true: They don't have to worry about the expense of health care), or by his campaign platform, he understands that others don't have the benefits that he and his wife enjoy (true: They don't have to worry about the expense of health care, but he is campaigning for universal health care).

Either way, it looks pretty good. I fail to see how it is a liability. What, because he might not have a glowing blond wife at his side in every picture? Give me a break! That only makes him that much more desireable to hetero female voters. Rock stars always get more when their wives are absent.

Cynical? Moi?

Video is such a pain in the neck

2007-03-20T10:10:00.000-04:00

I pulled a muscle in my back or neck early this morning. The most painful thing I can do is look sharply to my right. Naturally, there is a window to my right, and interesting noises. If I have the impulse to look, and force myself to stay still, my muscles clench just as if I did look. Either way, ouch.

Meanwhile, I just saw something interesting on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Yes I am working. I just took a little break, I swear.

The show played a clip of Donald Rumseld at the start of the Iraq war. He was telling the press that the operation would take maybe six days, maybe six weeks, but "I doubt" six months.

Now, this is a pretty painful video for all to see, but it speaks to a long-running controversy, much older than the Iraq war or the silly old United States. How about them seven days and seven nights, people? You know, when God made the world?

Plenty of people have proposed theories about the time period in which God made the world, in an effort to explain how we've got all this what is it called... EVIDENCE of a world much older than suggested in the Bible. Maybe a day for God is a really, really long time.

But watching Rumseld today, I realized the truth. God said he'd do it in seven days. The work turned out to take longer. But just like Rummy, God is remembered for his bad estimate.

Listening

2007-03-17T12:36:00.001-04:00

Just now, I was listening to a class presentation for my online class. Interestingly, the topic was "listening."

A week or so ago, I'd bought a new screen door for our house. The house came with a glass door instead, and we like to get some fresh air moving through, so a screen door has been something we've looked forward to. Finally, I went out with Luther and Wil and bought a door. Luther put it up, and then apologized for taking my project over. Oh for goodness sake, it's high time I took the lead and DID the project if I want to keep it to myself, eh? But thank you, Luther.

Today, Luther and Wil were shaving a little wood off the door, so it fits right. They were using the power saw. I'm good with the power saw. I like using it, but I do have a little trouble watching or listening to Luther use it. He is methodical, careful, and mechanically-inclined... and I am imaginative and in love with him. You do the math.

While you're add it, add the following: An inexperienced, non-mechanical, non-participatory, often inept, teenager. Don't forget the power saw.

So while I was listening to my presentation about listening, I had to consciously put Luther and Wil and the noise of the power saw out of my head. I had to focus my listening on the presentation, give it due attention, and put all that other stuff aside. It is amazing under such conditions how freakishly alarming it can be when someone suddenly shouts loud enough to filter through.

*SHOUT* Suddenly, brain reminds bekbek that there is a power saw, and a Luther, and an inexperienced teenager. Auto-feed the images of dismemberment.

So I have learned an important lesson about listening, while listening to my presentation on listening: If you're going to risk a heart attack in your attempt to put the nice, weekend sounds of a project in progress out of your mind... maybe it'd be better to just hang out down there, roll your eyes at the process, and do your homework later.

That is all.

The budding photographer (not so much)

2007-03-13T08:49:00.000-04:00

Things you should always look for in a new camera:

1. Some kind of tripod mounting hardware. Our digital camera from Kodak has none.

2. A button lock, like on any common CD player, that prevents the camera from being accidentally turned on while jostling around in your bag. Our digital camera from Kodak... has none.

So this morning I lay back down on our bed and looked up and back at the trees and sky we can see because our pillows are at the five-foot-wide window, and I put the camera up so I could take a picture for all of you... and the camera was dead. Batteries had been used up, yet again.

I wanted to show you the pretty pink morning light on the tiny, fresh green leaves that are sprouting from the branches. Yes, bright green leaflets lit by warm morning sunshine against a gorgeous blue sky.

I probably wouldn't have got around to uploading the picture in any case. Our digital camera from Kodak also did not come with an upload cable that connects to any of the ports on my Dell.

Realistically, I should just skip stills and move directly to video. The squirrels in our back yard have a habit of sitting on fire ants, and then they do an incredible dance, oh boy. Plus, apparently the middle of a fire ant dance is the right time to start playing with an inch-thick, foot-long stick. Yes, fire ant bedeviled squirrel tosses stick in air...

...and catches it!

It is now spring. Enjoy!

Tarpon Springs, Visit One

2007-03-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

We now officially have a new target for the long-awaited move from Warner Robins: Tarpon Springs, Florida.

It's a small town, with a one-block downtown strip and, a few blocks away, a docks area choked with rusting boats that no longer serve any function except as a backdrop for tourism. The docks area is the Greek part of town. The handful of curling residential streets are peppered with a mix of nicely updated craftsman-style homes and white-washed Greek miniatures, complete with columns and statues and paved yards, all leading to the docks, where Greek residents and visiting tourists gather in many small Greek restaurants and bakeries, or shop for tacky souvenirs.

The downtown strip is dominated by antiques, but we also found an old department store with a real shoe-repair shop in the back, and there's an honest-to-goodness butcher's shop there, too. We stayed down the street at the Spring Bayou Inn bed & breakfast, and walked to the Greek restaurants for dinner each night. On our one full day between baseball games (Pirates vs. Jays in Dunedin, and then Jays vs. Phillies in Clearwater), we had lunch at a little place called Zante's. The decor is "flea market," with tiny tables almost hidden in the piles of kitchzy junk, and the stinky candles were a bit annoying, but the food was pretty much "to die for."

In the mornings before breakfast, we walked a half block to the bayou and small park, and watched the manatees play in the water. Yep, I saw real manatees for the first time! There must have been half a dozen at least. A couple of them were quite frisky, too. One lady standing nearby on the first morning cried, "oh look, they're hugging!" Yeah, that's right. Hugging.

We walked along the streets and enjoyed the beautiful weather. I discovered that Tarpon Springs is full of the tiny lizards I love so much --and by "full" I mean that you have to watch your step, as they dart across the sidewalks in front of your feet. We also saw one great blue heron standing a few feet from the doorways of a one-storey apartment building near the bayou, and later we saw a white blue heron "decorating" the lawn of a suburban home near the causeway to the beach. Don't they know they're not city birds?

The two beaches, which both look ridiculous by satellite, are quite lovely and quite easy to get to. When we have a house downtown, we can ride our bikes to the beach in a fairly short time, or drive to one in about ten minutes. We watched the sun set from Sunset Beach. Further down the coast a bit, we also visited Honeymoon Island, and saw pods of dolphins swimming by, and little brown bunnies playing together in the brush. Yeah, I know. It almost sounds ridiculous. Manatees, big old herons, little tiny lizards, dophins, and bunnies.

It is a really small town, but it is connected to all the bigger cities to the south by public transit. City buses cover the entire area. Tarpon Springs is also connected all the way to St. Petersburg by the Pinellas Trail, which is a paved bicycle/wheelchair/roller-blade/foot path that goes through towns and parkland for almost 35 miles.

It just... seems right for us. I'd still like to get Luther on a surf board, which means going across the state to the other coast where there is really some surf. And I'm hugely worried about money -even the smallest house is going to be a lot more than what we currently afford nicely in Warner Robins- but we knew that would happen in any case, when we finally move from here.

The long and the short? I loved it. The funny thing is that unlike some other places we've visited in Florida, to a certain extent we ran out of things to do as tourists in Tarpon Springs. Instead, I want to be painting my house there, or walking to the grocery store, working in my little office, and getting on my bike to ride out to the beach to see the sun set before riding home to start a late dinner. Doesn't that sound nice?

Stressmonsters say "opa!"

2007-03-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

For the past few days, I've been stressing out a little. You see, I need to work, and I have work coming in, but work coming in is not work received. Meanwhile, I have a couple of fairly major assignments due today. I was worried that the work would come in, so I wouldn't have time for the school stuff, so I was frantically working to finish the school stuff. So I was stressed about work, and then school, and then the work didn't come in after all, and I'm now back to being stressed about work.

Given my low earnings this week, then, I figure it's time for me and Luther to celebrate our sixth year. Early Monday morning, we're going to take the wee del Sol and scoot on down to the Tampa area. We'll put our feet in the Gulf of Mexico, and then we'll go see the Pirates play the Jays at Knology Park, and then we'll head North to a little town named Tarpon Springs to check into our B&B.

Tuesday, we'll explore what has already become, in our minds, our very likely future home. Check it out: Tarpon Springs. See the funny little white dots out in the Gulf? Those are the beaches! It's a small town, with a large Greek population. We expect to eat well.

Tarpon Springs is the Sponge Capital of the World, making last week's trip to the Granite Capital of the World part of an unending adventure. Where will I go next, I wonder?

The Granite Capital

2007-02-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

I am in Elberton, Georgia. Yup.

The pillows in this Days Inn ROCK!!!

The humor, therefore... is inescapable.

b

Failures - not catastrophic, but annoying nonetheless

2007-02-24T17:59:00.000-05:00

I ordered some baseball tickets online. The Phillies were fine. The Jays' site, however, gave me a very ambiguous error message. I tried again. I tried a third time. Then, for two days I was wondering if I'd ordered three sets of tickets. I emailed the Jays to tell them their ticket ordering system was flawed. They emailed me back to say that they don't deal with spring training tickets; I had to talk to Dunedin, Florida. We went back and forth several times. I just wanted my tickets.

I ordered a new Dell for Luther via AAFES. The machine is on its way. On the AAFES site, there is a link to track the package via Dell. But the AAFES site fails to forward an order number to the Dell site, so Dell doesn't know who I am, and I have no reference by which to track the order.

UPS's automated contact service called a few days ago. The recorded message told me to expect the package on Monday. Before I even had a chance to find a pen, it had given me a tracking number, something like 20 digits' worth. I was unable to write it down, and I was given no option to replay the message.

I need to leave town on Monday. The automated message from UPS said the computer would arrive on Monday, and a signature was required. I could have gone to the UPS depot today, if I'd been able to confirm that the package was there. With no tracking number, however, I have no way to identify our package.

I ordered some software online. The idea was to get the software in time to load it onto Luther's new machine. The site has a "track order" option. On the "track order" page, I am informed that I was given a tracking number via an email sent to the email address registered with my account. I registered my correct email. I got a copy of my order confirmation. But I never got a tracking number.

I went to book a hotel room online. Luther had signed up for a rewards program the last time we stayed at this same hotel (it's near my business partners' home), so I tried to use the reward. The booking failed. It was unable to book my room, no reason given.

Luther's Mom just called. We bought her a really cool present for her birthday, a DVD player that should be able to play her PAL DVDs from Greece on her NTSC TV. We sent it only two days before her birthday, so we sent it via Priority Post. I took it down to the post office myself. We had the correct address. It's been over a week, and she has still not received anything from us.

I have lots of homework to do. For the life of me, I'm just grateful I can actually log into the class website. Anything more would be miraculous.

Happy birthday, Luther, and thank you!

2007-02-22T13:39:00.000-05:00

When I met Luther, I quit my job and moved in with him. Oh sure, it wasn't quite as simple as that, but that's what it boils down to. I couldn't work in the States, but I had a small part-time telecommuting job with which to make my student loan payments. And two can eat as cheaply as one, I said to myself.

I enjoyed a luxurious six months in a small apartment. No car -or rather, no license- but my bicycle and a really amazing man who often came home for lunch. I finished my degree, I worked, I played, and I enjoyed my freedom. I spent a lot of time outside. It was beautiful.

Thank you, Luther.

Then about four and a half years ago, I got an office job at Macon State College. And sometime after that, Luther retired from the military. He's worked on and off since then, but the best part of all has been that I could help with the bills, so he finally quit working so that he could go to school and spend a good chunk of his time at home, working and playing, enjoying his freedom. Maybe spending a little time outside.

Well, we're flipping sides again. Now Luther is working, and I am at home. This time is quite different -I'm working. I'm actually working a lot more than expected, which is all to the good. But I'm working at my desk at my window, and today it is warm enough to open that window and spend a little time "outside." And I have some flexibility, so when I finished a project, I sent the files off, and then I got into my car and I hit the road.

A little while later, I found myself in a parking lot, still "in town," but for the life of me I felt just like a kid or a teenager or even an adult from the "Toronto days," when the only time I stood anywhere and listened to cars going by and the breeze and the sun and the hot parking lot and no tall buildings in sight for miles... was when somebody else drove me there. I felt like... I was on a road trip. Or camping. I was Outside The City.

This time, all by myself with my own little car!

Wow.

So today, I am all grown up. It finally happened. And I'm free to work and play and be outside. And it's all thanks to the nice man that used to come home for lunch sometimes.

I love you Luther. You've given me so much.

Dare I say it? Thank you Scrubs.

I am really glad I found you.

Happy birthday!

Squid tentacles, yum!

2007-02-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

I discovered something interesting:It's a bag-o-noodles made of tofu and some kind of yam flour. Practically no carbs (okay, 2 servings in a bag, 3 grams of carbohydrate per serving, of which 2 grams of each serving is fiber...) and definitely no fat.

I drained the noodles, then dumped them into boiling water, added some low-fat, no-msg stock mixture, some grilled chicken (no skin), a couple of egg-whites, and some chopped onions and broccoli and garlic.

I should have skipped the broccoli, which was lame. And I should definitely have added some chopped green onions. But I gotta say, my one of two servings was exceptionally yummy and filling.

Flavor: Whatever you cooked it in. Consistency: Not quite noodles. Like a cross between pasta and some kind of crunchy vegetable. There was definitely an unusual crunch to them. Yes, for a moment I thought, "squid tentacles!" but only for a moment. I like squid, but tentacles as noodles is a bit beyond even me.

I'm on a diet, by the way. I ate too much in this meal. Next time, smaller portions. But oh boy was this satisfying after a couple of days of just a bit of meat with salad. And really hit the spot on this cold, cold Thursday.

Time is money

2007-02-14T07:30:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about clutter. I hate clutter, so how come clutter loves me?

The other day, I was looking at our trinkets. We really don't have too many trinkets compared to what I see other people carting around in the back windows of their vehicles. I assume they ran out of space in their houses. We just accumulate in specific places -a few boxes tucked away, the odd item (a.k.a. bat beany baby) in the office, a couple of stuffed animals, and the official crap station next to the TV.

It's nice crap, mind you. Little things like the wedding couple from our cake (Happy Anniversary, Luther!), the ebony buffalo from a former coworker, the Pier 1 "African Decor" figures we picked out of the pile beside the Salvation Army dumpster.

Still, I find myself doing things like... tracking eBay auctions to find out how much my Google Da Vinci Code contest prize might go for, now that I've chucked the collectors' packaging and have only the cryptex, which I did because I was proud of winning a contest and wanted to keep it.

I mean, alone it's cool. Together with other prizes, it's clutter.

This morning I realize it's all fantasy. I have four boxes of comic books in the closet. I brought them here from Toronto because they're worth money. By the time I actually pull them down to sell them... I'm going to want to read them again!

And I'm working. Yeah, I know, I quit my job. My last day was a week ago, and I'm officially swamped. Yay, me. It's actually pretty fun. I'm learning about The American Democracy, from the Eighth Edition thereof. William Jennings Bryan was nominated by both the Democrats and the Pluralists, did you know that? Sadly, the reference no longer exists in this edition. Mr. Bryan has made room for more interesting folk. Good-bye, Mr. Bryan. And hello...

Well, crap. What the heck am I going to replace Mr. Bryan with?

Reality = Propaganda, an unabashed rant

2007-02-09T07:57:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid struggling through puberty and toward my early teens, faced with the knowledge that I was "different" (which turns out to be true for everybody, but even to this day my first thought is that it was more true for me), I learned from my school that I was "from a broken home." Possibly I'd heard it on the television, too, but my teachers and principal told me directly.

Was that reality or propaganda? Should my parents, who lived apart but spoke more and had a better relationship than most together-parents I'd met, have sued the school for imposing the school's morals on me?

In this day and age, were the same thing to happen, I'm sure the parents could indeed sue. Picture some poor, sniveling kid coming home, just a wreck because he'd had it made clear to him by figures of authority that he was from a broken home and therefore he, himself, was broken. He could never be like those other kids. Alright, it's a little far-fetched with all the divorces and everything, but it could happen. And the parents would have a case. And I have mixed feelings about it, but I think that it would be wrong.

Somebody has to teach a child to translate the many stupidities of the world into concepts that make real sense. At some point a child has to make her own way. She can, as I did, disagree. And it's very likely the responsibility of parents -broken or otherwise- to teach this to their child. It's not the kind of thing schools are set up to do. Kids will be faced with propaganda all over the place, and they're going to have to learn to differentiate. Yes, the commercial does tell you that if you eat chocolate all day long, you'll be happy. No, it's not real.

Okay, but what about the fact that we were taught history?

Is it reality or propaganda when you teach a room of boys and girls about all sorts of interesting ways that men have shaped the world; when you have them memorize a whole lot of important men's names; and then you lead them to learn about daily life in early Canada, when women took care of the home while the men went out to work? Reality or propaganda, people? Because I have to say, the message seemed pretty clear to me.

Schools are a messy, sloppy place. I can't say I'm happy with how the public school thing is going, but I can say that it's a fair representation of how messy and sloppy real life is, pretty much everywhere. Schools are responsible for teaching kids how to learn. They dwell a lot on what to learn, because frankly it's easier to assess knowledge than ability. Also, the what in our world is a language all its own. Facts are building blocks to higher concepts, and you do need a certain number of facts to get from a to b in the learning process. So okay, schools are also responsible for teaching facts and concepts, representations of the real world kids will face, stuff that maybe they can't learn in the home.

So now we have school-teachers here in the States having the nerve to represent the fact -the fact- that there are gay parents with kids in the world. "Non-traditional families." Is that reality or propaganda? Should parents be allowed to sue the schools for imposing the schools' morals on their children? Shouldn't the parents' lawyer be able to show these parents some stats about the fact that non-traditional families exist in the world, and just say, "I'm sorry, I'd really like to take your money, but we're not going to win."

And why do I have the feeling that they could win anyway?

Today's "news" on CNN:

School wants lawsuit over gay discussions dismissed

"Robert Sinsheimer, an attorney for the parents who filed the lawsuit, called the homosexual discussions and materials 'a form of propaganda' that goes against the parents' religious beliefs."

Maybe it is about God again. Maybe, since some people have got the perception that God is being stricken from the record by crazy liberals, there should be a tit for tat thing. "Okay, if you get to take God away, I get to take gay parents away."

That's fair, isn't it? Well, here are my arguments:

First, God isn't real. Gay parents are real.

Yeah, I'm thinking that wouldn't go over all that well. But God has his own schools, all set up to teach your kids about God! Reality doesn't have any schools at all, if you start taking real people out of what's being taught by our teachers.

Which leads me to my second argument: Let's just take all people out of what we teach in schools. You want tit for tat? How about I sue the school system for teaching my kid (yes, yes, I know I don't have one, bear with me) that straight parents are normal, that straight parents are the foundation of our society? That there's always a mommy and daddy. That a "real family" has a mommy and a daddy, and so therefore when I lived in a "broken home," my family wasn't real. If you look at a lot of the early stuff kids are given in schools, I expect that's what you'll see. The simple, charming, no-nonsense model for life. How is that not teaching my child the school's morals? Shouldn't I get to decide what to teach my child about what's right for a family? So let's take all people, all relationships of any kind, out of the schools.

Let's therefore stop teaching history and literature, thank you. And language is probably out. Math is probably okay... except that + and - looks awfully sexual, so we'd better take Math out too. Let's not even talk about sociology, psychology, politics.

I know I know! We can just take them to school on the bus, and have them sit there, and then we can take them home again!

Oh wait, we already do that. Hmm.

Reality check: Gay parents exist. Often, they are happy. If this fact is shown to your child, it is not propaganda unless you consider reality is propaganda, unless you just want to keep your child from learning about the world. If you want to limit your child's learning to what you and your preacher can teach him... Keep him home. On the whole, I don't think our society would suffer too much from his sniveling ass staying out of our schools and our reality.

For everybody else who has the guts to send their children out into the world, to grow and become fully-fledged individuals, to face new ideas and maybe even "wrong" ideas and find their own strength to handle them one way or another... Remember that schools are just as messy and sloppy as the real world, and it's your job to teach your children about how you deal with that messiness and sloppiness, or if you don't, then how you want them to be more courageous than you have been.

Difficult? I can only imagine. But from what I've heard, pretty much the only part of making new human beings that isn't difficult... is that + and - part that God doesn't approve of anyway.

Gluck!

Useless trivia

2007-02-05T17:59:00.000-05:00

I just changed the profession listed in my Blogger profile.

One day and a wake-up...

Slackers, sicknesses, and some other stuff

2007-02-04T08:31:00.000-05:00

I'm doing a crappy job with my courses this semester. It's awful. I keep telling myself that I'll be able to do better once I'm finished with the day job (three more days to go!), but I don't know. I just took a look at the paper I submitted last week, and the paper I submitted last night... and the APA is wrong.

The fucking APA is wrong!

It's totally embarrassing.

Meanwhile, my Dad is in the hospital. Even with the worry, which gets worse as the days go on, I'm still amused by the scenes he's described to me of his everyday life right now. The really funny part is that I keep describing this to others the same way, in reference to the same TV show, and I have yet to come across anybody other than myself that has actually seen the show.

This is how it goes: Have you seen the TV show "House M.D."? No? Okay, well, it's a current TV show starring Hugh Laurie as House, and he's a doctor who is regularly faced with bizarre medical mysteries. Anyway, Dad's reached the point where every new doctor that comes in to see him says something like, "You know that show House? Well, that's me."

Dad's a bizarre medical mystery.

Anyway, they poke and prod and try all kinds of fancy tests, and so far they've discovered that some of what used to be wrong with his heart appears to have gotten better, but his heart isn't working as well as it should for some reason, and they haven't come up with a good explanation for the fever and the pain in his thighs, but it might have something to do with a low red blood cell count and a suspicious and complete lack of iron. All of which leads them down unfortunately scary roads... except they still don't actually have an answer, good or bad, so... I wait. Being a thousand miles away makes it strange. It's like... there's a distance between me and what's going on. Well, it's not so much like that, as it is that. Ack.

In the meantime, I had to put up a "home page" for my classes, to introduce myself to my classmates and so on. I was so rushed for time and feeling so uncreative, I just used Google Pages to put something -anything- up. To use Google Pages, I had to sign up for Gmail, for which I had to use my phone to receive a text message. I don't do the texting thing, so it seems quite bizarre to me that in order to even use a service, I must A) have a cell phone, and B) be willing to use the texting feature. But I guess that's commonplace now, eh?

What's really bizarre is that after I signed up for Gmail, put a stupid page up, and went to bed... I got up this morning and tried to log in to Blogger, and I couldn't do it.

Password didn't work. Had I forgotten my password? Uh, no, that's my password. Had I forgotten my login name? For crying out loud, it's my email address, I think I know my email address. Finally, Google told me that it did not have a user by that name. What?!

Google switched my login. Automatically. My login is now my Gmail account.

How the heck was I supposed to know this? Holy crap!

That is all.

Black cat tales

2007-01-28T18:09:00.000-05:00

Not until just this moment did it occur to me to note the irony: I'm known for launching myself at difficult things with the question, "how hard can it be?" and my cat is named "Simplicity."

Yeah, well, sure, it's easy for HER...

What?!

2007-01-27T22:39:00.000-05:00

From Canada compensates man U.S. deported to Syria

"The Canadian government now has taken several steps to accept responsibility for its role in sending Mr. Arar to Syria, where he was tortured," Leahy said in a statement Friday. "The question remains why, even if there were reasons to consider him suspicious, the U.S. government shipped him to Syria where he was tortured, instead of to Canada for investigation or prosecution."

He said the U.S. Justice Department intended to respond to his demands next week.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, on Wednesday chastised Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for continuing to press Washington on the Arar matter.

"It's a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins said.

Haha, news!

2007-01-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

Alright, so it's probably pretty obvious now, but here's the news you've been waiting for:

I have resigned from my position at the college. Yup.

I feel terrible. It's really sad! I have such great admiration for my current boss, and I really do hate to leave her in any kind of bind, but there you go. Now turns out to be the time.

Instead, I am going to be self-employed, with my own company named Virtual CKS.

Yes, ta-daa, new company: Virtual CKS. Website to follow.

Virtual CKS offers editorial services and document design. That's one of them so-called "umbrella terms" for "anything and everything that I know a bit about." Logo design, brochure creation, newsletters, press releases, proof-reading and copy editing and typesetting and so forth and so on... heck, give me a shot at greeting cards, and I'll probably do it.

I have plenty to learn, but this is where the "how hard can it be" mantra comes in handy. In my experience, especially in this day and age, all the information I need is pretty close to being at my beck and call. I've got some stock trips up my sleeve, I've got an in-house Excel and PowerPoint expert and Business Manager to boot, and I've got some great reference materials and some friends in many usefully related trades.

It looks really good, and fun, too.

I will work from home in my home office. I make too big a deal of this, but I'll work in my jeans (or jammies), which I just consider the epitomy of "civilized." I won't have to commute, I'll save money on gas, and I'll do work that interests me and utilizes my specific skills.

Like I said, it looks really good.

The next two weeks will be the hardest, as I'm juggling my day job, where I really want to do my best to make the transition easy for Sue and Olivia; and some new contracts in my new job, which I'm certainly not about to turn down!; and the two classes I'm taking with Dr. Hopper, which may yet kill me.

After that, we can talk. I plan to make time for a regular appointment with the gym, and a serious change in diet. I expect to take over more of the housework, since Luther is now working part-time in addition to going to school full-time. But other than that, I have to say... it already looks like I'm going to be plenty busy with my new employer: ME!!!

Should be interesting. I won't say the words. They're a given.