31 jan 2012

there is a subject i was planning to discuss, but when i put it down here on the screen, it didn't look like something i wanted to talk about after all. instead, i would like to know what the hell is up with facebook. i used to have a fb but between fiddling with the security options and stalking ex-boyfriends, it was eating up close to 20 minutes per day. who has that kind of time?? if i want to know what you are up to, i will text you. if i want you to see a picture of my new fridger, i will email it to you. if i don't know your text number or your email address, then i have no business contacting you about anything. so, packed up my fb a few years back and i moved out. took the pictures off the wall, pulled the notes down off the board, saved what i wanted, threw the rest away. i left the basics there - name and email address - to assist all those former bf's and bff's that are out there looking for me. i also left intact a couple links to a couple people, but the whole shebang has been shequiet for lo these past few years. that is, until this week. i have received more updates about these couple peoples's activities, links, pictures, and statuses this past week than i have at all since i left. probably the IPO has put a bee in zuckerberg's bonnet but it's beginning to tax my nervous system. i suppose i will have to go delete what remains of my account but even that seems like more time than i'd want to spend on it.

30 jan 2012

it wasn't like there was sludge bubbling up or anything. i mean, there was just a lagging gurgle in the pipes - after you'd flush, say, or after you shut off a faucet. gurgle-urgle-urgle... low water in the back toilet. reluctant drainage from the kitchen sink. nothing determinate. but it had been a few years since we had maintenance done, so we called the poo pumper and out he comes in his tanker truck with the giant hose and a bumper sticker on the back says, "we haul milk on weekends". as amusing as he is, he is a better poo pumper than comedian, so he starts right in to get the job done. what he discovers is that pumping the hole is only half the whole -- there's a homicidal tree choking the poo pipe! stupid tree. stupid tree! it'll cost us a grand to reroute the line.

home ownership rocks!




[not the exact truck that came to my house]

29 jan 2012

it's funny how the dates of some things are burned into memory and others you cannot remember at all. for instance, was it 16 january 2003? was that the day? doesn't really seem right, to me. i mean, 2003 is so recent. could it have been 2003?

see, i am just not sure.

28 jan 2012

today i went for yet another run in a long litany of the same. why? why do i run? why do i run often? what do i want from running? what does running want from me?

why do i believe running wants something of me?

i wouldn't expect you to understand... to understand how running isn't merely an activity, how running isn't something that i go do, how running is someonething i go be with.

yeah, like i said, i wouldn't expect you to understand.

but, anyway, she was really good company today. oh sure, i know she's a tease, but i think she might love me... she might, you know, be ready to settle down, have a relationship. maybe.

27 jan 2012

what do you want me to say? do you want me to tell you it seems like yesterday? because it doesn't. if anything, it feels like tomorrow. it feels like it hasn't happened yet, like i could pick up the phone and call her, the only one in the world i can stand to talk to on the phone, the only number i know without looking. or, if not tomorrow, then never. it feels like never at all. never, like i was grown in a tube.

26 jan 2012

if i were a...

sandwich, i'd be a club sandwich - lots of layers, better when taken together.

dog, i'd be an australian shepherd - energetic, always ready to play, fiercely loyal and protective.

tree, i'd be a cedar - able to find sustenance anywhere, putting down roots but not too deep, always sweet smelling but prickly and messy if you get too close.

musical instrument, i'd be a xylophone - percussive yet melodic.

car, i'd be a honda civic coupe - sporty, inexpensive but not cheap, highly endurant.

footrace, i'd be a 24-hour trail run - requiring a lot of stamina out of those who wish to spend time with me.



if you were...
what would you be?

25 jan 2012

ride tide bide my side fried potatoes tomatoes carrots celery salad dressing pants shirt jacket full metal jacket whacket placket it's a racket tennis horseback swimming archery canoe can you canoe sweet sailing moon sailor moon cartoon kids wear little pants take a chance find romance bromance sports football super bowl of guacamole chips salsa cantina wrapini chicken sandwich jason's deli smelly belly wrapped in jelly telly savalas marsalis greek freak in a cheek tongue in cheek up a creek without a paddle fiddle faddle violin viola viol cello cheddar cheese please crackers packers green bay field day ribbons first place tug of war on the floor in a house you're a mouse spouse louse hair comb shampoo in a tub rub a dub bath soap bubbles toys collander fresh squeezed bathwater son and daughter peanut otter in the gutter up down all around little feet walk into town sound mound baseball fielder cecil fielder prince purple rain down the drain bringing up that song again radio clock radio on a green toybox stuffed dolphin bear owl frog stuffed in there but not a dog in a bog on a log tree treehouse read a book smoke a cig drink some coffee eat a fig up in a tree with a book in your lap read there a page turn it down make a flap flapjack pancake waffle syrup bacon sausage patty sausage link in a pan will make you think of that book with the poems that we read so many times watch clock timer time's up ring the bell time to get up rest hour's over have a cola and a hershey bar sitting on the rock wall down by the lake flake cake make a cake out of corn flakes tony tiger diggum sugar pops got a spoon from the box still have that spoon to this day you can never take that spoon away fork bonanza fork and knife and spoon and plate cup bowl glass mug smug picture photo album record history tome dusty musty fusty disgusty old and dry and in the sky and where are you now and tell me why

24 jan 2012

in grade school i had a lunch box that was a tall ovoid cylinder with a top-opening zipper. it was a sort of vinyl soft-sided thing printed with mushroom pattern. it came with a thermos which my mother filled with ravioli and bran. that's right, i said bran. the bran was a good match to the peanut butter and jelly and bran sandwich. that's right, i said bran. again. dear ol' mom spent her whole life experimenting with bodily inputs - liquids, solids, gases, she did it all. and, we kids were just along for the ride. i'm fairly certain Bran Year affected my digestion in an irreperable and timeless manner. but, hey, that was life with mom... bless her heart.

23 jan 2012

websites keep telling me to upgrade my browser, but i have seen the future, and it's not pretty. this here is IE8 and that's as far as i care to go. at work i am still using IE7. besides a weird tendency to completely mangle the favicon collection, and of course an inability to consistently open sites anymore, IE7 is a doll. a DOLL. on the other PC here at home we have... i don't know... IE10 maybe? what a piece of crap. when you open a new tab, there's no telling where it will end up, and that's just loopy. new tabs should appear to the starboard of the tab list. you cannot move toolbars - loopy again. you could move toolbars before there even was such a thing as tabs, before they started couting the versions. srsly, microsoft. wtf? at work, we don't get to pick. we have to use IE7 because of some browser-based software compatibility, but i am not arguing. IE7 is the best of the IEs, in my arrogant opinion. due to the ubiquity of the internet, the web, browser-based software, the "cloud" (ppfthth!)... a browser is my most-used desktop app. why can't i have one that works in a sensible manner? yeah, whatever with your chrome and your firefox and your ubuntu. whatever! i was there at the dawn of IE. remember when the gateway to the internet was AOL? huh? do ya?? IE's functionality is second nature to me, and nothing increases productivity like knowing your tools. i don't want to spend my time learning tools - i want to be productive.

22 jan 2012

grumpyhappysleepysneezybashfuldopeydoc

i am completely bushwacked, and i don't even have anything much to show for it. i cooked, ate, and cleaned up breakfast, balanced the checkbook and paid the water bill, got groceries, went for a run, had something to eat, prepared lunches for the week, and now have sat down to watch a little football. okay, i guess it's not nothing, but i am Tired with a capital T. probably still recovering from yoga.

redorangeyellowgreenblueindigoviolet

did you ever play smear the queer? it's like tag only backwards. the person who is "it" is the chasee, not the chaser like in freeze tag or elbow tag. when you catch "it" you tackle him - everyone piles on. then somebody new is "it" like whoever was the last to get on the tackle pile or maybe whoever comes out with the ball. we used to play that all the time as kids. don't know why i thought of it.

diaryringlocketcupdiademsnakeharry

we got a new weather radio and i guess it's been a while since we had a storm but last tuesday i was working at home when suddenly a piercing siren rang thru the house. after i got done giving myself CPR, i realised what the sound was. our old radio would sound a short alarm then noah from the weather service would tell us what was so alarming. this one is just an alarm. i don't remember why we switched.

21 jan 2012

she was a photographer.
she looked at the world like "this"... through a lens.
she saw things that weren't pretty - unkind actions, unfriendly people.
she put the camera between herself and the ugliness.
she went places with the camera that she'd never have gone alone.
she saw so many things through that viewfinder.
she was always looking forward.
she never saw it coming at her, from behind.

20 jan 2012

tomorrow i'm going to hot yoga. i've never done yoga, much less hot yoga, so i am lacking confidence. to overcome my first-world-leisure-activity angst, i did what any good little first-worldie would do -- i bought a new outfit. now at least i can dress the part, putting one worry out of the way. at yoga, you use a mat, and if you don't have a mat, you can rent a mat, but rental mats are skyvie, so i bought a mat, and buried that worry with the wardrobe worry. the last remaining Major Issue is that my feet are not pretty and some parts of my toenails have gone missing, but in my defense, i thought i would be wearing socks. stupid yoga naked feet rule. even the gyno lets you keep your socks on.

19 jan 2012

sitting here watching vanderbilt mens basketball team take it to bamalama at bamalama, and while it's always nice to notch a W, i am not sure how much of this W has to do with vanderbilt's being a good team because what appears to be happening is that bamalama sucks. here we are with three minutes to go and vanderbilt is up by 20 but has turned the ball over 4 times in the past 90 seconds. they are doing their dardnest to give the game over to bamalama, but the boys in crimson are so pathetic they cannot even take what's being handed right to them.

18 jan 2012

sopa. pipa. i'd say to google 'em, but googling's a bit of a challenge today because of them. so, instead, i will paste in here a stellar explanation descartes emailed to me when i requested a crash course.

In summary: a shift from judicial mediation of Internet content relationships to regulatory control of Internet traffic

The critical issue is not the intent of the legislation (blocking access to illegal distribution channels for copyrighted material) but rather in the vagueness of the language that, as an example, could be detrimental to sites that rely on user-generated content and the concomitant burden on those sites to pro-actively patrol for copyright compliance. The current model of "takedown notices" (through which content providers are indemnified so long as they respond by removing infringing material after receiving notice) places the burden on copyright holders to enforce their rights. The models proposed by SOPA and PIPA permit the Justice Department to block access to reported sites at the root DNS servers without direct involvement of the content or service providers. Under both, instead of copyright-holder petition to provider then court the model would be copyright-holder petition to Justice Department and done. The main concerns among the more rational opponents are (1) direct control of Internet content by governmental agency rather than judicial process and (2) access to "censorship" controls by interests with the money to influence or participate in the regulatory process. The main points of the more rational proponents are (1) the targets are foreign sites not US sites and (2) stealing is wrong and shouldn't be easy just because of the Internet.

Among the legislation's chief proponents are many of the same copyright holders who have worked to extend the life of copyright in perpetuity (Motion Picture Association of America, Disney, Recording Industry of America, Hachette) and - in the most negative interpretation - preserve an income flow forever on intellectual and creative property rights.

Among the legislation's chief opponents are the content distribution industry (unreasonable administrative burden), rights groups (Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union), open internet advocates (let the law in courts do the enforcement of copyright law not governmental regulatory bodies), and websites and services driven by user-generated or user-submitted content who - in the most negative interpretation - stand to preserve higher profit margins without administrative burden of regulatory compliance.

Both SOPA and PIPA are inheritors of the copyright debate itself so the positions of proponents and opponents of the present legislation have roots in copyright law not Internet technology and infrastructure law.

true, i am in the publishing business, so i am a bit of a professional content provider. i am also an amateur content provider. i get why folks think all information should be free because we've all gotten very used to having wikipedia at our fingertips, but as with everything, you get what you pay for. free information isn't always good information. the difference between a cheap pair of shoes and cheap information is that you can see the cheap shoes falling apart before your very eyes. the cheap information falls apart in a less visible and much more insidious way.

in general, folks don't understand what goes into the generation of quality information, and of course, information providers can be shysty, greedy, but the bottom line is that copyright was established to protect the rights of content creators. copyright and first amendment right of expression are tangential, even in the internet they are tangential, but the lack of tactile information product makes the tangential seem tangible.

i have not yet made up my mind.

have you?

17 jan 2012

in this town, there used to be a chain eatery called bonanza. bonanza offered a variety of meats grilled over an open flame and served up on a sort of 'tin plate' type of plate, supposed to look like cowboy plates. another chain with a similar theme was called ponderosa and if you're familiar at all with vintage television, you can see where they're going with all that. in its heyday, bonanza was THE place to eat. when they put in the full-size hot & cold food bar and the ice cream machine... well, that was really the beginning of the end. by the time liquor by the drink came in and o'charley's got established, bonanza was about ready to call it a day and ride off into the sunset.

when they did close up shop, they gave away some of their plates and whatnot to loyal vendors, the meat guy, the cola guy, the bread guy. we ended up with two plates, a fork, and a spoon. an odd lot. the plates are fun, but awkward. the spoon is well-shaped, solid. but the fork - ooo, stop! that fork is my favorite in our whole drawer of flatware mutts. the other day, it went missing.

i knew it had to be me that mislaid it, because i make darn sure i'm the only one who uses it. he never notices things like weight of flatware, how it feels in his hand. he's just not sensitive to that sort of thing so it's not like i am shorting him at all, at all.

back to the point, i mislaid my favorite fork. i racked my brains for where it could be and realised i'd last used it to eat a potato from jason's deli. omg, i threw my little darling in the rubbish bin.

i realised this on, like, saturday. the trash goes out on tuesday. i knew what i had to do, so i waited. tuesdays i work at home. after he'd left for school, i pulled the bin back into the garage. right there in plain sight was a plastic trashbag tied with a bow, from the top of which poked the plain brown handle of a jason's deli bag. i pulled open the bow and peered in the bag and bingo! there was my precious, half under a potato peel, its tail resting in a container half-empty of dried out sour cream.

retrieved, washed, restored. ah. my precious is home.

16 jan 2012

how did it get to be 20:42? breakfast, a little reading, drive over to the office to use the fitness center, go for a smoothie, return the computer i've been devirusing, and back home for soup & a sandwich. how does that take 11 hours?

15 jan 2012

a little too high.
a little too wide.
a little too high and wide.
you can't catch the ball
when it's flying through the air
if it's a little too high and wide.

it's a game of precision -
no time for indecision.
every coach has a vision.
every player wants to win.
when you're there in the huddle -
rapid signals will befuddle.
and your ma ain't there to cuddle
when you take it on the chin.

a little too high.
a little too wide.
a little too high and wide.
you can't catch the ball
when it's flying through the air
if it's a little too high and wide.

14 jan 2012

i like this song. jakob dylan. it's his voice i like, i guess. i mean, i could listen to him read the phone book. unlike dave matthews who i can't stand to listen to at all. why is that? i mean, what's the difference... something in the timbre, the tone, the rhythm, enunciation, breathing? alls i know is ol' dave sounds like an ass and jakob's simply brilliant.

this isn't exactly what i was meaning to talk to you about today but by the time i got around here, i'd plum forgot what i was going to say. it's sort of nibbling at the edge of my mind but i don't really think i'll remember.

13 jan 2012

the instructions i gave to him were to change the page heading and he replied back should he add a second line or change what was already in the heading. i replied with various instructions and within the context included, "Change what is there." when he replied with the completed change, he had severed that instruction from the context as if that were my only statement to him. he did that because he knew it would be enough to remind me of the complete instruction, but on its own, it is odd.



change what is there

Change: What Is There

Change. What is there?

Change... what IS there?

Change, what is, there.

Change? What is there?

12 jan 2012

you are a little one
and ignorant.
you do not know where light lives
nor darkness.
you do not know the home of day,
the bed of night.
you are a little one
and ignorant.

11 jan 2012

getting to know people is a funny game. there's folks that like to turn it into something resembling a job interview - name? age? education? job? hobbies? but you cannot really get to know another person like that.

think about someone you Know Well... if i were to ask you about a person you Know Well, what would you say first about her?

"oh, zuzu is your roommate? what's she like?"

"zuzu is 36 years old with blond hair and blue eyes. zuzu went to school in california and now works as a sous chef at wendy's. in her spare time, zuzu enjoys welding."

um... not unless you're an automaton.

i think you'd be more likely to say somesuch as - "zuzu's great! very tidy -- she even carries around a lint brush because she has to wear black pants for work, but she has this dog called 'tin man'! get it? like from the wizard of oz? the joke is that the dog was named toto! haha! oh, that's zuzu for you. hilarious."

right there you've told me that she's neat, cares for her dog, she's funny, and she's employed. does it matter how old she is? where she works? where she went to school? no.

what's my point?

i am not sure.

10 jan 2012

my precious is back from the shop and she's cuter than ever. see?

[insert picture here]

in other news, a few thousand people seem to have discovered my neighborhood starbucks and decided to descend upon it simultaneously. okay, maybe 20 people, but still - Very Crowded. so, i had to be a bit of an ass in the car park to reach the building before this young couple who were dithering about at the door. okay, i didn't "have to" be a bit of an ass, but as it's a genetic trait, i am hard pressed to deny it access to my actions. result? comfy armchair pour moi.

in other news, i worked at home today and am nearly driven crosseyed by peering at tagged text for hours on end. i did finish the amount i set out to do, so good on me, eh? one problem with heads-down focus on one piece of the project is that now i am a bit disoriented about the state of the whole thing. but, no worries. there are like 7 other major projects and another 8 or 10 minor things going on at work right now, so i'm sure it will be no problem to sort this one comfortably in the morning. i can probably allot... oh... 12 minutes to it. should be plenty of time. what's that? if i'm so concerned about it, why not do it right now? i couldn't bear to rob myself of the fun of cramming it in tomorrow, that's why not.

in other news, i am wearing my hair in a sort of sticky-outie style. going for meg ryan in sleepless in seattle, but fairly certain i appear simply to be disordered in starbucks.

9 jan 2012

you.
can't.
stop.
the moon.

up -
it rises.
down -
it sets.

you.
can't.
stop.
the moon.

today it is full!

tomorrow...
not so much.

you.
can't.
stop.
the moon.

or time.

or

me.

8 jan 2012

there used to be this website called zwinky where you could make a great anime avatar but apparently zwinky has morphed into a spyware-infested toolbar that requires download to activate. the zwinky-maker was cool but not cool enough to merit a spyware download. so i've been trolling the web looking for a good anime avatar maker.


brown hair and blue eyes much? sheesh. i do not believe i look like velma from scooby doo, but avatar creators don't lie, do they?

7 jan 2012

the air is soft, cool. not weightless but, as i step onto the deck to place my garmin to catch its signal, the air touches me gently. the sun at its winter angle could be dawning. january midday transformed to april morning.

it has rained.

oh, how i do not want to do this! but unlike the featherlight air, the exercise obligation weighs heavy.

i am old. my back hurts in a way that's not about stretching. gone are the days when all the mileage required of me was willingness.

but i remember what a-1 said so i push the pace a bit and pretty soon i am turning over okay. a mile in 8:41. another in 8:18 and i'm done, spent, jogging it in.

but for 17 minutes, like january turned to april, i am a runner.

6 jan 2012

this week my car was in the shop so i had a rental.

my car is a honda civic coupe. did you know that coupe is correctly coupé and is french for "cut off short"? well, it is. did you know that honda is correctly honda and is spanish for "slingshot"? well, it is. and, civic is from the latin "civis" which means citizen. so, my car is a short citizen slingshot. or, short slingshot citizen. or, slingshot short citizen. whatever - the point is: small, quick, and dutiful.

the rental was a toyota yaris. a few years back when i was car shopping, i would have been delighted with this yaris - a 4-door hatchback, dark grey. it's pretty much everything i was looking for. now? not so much. now, i miss my little brown car.

do i miss it simply because it is mine? or, do i miss it because i have come to love it? if i had a yaris, versa, vibe, or fit, would i love it just as much? i don't know. i do know that i love my little slingshot all out of proportion. i knew when i realised how much i loved her that it was just a matter of time before i mangled her, which i did, and now i have to pay dearly to put her right again. it's not right to love an object that much.

but she is so lovely... how can i help it?

[insert picture here]

5 jan 2012

very large, like 6'5" and a couple hundred plus pounds, he stood in the middle of my kitchen. mere centimeters from the top of his head and the tips of his madly gesticulating fingers, the fanless ceiling fixture's dangling bulb seemed to dodge his excitement. he talked about putting in cabinets and taking out walls, hardwood floors and window sills, gas cooktops and granite countertops. he talked about everying, including the kitchen sink. he understands my vision for the purple walls. this will be change for the better.

4 jan 2012

change your shirt
change your hair
change your dirty underwear
change your menu
change your socks
change your address
change your locks
change your job
change your handle
change your television channel
change your lifestyle
change your habits
change your temper
change your rabbits

rabbits?

yes. rabbits.

3 jan 2012

When you decide to make a change, the amount of "you" that you change is generally determined not by making a list of things you wish to change, but rather by an accounting of what you wish to keep. You take inventory and you see what's good and what's become mealy-mush, and you keep the good and discard the mealy-mush.

You cannot determine up front and beforehand those things you actually wish to change, per se, as much as you can determine what you wish to retain. After all, it's not as though you go into the change knowing how you will come out the other side of it, so you're generally not going to purposefully throw over that which is favorable.

Say that you like the brown sweater and it fits well and keeps you warm, but the yellow one you admire less, then you might pitch the yellow one and keep the brown. No longer having the yellow would change your wardrobe, but not by much since you probably weren't wearing it much anyway.

You could replace the yellow with another yellow. Discard the lemony cable knit and acquire a buttery cardigan... Will anyone except you even notice this so-small change? "She has a yellow sweater." is all that anyone knows. This change is less than the first.

You could take a leap and get rid of both the yellow AND the brown. Discard the unliked and the liked, the new and old, the poorly fitting and the well-suited. Then, you can wear the navy sweater and the gray one. Rebellion!

Seems like a change going in, but it's not so much a change after all. You've changed but the surface and not the depths, the cover and not the content. You've changed the flavour, but it is still ice cream.

Stop wearing sweaters altogether and switch to hoodies, or blazers, or plaid flannel shirts. Stop eating ice cream and have cake instead.

It is easy to throw off that which fits poorly and keep that which fits well. It's difficult to keep what fits poorly and throw off the well-fitting. But the real challenge is to chuck the whole fccking lot of it.

books 2012

current:
the hunger games
.....by suzanne collins

complete:

2 jan 2012

change can be disorienting, disconcerting, disquieting, disturbing. right when you have life down, it changes. there's a bump in the road, hurdle in the track, fork in the path, ottomon in the foyer. sometimes change is bothersome. sometimes it is time for things to remain as they are.

right?

maybe.

sometimes it is the change itself that orients, placates, quiets, stills. sometimes the status quo is a bee in the bonnet, a burr under the saddle, a rock in the shoe, a wad in the panty. sometimes the way things are is bothersome. sometimes it is time for things to change.

maybe?

right.

1 jan 2012

a bright day
cold
windy
very windy

a bright cold windy day

just the sort of day made for starting over