doin stuff

no more dongal jokes.

2010-03-03T22:39:00.002-05:00

Two things.

One: the level of detail of wikipedia's documentation of Arrested Development is astonishing.

Two: today, outside the grocery store, I realized that I feel good enough about my career path that I can shut down solicitors for help-the-children organizations without the slightest hint of guilt about it. After spending the day doing what I do, I want to buy my cheese and go home in peace. I know you have a tough job, but go bother someone who makes money in a high rise all day.

I do indeed like office supplies.

2010-01-23T01:31:00.002-05:00

I've got to say, I started off a Conan fan, but over the last week my respect and admiration for him has grown a lot. What a sane, mature person. He made a really hard decision to take a principled stand, stuck to it, walked the line on the last few days of his show, balanced his emotions, stayed funny, gracefully handled an outpouring of public support, and pulled off earnesty.

"[I]f you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Noted.

I hope that after some relaxing vacation time, Conan will be able to put his creative energy toward something new and awesome.

Also, who knew he could play guitar like that? Wow.

suck it, 2009.

2009-12-31T22:42:00.002-05:00

I'm not big on retrospective, year-summing-up posts, but I want to say something about 2009. 2009 kind of blew, and I have a lot against it. But the fact that it was the last year that contained my uncle makes me hate to leave it behind.

all of God's children are terrible

2009-12-14T22:42:00.001-05:00

Some scenes from the neighborhood:

Gleaner lady (I'm assuming it's a lady -- every one I've ever seen (or heard, at FIVE A.M. some days) has been a lady) is going through the recycling of the jerks on one of the lower levels. Not surprisingly, there are quite a few glass and aluminum containers, so she has her work cut out for her. Some drunk twentysomethings on the second or third level are drinking (did I mention the drinking? "HELL YEAH I'M GETTING DRUNK ON A MONDAY!!!" is a recent direct quote) and think it would be awesome to yell at her. I guess they weren't sure if she was Hispanic or Asian, so they go with, "Get me some General Tso's chicken, Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi!!"

I didn't think it was possible to think even less of college students, but now I do. There's gotta be a floor here somewhere.

Then, I have the dog out, and she's flipping out over all of the normal things -- pedestrians, breeze, garbage cans, the sidewalk -- and we come across a very nice couple who have met and admired her before. The woman tries to get her to come near enough to pet her, which results, predictably, in her winding her leash around a lamppost and a gigantic rock in frantic escape attempts. This guy who lives in what we have surmised is a group home of some sort happens upon us. We've met him before, and he loves both dogs. LD occasionally pays attention to him and will wag and lick the guy's face and let him pet him. JD, of course, completely flips her shit and hides under a car at the sight of him.

So both this woman and the guy are trying to even get a straight look at JD, who is now cowering behind me. The guy gives up and walks on, and the woman engages me in conversation and keeps trying to get JD to engage with her. Eventually she says, "I don't blame her for being scared, that guy scares me, too. He's scary."

It takes me a second to figure out that she means group home guy, a guy who has been nothing but sweet and loving towards both of my dogs, and all I can get out is, "Well, my other dog likes him a lot."

Weak. I'm trying to figure out what I should have said -- probably just an "I don't think he's scary at all" would suffice. "You ignorant asshole" would probably be over the top.

Why do people say things? I wish they would stop.

2009-12-10T23:05:00.001-05:00

Why does checking my e-mail for the first time after a long day away from the computer feel like I'm scanning the environment for danger?

have I told you lately

2009-12-10T00:27:00.002-05:00

that you have reached 80% capacity of your mailbox?

have I told you lately that soon you'll have no more room?

there's a capacity that's defined

and you'll reach it in time

if you don't delete stuff, you'll reach it soon.

P.S. Geico just saved me elebenty hundred dollars on car insurance. I'm not even kidding.

Shazam, my lamb!

2009-12-09T13:50:00.002-05:00

I'm taking this class about psychological assessment, which basically means giving people standardized tests of all kinds and then not using the results to screw them over for life. Right-o.

So for part of the class, we administered a couple tests to ourselves and have to write up a report based on the results.* The two tests I'm writing about came to the conclusion that I do not enjoy taking risks. Well... no. That's true. But should I take more risks? What am I missing out on if I'm too afraid to do anything?

Sooo, one day I had stayed too late at my jobbish thingadoodle downtown and was probably going to be late for class. During one part of my trek back to school, the train line runs parallel to three stops of the school's shuttle bus. The train and shuttle bus stops only match up at one point, and even at that point, there's a pretty major intersection to cross. Still, I had been paying attention for weeks to see if it was going to be possible to get off the train before it got to where I get off normally (and then have to walk alllll the way across campus) and catch the shuttle, which would drop me off about halfway across campus.

It appeared that today was the day. I saw the campus shuttle looping around so that it would be coming up to the intersection where the train stops, and I totally went for it. Got to the very front of the train before we'd even stopped, no shuttle in sight. Adrenaline pumping, because this was going to be a sweet victory if I only got to class a few minutes late. Got off the stopped train just as the light was turning. Traffic, traffic, adrenaline, traffic, shuttle bus. That f*cker blew past its stop without even slowing down, and I was still standing three feet from the now-leaving train, on the entirely wrong side of the intersection.

So I had to wait for the next bus, which put me outside the classroom a full half-hour late. And, because I feel strongly bound by social norms (you don't walk into class half an hour late) and have a wee touch of social anxiety (if you walk into class now, everyone will look at you and you'll have to find a seat with everyone watching and there's not an empty one near the door and GAAAHH), I sat outside the classroom until the break half an hour later.

*Heh, I took the Myers-Briggs and tested as an INTP. There's a blast from the past. Do I make decisions with my heart or my head? I don't know what that means, and refuse to answer the question. Or how about: major life decisions, my heart; daily mundane decisions, my head. Where does that one fit on the grid? YOU DON'T KNOW ME, STANDARDIZED TESTS.

rounding third and heading for home

2009-11-30T22:39:00.002-05:00

Ladies and germs, spiders and spambots, I have come closer than I have ever come to successfully posting a blog post every day of November. I say that I'm close because this sucka isn't posted yet, and oh, fate would like that, wouldn't it? Zap the power to my block, whammo, now you have to decide between spending an hour taking the damn bus back to campus, posting at the library, and taking the damn bus back home, or failing for the milliontyth time. To be honest, I don't know what I would choose.

Probably I'd do it. I'd go to the damn library. And oh, what a post that would be. It would have more bile than a duct specifically designed to produce and store bile.

I will try to keep posting more often, because I really do have little ideas occasionally for posts. For some reason, I've been writing them up and storing them in the Drafts folder of my gmail account rather than actually posting them, which is not really what I want to be doing. I don't know what my block is about signing in and just posting already, but I'll work on it.

I could totally see having nightmares about subway tunnels.

2009-11-29T22:17:00.001-05:00

Other wants me to blog about the "Beyond the Sea Butt Dance." But I'm not going to.

I'm so disappointed, I forgot how to spell!

2009-11-28T14:38:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I told Other a joke I'd heard that started, "How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"* He was talking to a woman at his work who he's kind of buddies with, and she mentioned going to an art museum with her arty friends. Seeing the best opening one could ever hope for to tell this joke, he asked her how many surrealists it takes to screw in a lightbulb. She found the joke unamusing, and walked off in something of a huff.

We were thinking about this, and agreed that we embrace self-deprecation when it comes to writing and studying literature in a way that probably not everyone does when it comes to their own fields. So we came up with a few jokes to tell her about the writing life.

Other: We should have one that plays on outdated media.

Me: Okay, so, how many writers does it take to turn a novel into a screen play?

Other: I don't know, how many?

Me: What's a novel?

--and--

Other: How long does it take a writer to finish a novel?

Me: I don't know, how long?

Other: I don't know either, let's ask the waiter when he comes back.

*fish.

our phone company sure talks a lot of smack.

2009-11-27T17:40:00.002-05:00

It's Black Friday, and instead of staying under the bed wearing pots on our heads as we normally do (and as is proper), we foolishly ventured out to Target in search of the rumored $3 toasters. You heard about the $3 toasters, right? The availability of $3 toasters was announced/leaked/made somehow known about three days after our toaster suddenly stopped working, so the idea of a $3 toaster was very appealing to us.

Of course there wasn't a $3 toaster in sight. Where is the outrage? I couldn't find any.

There had apparently been $7 toasters, but those were cleaned out. So we're poking at the display toasters, which range from $15.99 to like $39.99, and Other pushes down the lever on one and it pops back up without sticking or lighting up or anything. Other says, "that's weird," and I say, "it's probably not plugged in." "DING," says the light bulb that goes off above Other's head. He says, "I wonder if our toaster isn't plugged in."

A long conversation ensues about why in hell either of us would have unplugged our toaster. Conclusion: we have no idea, but these un-plugged-in toasters are acting suspiciously like our supposedly-broken-toaster-at-home. Further conclusion: we may not need to buy a brand new $16 toaster because the toaster we got for free like 7 years ago is perfectly fine. Further conclusion: of course, if we don't buy a new (effing) toaster, our toaster will indeed be toast (ha! see what I did there?) and it will now cost like $24 instead of $16, plus we'll need to make another trip to Target.

Sigh.

So we bought the $16 toaster and came home to find that the toaster had somehow become just unplugged enough not to work but was fully functional once plugged back in. So now we have two toasters and are slated to make another trip to Target.

I'm just glad that Comet doesn't come with a skin warning.

2009-11-26T21:07:00.002-05:00

It's Thanksgiving, and I'm doing the Sitting-Down Robot to "Hollywood Freaks." (Sha na na na na na yeah.) And eating M&Ms and researching Borderline Personality Disorder and writing on my "blog". I'm pretty sure that's what the brave and probably-smelly founders of our great country intended.

Oh, I'm just kidding. I'm sure they smelled great.

oh man, you again?

2009-11-25T20:57:00.002-05:00

I've heard some kind of crazy rumor that your eyesight is supposed to start getting a little better on its own around age 25. Other's seems to have done that. Mine, on the other hand, continues to go downhill steadily. It's been years since I could extend my arm all the way and see my hand clearly without glasses. Now I can see, without glasses, a bit less than six inches in front of my nose. And it's clear that these glasses aren't cutting it anymore, because other people seem to be able to see things more than ten feet away much more clearly than I can.

It's probably my fault for doing so much closeup work, namely knitting and reading. I could try to do less of that and preserve the vision a bit, or I could binge on it and do as much as possible before I cease to be able to see anything. I've been compromising, kind of, by doing as much knitting without looking as possible. Stockinette for everyone!

I heart norms.

2009-11-24T23:35:00.002-05:00

Part II of yesterday's post is about how Coca-Cola is straddling some dangerous ground by labeling its 2-liter of coke "Feliz Navidad" and the other side "Holiday 2009." (You know, for the years that you will look back fondly at the empty 2-liter that you have used to decorate the wall and remember 2009.)

Feliz Navidad: Merry Christmas without being Merry Christmas, with some multicultural bonus points. Although the people who yell about the War on Christmas do not tend to be in the part of the venn diagram that overlaps with people with progressive views on immigration or the place of the Spanish language in America.

Nice try, Coke, but you might want to try harder next year.

erm, I don't speak Italian, but I'm pretty sure that's spelled wrong.

2009-11-23T22:57:00.002-05:00

Doesn't it seem like the War on Christmas starts a little earlier every year? I swear, it seems like when we were thinking about carving our annual jack-o'-lanterns, the Secularists were gearing up for another full frontal assault on everything that is decent and holy in our country.

ode to Pilot VBall

2009-11-22T22:31:00.002-05:00

I'm still running that ridiculous dog a couple times a week. When I started (back in July? or June, maybe?) I was doing about a mile and a half in a little over 18 minutes. I quickly got down to under 17 minutes, and decided that my goal would be to do a lap in 15 minutes, for a ten-minute-ish mile. That would be pretty good. When I came in one day at 15:21, I decided to go ahead and do a second lap, which I'd been planning on doing when I could do one lap in 15 minutes - I figured at that point that being able to do two laps would eventually also help me keep up a faster pace. That was awhile ago, and I'd do two laps and then hurt for a couple of days. The hurting is decreasing, though, which I'm taking as a good sign.

I've been so close over the last few weeks to hitting the 15 minute mark. Once we were going really strong and then the dog stopped to poop, which really shouldn't make me mad, and I guess it didn't really make me mad, but I do wish she could have done that on the second lap. We came in at about 15:38 for that one. Then, this week, we came in at a heartbreaking 15:01.

Today we came in at 14:39. I don't really know what the hell happened, although I suspect the wind had something to do with it. I also suspect that walking will be slightly painful tomorrow.

It's been interesting to work at this over several months. It occurs to me as I'm writing this that I should set a new goal now that I've hit the 15:00 one, although if past experience is any guide, I bet it will be hard to hit again for awhile.

To my shock, I'm dreading stopping for the winter, which will likely involve lots of un-jog-able snow. It's enough to make me contemplate trying to find an indoor track where I can run a couple of times a week, because as much as I do not enjoy running, the idea of falling back out of shape is even worse.

I went into this whole endeavor expecting it to get easier, but really, for months it just sucked a whole lot. After I gave up on it ever actually feeling good to run (which happened about a week and a half ago), it started not sucking as much. But seriously, until very recently, I would just run along mentally cursing and hating every second.

Maybe I'll add a third lap once my combined time for two laps breaks 31 minutes. Although at some point, more running will cease to be a motivating reward for going faster.

something about jail

2009-11-21T23:32:00.002-05:00

I took a faceplant nap today. I never sleep on my stomach, but there are just some days that require a face-down nap.

I just licked cream cheese off my passport.

2009-11-20T21:06:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I'm amazed at how people can form opinions on the smallest of issues and the leanest of actual factual detail. Like how that story was publicized a few weeks ago about the guy who got in trouble for being naked in his own house, and hearing only the information contained in the first half of this very sentence was enough to send lots of people into a foaming rage about What This Country Is Coming To. I'll say right now that I don't know the details of this story, nor do I care to, and yeah, I will say that my initial reaction is to think that generally people's right to walk around their own house naked should be respected, but I do also think that it's plausible that a situation could exist wherein this guy should be stopped from walking around naked in his own house because he's doing it in order to get pleasure out of exposing himself to schoolchildren. I could hold either of those views, depending on the facts of the situation, but I'll probably never find out what actually happened. And really, why should I?

Apathy gets a bad rap, but in some cases it just makes so much sense.

That is a lot of liquor. And... bananas.

2009-11-19T22:48:00.002-05:00

White-out has come a long way since I was a wee 'un.

Also: do high school students (or students of any age) take typing classes anymore? Or do they just know automatically how to type without looking?

asdfspacejklsemicolonspace.

someone is growing a red tic tac tree.

2009-11-18T22:43:00.003-05:00

Well, today was insane and I can't believe tomorrow is so soon. I am noticing that I am way more scatterbrained and disorganized than usual (and yes, there are degrees of scatterbrainedness and disorganizedness), which, as coping mechanisms go is slightly less helpful than, say, increased attention to detail and somewhat more helpful than, say, alcoholism.

However, I've noticed that whatever organization and ability to remember important things that I have is spurred not by inherent capacities, but rather by a deathly fear that I will forget something terribly important and everyone will hate me. Not terribly comfortable, but it's what I've got.

You know, smudgy. Emo.

2009-11-17T23:13:00.002-05:00

On some specific days, usually ones with an overload of people-contact-time, it occurs to me that what I would like to be is an owl, so that I can sit up in a tree and tuck my head under my wing to sleep. I wish I had a wing to tuck my head under.

On a night like tonight, with its newly-cold breeze and crisp moonlight - I wonder what it feels like to feel warm under all those feathers, hear the leaves scratching each other all around.

ringy dingy dingy

2009-11-16T22:28:00.002-05:00

On my school's e-mail system, there is apparently some kind of limit on the size of your mailbox. When you hit 80% of that limit, there's a warning that comes up letting you know that you're at 80% of your limit. Seems like it would be helpful, yes? Hey, did you know you're at 80% of your limit?, it asks as you try to log in. If you let the computer sit without refreshing for 5 minutes, it asks you again. "80%," it says. "Of your limit." If you let it sit without refreshing for 10 minutes, something with the frames messes up and you see the 80% warning with frames, then without frames. If you let it sit for more than that, God help you, because you have to get the 80% message with frames, without frames, re-log-in, then see it with the frames again before you can see your e-mail.

Hmm. This seems to be verging on the less-than-helpful -- perhaps, I daresay, the annoying. I get it. 80%. There's a limit, and I am currently at 80% of it. Should I reach 100%, horrible school-e-mail-related things will happen. Yes. Okay.

I'm sure that the system must be set up this way because the tech department was utterly sick of getting calls from confused professors who ignored whatever non-nuclear warnings they got until their mailbox was full and then chose to call up and yell at some guy making $35K a year because they couldn't see pictures of their granddogs that their son had tried sending three times. I get that. And I'm sure that their logic went, Ha. We control your mailbox, we are going to make it LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for people to not understand that they are in danger of coming near the limit.

Well, that's where you're wrong, tech department. Because I fully intend to hit the limit and freak out and call the tech department with the complaint that there should have been SOME KIND OF WARNING before you just TURNED OFF MY ACCOUNT. Just on the principle of the thing.

noodle corn

2009-11-15T20:22:00.002-05:00

Today I spent over an hour washing 29 pairs of handknit socks. I never imagined that my adult life would revolve so very much around socks. Choosing supplies for them (yarn, needles, patterns, whatever else), making them, wearing them, protecting them from moths and other damage, washing them by hand, letting them air-dry in the kitchen or in front of the door to the balcony, folding them up and storing them with dryer sheets or sachets.

Do you know about wool? Wool is pretty awesome. Wool is the only known substance that gives off heat as it dries, rather than absorbing it. That means that when you reach into a mound of sopping wet, misshapen, wooly-smelling socks, it feels warm, almost like the mound is alive.

If I'd had wool socks about eight years ago, then that day that I came in from the rain, soaked from the thighs down, and sat for four or five hours in frigid air conditioning, wouldn't have resulted in a terrible cold. After that day, I started carrying around an extra pair of (cotton) socks, just in case my feet got soaked again. I don't think they ever did, though I can't remember.

Before I took up knitting them, socks had been a running joke between my mom and me. Since we kids were little, our family has had a tradition of each person choosing one present to open on Christmas Eve. One Christmas, I had a hard time picking out one to open, so finally I asked her, jokingly, "what's in this one?" and she said "socks." I don't quite remember how it went down, but I didn't believe her, and chose that one to open, and yes, it was a six-pack of white athletic socks. So now whenever anyone asks what a wrapped-up gift is, the answer is "socks."

Now, I actually give her at least one pair of hand-knit socks every Christmas. I've made 45 pairs, and have four pairs on the needles.

Until today, I had tended to regard the importance of socks in my life as something silly, maybe embarrassing, definitely weird. Because socks are such a trifle. Socks are less important than wills, deeds, cars, meals, iPods. It could just as easily have been a hangup on paper napkins, or car keys, or breathing oxygen. But actually -- and perhaps this is over an hour of breathing wool fumes talking -- maybe it's not silly to consider socks so important. It's easy to take our feet for granted, but life without them would be significantly more difficult. How well a person takes care of her/his feet correlates strongly to how well they are functioning overall. And am I not always going on about how finding places for artistic expression in the mundane is part of being human?

I could machine-wash the socks, but that would cost $1.50, and the process is pretty rough on them. All those temperature changes and being bashed around. I do have to admit, though, that when I wasn't thinking about the how the endeavor of knitting socks is surprisingly noble, I was thinking about how lovely it will be if someday I can afford my own washing machine with a setting that simulates hand washing. Or at least a salad spinner to spin out some of the water.

blah blah blah etc. yada

2009-11-14T22:42:00.002-05:00

More books!

Title: Interpreter of Maladies
Theme: It's a collection of short stories
Subject: Various Indian or Indian-American characters, often in family arrangements
Comments:I think that this is a very good book. It's worth reading. It also happened to be hitting entirely the same tired chords in me that doing counseling hits, so it wasn't a terribly enjoyable experience. I would have thought that any novel/short story, or any decent one, would hit the same chords, but really, the other ones I've read since starting to practice haven't had the same effect on me. Had some great sentences, though.

Title: Easter Parade
Theme: Uh, why life isn't worth living? Or something?
Subject: The lives of a pair of sisters over ~50 years
Comments: Yates, Richard. He who brought us Revolutionary Road. Wouldn't have expected an uplifting tale from the guy, but that was an exceptionally emotionally bereft story. Nicely written, engaging, glad I read it.

We're due for another trip to the library soon. I need to start collecting book recommendations again.

so long, so long

2009-11-13T23:12:00.001-05:00

Moderation is good for all things, but especially blog comments. I think Aristotle said that.