Ego! Ego! Ego!: Musings Archives
October 21, 2009
Loma PrietaLast Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Like most Bay Area folk, I remember exactly where I was when it hit.
I'd been home sick that day, and was still in my jammies at the dining room table. Mom was in the kitchen, leaning over a spread-out newspaper and reading. When the quake hit, I jumped up and stood in the doorway like I'd been taught and said, "Mom, mom, come stand in the doorway!"
She said, "eh, it'll stop in a minute."
But it was still shaking. The bookshelves in the livingroom faceplanted onto the floor with a crash.
"Maybe I will come stand in the doorway," she said, and then it stopped.
It was the longest quake I think I've ever been in -- about seven seconds, maybe eight. Every bookshelf we had that was oriented along the North-South axis of the house fell over. Those oriented East-West didn't (including an enormous cinderblock-and-board bookcase in the library which would have crushed everything in its path, yikes). The upstairs hallway had been lined with stacks of paperback books, all of which fell over and spread everywhere. The whole hallway was easily ankle-deep in books. (I come by my bibliophilia honestly!)
We were lucky. Our house was on decently stable land. Elsewhere, on fill or close to the epicenter, things were not so good. 63 people died. Thousands were injured. Freeway overpasses and part of the Bay Bridge collapsed. Parts of San Francisco burned to the ground. Homes in the Santa Cruz mountains slid into ravines or collapsed, or both. One of my science teachers lost his home -- he and his son barely got out before it went down the side of the mountain. It took over a decade to repair I-880, and the in-progress I-480 was abandoned entirely. And on and on. So much damage.
Since then, most quakes just seem sort of... entertaining. Exciting. They're nowhere near as scary because I remember Loma Prieta, and that is my benchmark for a serious earthquake.
April 18, 2007
Thoughts on VTI only have a few things to say about the Virginia Tech massacre, and they can be boiled down into a few succinct statements.
I think that's just about everything.
- I am already sick of people talking about gun control laws in relation to this. Laws will not keep a homicidal, suicidal person from getting their hands on weapons.
- I am also sick that this is getting so much more coverage than the genocide in Darfur and the people killed in Iraq on a daily basis. Zoethe says it better than me.
- I find it sad that, as with most traditional Western medicine, we seem more interested in treating the symptoms than the underlying problem. We should be destigmatizing mental illness in our culture and helping people like this to get help before they make a plan and buy some guns.
- What he said.
- I'm sad for those who died, for the one who was so badly hurt he lashed out like this, for the community. But I'm also sad for the people in Iraq, and Darfur, and Tibet, and and and...
March 28, 2007
Blogging and OpennessI've mused about this idea before a little, but this post over at Molly's got me thinking about it again.
March 21, 2007
TortureThis post over at Sad Salvation raises an interesting point. (Be sure to read the Followup post too.)
I agree that using torture as "entertainment" is messed up. That's the reason I refused to see "The Passion of the Christ." Anybody who enjoys torture as entertainment should, as Eric said in his comment, seek therapy. Also, as Rich points out, torture is not generally an effective information-gathering tool because the people will say anything to get the pain to stop, including lying to you. When you get information through torture, you can't be totally sure it's accurate. How is that useful?
Reading this, I'm glad that I stopped watching "24" before it devolved into this.
February 02, 2007
HmmmmI've been thinking about business and the way words shape our realities.
January 30, 2007
MawwageThis post and discussion over at Hugo's got me thinking.
I'm a feminist.
I'm about to get married.
What the fuck?
December 01, 2006
NaNoWriMoDuring NaNo this year, I found myself muttering darkly that maybe I woldn't do it next year, because it was such a goddamn chore this year.
But last night when Twon and I were chatting after we had both crossed 50k, we found ourselves planning for next year's NaNo.
Maybe all hope is not lost.
Or maybe we're just masochists.
October 27, 2006
AllergiesSo I got a nifty blood test for allergies done. Those as are interested in my ongoing health saga (hah!), read on!
Bonus section: musings on health blogging.
File under: Fibromyalgia, Musings, Pure Ego!
Posted at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)August 04, 2006
BreastfeedingHmmm. This discussion (which I read part of after it was linked to here) got me thinking.
June 22, 2006
Why it's nigh-impossible to have a rational discussion about feminismSo I've been thinking - prompted largely by this post here (by Hugo Schwyzer, a male Women's Studies professor) - about why it is that discussing feminism is nigh-impossible to do in a rational way when the crowd is co-ed.
I think the problem is that both the men AND the women feel threatened/insulted/etc. For example, I was talking with a friend of mine who is about to become a parent, and he said that he and his girlfriend couldn't see themselves having an abortion because they weren't "that shallow." My hackles went up so fast that the fiancé actually left the room to avoid the pending shitstorm. Why did I react so strongly? Not because I've had an abortion myself but because I would have one in a heartbeat if I did get pregnant, and what he said sounded to me like he was saying I was shallow. Now, this dude is a little clueless at times but he's a good guy and very much a pro-choice egalitarian -- but he still said something that made me go from fine to angry with almost no in-between time.
The thing is, with a discussion of feminism, everything is personal. Saying something like "Well, there are plenty of false accusations of rape" will cause a feminist listener to think of the women she knows of who never reported their rapes because they thought they wouldn't be believed, or who did report it and weren't believed. Saying "men need to stop raping" no doubt sounds to a guy a lot like "you rapist! Stop it!" Plus, if you're having the conversation with someone whose opinion you care about, that only makes it worse - if you hear their comments as an attack, you get all the feelings that come from feeling betrayed.
And pretty much all the time it isn't even the case that they mean to piss you off! I mean, this friend of mine and I are close buddies, have been for years. He had no intention of saying anything mean about me, and was really shocked when I reacted the way I did. Fortunately, I was able to read that and rein myself in before dumping a vat of verbal hot oil all over him.
Somehow we (that's a fairly global 'we', encompassing rational folks who talk about this kind of stuff) have become incredibly sensitive - not because of the people we are individually talking with, but (the same way that a lot of childfree folks get pissed off easily) because of all the discussions they've had in the past. It's the death of a thousand papercuts. It's ard to be calm and rational when a discussion is effectively putting new papercuts on top of barely-healed ones. And if there are a couple really deep ones from back in the day? Owie. Not good.
So what is the answer?
June 19, 2006
I <3 ironyIsn't it somewhat ironic that To the 5 Boroughs by the Beastie Boys is copyprotected?
June 08, 2006
Books
I'm about halfway done organizing my books. (Click on the pic to see a laboriously annotated version of the photo indicating what sections go where.) It's funny how much I love organizing my books, even though it's a huge, labor-intensive process. There's something really satisfying about taking the time to lay out a new system of organization, piling all the books on the floor, and then putting them in clumps, one at a time. Then the really fun part: putting them in alpha or chron order. I love holding the books and considering where they go, and I love how some of them take no thought while others take a lot of pondering. I love the smell of them, the solid *thunk* they make on the shelves.
Things like this make me realize the internet will never truly replace books for people like me. The physical bookness of them is what we love as much as the stories. Reading books like A Gentle Madness will give those who have no idea what I'm talking about a little insight. (And those who do know what I'm talking about, if you haven't read that book, go read it now, it's awesome). Someday I want to have the kind of house my parents have - one with a room just for books, and overflowing bookshelves in all the other rooms too, and a big set of display shelves for art and children's books.
There's something intensely wonderful about curling up with a book which a computer can't replicate. I miss that from my college days, even though I was reading to study more than for fun. I spent hours and hours each week reading, absorbing material from the printed page. It's an almost magical process.
Hooray for books!
June 01, 2006
TearsI found the poem Those Tears through a Carnival of Feminists, if memory serves.
I really like it because it expresses so eloquently why safe spaces are so important for oppressed peoples, why outsiders aren't welcome, and why it's not at all the same as when those oppressed peoples are shut out of mainstream things. When I was in High School, I was a member of the anime/D&D club, which included plenty of outcasts. There was the Guy Who Wore Skirts (not kilts, skirts) To School, tomboyishly androgynous me, and a bunch of other folks who were basically cliqueless. Had any of the popular kids tried to attend our meetings, we would have been upset. Our meetings were a chance to get away from the popular kids and be amongst folks with whom we could be ourselves without having to keep our shields up in case of attack.
Now, at the time I didn't see it that way. Hell, at the time I refused to acknowledge that cliques existed and ignored the popular kids as much as humanly possible. But looking back, our club was a safe space for us outcasts.
It's the same with the Lesbians Of Color potluck in the poem -- it's a safe space for an oppressed group to get together with each other and not have to deal with the ruling classes. It fascinates me that outsiders try to get into that sort of event, and then get enraged when they're cast out. I think it's the same phenomenon as the Right-Wingers or Masculinists who turn up in the comment section of Feminist Blogs and get pissed off when they're told to stick to the topic at hand and quit trying to turn it around to be about men's issues.
I'm feeling a bit out of it today so my musings may not make a ton of sense, but here they are anyway. Enjoy the poem.
April 06, 2006
Is this a Silicon Valley thing?I've noticed something lately about myself and I'm wondering if it's a Silicon Valley thing or a generational thing. Basically, when it comes to communication that's designed to convey information (i.e., not just sittin' around shootin' the shit or telling a good story) I get really annoyed by extraneous information. I want to get the info and get on with what I'm doing.
Example: One of my favorite info-oriented podcasts has become plagued by the verbal equivalent of the "me too!" post. The hosts are constantly repeating themselves and each other and you'll get exchanges along these lines:
"We have some really great interviews this week."Now, All that was really necessary was the first sentence (although an argument could be made that even the first sentence is just filler; I can judge the quality of the interviews just fine myself, thankyouverymuch), but there was a bunch of extra verbiage wedged in there. If the podcast in question is not a storytelling podcast or a "listen to these two people banter at each other" podcast (and the ones I listen to aren't), I don't want to hear all this pointless chatter! I want the information!
"That's right, they're just amazing!"
"That's right!"At first I figured this was a Silicon Valley thing - the podcasts that suffer from this the most are from non-SV people, and are put together by amateurs.
But then I realized that many of the people I talk to who are a minimum of 30 years older than me do the same basic thing. I wind up listening to detailed information about people I have never met and probably never will meet. The simplest informational exchange turns into an epic. Conversations that would take 30 seconds with one of my age peers take five minutes. So maybe it's an age thing -- but the podcasters I'm thinking of aren't that old. They're only 10 years older than me or so.
So what's the story here? Do I come from a generation of impatient people? I know I'm not the only one my age who is a fan of efficient conversation. What makes it tricky is that there is no polite way to say "Um, could you get to the point please?" because that's rude. I am aware that it's rude. I'm working on slowing down when I talk to people who are inclined to give me gratuitous amounts of detail. I'm working on listening instead of only half-listening and musing about this whole communication issue.
With podcasts, it's a lot easier. I can just delete 'em.
With storytelling, I don't mind longwindedness. I like to hear the details of a good yarn over a bottle of wine or a good meal or whatever. I love reading Dumas, who is the master of longwindedness (who else would have a character say "I believe we are about to have the honor to charge you" ?). I even dig it when coworkers stop by my cube to chat, provided I'm not up to my ears in work (which doesn't happen too often as my work isn't generally time-sensitive).
But for gods' sake, when I'm in the middle of something else or when I'm listening to an informational podcast while driving, I do not want to hear a bajillion extraneous details. I want to hear the information. Time is valuable, isn't it?
OK, I'm rambling, so I'm going to wrap this up. I'd love to hear what any readers have to say on the subject.
February 16, 2006
February 12, 2006
Letter from the pastI got a letter today from my past self, via Futureme.org. It was strange to read the words I wrote to myself a year ago. I wish I'd written more - in the intervening months, so much has changed that I have trouble remembering what was going on. I ought to go dig out my journal from back then and see. I can tell that I was having a hard time - I signed off with the sentences I wish you could write back. I could use the reassurance.
December 30, 2005
Bloggish musingsAs someone who blogs under her own name, on her own website and without a pseudonym, I am aware that employers, friends, potential employers, and loved ones will probably read my blog. This means that when I blog, I really ought to re-read every entry with a critical, fresh eye to see what sorts of implications folks might read into it. I can't go around posting drunk or slapping something up while I'm still all emotional, and then mutter to myself, "well, it doesn't matter how people interpret it, nobody knows it's me, after all."
December 16, 2005
Toys R' UsMan. I went to Toys R' Us today, and was reminded of my love/hate relationship with the store.
Love: OMG Look at all the toys, there are legos and bionicles and a new pirate toy line and and and and where is my credit card I want want want!
Hate: ACK, it's all so boy/girl oriented, they're playing crappy christmas music, it's full of children and stressed out parents, get me OUT OF HERE!
Note to self: next time a friend hosts a party including a toy drive, get your crap together and order something online. Geez.
September 22, 2005
WritingI have considered myself a writer for years, but sometimes I read things which remind me that 90% of the writing I do is the equivalent of slapping blobs of fingerpaints with flat, open hands. People like Dervala (my Dad just sent me that today) and Sars (I'm a longtime fan of hers) are much more on the fine art side of things - they paint pictures with their words. Beautiful pictures. Sad pictures. Hilarious, side-splitting pictures. So much of my writing is spattery blobs - effective for getting colors onto paper, but not exactly artistic.
Whenever I think that I should work more on my writing and try to really get a handle on writing as well as the writers I admire, I find myself making weak excuses. I don't have time, I say, because I am so busy with work, Aikido, and my reviews (which all too often feel rushed to me).
But excuses do not lead to improved writing; writing leads to improved writing. I think from now on, when I read something that makes me go, "I wish I wrote that well," I should close that window and actually write something.
June 23, 2005
A-haI have figured something out.
I really want to be The Weird Aunt. My favorite aunt is awesome and cool and has tons of dogs so her house shakes if you make a sound they associate with food. Her husband, my uncle, is The Coolest Uncle Ever (he makes models for movies! OMG!). They were always the people I could count on to hang with me and make snide remarks about the rest of the family at gatherings. Vacations with them were awesome because they had cool books we didn't have and knew all kinds of things about stuff my parents didn't even talk about.
May 18, 2005
Musings over a late lunchFrank discussions of sexuality and body image below. Read at your own risk.
April 27, 2005
When/IfSo my doctor asked me today if I've given any thought to having kids, and that lead to an interesting discussion on the topic. One of the things I told her (nothing like getting a full physical to make you want to chat instead of thinking about a quasi-stranger doing creepy things to your body) was that it is really starting to bug me when people say "when you have kids..." to me. There's this underlying assumption, as if there's no choice involved -- or if there is a choice, they know what my decision is. Gah!
When I was young people usually said something like "if you have kids someday..." but at some point it changed. I'm not sure when. No doubt it was a gradual fade and not a sudden shift.
April 12, 2005
WishesSo the whole Terri Schiavo thing really brought the idea of living wills and whatnot into the public consciousness.
Now my grandfather is at a point where we may have to start implementing the wishes he was always very clear about (ie, that he not just be "kept alive" if he wasn't going to get better).
So for the record, I'm in that same camp - if I show no indication of an improvement in condition, I don't want any extreme measures taken to keep me alive. If multiple, unconnected physicians and specialists say I'm not going to improve, I don't want feeding tubes or a ventilator or any of that. I would much rather die at home with people around me who care about me than in a hospital surrounded by freaky machines and strangers.
Any good wishes for my grandfather would be much appreciated.
March 23, 2005
Discardia!!A recent entry by Elke reminded me that Discardia is going on.
I am all for it.
In fact, I've gone so far as to make a list of all the folders and whatnot on my site here -- and started going through and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. A lot of the folders in the fan section are marked "scrap." Of the 16 files/groups, 5 are marked "scrap" and 6 are marked "dunno."
January 14, 2005
TeenagersInteresting article here, founc via a post by PromoGuy. It's about things teenage girls think about that parents may not realize they think about. Good stuff, really. Parents who don't realize that their teenage girls think about this stuff are naive.
AS someone who was a teenager some time in the last decade, here's my take on it.
January 12, 2005
Hm...My buddy Fade sez she isn't ready to be a grownup.
She's 23.
I'm 26.
Reading her thoughful entry, it struck me that I am starting to feel like an adult (moving out and working my ass off all day with no summer vacation will do that) but not entirely. Also, there's a part of me that's kind of pissed off about that. I'm mentally ready, I think, so where the hell is my One, True Job? Where is my career as a self-supporting film reviewer? Why am I still stuck doing jobs I loathe so I can pay the bills? WHY GOD WHY!?!?!?!?
I am aware, of course, that this is what being a grownup is apparently about - muddling along the best I can. I'm not entirely comfortable (like Fade) with my apparent authority to muck up my life and others' ... but then, that's not a privelege reserved for adults anymore. I see preteens and teenagers doing their best to do just that on a daily basis. But then, I'm a bit cynical. Teaching will do that to you.
Really, I think it's teh teaching which makes me feel grown up more than anything else. I spend so much time in a position of authority that it's hard not to buy into that sometimes.
On the other hand, when I consider the responsibility inherent in, say, being a parent or starting, it makes me run screaming from the "grownup" label I sometimes feel flying at my forehead. Yikes.
Mostly I'd like to be done getting into being a grownup, preferably before I develop an ulcer from juggling six jobs.
January 02, 2005
Hm...Siona says a friend told her "there's an old supersition that how you spend new year's is how you'll spend the rest of the year."
Hm.
I spent New Years' Eve drinking with the bf and one of his buddies who turned up late. I watched MST3K's "Manos: The Hands of Fate and finally achieved enlightenment and was able to enjoy it rather than feel my soul being crushed by the sheer awfulness of the film.
I spent New Years' Day driving in the rain up to my uncle's house 90 min. away for a family get-together with food and late Christmas presents.
I'm not sure what that signifies for the coming year. I hope it's good.
December 22, 2004
Privacy and BloggingMy Dad sent me this link to an interesting article about privacy and blogging.
I've been pondering about privacy and blogs for a while now. It's tempting to be exhibitionistic - blogging about persional matters gets one attention and feedback like nothing else. But airing one's dirty laundry in public is frequently proven to be a Bad Idea. It's easy to unnerve potential dates, anger or alienate friends and family, and so on. You can always blog anonymously, but you can never be 100% sure that you won't be found out. Blogging under your real name makes everything you put in your blog reflect on you, especially in this age of Googling potential employees or dates.
This domain is also my business domain, so potential employers could easily find my blog. My students sometimes read my blog. My family and friends read my blog. So I don't post stuff here that I regard as personal or potentially none of someone's business.
I regard my blog as my personal soapbox - the place I write things I would otherwise be mass-forwarding to my friends' inboxes. It's not a place for me to share girl-talk, gossip, or stories about my private life. That's what my journal is for. That's what hanging out over coffee is for. Sure, sometimes I'm really, really tempted to blog personal stuff, but I do my best to resist that impulse. Is it self-censorship? Sure! But then, thoughtful people self-censor all the time. It's what keeps us from blurting things out that might hurt people's feelings or embarass them (or us!). It's what keeps us civilized and polite and able to get along in this overcrowded world.
December 17, 2004
Ouch.So there's this blog I read, Nomen Est Numen. I've linked to it before. She's really cool - a very heartfelt blogger, and she writes with great honesty about her recovery from a serious eating disorder. Recently, the guy she was seeing dumped her over email, and when she wrote back responding to his irrational break-up letter he informed her that he was blocking her address. Oh, but it's all for her own good, he's just being selfless. Good grief.
December 03, 2004
SadYou know, reading the New York Review of Books over breakfast is great. It lets me learn about all kinds of stuff, from Alexander Hamilton to random new fiction.
And sometimes it lets me learn about current events. Politics. Atrocities.
For the third morning in a row, today I read a page from the long article about Abu Ghraib, and I'm starting to think that starting the day by reading about atrocities committed by my own government is not a good idea. For one thing, it makes me feel vaguely depressed the rest of the day. Depressed and disillusioned and revolted by the people my fellow Americans put back in power last month.
November 09, 2004
Drat.Entries like this one make me want to blog more personal stuff.
Mind you, I've no idea if I'd be able to write about it well or if I'd come off as pretentious.
And it would risk the whole "we don't discuss our relationship in specific terms online" thing the bf and I have going.
But still. It's tempting. When there's something wondrous and beautiful and perfect in my life, I want to put it into words. I want to share it. I want to say, "LOOK! Look, I have this wonderful thing. Finally. I have this wonderful thing everyone else has been talking about and I've never had before and now I have it."
I want the world to be happy with me.
Downside: When/if that wonderful, perfect, beautiful thing goes away, I think I'd feel a responsibility to share that too. And that would just be whiny.
November 08, 2004
Comforting ThoughtIn a world where jellyfish exist, anything is possible.
Photos are by Elkit, who is very cool.
October 17, 2004
Cleaning = Letting GoToday I sorted the boxes of books and magazines I'm getting rid of. I tore off labels or blacked out addresses to anonymize them and sorted them by title. I posted a long description on the Freecycle lists I'm on (see the extended entry for that) and hit "send."
Simple, right?
Hah! I am a packrat by nature and getting rid of all this stuff is at once liberating and terrifying.
It's liberating because I no longer have to worry about what happens to the magazines - they will soon be someone else's problem. I don't have to find a place to keep them, wish they were better sorted, consider indexing the articles. I'm freeing up space in the house here, eliminating clutter (which I hate), and generally making things better.
But I kept thinking: what if I want this magazine again? What if I want to look something up in it? What if...?
I kept telling myself that I haven't needed them in the year or so they've been boxed up so I probably won't be needing them in the future. Besides, there's always the internet, right? I can find info there if I need it.
*deep breath in* *deep breath out*
Anybody want any of these? Please take a look at the list and let me know... you can come get 'em or I can mail 'em to you (you pay postage). But they're free. I just want them out of here.
September 23, 2004
Fat/ThinI was poking around Jennifer Weiner's blog (she wrote Good in Bed, among other things, and while I have yet to read one of her books I am convinced that when I finally do, I will like them) and found this entry about her appearance on the Jane Pauley show. She was on an episode where women talk about losing weight without becoming happy.
It's really interesting. Go read it.
January 17, 2004
Insert Whiny Musing HereI really wish I had the luxury of quitting the jobs I hate.
October 22, 2003
Hm... maybe I should be worried.Is it a bad sign when the guy behind the register at my local Beverages and More recognizes me?
September 24, 2003
HuhHad an interesting convo with one of my coworkers today - she's a married mother of two, very typica American. Works hard promoting her sons' cub scout pack, that kind of thing.
She has no homosexual friends.
None.
She also says she'd be uncomfortable having a gay or lesbian in a leadership role around children because they'd be promoting an "alternate lifestyle" or something.
I can't help suspecting that these two tidbits about her are connected. It's harder to be biased against someone who's difference from you is the same as that of someone you're friends with.
August 27, 2003
BibliophileI spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to get my books to fit on my shelves. I mostly succeeded - all the books I've read are on my shelves, and there's even a little room left over (hooray for using space efficiently!). However, even the fifty or so linear feet of shelving I have are not going to be enough to hold all the books I have in my "haven't read" pile or in storage or tucked in the back of my closet.
When I finally move out, it had better be to a place with at least two bedrooms so I can set up a library or something. Jeez.
tragedy"Aug 27, 1660, The books of John Milton were burned in London due to his attacks on King Charles II."
(courtesy of MyWay.com, an internet portal I've just discovered)
Am I the only person who is routinely moved close to tears by this kind of thing? To burn someone's books is a horrible, horrible thing. Particularly back then when you couldn't just run down to Borders and get another.
August 13, 2003
Hm...I've somehow managed to set things up so that my first week of vacation has about a zillion and a half things crammed into it.
Am I the only one who does that? This vacation is probably going to be at least as busy as my non-vacation time. Sheesh.
On the upside, it will, at least, be filled to the brim with as much fun stuff as humanly possible (going out with friends, staying in with boyfriend, seeing more movies, that kind of thing), whereas my non-vacation time is typically filled to the brim with work and dullness. This is a bonus.
July 14, 2003
NiceAs a single guy, if you are interested in a woman, quite possibly the very worst compliment sheThis got me to thinking. I have told the bf on several occasions that he's nice. This is no surprise - he'll be the first to tell you he's a typical Nice Guy.
1000
can give you, is that you are "nice." Nice is what you are when you are not: interesting, exciting, sexy, intriguing, wild, scary, sullen, etc. Nice is indifference in a pretty wrapper.
But I do mean it as a compliment. Nice is only one of the things he is. It's more than possible to be nice and be sexy, intriguing, exciting, whatever.
July 10, 2003
Adapting to AdaptationsI've been thinking a bit lately about movies that are adaptations of books. For example, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opens tomorrow, and it's based on a series of comic books, which I've read. (Thanks, Mitch!)
Now, there was a time when irreverent or less-than-100%-faithful adaptations caused me to lapse into apopleptic fits, froth at the mouth in pure, unbridled rage, and fall into seizures. (Damn, I gotta quit reading Twon before I post.) I'm more sanguine about them now, however, my occasional rants about Arwen notwithstanding.
June 23, 2003
Carpe DiemThis is why I subscribe to Mark Morford's Morning Fix.
June 20, 2003
"Differently Pleasured"Wow, this is neat! Elkit sez here:
"I'm not a pervert. I'm just differently pleasured."How cool is that? I really like that expression. "Pervert" has such a negative connotation.
My boss coined this term, but I like it so much that I will disseminate it as much as possible. (No, I don't know if my boss is differently pleasured. And I won't ask him either. Don't ask, don't tell.)
Plus, "differently pleasured" rings of PC-parody, which is always a good thing (PC as in Politically Correct, not Personal Computer).
May 29, 2003
Those who can...Why is it that nearly everyone who finds out that I'm
...assumes I want to teach for a living? On one level, I guess it makes sense - I'm a decent teacher, get along well with most students, and am in the early stages of one of the numerous career paths for would-be teachers everywhere. Based on that, I'm a candidate for full-time teacher status.
- An English major
- A substitute teacher
- A private tutor
May 13, 2003
Whoa!Some people amaze me with their know-how, others with their stupidity. Some boggle my mind with physical beauty, others with their charming personality.
Then there are these folks, many of whom have amassed enough parking tickets in the city of Chicago that their fines total about half my outstanding student loan debt.
Man. Now that's impressive.
May 06, 2003
The One, True JobI've mentioned "The One, True Job" a couple of times in the past, and it occurs to me that I haven't really defined it here. Since this is a blog, and thus must be filled with bloggishness on a semi-regular basis, here I go with a definition of The One, True Job!
April 29, 2003
Oh, how cruel is lifeI am bummed.
Today, I showed up at the local high school, all fresh-faced and ready for a day of test proctering.
OK, really, I showed up looking hungover and haggard and ready for another four hours of sleep, but that's neither here nor there.
I was informed that I was not actually slated to sub today, that I was expected tomorrow and the next two days, not today and the next two days. They needed a "floater," though - someone to help out with the testing that's going on.
Here I sit in the library, with a nice fast internet connection all to myself, yet all is not well with my world.
April 22, 2003
Insert witty-but-serious title about pain and relative value here.Last Friday I went on a big-ass hike up in the Santa Cruz mountains. By "big-ass" I mean "eleven miles of up and down with bits of the trail under water or hidden by fallen trees." It totally ruled.
April 19, 2003
YarrrrghWow, I really haven't been updating, have I? Sorry 'bout that.
It's been a really, really busy week and I've been doing all kinds of cool things. For example, I attended a Giants baseball game, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. It probably helped that the Astros totally humiliated themselves on several occasions, thereby providing me with entertainment and enabling me to pretend I knew what was going on.
"Hey, that guy tried to catch the ball, and dropped it, and then fell down. Boy, they sure suck!"
I also learned several amusing things one can say at one's first baseball game to sound as dumb as humanly possible. Thankfully, I only said them as part of a "hah! At least you're not so new to the sport that you'd say this!" discussion.
Of course, there were plenty of only marginally-stupid things for me to say. "Why are they playing the Chicken Dance song?" for one.
- "Are we on the Giants' side of the field, or the Astros'?"
- "Does that mean they've scored a point?"
- "Where's the goalie?"
- "Do they get to try for a field goal now?"
But at any rate, it was fun. I'd actually be willing to attend another ball game if the opportunity presented itself. I just gotta remember to dress more warmly if it's a night game. I was wearing three layers and still wasn't warm.
April 14, 2003
Springtime ritualsWhy is it that cleaning invariably involves making at least as big a mess as I started out with?
April 04, 2003
Kushiel's ChosenFinished Kushiel's Chosen and have written about it in my booklog.
What a great book.
April 03, 2003
Hmmmm... dratI have a problem.
See, I have this urge to post a long and insightful "Musings" kinda post thingy (probably the result of reading entirely too many of Antwon's archives). Sadly, my brain bears a very strong resemblence to somewhat past-its-prime tapioca at the moment, and I can't get up the energy. Even the post I've been meaning to write about Movie!Faramir vs. Book!Faramir fails to stimulate my creativity neurons, and that's saying something.
Clearly I should go to bed.
March 12, 2003
Smallville-o-ramaLast night (as mentioned previously) I kicked back and watched a couple episodes of "Smallville" - the new one from a couple weeks ago that had Christopher Reeve in it, and the rerun than aired last night, the one with
red kryptonitered meteor rocks in it.Lemme tell you, watching a couple episodes back-to-back like that made me remember both why I love this show and why I'm sometimes embarassed to admit it.
March 10, 2003
AdaptationI finally got around to seeing Adaptation last night. You know, the latest film from the guys who did Being John Malkovich.
My brain hurts.
March 06, 2003
Spring is here, Sssspring is here!...life is skittles and life is beer
I think the loveliest time of the year is the Spring, I do.
Don't you? 'course you do.
-Tom LehrerMarch 04, 2003
GotchaYesterday, a website called Crush007 was brought to my attention. Basically, what you do is sign up with them, then fork over the email addys of a bunch of your friends. They get an email message which purports to give them the URL of a crush hookup predictor. They fill in a form about their secret crush, plus some assorted private details about themselves, click "Submit" and... learn that all that information has just been sent to you.
February 27, 2003
Wouldn't it be luverlyI love early spring.
February 25, 2003
Yeowch!Post inspired by: Moxie's adventures in waxing
Dood, I can't imagine waxing extensively on a regular basis. Hell, I can barely imagine waxing in the first place - I am not one of those chicks interested in suffering for beauty. I wear Doc Martens or combat boots almost 24/7 because they're comfy, refuse to spend more than 15 minutes on my makeup at the very most, and while I pluck my eyebrows, that's mostly because if I do it right, they get this sort of Jack Nicholson thing going on, and that's cool.
This is why I'm a web geekI got an email message this morning from a woman who has an ovarian cyst and will be going in shortly for surgery. She has a phobia of hospitals, and has been completely falling apart at the seams over it.
February 11, 2003
College LifeYale's considering Co-Ed housing. Well, students are campaigning for it, anyway. Wish we'd had that when I was in college, it would have simplified my friends' lives immensely. I had a couple pals who had carefully set up schemes to get them living with their boyfriends/girlfriends.
'course, maybe having to make those careful plans was good for them. It certainly kept things interesting and the administration just turned a blind eye.
February 07, 2003
Fraidy-catMy cat Zephyr (about my pets) got outside late last night. He's an indoor cat, and thus has only been outside on his own a handful of times in his young life.
January 26, 2003
WTF?I just don't understand people who write massively-AU fic. For the non-fanly among my handful of readers, fanfiction is what you get when fans write stories about movies/tv shows/books/whatever they are into. AU fic is "Alternate Universe" fic. For example, a story about what might have happened if Luke Skywalker had turned to the dark side of the Force instead of rejecting Vader in "The Empire Strikes Back" would be AU fic.
January 24, 2003
You know you're sleepy when......downloading your email and catching up on blog sites takes so much of your concentration that you forget to drink your coffee.
January 20, 2003
RIPWe had my cat Sunny put down today. I have to update the pets page. He would have been 19 this spring.
January 19, 2003
G.A.T.E.-way To ElitismSo I'm coding a page about the G.A.T.E. program at a local middle school, and it gets me thinking about the G.A.T.E. program I was in back in elementary school. Basically, the way it worked was this: 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who showed above-average intelligence were tracked into the same classroom from several local schools. They got accellerated coursework, one fieldtrip per month, and basically got to be challenged instead of bored.
January 13, 2003
Nosfer-wha?It's official.
Nosferatu the Vampyre is quite possibly the weirdest vampire film I've ever seen. And that's saying something. I really ought to put a website together detailing my vampire expertise, it'd be impressive.
January 07, 2003
January 01, 2003
Taking StockSo some maniac is doing Samuel Pepys' diary as a blog. If you don't know who Pepys is, follow the link and check him out. He rocks.
In that vein, I thought I'd do a sort of summing-up of last year.
During 2002 I...
... jobhunted and redid my writing and web design professional pages.
... continued working on The Red Pages and saw The Red Elvises themselves several times. I miss being in LA where I could see them all the time!
... wrote a boatload of film reviews
... continued living with my parents.
... finally decided that I want to write for a living, not do web design (although web design, like teaching, pays the bills).
... posted nearly every day in my blog here. :-D
... did National Novel Writing Month again, and won. Go me.
... met several other bloggers in person (including Antwon, Internet Rock Star and all-round cool guy, and GeekyChick, she of the neat and oft-changing layouts!). Yay for Meetup.com!
... vacationed in England and attended the Discworld Convention.
... had surgery.
... continued being obsessed with The Lord of the Rings, in all its forms (but especially the card game
I think that's most of the major stuff. Man. My brain is still pulped from the party I went to last night. Heeee. Midori Sours and Romulan Ale are my friends! (For those of you who don't know how to mix Romulan Ale, it's easy: Sprite, vodkha, blue curacao, and a few drops of Tabasco for kick. Much fun, if made strongly enough. I once watched Galaxy Quest in Thermian while drinking Romulan Ale...).
Happy new year, everybody! May your resolutions be kept, your hangovers brief, and your friends and family around you.
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