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Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
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12:17 am - late night thoughts -- navel introspection
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This is my hidden journal. Considering that most of my journals have an audience of 1 (Be an Audience of One), I guess it's not that big a deal that I have a "hidden" journal and a more open, optimistic, family journal (hayleyscircus.blogspot.com).
After 7 years here, we're finally making a home here. We know where things are. We feel comfortable. We've found real pizza. And we've each met people with whom we can hang, talk, do whatever.
J's group consists of a war gaming group. They used to do role-playing, but as adult life took over and there were kids, they realized they couldn't sustain a campaign week to week. So they do contained games. It's good for J to get out and talk to others and one of the guys has a lot of the same interests. But they are... different. Sure, they game and read sci-fi, but they also brew their own beer and think that "300" was the height of last year's films. So, it's a group with similar interests, but it's not a great fit. My group consists mostly of moms. Mostly moms of twins. They're very nice, but have very little in common with me and my interests. Most of them do scrapbooking, which I am learning to do simply to get out of the house (okay, and getting our photo albums in some shape). I'd rather be wielding a sword or acting out some grand battle, but I'm scrapbooking. Anyone else see the discrepancy? I have one friend who has played D&D in her youth (occasionally) and who reads sci-fi and likes action moves, like me, but it's not something she really talks about. There's not a lot of analysis about that sort of thing. Mostly we talk children, parenting... These moms talk American Idol. I sit quietly and think about last week's episode of Supernatural or Doctor Who. They compare purses.
It's amazing how alone you can feel in a crowded room/town/state. I see these people. I socialize with these people. And yet, I can't talk to these people about the things I'm interested in. There's no one who has a similar history with whom I can joke...
At PSU, there was Fencing Club. That was nirvana. Not just because there was fencing, which was damned cool, but because of the people. We joked that we could easily win a bet that a new attendee would have seen, for example, these 5 movies, read these 5 books and played some form of role-playing game. If you made a comment about the clan McCloud, a joke about a 26b/6 or a land war in Asia, quoted Python (you think you had it tough) or Buffy or Douglas Adams... there would be someone who understood. If you talked about basilisks or lurkers above, they understood. They all spoke the same language.
I'm a stranger in a strange land. No one speaks my language. And, worst of all, I'm not even sure where to find people who do speak my own language. Sadly, even the people with whom I shared a language no longer speak it. There's now a different history of movies, music, books, etc. And worst of all, I find I'm losing all that which I loved.... since I am now conversant about parenting or scrapbooking or school policies, I've lost the topics that were most interesting to me. I've become as boring as the people I talk to.
I miss a comitatus. A group of people who all speak the same language. Who share my interests and I share theirs.
Is it a mid-life crisis to realize that the best years of your life are past?
And where can one find someone with common interests?
Maybe I just need some sleep...
current music: Colin Hay - Waiting for My Real Life to Begin
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| Saturday, December 1st, 2007
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10:44 pm - romance in TV
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I know, it's a weird topic to start back up with after 8 weeks of absence. But, frankly, considering my moods of late, it's probably better that I stick with these random bits of thought rather than actually tackle my inner darkness (sadly, not an Anakin-to-become-Darth-Vader darkness, 'cause that might be cool).
In wandering through favored TV shows, I was watching some scenes from Farscape and began to muse on why relationships (off and on) work better in the sci-fi genre than in "normal" TV.
It's said that when there is a likely pairing in a tv show, everyone is so very eager for the individuals in question to hook up. I remember (way back) with Moonlighting. Everyone wanted those two (Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd) to hook up. I'm sure similar things are wished for in recent shows. Everyone just waiting for the leads to become a couple. Eventually the writers cave and the couple is created and then, invariably, the show suffers serious problems. The environment of the show isn't the kind that can sustain the ebb and flow of a relationship, esp since both leads must remain with the show and, invariably, working together. In Moonlighting, the classic example, the characters couldn't really be together -- the heart of the show was the characters' snide comments for each other -- and the show didn't work well with each of them on their own. And if they split, it was hard to bring them together and work as well as before the relationship. And then it would be nearly impossible, in that situation, to have them split again while still making any sense (or come back together again). I'm sure there are hundreds of other examples -- but most of them are for shows I never see, so I can't really comment, now can I?
And yet, in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, it doesn't really hurt things. Mal could have hooked up with Inara and it wouldn't have destroyed Firefly (even if Fox had given it a chance). Crichton certainly hooked up with Aeryn. Buffy hooked up with Angel. These relationships just made the series more rich. Of course, all of those were really rich shows to begin with.
When I started this post, I was thinking that the reason might be the genre. Sci-fi/fantasy shows are generally plot driven. Monster/alien-of-the-week sorts of thing. But then House is "weird medical condition of the week" and all the Law and Order shows are just another law violation. There is nothing but plot in the Law and Order shows. So I guess that theory doesn't work.
Maybe the answer lies in the sweep of the plots for these shows. You don't have a lot of time to sulk over a slight when the end of the world is nigh ("what's the plural for apocalypse?"). Relationships, in those circumstances, are not only more likely (this may be the last time we can...) but also more disposable (as disposable as one's life might be) -- you'd love to be together, but you have a job to do, a universe to save, etc. -- and that allows the writers to bring the characters together, tear them apart, continue. They have to come back together because they are somehow tied together. In Farscape there is this rag-tag band of prisoners who have no one else and so constantly return to the fold even when they stray. You certainly don't see that on Law & Order. Okay, so maybe it isn't the "end of the world" plots, but the isolation of the characters. Firefly, Farscape, Supernatural, Buffy -- these characters are isolated by circumstance (outlaws, prisoners on a ship -- a living ship, hunters, vampire slayer and scooby gang). Once you have a situation that forces the characters to stay together and remain fairly isolated, you have the setup that allows you to do nearly anything to the characters without it seeming "too much". I can't see any other character on TV going through a real-life equivalent of what Crichton goes through and still be able to be useful in any situation. I guess I should throw Doctor Who in this category, but he never really seems to get frightened over the end of the world, time, whatever. And while Supernatural is a fraternal rather than a romantic relationship, it works too. The certainty that the Brothers Winchester will stay together no matter what allows the writers to separate them, kill them, bring them together, etc.
Or maybe there's nothing different (other than geography) between those shows and Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy. I don't know; I've never seen the latter. My TiVo wish list is a little weird: Supernatural, Doctor Who, Life on Mars, Farscape, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dresden Files, and Torchwood (there's also Bones and House, but those are "more normal").
How badly thought through this all is. Next time I post a night-time muse, I'll have to have prepared better.
current mood: staying superficial
current music: Killers - Somebody Told Me
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| Monday, October 1st, 2007
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8:46 am - might be a death notice
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Jay just called. Kirin's heart stopped in the car while he was driving her to the hospital. The vets are performing CPR, but it doesn't look promising. I think we've just lost her. She was a year and a half old.
current mood: despondent
current music: is there music?
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8:14 am - just a bad day
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It's 8:14am. I've been awake for an hour. Can I now trade in this day and start a new one? I don't much like how Monday has been turning out.
Ultimately, I think it's the universe reinforcing that I should continue to thwart the rules instead of following them. If I study for a test days before, I get the same grade or a worse grade than if I cram the night before. If I finish a paper ahead of time, same thing (OR, as an interesting variant, the professor returns it to me because they thought it was a draft and they offer suggestions on how to improve it for the REAL paper, even though it was already grade-A work). Right now, the universe is thumbing its nose at me because I went to bed on time. Yup, headed to bed at 11:30pm instead of 1am. Thought that doing that would finally help my state of sleep deprivation that is destroying my body and bringing me down emotionally. But it was not to be.
After waking up twice because of train noises (SO noisy with their horns in the middle of the night), I was up from 2-4am with Emma, who was throwing up (okay, she had a worse night of it than I did). From 4-7am I had blissful sleep (so did she). She's still asleep and hopefully will feel better when she wakes up.
From 7-8am is the Getting the Boys Ready for School rush. Everything was going okay, except that they were unusually zombie-like this morning. And then Kirin the dog threw up on the floor. And then she pooped on the floor. Jay, who was downstairs by this point, ready to leave for work (he didn't sleep well either), took her outside. He cleans up the kitchen (THANKFULLY the kitchen and not on a rug). He goes outside to see how she's doing and she's lying on her side in the grass. It has started to rain. She's not moving. She's breathing, but not moving. When we talk to her, she doesn't move her head. We can't tell if she knows we're here.
Jay CARRIES the 65+ lb dog to the car and takes her to our local vet (2 min away). While at the vet, she begins to throw up blood. She has a temperature. She's not doing well. She's been on cortisone since the summer to deal with another condition, so she's immune-suppressed. It could be an infection, it could be an ulcer, she could be dying... Now he's taking her to the Vet Emergency Room at MSU. Many expensive tests will follow and we can but hope that we'll still have a dog at the end of it.
So, can I take back the morning yet? Can we start again please?
current mood: tired worried depressed
current music: (in my head) Another Brick in the Wall , Pink Floyd
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| Thursday, September 20th, 2007
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10:29 am - tea queries (not cozies, queries!), from a hot chocolate person
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While I've always enjoyed a nice cuppa, I'm a hot chocolate man through and through (woman! okay, hot chocolate woman).
This probably explains why, every now and then, tea and tea things confuse me.
Take, for instance, the combination teapot and teacup.
I love these things. They are beautifully designed. The teapot nestles itself atop the cup like a mother duck over her nest. Just wonderful. And yet, I just don't know how to work it. My mother gave me one, which saves me the embarrassment of saying that I bought this thing I don't know how to use. My tea procedure is a modern one, an American one and that is to say, a hurried one. I microwave the water in my mug, I drop in my tea bag. After a good 3 minute steep, I add sugar (nearly equal to the volume of water) and stir. And then I wait for the blasted thing to cool down some because the microwave has two results -- cold and boiling.
The little combo teapot/teacup... as far as I can tell this is NOT a microwave-friendly sort of kitchen implement. That means boiling water in my teakettle (great, now I have 2 things to clean).
Procedure 1, as I can see it, would be to pour the boiling water into the combo teapot (maybe heating the pot properly, maybe not) and then adding the tea and letting it steep in its little pot while I walk away with my little combo to my desk. Then, of course, I'll need to return for the sugar. So let's say I put the water in the combo teapot, some sugar in the cup, and then walk to my desk. Now I have the makings for a good cuppa tea. If I remembered my spoon. Let's assume I did.
Procedure 2 is getting a bit wild here. Boil water on the stove, put water and tea into some OTHER receptacle capable of holding 2 cups of tea. When all has steeped and brewed and whatever other verb you're keen to use regarding tea, I pour the tea into (get this) the combo teapot AND the combo cup. Voila! A cup of tea and a spare. Mind you, I still have to bring along the sugar and a spoon. But I've made 2 cups of tea for myself (and dirtied some unnamed receptacle in addition to the tea kettle).
And this is where the tea denseness kicks in. It seems that Procedure 2 is going through a lot of extra work just to have 2 cups of tea, one of which will be tepid before I can drink it. So, it's really one warm cup of tea, one iced tea if I could find ice to put in it (ooh, and a nice slice of lemon). Procedure 1 gives me no advantage whatsoever to just boiling the water in the mug to begin with. Both procedures give me more things to clean! But that's never really something that goes in the "Pros" column. Procedure 1 would produce the same effect as me microwaving a mug, BUT it would look classier on my desk and possibly suggest to others that while I am enjoying this beautiful cuppa tea, thank you very much, I may just have a little more tea left in my teapot, so I may just continue to enjoy tea for a little while longer. But they won't KNOW if I have more tea in there, so I will not only be Happily Full of Tea, I will also be Mysteriously Happily Full of Tea since at any time I may just pour myself more. Mind you, this whole fantasy of being mysterious and happy works a LOT better if there were more than just me in my workplace. I don't tend to fool as easily as one might think and no matter how many times I walk past the little combo teapot/cup, I'll always know if there is more tea or not. Thus, no mystery for me.
So, yes, I don't understand these beautifully designed little teapot/cup combos. Anyone have any ideas?
current mood:  bouncy
current music: Shaun the Sheep TV show theme song
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| Thursday, September 13th, 2007
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2:54 pm - I want to change my birth certificate!!
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In the recent past (apparently in 1997, thank you Wikipedia), the town where I was born split into 2 separate municipalities. The southern portion retained the name it carried when I was born, Tarrytown. The northern portion, in which I was born, actually reverted to the older name of the town... Sleepy Hollow. Yes, that sleepy hollow. The Old Dutch Church. Ichabod Crane. Headless Horseman.
I want to change my birth certificate!! I want to tell people I was born in Sleepy Hollow!! That's cool.
I don't have a lot of cool in my life. That's cool.
I wonder how I can go about this. Hmmmm.
current mood: inspired
current music: Evanescence - My Immortal
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| Saturday, September 8th, 2007
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6:52 pm - iBook went kerplunk.... moods and hopes went too
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For Mother's Day this year I received a LOOOOVELY iBook external hard drive. 500gb of delightful space into which I slowly ventured, hesitant like a deer, unsure if I could trust it. Slowly at first, I saved a few things on the iBook, afraid they would disappear. When they remained there, happy and secure, I began to trust it more. By last month I was confident that the relationship was stable and it wouldn't abandon me. I saved photos on there -- all the photos of my kids, friends, family, dogs, etc. I saved movies on there - taking tv shows off of the tivo and making them into movies for the kids. And I'm sure there were other things on there as well. But then today, the little box slipped off of its perch and went kerplunk. A whole 12" of free fall. And now it's over. All gone.
I admit it, I cried. I first thought that I had lost all the kids' photos from the summer. This depressed me a lot, especially since my memory is so bad that I can't remember two days ago without the photos. And all the other things on there that I really did like quite a lot (and used quite a lot), but now have ABSOLUTELY no idea what was on there. (I didn't actually lose all the photos for the kids. I'm paranoid enough about these - since they have no life outside of the digital - that I have numerous backups up through our trip to North Carolina. I think I may have only lost all our moving pictures (pictures from moving, not movies). Not that bad, really. Everything else, I believe, can be regained from other sources -- that is, the stuff I remember was on there.
We took the iBook to the Geek Squad at Best Buy -- the closest thing to Urgent Care there is for computers -- and they said that the glass might be cracked and thus nothing can be retrieved from the disk.
I'm just seriously depressed.
And we have a rider mower/tractor thing that we will never be able to sell (because Jay and I are incapable of selling anything over $20 without a serious monetary loss).
Just .... damn
current mood:  depressed
current music: annoying background music to a Dora the Explorer video game
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| Monday, August 6th, 2007
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9:43 am - a house, a house
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We bought a house!
And now I'm trying to focus on the positive -- neighborhood, night walks, high speed internet, more space.
But we don't like the house. We don't DISLIKE the house. We just don't like it. We have absolutely no feeling about it whatsoever. Being the superstitious person I am, I wonder if the "spirit" of the place is bad or something. I really hope that when we move in, our domovoi will make that house more warm or welcoming or something.
We already have plans to make it OUR house. The boys want to have chartreuse and turquoise stripes in their room. Emma wants yellow with pink butterflies.
I just remember when we bought our current house (the "old" house), we were excited about it. It was a ranch house, not WOW architecturally, but it was exciting to us. We had ideas immediately about what to do with this room or that, etc. With this house, absolutely NO feeling whatsoever.
Signing the offer, hearing about the offer -- just null emotion. Okay, there was a reduction in stress, immediately -- we won't be homeless! -- but no emotion.
I find it confusing and disturbing.
current mood:  confused
current music: Spongebob Squarepants theme
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| Sunday, July 1st, 2007
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8:09 pm - A house rant
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We sold our house!! Yea!!
And now we need to buy a new one. This should be a moment of excitement. We get to go and find a house we like, pick and choose from what's out there. We're shopping!
Well, there are a lot of houses for sale now. It's a buyer's market (lots of houses for sale and one can offer less than asking price and probably get it).
And yet...
There are 12 houses in our price range available in Haslett. There are 2 to 3 times as many in Okemos. But our kids go to school in Haslett.
We found a dream house, put an offer down. It was apparently already sold when we saw it... the realtor just hadn't bothered to tell anyone.
That still hurts.
We went out looking for more houses. We found some that were okay. Finally we settled on one... the best of the bunch. Are any dream houses? No.
So, #1 house, owned by a bank since they foreclosed on the previous owners, is listed at $240K. We offered $190K, mostly to see how they'd counter. We put the offer in at Friday noon. WEDNESDAY at noon they respond with a counter offer of $235K. They aren't even trying. We counter offered at $205K. This house needs about $15K worth of repairs, including appliances (the previous owners stole all the appliances). And now we wait AGAIN to see if they will accept the offer. And all the while we wait, I'm getting more and more attached to the house. A house I'm not even sure I want (but it's better than the other houses I'm not sure I want).
#2 house can probably fit us as well. Not AS well as #1, but it can fit us. It's also listed at $240K, which is ridiculous because the house next door to it was selling for $240K two years ago when the market was stronger and house prices were high. Well, if we decide to make an offer on this house, we're going to have to offer low and they're going to counteroffer and it's going to go back and forth and we can still only pay $220K - and I'm not sure if that house is worth that in today's market.
#3 house is one that actually has character. We like this house, in an emotional way, not in a practical way. BUT it's small. It's like our current house small, just with a different and updated floor plan. The real advantage to this house is that, while it's listed at $220K or so, we KNOW the owners will let it go at $180K (the other realtor let it slip to our realtor). At least we know we could afford that one, even if we can't fit in it.
And we close on this house on August 20th. That means we sign the house over to the new owners on that date. They are allowing us to remain in this house until August 24th. We HAVE to find a house to live in NOW. Now now now!
Who ever thought that having to spend $220,000 would be this un-fun?
We have dreams of a house in Haslett... a house in which we can fit. We've already given up having 4 bedrooms, one for each of us, and have accepted having to have 3 bedrooms (the boys will share). We want a basement that we can use -- to play or as an office or whatever. We want high speed internet access. Why is this so hard?
And so we need to pack up this house while in total "flee/avoid" stress mode.
AND to sell our house we have to have the furnace cleaned BY this particular guy (so says the contract we signed with the buyers). Well, he stood us up today. We are so pissed at them for this.
current mood:  stressed
current music: background music to Earthworm Jim (N64)
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| Friday, June 15th, 2007
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9:44 pm - getting downright depressed
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So I post the previous journal entry. And LiveJournal kicks me to whatever page is next. And there, in a little blue box, it reminds me "You've only made 1 friend." Gees, how depressing can you be? Do I scroll down to see "you're fat!" and "you've done nothing with your life"? I think I need a cheerier journal area where they can accept that a person just needs to vocalize some thoughts, even if there's no one listening?
Is it a life if you speak and no one listens?
Yes, the old noise in the forest conundrum.
current mood: depressed
current music: Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall, pt 1 (live)
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9:26 pm - What is it to Really Enjoy something?
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It's been building for days, this sense of being discontented. I watch my children playing and gaining great delight out of this toy or that video game, this song or that TV show/movie, this game or that turn of phrase. I see my husband excited about his Warmachine figures - preparing for the next battle or even just painting them. And I wonder when I'll find something - ANYTHING - that would make me look forward to something. For a while there (until a stupid "humorous" episode), I looked forward to a certain TV show. I was happily obsessed about it. Then the bubble burst. And I have nothing to fill the void. No TV shows, no music, no books, no activities -- there is nothing out there that "touches" me. Everything apart from dear family or friends could disappear and it wouldn't really affect my mood overmuch. Okay, it is true, I'd be red hot with anger if all my stuff disappeared. And I'd go through withdrawal without my computer. But having stuff and being connected to my computer are more grouped into the "breathing" category -- they are there, but you don't think about them or desire them unless they're taken away. But there's nothing I look forward to anymore - no event or activity I can name. It's not the loss of this TV show (gone on hiatus until Sept) that has me depressed. My obsession for it waned before the season completed. Thinking about it, it was rather sad that the only thing I really looked forward to (minus family and friends, naturally) was a TV show, but at least there was something, right?
I keep staying up late, trying out this activity out or that project, but nothing moves beyond the level of "I have to do this" and into "I want to do this" (not even considering "I want to do this A LOT").
I don't know what to do to kick me out of this depressive tendency.
I'd really love to enjoy something again -- really ENJOY it rather than just going through the motions.
Maybe I should switch my music to the Buffy Musical and listen to "Going through the motions"
Maybe I'm in hot chocolate and cafe withdrawal :-)
current mood: discontent
current music: Notre Dame de Paris (Noa) - Ave Maria Paien
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| Friday, May 4th, 2007
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1:38 am - If a person writes in a journal and no one is reading....
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...will copyright be earned?
(caveat lector -- discursive, stream of consciousness writing ahead -- or is that a redundant warning for a journal?)
This has been a day of flashbacks. Today the children were entertained outside or elsewhere with toys and I spent most of the day reading a book on the couch. And then DH took all the children out to look at a local soccer game. Suddenly it was so quiet in the house, so reminiscent of days prior to 2001. It was refreshing. But while I rejoiced in actually being able to hear myself think,
that is NOT just a phrase, by the way, it's an honest to gods affliction of parents, esp mothers, who spend all their waking hours with the kids. With kids, there is never a moment of quiet, ever. There is always some noise happening, whether it's talking, singing, laughing, crying, or playing with toys. Always noise. And parents (esp moms) must keep an ear cocked, a few brain cells attuned, at all times, because that's what we do. And thus, the more noise, the more brain cells are tied up in attending to the noise and ultimately, there are no brain cells left for independent thought. True.
ANYWAY, I was finding myself able to think again. It was lovely. And I rejoiced in having a brain to think again. But, thankfully, I also remembered how those days pre-kids felt. Yes, we had a lot of time to do fun things, but it all seemed so empty somehow. What was the point? Now, of course, I have much "point" to my days, but it's all so busy. Everything new I would want to do needs to replace something else I was doing. If I want to do this, then I cannot do that today, and so on.
But, back to my flashback day. A perfectly quiet beautiful day. AND we watched some MST3K after dinner. We had shown this show to the kids yesterday after seeing the last 30 min of Jurassic Park 3. I had been talking about great monster movies to show the kids, like Godzilla, and wondered if we had any. Well, we had a Godzilla vs. M???? (I can never remember these names) movie on an MST3K tape, so we showed them that. They were confused but liked Tom Servo and Crow, although one of the kids reminded us that his name isn't Crow, it's Crooooooooow!
A little MST3K, a little peace and quiet.... a beautiful day. Heck, if I had taken a walk in the woods with my dogs, and talked some DND, it would have been a complete Time Travel day, set the Wayback machine to 1997.
But it's 2007 and I'm still trying to get into this Journal writing thing. Well, semi-public journal writing thing. I write in a journal all the time, but I write it -- pen, paper, you may remember those. This sort of thing, livejournal/deadjournal, is only really useful if you have silly things to say and more than 1 person to say them to. No one I've met in the past 10 years would understand most of what I ramble on about anyway. I miss that.
I had it GOOD in college (ugrad, grad). I had a small group of friends who understood my references, my jokes, my quotes. We did a bunch of activities that just fed my soul -- fencing, DND, wandering around natural areas, listening to music, watching the same tv, joking, going to school (I LOVE school)...
Now, when I'm "social", I'm with a large group of women, most of whom have achieved a bachelor's degree and stopped and whose brains atrophied after that. We can ONLY talk about our children, our only common denominator. We scrapbook. We do circuit training/aerobics. We do garage sales. This is not the person I wish to be. The last intellectual discussion I've had with anyone I didn't meet in the first 4 days of undergraduate school was over Harry Potter. It was a delightful hour. And I met this one parent, a dad, who had the same sort of interests I/we did -- gamer, cthulhu references, sarcastic wit... but he's really a guy's guy, all grabbing crotch and farting. So, no good for me.
Is this where I expected to be 10 years ago? Is this what I wanted for myself?
current mood:  nostalgic
current music: Pink Floyd - Take It Back
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| Saturday, October 28th, 2006
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6:42 pm - I hate iTunes
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ohmygodsohmygodsohmygods
iTunes just reorganized my music library.
No, I don't think you felt the impact quite strongly enough, let me state it again...
iTunes just reorganized my music library.
I have 9400 files in my music library. They are grouped in three different ways, ones that are most natural to the way I search for music.
I have some genre groupings: Christmas, Childrens, Musicals, Quotes
I have some miscellaneous album groupings: Misc 2000, Napster 3
And the remaining files are grouped into artist and then album.
This has worked really well for me.
I like the system.
Recently, I've even gone through and tried to eliminate some duplicate songs I had - say, one would be in an album I've bought and the duplicate song gathered in a miscellaneous album. So, it's not like I wasn't tweaking the system, carefully stroking it and making it lovely.
And then, in a presumably harmless activity -- adding my music library into iTunes (so that I could then download music onto my new iPod) -- iTunes REORGANIZES MY ENTIRE LIBRARY
So now, I have idiocy like:
02 Ben Folds Five / Impact 7 / 02 Army.mp3
ARRRGGHHHH!
How am I to find all the songs on my Reunion 2 CD?
How will I be able to find all the DND6 songs?
I am now going to attempt a System Restore, in the dearest hopes that it returns file structure to the previous Restore Point.
Wish me luck, dear fellows
current mood: shocked and manic
current music: crowd noises from Liverpool football game
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| Monday, September 11th, 2006
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9:52 pm - A continuing trend of confusing responses
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Okay, so before I sent a note to my realtor and received the feedback that it was "hilarious." Today I send a thank you note (for a present received) and a rant to my mother about my horrid day and I receive the feedback that my e-mail was "hilarious." I'm not sure if I'm just a tremendous comic writer (watch out Terry Pratchett and Bill Bryson!) or if my life is just a (an?) hilarious sitcom for others.
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(I thank her for the gift and then write...)
And now I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm not sure if I should continue this email or just stop now.
Why would I stop now?
Because the arrival of that package is the ONLY thing that went right at all today.
Every other thing that happened -- more precisely, everything that I decided to do -- crashed from the skies in flaming, twisted, burning wreckage leaving a 5 mile scar upon the earth. So, you see, I'm really in a "hide my head in the covers and not come out until midnight" frame of mind.
But I knew that you'd like to know that the package arrived. So I'm sending this email. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
I'm not going to call, though. If I call today, to thank you for the lovely gift, then I'll wake you up from the only sleep you've managed to get in days, or you, in trying to get to the ringing phone, will trip over a sleeping dog, try to catch your falling self on a bannister, and somehow end up in a tangle on the bottom of the steps with a broken dog, a broken you and a broken bannister. Yes, it's been that bad of a day that this would not be an unusual effect of my actions.
Last week was hell. It was the first week of kindergarten with twins. They were fine, didn't mind the new school, didn't mind going to different classes - so no problems for them. But, I SWEAR I did 5 hours of paperwork this weekend. And not all of it the same (yes, it's the same if it's from the school, but it's different if the paperwork comes from the teachers). AND all of the children have soccer. One practice and one game a week. So, Mondays and Tuesdays are practices for the boys and Emma, respectively. And then there's two games on Saturday mornings. IF they're not all rained out (which they were last week, but we only know about it being rained out a minute before we're about to leave -- having roused everyone an hour early on a weekend, etc etc etc). AND last week we had an Open House for the boys' school and an Open House for Emma's school.... and then Jay got food poisoning while away at a meeting (day trip) and we had to go to a birthday party... OH, and then we had a house showing on Sunday, but they didn't like it because "the house had kids in it" (well, screw your family dynamic too, house buyer!).
So... today started badly when my friend called and said she can't come to the Twins Club meeting (we're both Vice Presidents) and that she hadn't done anything to prepare for the meeting, so now I have to run the "special 'get to know everyone' photo contest," get the materials necessary for the contest and get some prizes for the contest. And then I was half-an-hour late for Emma's first day of school (apparently trying to remember all these start/end times for school and practices and whatever else just boggled my little brain). And then I'm trying to book the Disney Vacation, finally, and nothing is working well and our favorite hotel might already be booked. And then there were the multitudes of little things: a library book is now overdue and we cannot find it anywhere, Emma can't manage to figure out how to pull down her tights in her new outfit and nearly wets herself, I decide to go home by a certain route and they've closed the road for repaving, etc etc etc. I'm just going to go back to bed and come out after midnight when the coast may be clear.
Okay, so I decided not to stop the email and instead vented my frustration with the world. Are we going to now lay bets on how that's going to come back and bite me? 'Cause it will, somehow...
Hope YOUR day is going well. Someone's has to, doesn't it? (law of averages and all that)
current mood: tentative
current music: Queen - I Want to Break Free
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| Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
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9:48 pm - A note to our realtor
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This is a note I decided to send to our realtor, to note our preferences should our house ever sell. He wrote back to say he was printing it out and posting it around his desk; he found it hilarious. I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment to my writing or a horrible harbinger of doom about ever finding a house we want.
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I finally found my list of what we're looking for in a new home, should we ever sell this one. At this point, coming up on our one-year anniversary of having our house for sale, we figure we're in it for the long haul. The sale of this house isn't going to be a quick thing, nor even a creeping thing, but a good glacial crawl. I think the price is finally right for this depressed market, so all we need to do now is pray for the right buyer at the right time (and wonder if we should redo the kitchen or bathroom or whatever).
But maybe you could file this away for us so that if this house should ever sell, you will know what we're looking for in our next (and hopefully LAST) home. They are not necessarily in any order other than the two categories of Absolutes and Would Like.
ABSOLUTES (we do NOT want to consider a house that is not among the following):
1. The Sale of our current house
2. A Buying Price of $240K or less (listing price may, obviously, be higher)
3. 2000 square feet
4. 4+ bedrooms
5. 2+ bathrooms
6. public water
7. public sewer
8. cable ready
9. house in solid shape (not a fixer-upper)
10. located in school districts of Okemos, Haslett or East Lansing
11. within a neighborhood
12. not on a main thoroughfare
13. not adjacent to a river
14. (don't really have another item, but superstitious me cannot have a list of only 13 items)
WOULD LIKE (these items we would like to see in a house, but they are not a "deal breaker" and we would consider a house without them):
1. tub in the master bath (or space enough to put one)
2. fenced yard
3. yard between 1/4 and 1/2 acre
4. sidewalks
5. enough plugs/circuits to accommodate modern technological lifestyle
6. carpeted rather than hardwood
7. laundry not in basement
8. fireplace, hopefully wood
9. EITHER:
9a) walk-out basement
9b) basement with large windows
9c) basement with windows that open
10. a basement the kids could play in (enough space)
11. a lawn not dominated by pine trees
12. a decor not dominated by orange/brown or very dark wood
13. in a neighborhood with similarly aged children
We understand that there are things here that you cannot control or even weed out of potential houses (lawn not dominated by pine trees?!). The first list, of Absolutes, is really for you. The list of Would Likes is really for us (or for you if you're curious as to why we might have rejected that "perfectly good house").
But I wanted to have the list out there (or saved in my email) in the event we ever go house-looking again. Of course, there's no reason for us to look at houses again until this one sells, although the annual "looking at houses in early spring" is becoming a lovely tradition between us all (2 years running so far!).
Okay, so all you need to do is print this and file it away and dust it off in the event our house ever sells.
current mood: confused
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| Saturday, January 28th, 2006
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9:54 pm - which is better, which is worse?
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Okay, you decide. Which is better, which is worse?
Option A) 3 Children sitting down, watching TV
Option B) 3 Children sitting down in front of a box, pretending to watch TV
That's a puzzler, no doubt.
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| Monday, January 9th, 2006
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12:56 am - ranting to the wind
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I see these commercials for this ultra-violent movie entitled Hostel. At least, that is what the commercials would lead us to believe. Maybe they are right, maybe they are not. The commercials allege that medics needed to be sent in to treat some audiences who could not handle the images before them -- of violence, of torture, etc. That's the history, now here's the rant...
If it is THAT violent, I don't believe it should be given an R rating (restricted). I think it should be given an NC-17. I don't understand why someone being tortured or dismembered on screen -- no matter that it's mostly special effects -- should be less bad for people to see than, say, certain sex scenes. Genocide? PG-13. Naked breasts? R. It just doesn't make any sense!
Not very ranting, I know, but still there's outrage there.
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| Tuesday, June 28th, 2005
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2:58 pm - In the Event of Emergency, a guide for the Babysitter
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In all events, please call us on our cell phones as soon as is possible (without endangering the children or yourself)
Power Outage:
-- Candles are located on the shelf above the trash can.
-- The safety lighter is located in the junk drawer.
-- The number for the Electric Company is by the phone.
-- Try not to open the refrigerator/freezer unless necessary, to keep the food as cold as possible.
Tornado:
-- Move everyone, including the dogs, into the basement. -- Avoid windows.
-- There are 2 gallons of clean water there for drinking/washing.
-- There should be a yellow emergency radio down there.
Fire:
-- Move everyone out of the fiery area.
-- If fire is house-wide, send everyone outside into the fenced yard, including the dogs.
-- If fire is localized, the fire extinguisher is behind the trash can in the kitchen.
-- Marshmallows are next to the cookies in the cabinet.
Alien Invasion:
-- Head to the basement and try to hide with the kids and the dogs.
-- If discovered, try to bluff that you're REALLY important and they need you alive more than dead.
-- Try sign language if they don't have universal translators.
Zombie Attack:
-- Put kids and dogs in a safe room that is easily defensible (try to avoid one with windows).
-- Fire works, as does decapitation.
-- Firewood is out front, next to the driveway. Safety lighter is in junk drawer.
-- Decapitating tools -- you'll have to improvise from everyday wood-working, household tools -- are in the garage or in the shed.
Skeleton Attack:
-- Put kids and dogs in a safe room that is easily defensible.
-- Skeletons can only be killed by crushing them utterly.
-- The sledgehammer is in the shed.
Flood:
-- The inflatable pool on the back porch will make a serviceable raft.
-- Note: our dogs cannot swim!
-- Life vests for the children are in their closet.
-- If flood levels are around the height of our chain link fence, careful of the top of fence with inflatable pool (it will rip).
Time Travelers:
-- Do not panic if you see a futuristic version of yourself.
-- Restrain yourself from asking future entities trivial questions about stock markets, lottery numbers or your fate.
-- Try not to mess up the time-space continuum by doing something radical.
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| Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
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4:36 pm - when a non-elderly relative dies
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You get the call. So and so has died. There is shock. You don't believe it. Then something weird starts to happen. I don't entirely understand why this happens, but it does. You then want to know the exact nature of the phone call (if you weren't the one to receive the news directly) -- what did they say, how did they say it, how are they doing (or, to put it another way, how badly are they doing)? And then there is the need to know how it happened. This is not rubbernecking or morbid curiosity. This is still part of the shock phase. Maybe that's why you need to hear all this, why all the questions... You need to visualize it, in a way, to process that it happened. You need to reconcile the fact of a death with the fact that you can't feel it/see it around you. Where did the death happen? When did it happen? How was the spouse notified? What about the kids? Every detail you need to absorb so that you can recreate it in your mind, to give a little room for your emotions to go and make sense of it all.
Looking around me now, here in my house in Michigan, I can see no effects of the death of Uncle Andy. I can't see Aunt Sue's pain, nor the horror felt by the children. It does not touch our world here, except in our hearts. Our hearts bleed for the loss felt by his wife, his children, by us. But around us, there is no evidence of that.
And so the questions continue erupting in our mind. How did he die? Where did he die? Was he taken directly to hospital? When was his wife notified? Where was she when it happened? How is she doing (how badly is she doing)? How did the news work its way to us? When were the kids told? etc etc etc. You feel morbid, being curious, but it's not that at all. It's just a way to make sense of what doesn't make sense. The sudden unfairness of it all. The waste of a good life.
And as we receive answers to these questions, we create that little scene in our mind... a little diorama of grief. There is where our heavy heart feels more at home, where it can make sense of what it feels. And as the grief slowly diminishes, the little diorama is broken apart. And the grieving pieces of our heart return to the rest of the heart, living out there in a world of children's laughter, dogs chasing squirrels, and a warm embrace at bedtime. In short, returning to life.
current mood: sad
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| Monday, June 13th, 2005
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10:20 pm - the Art of Updating Journals
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Journals. It's inherently unfair.
I get all my ideas in the car. I KNOW for many the shower is the spot of choice, but for me, it's the car. And such wonderful topics for essays run (dribble?) trippingly out of my mind at these times. And I always think -- I HAVE to remember this when I'm somewhere where I can write it down.
I am NEVER somewhere where I can write it down. And when I CAN write it down, I no longer remember what it was I wanted to say.
I've "written" long essays to my children about entering their teenage years, sex, drug use, and so on. I've spouted wonderful essays about the life of a mother of "twins plus one", about finding a friend, about how things were when I grew up.
None of them ever recorded anywhere.
I keep hoping the muse will come upon me while I have a moment to write it down. Even if I were driving and wasn't late for something or due to be somewhere, I could stop by the side of the road and just write things down. That would be nice. To have that chance.
current music: the chatter of children
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