Puffy Foot

I suffer from a rare condition I choose to call Puffy Foot. It means that my left foot & ankle are Perpetually Puffy. It's not an attractive condition although it's painless and I can't detect any disabilities as a result of it. And yes, I've had it checked out and scanned and there's nothing they can find that's causing it. I've had it about 5 years now.

There is one major drawback to this: shoe shopping is a bitch. It is impossible for me to find a pair of shoes that fit both feet well. Flip-flops and other thong sandals are the best solution, but that only works for about 6 months of the year. The rest of the time I am forced to wear a right shoe that is too loose, and a left shoe that is too tight. I have to discard over 75% of the shoes I try on as a result. What I really wish is that I could buy shoes in different sizes - a Size X.5 for my left foot, and a size X for my right. (Yeah, like I'm telling you my shoe size!)

And when I do find a shoe that fits my left foot, there's the problem of "does it look OK?" Certain styles are positively horrific, as they press the Puff upward, leaving a roll of flesh above the leather. (Isn't that a lovely mental image?) Sure, it might fit, but it looks like I've recently eaten a bowl of salt.

I found out recently that my maternal grandmother has the same condition. Just the left foot; not both. Once again, family genetics has "blessed" me with an undesirable trait. Massive quantities of moles? Check. Thin, fine hair? Check. The physique of a 19th C. Austrian farmwife? Check. Excessive fondness for baked goods? Check.

The Cutest Thing EVER

OK, I know you're not supposed to play favorites with your nieces and nephews... but honestly, she's the youngest one - The Last Baby - and she can just be so damn cute sometimes... my other nieces are in Knoxville, so I've never gotten to take care of them the way I have Emma.

Anyway - she was in a wedding this weekend, and with a 3-year-old, that can be Delightful or Dreadful. Fortunately, she was quite the little professional when onstage, and only lapsed into rampant misbehavior when required to sit in the pews during the ceremony.

She's an avid Princess fanatic, with an addiction to the Disney princess product line. She wants to be one, she wants to hear about them, she loves a nice tiara, you name it. So this was right up her alley. More pictures available here.

In Which I Reluctantly Join MySpace.com

So, Friend Frank from my days at Hillsboro High sends me an email today mentioning that there's a number of SophistiCats on myspace, and I should join. (The SophistiCats were a very advanced show choir & chamber singers group I was in throughout high school, and pretty much the only worthwhile thing about high school for me!) Plus my friends Paul et Cherie have occasionally pestered me to join so they can add me to their Friends... apparently one's myspace dignitas is dependent on how many Friends (clients, a la Roman Empire) one can claim.

So I set up my profile (suhouladoo) and begrudgingly wrote a few lines about myself, and made a discovery: one should not fill out one's online profile when one is in a bad mood. One is apt to say things that will not reflect well upon oneself. oneoneoneoneoneoneoneone.

And yet, not off-putting enough, apparently - two total strangers sent me Friend invites within a half-hour of setting up my profile. Apparently my comment that I wasn't there to make new friends or meet anyone had a different effect than I had intended. I shall have to re-edit and be more obvious about my lack of interest in making random Friends.

I really had thought that listing my remorselessly geeky Interests of Ballroom Dance, Bollywood, Embroidery & Cross-stitch, reading and Doctor Who would be sufficient to shake off all but the most Worthy and Perceptive of Friend-wannabes. I guess I'll have to put in the one piece of information that is the kiss of death: my current weight and height.

A Day of Frustrations

I hate not being able to fix things, and I hate failure.

So the last 24 hours have been rather disheartening. Of the semi-Burst-Into-Tears-on-the-Least-Provocation category of Disheartening. I thought maybe if I listed the specifics I might get a sense of the actual scope of my failures, as opposed to a general Everything-Sucks malaise.

1. Can't get my living room TiVo to dial in. I have tried countless times, going so far as to bring it to Elder Sister's house to use THEIR phone system. All to no avail.
2. A web design client from 8 months back went with another designer without any notice (that I can recall) and (very politely) won't pay for the 3 hours I spent on her site.
3. Another web design client isn't entirely happy with what I've done in a beta format, and I sense he wants something more sophisticated than I am capable of.
4. I haven't had time to work on 2 other client websites, and I don't want to right now.
5. I spent 4.5 hours this morning on a home wireless network job that should have taken 1 hour, and the problem STILL isn't fixed; so of course, I don't feel like I can charge them; and I don't know where I went wrong with the whole thing.

That's the gist of it; nothing absolutely devastating, but enough within 24 hours to cause overall melancholia. Oh, and I was unable to go to my part-time job at Vandy since I spent all morning at a job I can't charge for, and therefore lost 4 hours of legit paying work. [invective]Bugger all.[/invective]

Nuhfing in Particular, Part 2

"In our last episode, Susan discovered a certain fascination with an indefinable accent of the charming, working-class Rose Tyler from Doctor Who."

So I was watching the first episode of Season 2 titled "New Earth," and a bit of slang was used that made me (and my QuickTime software) pause. Rose, being temporarily "possessed" by a snobby spirit named Cassandra, took a look at herself in a mirror and burst out with a dismayed "Oh my God, I'm a chav!"

A chav? What on earth is a chav? I was mightily intrigued. I dashed to my computer, and once again, Wikipedia served me far better than I could have imagined. Read on:

The description fits Rose to a T, and goes into all sorts of detail about accent, fashion, cultural tendencies, etc. Absolutely fascinating - sortof like a British version of a Jersey Girl, I guess...? So when I resumed the episode and several minutes later, Cassandra re-assumed Rose's body, looked down at herself, and sarcastically snarled "oh, Chavtastic!" my pop cultural anglophilic joy knew no bounds, and I clapped and squealed, since I know knew what she meant.

Damn, I love the Brits.

7/15 Mike in MI has directed me to a far more alarming series of definitions about what "chav" is on urbandictionary.com. Not so funny anymore...

Travails with Tivo

I love my Tivo very much, as anyone who knows me well should be aware of. Like many of my other passions, such as:

• Bollywood,
• Haayo Miyazaki movies,
• Doctor Who,
• Ballroom Dancing,

I am prone to evangelistic fervor. I want everyone to share my enjoyment of said entertainments.

Well, I have been having difficulty with my TiVo of late... ever since I switched to the ridiculously cheap Vonage phone service which runs over my cable modem, I have had problems getting my TiVo to successfully dial in to download updates. Because Vonage can't seem to work with the phone wiring in my apartment, I have had only one functioning phone in my living room, with a very thin 20 foot phone line running across the floor from the phone router under my desk, through the sliding door, onto the porch, and back in through the bedroom porch door. This line is for my TiVo; I watch more TV in my room than I make phone calls.

So I've had the Vonage for a few months now, and was able to get the TiVo to dial in successfully overnight most of the time. Since it stores 2 weeks of upcoming programming data, it's not been a real problem, but a couple of days ago it started warning me that it would run out on Saturday the 15th. I tried everything to get it to dial in and download - called Vonage, tried their online help tips, etc. - nothing worked.

Then I went online and did a search for work-arounds, and found a vast sea of discontented and frustrated former Vonage customers who had found out which I was just learning - Vonage does not play well with TiVo. By typing in a ridiculously long string of dialing prefixes and forcing it to dial a NYC #, I was finally able to get it to make one download. However, the TiVo in the living room, which is newer, still can't get through. It gets halfway into the call and then gets interrupted; by what, I do not know!

So I'm now on the phone with BellSouth (as I have been for over 45 minutes) switching my service back to them. Just a few days ago they sent me the 3rd or 4th "Please please please please come back to us... we'll give you low rates/cash/our first-born child" Letter of Desperation, and so last night I dug it out from under some rotting raspberries and various gooey things in the trash can. They will drop my rates to almost half of what they used to be, which is pretty darn good for the various difficulties Vonage has caused me. The rates will go back up in 12 months, but who knows what advances in technology will happen by then!

Bottom line: If you love your TiVo, don't get Vonage unless you have TiVo with broadband or wireless service.

Yes, I'm still here...

Vacation weeklet! WOOOOOOOOOOOOT! Granted, it's only Friday-Tuesday, and I worked some on Friday, and I sing for about 5 hours Sunday morning EARLY, and I'll probably see about getting some computer work on Monday... but still! Whooooooooo!

I still wish I could have a whole week of vacation... *sigh* Pity poor, poor Susan.

If you're in Nashville and you wanna see something cool, go to the Belcourt Theater @ 3 pm Sunday and get a ticket to Krrish. You'll be glad you did.

Bollywood Suggestions

Mike in MI asked me to recommend a Bollywood film he could check out on Netflix, and I thought others might like my suggestions as well:

hmmm... that's tricky. If you want a dramatic/semi-tragic love story with fantastic visuals & music, check out Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (trans. "I Have Given You My Heart"). If you want something more fun yet still really well made, check out Bunty Aur Babli ("Bunty and Babli") - it's a con-artist comedy.

Now that I consider it, get Bunty - it's just such a funny and sweet movie... less chicky-flicky. (Do NOT get Bride & Prejudice, which was actually shown in the US but sucks terribly - Netflix may recommend it.) If you want to get acclimatized first, do check out Monsoon Wedding, which is an Indian film but not Bollywood, in that it's not a musical. I am still very moved by it; I find some neat analogies to the Bride of Christ and the book of Hosea (although I'm sure it wasn't intended by the filmmaker!) It's much more realistic in its portrayal of Indian life than a Bollywood film, and yet you start to get a sense of how the culture works, and Bollywood seems a logical progression afterwards. This is the first Indian movie I ever saw, and the critics really loved it, with good reason.

I don't expect everyone to enjoy Bollywood, but I went into it hook, line & sinker after a decade of passionate devotion to anime, and there are parallels - it's so reflective of its culture, same as anime is to Japan. It wouldn't look the same anywhere else. And the interesting thing is that in 98% of the movies, there's no sex or kissing, which makes it safe for entire families. B & B is an exception to this rule, but even it is quite tame in comparison to US films. The culture disapproves of PDAs and promiscuity (although it does happen in the big cities), and when one Bollywood starlet was *gasp* reported to have been seen kissing her boyfriend in public! she filed a libel suit and released a statement that she would never do anything so immoral.

So, in order of recommended viewing (not in quality, necessarily):
1) Monsoon Wedding
2) Bunty Aur Babli
3) Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
4) Kabhi Khushi, Kabhie Gham

Va, Va, Va!

iTunes is finally carrying Bollywood music! Finally, I can get decent copies of some of my favorite tunes! I would say the bulk of actual music on my iPod (apart from the entire Harry Potter canon, Sarah Vowell, and podcasts on Doctor Who) is from Bollywood, and I listen to them more than anything else. And a lot of them are from somewhat questionable sources; my only excuse is the difficulty of obtaining the CDs, and that fact that usually I want only 1 or 2 of the songs from any film. A saving grace of Bollywood music is that the CDs are wicked cheap.

But it's weird; some unbelieveably obscure music is available there from movies that apparently no-one liked but me, while some of the top movie soundtracks are nowhere to be seen. I mean, for heaven's sake, Krrish starring the delectable Hrithik Roshan and bound to be the #1 film this year in India, has only a Telegu version of the soundtrack available, when the movie was made in Hindi! I mean, honestly, Telegu? It's like only listing the soundtrack for a Spanish-dubbed version of the next Spiderman film!

When I can't get the soundtrack for the blockbuster Fanaa (made by the top studio in Mumbai) on iTunes, but I can get songs from the delightfully cheesy but ultimately bombed Doli Saja ke Rakhna, then someone at iTunes is really bad at their job. Patience, my little ladoo, patience... give them time to learn and grow...

And to that end, and for the benefit and delight of anyone who comes here, I offer this tidbit of the most delightfully catchy song I've heard in a while - "Aaja Soniye" from an otherwise weak film, Mujhse Shaadi Karoge (Will You Marry Me?). You can't listen to it without smiling. And bouncing.

Nuhfing in Particular...

... just wanting to say hey to my tiny bevy (can a bevy be tiny?) of readers. There's nuhfing more annoying when a favored blog is never updated, RACHEL.

Pardon the colloquial "nuhfing;" been re-watching loads of Doctor Who on my Tivo and on YouTube (which is a MAHVELOUS site, btw) and his companion Rose has the most adorable accent. "th" comes out as "f" or "v", and it's quite infectious. Despite my partial knack for accents, I can't pick hers up entirely; I spent too much time as an "Oliver!" urchin-wannabe in junior high choir, and traces of cockney keep interfering. I don't even know how to classify her accent.

More latuh.

Who Were the Geeks in Olden Times?

It just occurred to me, as I am doing some contract work for a web design company - over 100 years ago, what would a true Geek look like, sound like, be obsessed with? What was the Star Wars equivalent of the day? Would it have been Jules Verne, and if so, did people build their own faux time machines? Did they dress up like Morlocks?

I also wonder who were the Geeks 200 years ago - we're talking 1806, and despite my fascination with historical popular culture, I have no idea. I do know that "The Da Vinci Code" of the late 18th century was a French romance novel called Paul and Virginia which was all about Rousseauean ideals of letting the wonders of nature teach us how to truly live, and the inequities of an outdated class structure... plus had 2 young hotties on a South Sea island with remarkably lax mothers who let them wander about a la Blue Lagoon.

It was wildly popular in its day, and I actually dug up a copy and read it many years ago - I say Dug, because I had to get it through InterLibrary Loan from another state, and there are practically no copies left - it's long since out-of-print, and for good reason... it's really, really bad, except for a few vaguely naughty bits. (Naughty, in the context of late 18 century, so Not Very.) Long, loooooooooooong passages about the flora and fauna of the island that do nothing to progress the story.

Apparently this was one of those books that shook up the women of the day - readers of Madame Bovary may recollect a reference to Emma having read it when young, and apparently it was part of the formation of her flawed character.

It may seem that I have Strayed from my initial question, but I promise, it ties in. A Geek is, in one part of the Wikipedia definition, "A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest." Geeks are not necessarily Nerds, whom I associate more with social ineptitude. A Geek is very passionate about something, and the most obvious ones are passionate about Stories.

So, if today's Geeks are fond of Star Wars/Trek, LOTR and Joss Whedon, then what were they fond of 100, 200 years past? It would have to be something that wasn't within the cultural norms of the day, but eventually became commonplace. "Paul and Virginia," with its rebellion against class structure and regimented society, might well have been one of the Points of Fixation for Geeks of the Day. I know that Ann Radcliffe's gothic novels were probably Geeked over, but primarily by women. But what would have regained the Geek fascination of men?

Obviously, I need to do a bit of research, Geek that I am.

Friday the 9th: Ooh, Paul and Virginia is available on Project Gutenberg!

Sometimes I Am So Stupid...

So this week I have been working all over the map, it seems; I feel like I have put more miles on my car this week than in the last month. The phone just started ringing a lot, and everyone needs my help at present. Which is fantastic and much needed/appreciated, but I'm appalled to find myself getting cranky that I don't have as much free time as I did. When I was Perpetually Whining about how I couldn't get enough work for the last 4 months! I'm feeling a trifle overwhelmed, yet obligated to do it all since I have no idea when the next wave of work will crash my way, and I badly need to put more clients in my boat.

Finished a website I'm inordinately proud of, despite the relative simplicity of it - I know HTML, and not much else. My friend Renu has just moved to Denver and is going to start teaching Bollywood Dance there, so we've been frenziedly whipping a website into shape to help drum up students (hopefully!) It's got lots of info on it, since part of the job she has to do is educate people as to WHAT Bollywood Dance actually IS. Since I love Bollywood and it's my second biggest hobby, it's been a joy to work on the site. Not of much use to my Faithful Readers unless they live in Colorado, but the Bolly-What? and Video pages are fun AND educational.

Mid-Life Crisis

OK, there's something fishy going on here... I just went to the doctor yesterday with an irritated and sore left eye, only to find out that I probably have a minor case of conjunctivitis... in other words, Pinkeye. I find it odd that after 2+ decades, I've now come down with 2 of the ailments I had as a child - Pinkeye in 1st grade, Strep in 3rd grade.

I've been so healthy for years, never getting anything nameable beyond various bugs or allergy-related nastiness, that I find this arresting. Almost as though I'm reliving my childhood, but not through any choice of my own.

Doctor, Doctor

I am now prepared to share my absolute fascination with and obsession for the new Doctor Who series on the SciFi Channel. I was an occasional viewer of the series back in high school when our local PBS station was showing the Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and Peter Davison versions of the Doctor, and I wasn't obsessed with it or anything because the FX were fairly crap, and on occasion the storyline was of no interest to me. But it stuck with me, and one of my favorite trips when I was in London back in my 20s was when I visited the Museum of the Moving Image and saw the Doctor Who exhibit.

Rather, my favorite souvenir. I brought back a t-shirt and a mug with a text version of the theme music that I still find hilarious - "Dum de dum, dum de dum, dum de dum, diddly-dum" repeated 3 times... which is only amusing if you are familiar with the cheesy theme music and can recognize it. But it had the Tardis on it, which is what I loved most. That comforting old blue police box that the Doctor travels in through time and space...

I always wanted to time-travel, but in relative comfort and convenience. I didn't particularly want to travel like the Doctor and his companions did because it always seemed quite Fraught with Peril, and I'm not big on Peril. But sometimes their adventures were lovely and romantic and those stuck with me.

The new series is rather much improved, to my mind. They've really upped the budget significantly - gone are the days where you'd see a space slug slither by, and say to yourself, "That's bubble-wrap they've spray painted green!" Now they have respectable FX and, to my mind, phenomenal casting and writing. Christopher Eccleston is playing the Doctor, with Billie Piper playing his companion du jour, Rose. Their chemistry is delightful and significant; whereas before the Doctors and their companions were asexual and positively detached. This Doctor cares about Rose a great deal, and it shows. I adore Mr. Eccleston, and am only sorry he's only doing the first season, to be replaced by David Tennant for the next.

I was surprised to find out that apparently the show is known for it's scariness; I never was scared by it, else I would have avoided it like the plague - horror and scary stuff is anathema to me. But in England it was well established that certain recurring villains such as the Daleks and Cybermen were enough to send you racing to hide behind the couch, and the show was initially designed for children. But after 40 years, the viewership is all over the demographic map, and there's a new comedic sophistication and nuance to the series, reminiscent of Joss Whedon's shows. Witty banter is all over the place, and a healthy dose of flirting.

I find it irresistable, and am only sorry that there are only 13 episodes in the first new season (it was cancelled for about 15 years, but with recurring audiobooks and other media still being produced). They're in the midst of the second series in England now, and since it's steadily winning awards and having high ratings, it should remain on the air for a good long time. I highly recommend it, although the last 2 episodes of the season are airing in the next month, and it might be better to wait for the reruns so you can start at the beginning. There's a definite story arc, although some of the episodes can stand on their own. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Survival

I have quite faithfully watched Survivor ever since it started, and have also watched myself become cynical and jaded by how each season ends up. Each person eventually reveals the flaws in their personality and says something unforgivably stupid/cruel/selfish, or else they doggedly maintain the illusion that they are playing the game with "integrity" (boy, if I don't hear that word in context of the show again it'll be too soon...) and think they've persuaded us of their worthiness, which is a joke. The Mediocre almost always triumph on this show, because anyone with any qualities of strength, understanding, or intelligence are recognized as a threat almost immediately and are eliminated.

Everyone always claims to have loved the experience, to appreciate what it taught them about themselves and what they were capable of, blah blah blah, and how they're changed forever, yadda yadda yadda, and it's given them a renewed sense of purpose, la la la. But big maturing experiences, as grandiose as they may seem at the time, always diminish down to a small kernel in the corner of your character and personality... not without value, but only a tiny part of a bigger whole.

I'd give a great deal for someone on the show to say this: "Being on the island has shown me how unbelivably arrogant yet vulnerable I am, and I don't even begin to know what to do about it," or "Nah, I really hated it and it only made me realize how annoying other people can be." THAT would be worth seeing.

The Giving of Gifts

Names have been imaginatively changed to protect the innocent.
Last night was a belated birthday celebration at Amerigo's for Martine, a member of my small women's group (hereafter referred to as Sisters). We have been celebrating birthdays with cards and presents and dinner for years now, and it has, for many of us, become the one guarantee of Proper Birthday Recognition and Appreciation.

Shall I elaborate? You know I'm gonna...!

This particular evening, everyone had really gone all out on Nifty and Thoughtful Gifts, and we were congratulating each other on said thoughtfulness... and inevitably, we began to speak of gift disappointments. As the sole Single in the group, I have no basis of comparison for the Failing of Husbands in this area, but it is always fun to hear of the train-wrecks some of my Sisters have experienced in past years. For example, Saltine told of the time her husband had bought her an appalling blood-red dress 3 sizes too big, and of the Mother's Day where, with ill-concealed delight in his Gift-Giving Genius, he gave her 3 ordinary, unrelated and boring coffee mugs in a paper bag.

Pauline's tale of decades with no birthday cakes, EVER, still trumps everyone, although we made up for that a few years back. We showed up at the agreed-upon restaurant that night with our regular gifts and cards for her... and with a birthday cake each. She about fell out of her chair, and had cakes in the freezer for months to come. I still wonder if her husband and kids ever realized the inherent rebuke from us when she took them home.

It's interesting how people react to appalling gifts. Pauline always conceals her disappointment, because of how crushed her husband becomes when she responds instinctively, while Saltine is fortunate in a husband who can take a "What on earth were you thinking?!" with humor and grace. Nadine has the opposite problem - her husband is never happy with anything she gives him, despite her best efforts and the fact that she really is trying to make thoughtful, clever choices. Celine... well, apparently she and her husband are both blessed with Nifty Giftiness, and have no impressive tales of woe.

It does seem like we rarely get what we might wish for when it comes to gifts. It's an almost impossible balance between Surprise / Effort / Ingenuity / Delight. If you tell someone exactly what to get, you lose the Surprise and Effort. If you don't tell them and they get something wrong, you lose the Ingenuity and Delight. And the burden of how to respond can make it even worse; in the case of a disappointing gift you can be honest and hurt the Giver, or lie and give the Giver a false contentment. Is the pleasure of giving gifts almost as important as receiving them? Does it matter? Are you tired of this yet?

Each December I find myself longing for the perfect gift situation (birthdays near Christmas are a constant disappointment)... one where it's something I really long for, did not expect, and didn't have to suggest to anyone. A perfect gift is more than a tangible Thing; it's also the implication that the Giver truly Knows your heart, and made a real effort to bring you joy. We all have a couple of these rare, precious situations where we were given the perfect gift, but as we get older, decades stretch between, and we falsely say to ourself and others that "Gifts don't matter that much when you get older," or "I can buy it for myself!" or "A gift certificate would be the smartest thing."

But we are disappointed. We don't want to seem childish so we pretend it makes no difference, but at our Heart we long for Real Gifts. And yet there is absolutely nothing we can do to make them happen. So we might pray for a gracious attitude, or persuade ourselves that as adults, we are beyond feeling hurt at such a small thing. But I don't think it's a small thing - selfishness and self-centeredness may be part of it, but I think this is one of those longings from the heart that never really go away in a fallen world. We have been given the best gift of all, depending on your perspective - God's Grace, Life, Good Health - but we are usually unable to prize it as we should. We want something tangible in a box with a ribbon so we know that we are loved.

Daily Ephemera

You know, I'm coming to realize that blogging is an excellent way to point out interesting tidbits without going to all the trouble of actually adding them permanently to my website.

To that end, here follows a series of photos of the most simultaneously cute and terrifying watchdog EVAH. Don't know who this is, but I feel fairly certain that the baby in question will be safe for the rest of his/her life.

I am so proud...

... of my eldest nephew Elliott. He invented his own emoticon! :-E for a big toothy smile.

Elliott and George have just recently gotten their own email addresses and so I send them all the silly stuff I come across on the web, like funny videos, etc.

Joy

Publix is now making a sugar-free Moose Tracks ice cream.

My joy knows no bounds.

Simple But Effective

Hmmm... it does have its merits...

Humour

I gave my long-dreaded presentation on "Humor in Jane Austen" at the Jane Austen Society of North America (or JASNA) Tea yesterday afternoon, and it went over far better than I had cause to hope. There's a branch here in Nashville; about 2 dozen ladies who get together quarterly for a presentation on some JA-related subject and a whopping big tea party.

We sit around and stuff our faces with shortbread and cake and drink really GOOD tea, and talk about the latest Jane Austen movie or miniseries, and "has anyone heard of a new version of P&P or S&S," etc., and one brave soul makes a presentation to the group. Very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Well, in my never-ending Quest for Attention, when they asked me about 6 months ago if I would do a presentation on Humor in Jane Austen, I said yes, and then regretted it for weeks on end. I'm just so lazy, you see. I don't like being required to do homework, although I'm certainly confident in addressing a group, or talking about stuff I know well.

So I folded my open acknowledgement of my vanity and laziness into the presentation, which I think helped a lot since my scholarship was very foggy - I shamelessly plagiarized from Wikipedia and other on-line papers and sites, which I have no real compunction about since I will never allow it to be published or made available to the general public... my words have melted into the Ether. Here's the introductory bits that I am most proud of:

When I was first asked if I would be willing to take on the subject of “Humor in Jane Austen” as a presentation, in my weaker moments I would think things like “why don’t you just ask me to do a presentation on ‘Nouns in Jane Austen,’ or ‘Use of the letter W in Jane Austen’? In other words, it seems an almost impossibly huge task, much like being asked to index the Old Testament. And I am an exceptionally lazy person, which makes it even more difficult to contemplate.

I should mention that it has been a habit for me that if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, I will think about Jane Austen stories, because I find it very soothing and far-removed from the worries of my life. But since developing this presentation has become one of my worries, that doesn’t exactly work right now!

So I started dabbling in research, and there’s a lot of it about, to say the least. There are books about books about Jane Austen’s humor, and all the permutations thereof – sarcasm, irony, wit, satire, vocabulary, feminism, juvenilia, the joke of substitution, the comic negative, etc. etc. etc. But one of the main difficulties of discussing comedy in a scholarly manner is analyzing just how exactly a phrase, a sentence, or joke actually IS funny – it’s taking a very subjective, individualized style of expression, and attempting to confine it to a comprehensible definition, and I find it unbelievably boring. If you explain how something is comedic, it usually drains the funny out of it.

So I won’t exactly do that myself; I’ve decided to jump around and talk about the things in Austen that make me laugh, in no particular order, with just a few definitions and examples so it’s not a complete waste. In the slightly modified words of Jane Austen, “you deserve a [better presentation] than this, but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.” Or, in the more slightly mangled words of Lady Catherine, “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of [humor] than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever [bothered to prepare a proper presentation], I should have been a great proficient.”

OK, Is It Just Me, Or...

OK, I have been at a contract job for almost 2 hours now; I was scheduled to meet with one of the programmers this morning (general time). I let him know around 11:15 that I was here and ready to work. He emailed me files around 11:30, and said he'd be down. At 12:15, I went up, stood in the doorway, and said, "Whenever you're ready...?" which he acknowledged. It is now 12:43, and still no sign of Blow-Off Programmer.

Is it me, or is it not clear enough that I'm here and ready to work? I could tell my Bro-in-law, who is in charge here, but I don't want to be a snitch, and he'll be mad and yell at the BOP, who will then resent me. But it's almost 2 hours WASTED that I could have been working elsewhere!

What Are You?

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Interesting little 10-question quiz that pinpoints your political leanings with reasonable accuracy. Apparently I'm a centrist, but I pretty much knew that already...

My angel babies

Easter, 2006. Aren't you jealous? Despite the bash on the noggin my little strawberry got 2 days before...

Chernobyl

Really interesting - saw on slashdot.com that the area around Chernobyl is becoming a nature preserve - the animals are thriving! Take a look. Apparently that line from Jurassic Park about how life or nature "finds a way" is truer than we knew!

The Dangers of Novel-Reading

I'm having a dismal morning - absolutely nothing going wrong, all ducks in a row, all is dandy... but I feel lousy! I can't tell if I'm ill, depressed, or stressed. Could be all three. I should be absolutely delighted - I have three jobs lined up for this afternoon, and yet I feel tired and just... off. Soured.

I'm inclined to blame it on novel-reading. It's funny, I could never understand why when novels first became part of popular culture in the 18th century, novel-reading was considered unwise, especially for young women. The romantic, gothic-influenced fiction of the time was pretty innocuous if you ask me, but it apparently had a demoralizing effect. All these young ladies who had been reasonably well-behaved and obedient to parental direction and arranged marriages started rebelling, I suppose. When you read about a heroine being swept off her feet and rescued from dire peril by a handsome, dangerous nobleman, it does tend to make you a trifle dissatisfied with a marriage proposal from the balding local cleric or sitting around mending torn hems.

When I was younger, I read novels incessantly. And I was miserable. At the time, I thought it was because of my home life and hating school and loneliness. But when I stopped reading 7-10 books a week after college and started watching more TV, and having more of a social life and getting a job, I became much happier. I thought it was just because of improved circumstances. In addition, I lost interest in novels because it became more difficult to find stories I really liked. I did discover audiobooks and have been checking them out pretty steadily for the last 7-10 years, but the majority of them have been nonfiction; biographies, history, memoir, travel.

Well, recently I re-discovered a novelist that I had once thought rather tepid when I was younger named Georgette Heyer. Jane Austen will always be on the top of my novel list, but for books of a similar nature in a similar style, Georgette Heyer is as good as it gets. Plus, she wrote about 33 of them, so you can re-read them on a regular schedule and it will take years before you have to repeat one. Well, as I mentioned a month or so back, I gave up almost all TV for Lent and so I had to find something to fill the time, and so Georgette Heyer came to my rescue.

Or so I thought. There's a negative kickback to romance fiction; It makes you dissatisfied with your life. It makes you long for an unrealistic relationship. And if it's historical, it makes you pine for the clothes and the lifestyle and the idealized vision of how life used to be for a woman, where you could be weaker and not be despised for it. I forgot how I used to feel about previous eras - that I used to think I would be so much better off in the 18th century.

I know better now, of course - I appreciate the independence and the advantages of modern life. But the sense of dissatisfaction that has grown in me over the last few weeks is going to take a while to dispel. And my goal to collect all of Georgette Heyer's novels... well, I think I'll let that go for now.

Tres amusant...

Ha!

Ha ha!

A very interesting story...

I have such an interesting story to tell!

While reading one of my favorite websites, a reference was made to something called "The Oak Island Money Pit". In a nutshell, this is an island near Colchester, Nova Scotia, where back in the late 18th century some boys found a man-made shaft, and started digging. Since there are various layers of oak trees and man-made materials, it's been believed that a treasure is underneath, and there have been many attempts over the years to try and dig down to it - bits of gold and parchment have been recovered in later digs with exploratory bores, which has only fueled the interest in the site. However, it's an amazing feat of engineering, as they have discovered that the pit has booby traps at various levels, and there are shafts that flood the main pit whenever they get down to a certain level. Various attempts to excavate have been given up after wasting tons of money. They've made more progress every time, but whenever they think they're about to finally get something, the pit floods!

All of this is very interesting, but what caught my eye was the fact that when the 3 boys who found the site came back to do a serious dig 9 years later, their partner was a man named Simeon Lynds - of course the last name caught my eye, as well as the fact that this was in Nova Scotia. This man IS my cousin - I checked the main Lynds genealogy website for connections, and he is the brother of my great-great-great-great grandfather, John Bunker Lynds! Also, in a later dig, his brother David replaced him as a partner.

The Oak Island website is really well done - has all the stories of the various digs and what they've found, as well as a page full of various theories as to who buried the treasure in the first place, and how. Those who have read "The DaVinci Code" or seen the movie "National Treasure" and have heard the various stories about Masons, the Knights Templar, etc., will find various references to them in to some of the more romantic theories for the pit. There are even claims that part of the gold taken from the temple in Jerusalem when it was sacked by Rome in 70 AD has ended up there.

It's a really interesting website to read, and quite entertaining!

In Which I Am Quarantined

I have strep throat, which I haven't had for almost THREE DECADES. The reason I know exactly how long it's been, is that it was a particularly memorable period in my childhood. [Oh goody! a story, a story!]

When I was in third grade, I came down with strep throat... then again... then again... at which point, I lost count. Back in the 70s, the routine was this: You get a sore throat, they take a swab to test it for strep bacteria, the following day they let you know if you have it, you go back and get a penicillin shot. You then are quarantined for 3 days, and 2 weeks later you go back for another swab to make sure it's gone. Well, it never did go away! The symptoms disappeared after the first round, but every fortnight the tests said I still had it.

It really became quite dreadful, and I mean it - Full of Dread. I was in my most needle-phobic stage at that point, and so when I would go for a swab, the next day I would be more and more scared as the day progressed until lunchtime was over, when my class would line up at the door to leave, and when the door opened, my mom would be there to take me back to the doctor for another shot.

I missed a LOT of school that year; my mom would sometimes leave me with a neighbor since she was doing something [hmm, that's a puzzler - she wasn't working, so why did she need a sitter? odd...] and I would play with their kids' toys and neglect the homework I was supposed to be doing. They even swabbed everyone in the family, to see if my parents or sisters were strep carriers... which they weren't.

After 4-5 rounds of this, one day after a swab I came out of the lunchroom, and my mom wasn't there waiting. I was almost giddy with relief! I could barely wait to get off the bus after school, and I raced into my mom's room where she was sewing and said "I'm not sick!" to which she replied "actually, you still are," and explained that she had persuaded them to give me oral penicillin instead since I so dreaded the shots, and that I would have to take it for several days. Fine by me! We pretty much just let it drop at that point - I never did go back for another test, since the symptoms had long since disappeared, and we never did figure out why the disease had continued to show up.

I haven't had any kind of sore throat except for allergy-related sinus drainage since that time, and I had become rather smug that my childhood experience with strep had built up UBER-immunities. So when I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat, I went "oh darn - allergy-time!" and proceeded to treat that. But by Wednesday, my throat had gotten much worse, and I realized that my allergy hadn't progressed like usual, so I went in for a swab that afternoon. It was funny - my nurse must have apologied 3 or 4 times that the swab was going to make me gag (which it did), and when I asked her what the treatment was nowadays, she said penicillin pills for 10 days, I just laughed and said swab away - I could think of MUCH more uncomfortable things than a gag reflex!

So I am isolated at home for the next 48 hours, which is quite a nuisance, since I've probably already exposed several dozen people to it, what with working on people's computer keyboards and attending social events, etc. AND, that means 2 precious days I could be working, and can't. Plus my TV watching is curtailed for Lent, so no consolation there!

April 18: I didn't mention that I suspected that I caught it from my sister's family; some of them had it a few weeks back. Well, now almost all of them have it again (4 kids and my sister) so I will probably be catching it again in about 2 weeks. *sigh*

Ice, not Water!

Well, I'm sure this makes them feel so much better to have explained away one of Jesus' miracles - wonder what BS they'll come up with for Feeding the 5000?

I Love Lileks

Sometimes I'm a little "ehhh" about his entries - coming up with something interesting EVERY weekday is impossible, of course - but then there are ones like today's where he shreds King Kong that are irresistible. Take a look.

Success!

At last, the prize is won. Found one on eBay that I could actually afford. Hurrah!

O, Thou Elusive Cookbook!

Still remains elusive - I'm watching 17 different ones on eBay, but they are wildly popular and keep passing out of my price range. I bid on a few and was instantly outbid by someone with a deeper pocket. Checked alibris.com, which was depressingly vague and unhelpful, even though their website is very fancy-schmancy. Four days left!

Later... Friend Rindy tells me that she found one for $717.75. *ding*ding*ding* We have a winner!

More cookbook

It's been quite interesting - I sent the last post to about 100 or so friends & family to see if anyone knew of the aforementioned cookbook, and I've gotten about 2 dozen replies, I think - people who had it as a child, or have it now, but it's a) too battered or b) indispensible. Almost as if they were bragging - "I have one, but you can't have it!" It's nice when you realize that an oft-used, practical item still has a shelf value, isn't it? Doesn't help ME, now, does it?

Called the 2 main used bookstores here in town - Bookman Bookwoman (no idea WHAT that name is supposed to connote; that they actually *gasp* allow both men & women to shop there? Or, that they're segregated? It was originally just Bookman, I believe, but I think the owner took on a female partner, or there was a protest at the gender-exclusive name and this was the result. I'm inclined to suspect the latter, because the shop is in Hillsboro Village, which is Cool and Liberal Central for Nashville, and That Sort of Thing wouldn't be allowed there. But I deliberately digress...) and Elder's Bookstore on Elliston Place which is a City Treasure since it's been there since the 50s and is family owned. (It's interesting that the very idea of family descendants running the same shop/restaurant for over 20 years makes something a Treasure. I mean, the place could have nothing but copies of Hardy Boys mysteries and crappy remaindered books, and we'd still be inclined to think it's a Treasured Emporium just because it isn't a chain or franchise. But I casually digress again...)

Elder's is searching and will call me back, and Bookman/woman didn't have it. The Bookwoman I talked to felt it necessary to describe the similar Betty Crocker cookbooks she had on hand, despite the fact that I had clearly identified the year and appearance of the book - maybe my memory was a bit hazy? Despite the fact that I have become an disinterested expert on the various incarnations of BC cookbooks from the latter half of the 20th century and could describe the features, publication dates, and cover of the one I want in impressive bibliophilic detail. Even though I could personally care less about which one it is, never having used any of them.

But that's true of me in general. I have a quite respectable range of cookbooks atop the fridge that are used or consulted a few times a year; I mistakenly thought in high school and college that I was interested in cooking and started to collect them, only to find a decade later that I could care less, and the internet has loads more recipies than I could ever need. So, the one cookbook that I use with any regularity is my blank one - one of those 3-ring binder types with blank pages and pockets that you can store accumulated recipes; the majority of which seem to be for cookies. Yet I shall never let go of the unused ones - cause they're BOOKS, and Might Be Useful Someday.

In search of a cookbook

So my friend Mindy's birthday party is on Tuesday, and the ONE THING I know she wants, and I can't seem to get, is the 1969 Betty Crocker "red pie" Cookbook, reprinted about every year through the 70s. They're certainly out there, and I've found lots on eBay... but they're EXPENSIVE! They sell between $25-50 on average, depending on the condition of the book. They are very much in demand, and are considered to be the best edition ever put out.

Mindy got one when she was married in 1972, and has used it until it's falling apart and would like another one. I as good as promised that I would find one for her birthday, and yet I fear the ones on eBay are priced outside of my budget. If anyone, ANYONE, knows where I can get one in usable condition (sturdy enough for regular use for another few decades), please let me know! I'm hoping to find one under $25.

A real page turner

So, I've spent the morning researching products for my friend/client who has MS and can't use her hands. She has a computer with a voice-recognition software, and I suppose compared to most folks with an "input" disability ("input" meaning how she is able to relay commands to the computer) she actually gets by pretty well, considering the mouse and keyboard are useless to her. But we've talked a lot about the limitations of the software, as well as the difficulties of other tasks like simply wanting to read a book. Unless someone is on hand to turn the pages, she's hamstrung.

She asked if I knew of any electronic reading devices; she already reads pdf files of some books on her computer screen, but as she puts it, "I'm tired of watching TV!" She wants to hold a book in her lap like she used to do. The searches that I've done have had pretty dismal results. Sony did just come out with an electronic reader in January, which shows book text on the screen of a moderately-sized (and -priced) tablet. But you have to touch a button to turn the pages, and that's not possible. I dug some more, and found an electronic page turner that manually turns the pages of a book - for over $1000! It at least has the benefit of having a variety of non-touch input devices.

I also found a new voice-recognition software called QPointer Voice that supposedly works better at manipulating the computer interface, but it doesn't take dictation as well as her current product, Dragon NaturallySpeaking. *sigh* Where is American innovation? We thought Viagra was more important?!

Of Salt and Paperclips

I have been in an early Friday morning Bible study with a half-dozen women for the last seven years. We have been observing Lent together for a few years now, even though most of them are Presbyterians; we tell each other before Ash Wednesday just what we're giving up, and we help keep each other accountable through the 40 days.

While I know that this is a spiritual discipline/sacrifice, it has inevitably produced some really funny situations. Such as the year I allowed myself to get re-addicted to Diet Coke so that I might give it up for Lent (yes, I know, it's appalling). Or the year we tried a reverse Lent, where we took on an activity instead of giving up something treasured.

This year as we got together for dinner on Mardi Gras and went around the table each telling our chosen sacrifices, one of the ladies rather hesitantly said that she was giving up salt. We all laughed at this, until she explained that it was a chronic addition - she could not eat practically anything without adding lots of salt to it. Her hesitation in telling us was that she feared it wasn't the "right" kind of Lenten sacrifice, and she was rather embarrassed despite our assurances that it was a really good idea even though somewhat unusual.

But the more you think about giving up salt, in some ways it is the quintessential Lenten sacrifice. You're giving up things that make life taste better. And sometimes it's those odd little decisions that make Lent even more meaningful than giving up chocolate or sweets.

Our group got together again for a birthday dinner recently, and as usual talked about how Lent was going. "Saltine" had been struggling, but God had really met her during this time, and every time she found herself reaching instinctively for a salt-shaker, she would mentally reach out to God instead. In addition, her husband had gotten involved. He had never given up anything for Lent before, but when she told him what she was doing, he found himself wondering what he might give up, and the answer was... paperclips.

Apparently, Saltine's husband has the bad habit of chewing on big metal paperclips throughout the day - they are literally EVERYWHERE; in the home, car, office, all easily at hand as though they were cigarettes. Not your garden-variety oral fixation. It had been difficult, to say the least, but he had perservered, and a lady in his office had finally said in amazement "What on earth is up with you? You haven't had a paperclip in your mouth for 5 days!" Saltine is really happy, as she can't stand this habit of his.

A Lovely Evening

I had Supper Club last night, and it was one of those really great evenings. It's a chance to get to know other folks from my church, and I initially signed up with no great enthusiasm beyond knowing that I needed to do it; but this particular group is full of such intelligent individuals who can talk about ANYTHING, that we always end up having really good conversations.

This time I was at the Kids' Table; the Happy Young Newlyweds who were hosting, the Single Guy, and myself. We had one of the most intelligent, interesting and far-flung conversations on religion, Nashville, history, work, and travel that I've been a part of in a very long time. I forgot what it was like to be around academics & intellectuals - there's always something interesting to talk about! In the other room with the Grownups there was an occasionally LOUD battle about PostModernism and Generational Tendencies being cheerfully fought.

I don't quite know if this evening was important or not, but it lingers in my mind; it does make me wonder whether or not I've let myself get really sloppy mentally. Everyone is always taking classes or reading books or stretching themselves intellectually; but the group I usually spend Sunday nights with in general doesn't really go down that conversational path, despite the fact the most of them are teachers and intellectuals in their own right. We talk, but it's rarely so rich. It makes me want to try and converse on a higher level with my friends.

Glory Be!

So, as mentioned vaguely in previous posts, I've bin feelin' mighty low...*clunk* (this is a reference to an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, which I THINK starred Pete Puma, but I could be wrong).

Anyway, as a result of depression, I've been feeling sick... and feeling sick worries me no end, so I get more depressed, which makes me sicker... quite the destructive little circle. I am the Queen of Psychosomatic Illnessess, in addition to my title of Grand Duchess of Susania. Anyway, after I started feeling like there was a band tightening around my throat yesterday, I went off the deep end and called for an appointment with my doctor.

I've dreaded going in, because I don't LIKE going to the doctor; but also because I was afraid I would find out that the Probable had become Reality. The Probable being Diabetes. It runs in my father's family, as does hypo-thyroidism, which I also feared. Since I'm overweight and take poor care of my eating and exercise, I've always had it hung over my head like the Sword of Damocles by various older family members, including my mom. Plus, being diagnosed with it would mean my current uninsurability would be even more Uninsurable. If that's possible.

So, went in, cried through my listing of ailments with a nurse, then 2 residents in training, then the doctor, and then was tested for all that stuff. I did certainly feel much better afterwards, having gotten that all out of the way - I mean, I suspected that it was all psychosomatic because it has always been so in the past, but I have to eliminate the possibility of it being real so I can get over it and stop worrying.

So they were supposed to call me tomorrow morning with the results, but in fact, called me before 5 tonight with the news that I was A-OK, right down the middle of Average Textbook Healthy Person. (Apparently, crying at the doctor's can get them to speed up your results.) I am quite Ordinary, which is a pleasant surprise.

Of course, I called Mom in a swivet of Relief and Happy to let her know I wasn't Diabetic nor had a wacked out Thyroid, to which she replied, "Not yet..." as well as "thank goodness," etc. Oh Mom. Way to be happy with me! But I know why she had to say the Not Yet - she wants me to work at changing my lifestyle now, so it won't happen ever; she thinks I will just plunge into a vat of chocolate.

Not likely. This really scared me, over the last month, what with the feeling weak and lightheaded all the time, so I have had very little sugar in the last few weeks, and intend to try and live my life as though I WERE a diabetic, in hopes of reversing the Probable. After 37 years, I finally had enough days of not feeling so good with sugar that I'm less and less inclined to eat it now; the consequences are too fearsome.

Feeling marginally better

Although I am tired of going through the wilderness like this.

"I'm feelin mighty low..." *clunk*

Sorry guys - in poor spirits at present; not feeling much like writing. Hopefully will be in better mood soon!

Colbert for president

OK, Last night Stephen Colbert topped himself, while berating a "journalista" who had made an insulting comment about how the Yahoo news division was as likely to win a Pulitzer as "The Colbert Report". Colbert then did the most hilariously timed sarcastic bit, "Ha ha, that's great. Funny stuff. Let me try one: Jon Friedman has about as much of a chance of winning a Peabody as I do. Oh wait? That's right," whipping out his Peabody Award... then his second Peabody... at which point he said, "and where do I put these? BESIDE MY EMMYS!" and slammed 2 Emmy statuettes on the desk. I spontaneously applauded - it was just sublime!

Here's a really good one from the Olympics...

Furry Fun

My friend Renu sent me this link for the Cheeky Squirrel Name Generator:

My name is Nibbles Crazypaws. Which is terrifyingly accurate, since I'm quite the nibbler - chips at Las Palmas have no chance against me! - and I'm always working on something, be it a computer keyboard, needlework, or crochet.

Enjoy!

In Keeping with the Previous Post...

Just watched Stephen Colbert rattle off the ENTIRE Nicene Creed (also known as The Apostles Creed) on his show, while answering the rehetorical question "what do I believe?" but in the most conversationally casual way and at top speed. It takes a few minutes to say the whole thing, but even at top speed it was still rather long, so the laughs from the audience rose and fell as it became more and more drawn out, and by the end they were applauding and cheering because of the whole delivery of the thing... just fantastic.

The Colbert Report has replaced The Daily Show in my affections, and while I'll always love TDS, TCR is more consistently funny to me. I can't recommend it heartily enough - there's a section called "The Word" where an almost anarchic subtitler puts comments in a field based on everything Stephen says, and it's absolutely brilliant satire & wit. Then there's "The Threatdown" where he lists, in reverse order, the top 5 threats to American culture and way of life, and it almost always ends with "Number one... BEARS." It's the consistency of this choice that makes it, 3 months later, even funnier than it was the first time.

Comedy Central, M-Th at 10:30 pm CST, and some repeats through the day. Watch it!

Lenten Observance

Well, Lent is nigh... for those not in the habit of observing old-fashioned religious holidays, Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday (that's the day after Mardi Gras) and Easter Sunday, where you're supposed to spend time in prayer and self-sacrifice. Sort of like Ramadan, I suppose.

For the last 6-7 years I've actually been trying to observe lent, but it can be rather hit or miss with me. The idea is to give up something enjoyable, something you really love for that 40 days, as a small gesture towards the enormity of Christ's sacrifice. But I'm usually pretty disappointed with my experience; usually because I DON'T give up something important, but rather something that won't hurt as much, or more easily manageable. I KNOW I'm slacking.

It's usually sweets, or chocolate in particular, or Diet Coke, or fast food... but I feel like I'm taking the easy route. In fact, one year, I got myself re-addicted to Diet Coke SO THAT I MIGHT GIVE IT UP FOR LENT IN THE SPRING! Isn't that awful? And now I'm paying for it, literally; my current habit is 2-3 a day.

Last year I just skipped Lent alltogether; I wasn't getting anything out of it, and everything I could think of to give up was just for my own physical benefit (sweets, so I might lose weight... diet coke, so I might drink more water...). And this year was shaping up the same, with me drearily thinking I'd give up Diet Coke again. Then last week, I again had the thought that has plagued me for years when making this decision: television. This is very drastic. I watch TV constantly. I've never been able to make myself do it. I have TWO TiVos, for heavens' sake!

But this year, everything is different; my life is in upheaval, and I could really benefit from some quiet time and cleaning up my apartment, or working out. For the first time, the thought wasn't as terrifying as it has been in the past. I'm not going cold turkey; I'm letting myself watch TV in the morning before work, and a very short list of shows (Survivor, The Colbert Report, Project Runway...) that are time sensitive and can't wait like other favorites, or that I cannot BEAR to miss for 6 weeks (West Wing).

I actually drew lots to make this decision... I put 5 different choices in a bowl, prayed, and drew one. Then I drew again 2 more times and got the exact same one - "TV with exceptions", so I'm FAIRLY confident this is what I'm supposed to do. I have more confidence in God directing my choice this way than by choosing based on my own insight, since my insight is very cluttered with personal preference and comfort over actually seeking God's will.

Grieving

I went to a memorial service today at my church for a young couple who just lost a baby at around 18 weeks. She's had a horrific pregnancy; constantly nauseous and frequently hospitalized for dehydration, and so for this to happen after 5 months is just heartbreaking. All that suffering and pain with no baby at the end of it. They already have a daughter so they aren't entirely bereft, but they hurt nonetheless.

Now, this is the part where I acknowledge my own selfishness and self-interest, but I present this anyway because it's not an entirely invalid realization. As we were sitting and listening to an amazing reading, and I looked down from the choir loft, I saw that she was resting her head on his shoulder, and I thought, how lucky she is to have her husband and her little girl, and all of these people are here to share and acknowledge her quite understandable grief...

...but do single, unmarried, childless women ever get the same? I have no husband, I have no children, and my chances of having either are slimmer and more fragile every year... will anyone besides my mom and some women friends ever grieve with me that I have no-one? It'll be the occasional night of weeping, the occasional teary-eyed conversation over lunch, and that will be the end of it as far as anyone is concerned. Their grief will diminish, and they might yet have another baby, but my grief of an unrealized family will never go away.

I may have the advantages of freedom and independence and sufficient sleep over those with spouses and children, and I may really enjoy it most of the time. But I will never be granted the respect and consolation of a memorial service for the death of my hopes and dreams.

Lordy, that's a downer. Go read the funny one under this!

Gazing Into The Future...

OK so I have, for some years now, written predictions for friends of mine in the performing arts; grand and glorious careers amongst the high and mighty of Hollywood, Broadway, and the literary and musical fields. Because what is a prediction for except to inspire and encourage? And honestly, in this day and age why shouldn't it happen in as miraculous a way as I've forseen?

So my friend DJ lost out on an amazing opportunity due to red tape, and I wrote this "career path" for him:

"I can see it now... the 2008 Tony Awards... You're nominated for a Best Actor Award... You win, and go up and give the best acceptance speech EVER, and Mel Brooks hears it, and goes, "That kid is PERFECT for my next show!" which would have been all lame and stuff because, let's face it, he hasn't had anything really fresh or funny since the days of Blazing Saddles; but you add so much to the role that the critics actually go mad about it, and the studios decide to make a movie version, which, unlike the Producers, is actually GOOD, so you're up for a Golden Globe in Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, which you win, of course, and you give another fantastic acceptance speech, and then Kevin Smith begs you to make his next picture, to which you say, OK, because you've realized that one of your gifts as a performer is to revitalize the careers of formerly great writer/director/producers, and instead of making a comedy, it's a historic drama on the scale of Reds because you have so completely inspired Smith that he decides to go in a completely different direction, and that of course leads to an Oscar. And then you go on Oprah!"

You should read the one where my friend Rachel ends up "turning" the irresistable Brit Rupert Everett from his current orientation, and having a half-dozen kids with him. It's a corker!

Race... Run... Dash...

to this blog! Her comments on the Olympics are Hi-Larious. And I must say, I thought of most of these things myself as well; I was just BUSIER than her and failed to note them down.

http://www.martiniministry.com/

Then, when you'd like to cry in a really good way for a little while (or see if you have the willpower to resist it at work) go see the CNN sports clip about the slightly autistic high school student who was allowed to play in the last 4 minutes of his team's basketball game... [trickling movements with fingers down cheeks] Niagara Falls...

J-mac's Hoop Dreams Come True

I Loves Me Some Drama!

So I've rehashed this with any number of friends & family, but I am alternately disappointed and delighted with the Olympics this year. I finally solidified what I find so appealing about watching them - it's the stories. Have they suffered to get there? Do they have a dying family member? Are they emotional when they win? Do they weep on the podium? Do they fall spectacularly and then rise to fight on?

There's been a lack of really good surprise stories this time, and yet there have been some; but I find myself watching for long stretches, working on a scarf or hat, and finally thinking "gosh, I'm so bored with this!"

Olympic Fun

"And last night was good, too, even though no one fell." -- Anne-Marie

Yeah, good times! Lotsa fun to be had if you're inclined to make fun of arrogance and misfortune... Man, watching the Italian Ice Dancing pair fume at each other... very satisfying!

And Lindsay Jacobellis - poor girl, I really do feel for her; all of the snowboard guys had done the same trick grab if they were way out ahead; she just happened to be the one unfortunate soul to miss when she tried. Youthful high spirits will forever be condemned in her as arrogance, and I just don't buy it. That clip will be rolled out with wearying predictability for the rest of her life, and she'll always have that label. Whereas Bode Miller's mistakes will just be dismissed as typical rogue jock.

And they should have advised her to do damage control - you MUST be honest immediately in those situations - she obviously never saw Ashley Simpson on SNL! Had she fessed up immediately and wept with frustration, she'd have been forgiven immediately. Instead she tried to brazen it out and no-one bought it for an instant. Young and stupid... of course, immediately after watching that, I went out to my car in the snow and ice to run to the bank (Sat morning) and promptly locked my keys in my car when I got back out with the scraper... so who am I to judge?

OK, this is fortuitous... not one week after creating this blog, I am introduced to the fun that is NationStates.net. You can create your own country, pick political systems, a flag, a motto, a currency... So, The Grand Duchy of Susania lives there too, although I was forced to call it the Grand Duchy of New Susania cause someone had already taken Susania. very upsetting.

My niece Emma

I KNOW as an aunt that I'm not supposed to play favorites, but it is impossible not to at times. I do love all of my nieces and nephews (as has been well documented in a half-dozen adoring Christmas letters) but ever since Emma Jane, the youngest was born almost 3 years ago, she has fascinated me. She looks amazingly like her mother as a little girl, and has the same fearlessness and stubbornness. Granted, she hasn't managed to pull a chest of drawers on top of herself & break her collarbone yet as did Mommy, but she's fallen off of a variety of furniture and I am sure will manage to break something in the next year or so.

She reminds me of Sally Brown, Charlie Brown's little sister. Same big round head (a family trait), and blond hair that is swirly in the front and swoops up on the sides. Uncanny.

She is simultaneously the girliest girl I've ever seen, and the most rambunctous tomboy. I bought her a little plastic tiara as a consolation gift when taking her and Henry to buy his birthday present, and she could. not. get. over. it. Just loved it. She has a variety of princess dresses for playing dress-up, a couple of pairs of net wings, and has recently discovered the Disney canon of princess movies; Cinderella is her obsession. Plus her Disney princesses nightgown.

She is NEVER indifferent. She is so completely committed to the task at hand, that if my mom or I come in and she's occupied, we get no more than a blank glance. On the other hand, if she is at leisure, she will fling herself at you for hugs, and then show you every single one of her pastel stuffed animals, purses, or movies.

We went sledding on Saturday with the 2-inch snow we were begrudgingly granted, and I was amazed at how she would so willingly be placed in a saucer and shoved down a hill, usually backwards. If she spilled, she could have cared less, and often hopped up with a "yahoo!" which she learned from her brothers. Then she would haul her tiny self back up the hill to go down again, over and over. I really could see her as a snowboarder or an X-Games enthusiast 15 years down the road... I find her so simultaneously cuddly and fierce.

The other night I was babysitting for her, and after what was a perfectly peaceful evening, she was infuriated to find that she would have to go to bed (unusual for her, as she has always been the easiest to put to bed). I picked her up, kicking and screaming and carried her forcibly upstairs, where she proceeded to carry out a 15+ minute temper tantrum. When offered pacifying objects, she would shriek with fury and throw them from her. I sat in the rocker and played a little computerized Yahtzee game until she subsided enough to be offered a "way out" of her tantrum without wounding her pride. But there was no way I was going to give in to such behavior - as I have often said, I will NOT have my babies turn into brats.

Sure, temper tantrums are common enough in children, but what amazed me was the sheer longevity of it. Her will to perservere is phenomenal in one so small; and if denied something, she will not easily be distracted from her purpose, if at all. She's quite prepared to scream as long as it takes, and the fact that tantrums have not ever actually worked hasn't sunk in yet, so we just sit back and marvel at her strength.

I invented a song for her a few years back to a melody that I can't place; I think it's a little Mozart snippet. She really loves it, and so I have started making up lyrics to any bedtime instrumental music on the CD player in her room; usually with recurring themes of Emma Jane/time to sleep/mommy and daddy/close your eyes.

I am a baby princess
Adored by my family
I am a baby princess
As pretty of a princess as you'll see.

I have a mom and daddy
Of big brothers I have three
I am the baby princess
When I grow up I'm going to be the queen.

Funny AND Handsome!

Just recently remembered how much I loved Gary Gulman on Last Comic Standing last year... I've had the John Heffron cd for a while now, but never got the one for Gary. Well, now you can! Yes, you can buy it on his website, and even cheaper if you do it as an mp3 download.

The man has genius insight on cookies! Plus, I can't recollect any vulgarity...

Jealousy is an ugly thing...

and boy, sometimes I sho do have it. My biotch friend Rachel is a better writer than me (which means, she's a FUNNIER writer than me) and I read her website, and lo, I am jealous.

But my jealousy doesn't override my admiration of the quality therein, and telling other people about it. Go take a look! Enjoy! Just bear in mind that 1) I'm the one who introduced her to Bollywood, and 2) also cuteoverload.com.

...So he says

So Mark says (names changed to protect the indolent) that he has a new chat abbreviation - instead of LOL (laughing out loud), he uses LOTI (laughing on the inside). Please use freely.

My Little Tater

Right now I am chatting on MSN Messenger with my niece Taylor, formerly known as Tater, and it's really cute... she's only 7, and so her typing skills are somewhat labored; it take 2-5 minutes for her to type a sentence and so I have lots of time to do other things (like post to my blog) while she pecks out her responses. She's really liking Science at present, which is excellent. I think she'll make an exceptional zoologist someday, if her current passions persist.

OH, and she was a lobster in the school program last night. I'm getting the details right now...

How true, how true

Went to lunch with my Mom today and ended up crying through most of it, much to my dismay... As we do on occasion, the Weight Issue was brought up by her for discussion, and I kept trying to explain that my decision of the moment NOT to really try very hard to lose weight was one based on an intimate understanding of my personality, and hence the futility of such an effort. I've failed to make any permanent effect on my appearance despite trying since I was 12, and unless I am really inspired by a particular method of diet & exercise, I make no real progress... and if I do, it only lasts a year or so. So why should I kill myself on a constant course of failure?

I'm not saying I won't make ANY effort; but I know how much of a committment it will take to have any real effect and it's JUST. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. I eat salads, and cut down on sugar and yeast, and exercise occasionally... but that's just bare maintenance, not enough to make any difference in my appearance. Believe me, I have no desire to develop diabetes, which is what has been hung over my head since my early twenties; but it will take a famine and having to walk everywhere to make a sufficient change in my lifestyle, and I don't see that happening, do you?

Elder Sister is on the latest variation of Diet she's been pursuing for the last 5-10 years, and is making amazing progress... and I TRULY am happy for her... but barring a miracle, she'll put it all back on someday. We always do. We are genetically pre-disposed on our father's side to look like German Farmwives from our mid-twenties onward. Younger Sister got more of my mother's genetic code so she looks great; but she's no Skinny Minnie either.

Is accepting a Fact as Reality the equivalent of Hopelessness? My Mom seems to think so. I call it Acceptance, she calls it Hopelessness.

Frosty the Zombie

...stolen from a letter I wrote to friend in NYC:

Yeah, I wondered about how things were going for you "up there" in SnowLand... entirely envious, of course, just because the ONE chance we've had for snow was last weekend and it was a piss-poor experience... instead of a nice big blowout of 2-4 inches as promised, it just flurried off and on for 3 days. Pretty, but unsatisfying. And all of the FORCED snowmen ("Kids! There's a half-inch! We MUST BUILD THE SNOWMAN NOW before it's all gone!") as rotting pillars of gray and muddy snow in the middle of green grass look so sad. You wouldn't think snowmen could rot, but they can.

So I says to her,

I'm going to crochet a hat and scarf for my friend in NYC because she is smart enough to compliment a baby blanket I made, and ask if I could make her stuff in the same yarn. I loves me some flattering, so of COURSE I started last night. This, despite the fact that I have 2 baby blankets to do, a cross-stitch baby announcement, a historic sampler, a embroidered purse, and a half-dozen or so UFOs (un-finished objects) in my cluttered apartment.

But it's COLD, and they're up to their necks in snow, and it will stop being winter soon. So that takes precedence. The purse will be next to get worked on, since I really want to finish it - it's more elaborate and complicated than anything I've made before, and I really don't want to set it aside for fear of not picking it back up.

Then the sampler - I have to get a certain amount done each month, since I am part of a pilot group in Nashville that is working on it. Jennifer Core of the Tennessee Sampler Survey is designing the sampler based on elements taken directly from samplers made in Middle Tennessee over 100+ years ago - she's documented dozens of them, and so stitchers in Nashville & Knoxville are working on personalized versions of it through 2006 - 10 bands, and an average one is a foot wide and over 4 feet long! People are using different types of fibers - silk, cotton, hand-dyed - and different thread-counts of linen... I'm going straight down the middle with cotton DMC thread on 32 count linen.

Which will mean NOTHING to most of you.

But I'm making Renu a hat with earflaps and long strings, although the pompoms have been rejected. Cause it's COLD and the chilled people of New York need our help keeping warm. It makes me so happy to do it, too. So often I make things as a surprise for people, and although they are complimentary, I really don't think they're as appreciative as I selfishly would wish. Cause it's all about what makes ME happy!

Today at a pizza-party lunch here at the AEA (I'll let you figure out what that stands for) one of the ladies confessed that she had, in fact, met her husband at a family reunion. And she's from Pegram. But sorry to disappoint them there Yankees slavering at the old joke made into reality; he was the friend of a relative by marriage and no kin to her. HA!

So ANYWAY...

In typical impulse fashion, I have created a blog. Nothing much else to do today; can't leave work yet, not feeling inspired to write an entire journal entry on my website http://www.shouston.com, so this is an attempt to make myself try the blogging medium.

Wept through the final skating of the Pairs competition as I finally watched it on my tivo this morning... had no idea the Russian pair had dealt with such a debilitating incident as him DROPPING her in competition 2 years back (which gave her a severe concussion; she was unconscious on the ice, in fact) - the guilt and loss of confidence that poor man felt - at the end of their long program, he dropped to his knees and kissed her hands in gratitude for her confidence in him.

THIS is what I watch the Olympics for.

Then the Zhang x 2 pair from China skated last, and she took one of the nastiest spills I've ever seen coming out of a throw to a quad salchow - so bad they had to stop, check her knees, and let her collect herself... your heart just bled for he, and the audience just clapped and cheered so encouragingly. But then they resumed their program and did beautifully, and WON SILVER! Now THAT is what I watch the Olympics for. Just unbelievable.