Phantom Meme!

You scored as Christine Daee. Christine Daee is the sweet, young and beautiful new soprano at the Opera Populaire. She thinks that the voice teaching her to sing in her head is an Angel of Music, sent by her dead father from heaven. Soon, she learns that this mysterious tutor is the Phantom of the Opera, who dwells beneath the Opera House and is madly in love with her. She is horrified by his mutated face and brutal murders, but she feels sorry for him. Soon, her childhood boyfriend Raoul turns up as the Opera Populaire's patron, and he doesn't like the mesmerizing power that the Phantom holds over her, the Phantom doesn't like how Raoul tries to turn her away from him, and thus the love triangle forms. Christine Daee 64% The Vicomte de Chagny 36% Erik 32% La Carlotta 21% Who Are You In The Phantom of the Opera? created with QuizFarm.com

roadtrippin'!!!

so i made it out to talimena with some friends. it was gorgeous!

it was my first long ride, a day out and a day back, and i really enjoyed it. i wasn't too sore or tired at the end of it, but i will NEVER forget to put sunscreen on my neck again!

we stopped along the way at some little town that had a neat-looking old building in it. it was apparently an old storefront of some kind, and was quite dilapidated. i took off my helmet and set it down in the shade on top of some old steps that now only carry the traveler up into the air. my best guess is that they used to lead up to a side porch or loading ramp of some kind.

That's my shiny new helmet. Ok, it's matte black, so it's not shiny. But it IS new. And it's got a very sexy steer and barbed-wire theme going for it, not to mention an almost-but-not-quite obnoxious Texas Lone Star graphic on the side. *swoons*
Oh, yeah, that building. It really was neat-looking... And it had some really odd surroundings. Like this jar of pickled peppers that I photographed for my baby sister. I've got no idea how old these things were or why they were sitting on top of a defunct camper shell in front of this ramshackle storefront in the middle of nowhere. My baby sister and I share a love for all things pickled, but I doubt either of us would be brave enough to take on this jar. Anyway, speculating about their origin, their destination, their purpose and their suitability for consumption gave me something innocuous to dwell on for the next several bike miles. As a bike passenger, you have to be pretty self-entertaining, so the pickled peppers were a great find.

We lunched in Clayton, OK at Judy's Place, where they served sweet tea and yummy home-cooked food. I wished I'd had a camera with me when I used the bathroom, however, because there was a sign posted on the wall and I would have LOVED to put up a picture of it. To the best of my recollection, it read (emphasis mine): "Ladies, please do not put paper towels, feminine napkins or toilet paper into the toilet stool or this bathroom will be closed to the public! Thanks, Judy" I ask you, gentle readers, what are you supposed to do with the toilet paper if you don't put it IN THE TOILET?!?!?! No answer was forthcoming, and I didn't really want to take it up with Judy. She seemed to have put some thought into the sign, as it was very neatly hand-lettered with no spelling or grammar mistakes. I didn't think she'd be as amused to receive my critique of her logic as I was to think it up.

From Judy's place, it was a short ride up into the Kaimichi mountains, and the scenic Talimena Pass. We stopped frequently at the overlooks along the way and took some pictures. Here are the bikes: And this is me as "cargo" on my friend's bike: She rides a 2005 Yamaha Royal Star Tour Deluxe, which I point out to you only because I'm really bad with names and I've gotten it wrong pretty much every other time I've tried to tell someone what kind it was. I just copied that out of her (patiently worded) e-mail correcting me on the make and model, so I thought I'd share it with y'all. Maybe now that I've written it out I'll be able to remember it. Hey, does it look to y'all like I'm a conehead in that picture? Another thing about bikes: they lend themselves really well to either very long or very short hair. It's the helmet-head thing. I can stuff my hair up under a do-rag like the one I'm wearing here, and most of it becomes Very Flat. However, there are significan portions of it, notably around the edges, that remain Obstinately Fluffy and Curly. What to do? Well, for your protection, I've hidden it behind the do-rag, but that is subject to the vagaries of wind, so it's taken on a distinctly non-head-shaped shape for this picture. Ah, well. It's not a beauty contest...

And that's all I've got. There were a few more photos, so I may come back and post them in another update. For now, it's time for me to scoot.

holy funny stuff, batman!

This article cracked me up. My very favorite part was when he explained leetspeak, thusly:

Unintelligible spellings: When you see things like OMG the pwn3d haX0r is the ghey LOL!!11!1 you are reading the language of people who consider themselves elite computer users. Translation is possible, but unnecessary; nothing ever said in this tongue concerns you. At all.

k, that's for you!

i <3 the muppets!

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick. You're always willing to lend a helping hand. In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going. "15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

and, as a side note, a hypothetical question: when you've had a job interview (or three), but no offer has been presented, and you get a phone call from the human resources department of the company in question requesting the preferred spelling of your name so that they can create your e-mail address, should you open the champagne bottle immediately? or should you wait for a formal offer letter to materialize?

i'm in the "wait for a formal offer" camp. readers? comments?

not dead yet...

hey, i'm not dead!

i had that interview. it went great! the guy wants to offer me the job. i've met his boss before in a previous incarnation of my career, and he's seen me work at the sort of tasks i'd be doing here. so that guy wants to offer me the job, too. yea! now it's just a matter of getting approval up the chain as needed. unfortunately, this could take from one to SIX weeks.

SIX WEEKS!!!

it's a darn good thing i'm employed and haven't made any plans to jump ship. i was a bit sickly the day after the interview, so i took a mental health/sick day. it was just what i needed, i slept 6 of the 8 hours that i would've otherwise been at work.

in other news, my darling little nieces were "Dedicated" at church last weekend. i tease with my friends that their parents called into "Love Songs With Delilah" and dedicated a sappy love song to them. seriously, though, it's basically a baptism, but without water. my sister and brother-in-law have promised to raise their kids Christian, and i was proud to be there to support and record for posterity. there were some really funny moments, like when the minister was reading the blurb on the little girl whose parents described her as "a social butterfly" just as the girl had a shyness attack and hid her face behind her hands and then burrowed into her mother's skirt. also good was the moment when the minister asked the congregation to bow their heads and pray and my sister swiped a cheerio from her husband's shirt pocket in an attempt to quiet one of her girls. got it on camera!

anyway, i'm roadtripping this weekend on the motorcycle with my friend, so i'll post pictures when i get back.

dog on head

so i had a terrible night with my asthma last night, and it's primarily my fault. i had a job interview (or so i thought) for which i was supposed to pick up the interviewer at his hotel and go to a dinner interview. i knew i had to clean out my car for this, but i didn't get time to do it until yesterday afternoon on my way out to the interview. so i just grabbed my backpack and my suitcase (which was still in the car from my weekend in phoenix) and threw them on the floor of my apartment and headed off to be interviewed. i was running late because i'd been detained at my day job, so i called to let the interviewer know when to expect me, and that's when we discovered further proof (as if we needed it) that I Am Not Good With The Fixed Construct The Rest Of You Call "Time". the interview is, in fact, NEXT thursday.

so, yea! i'm all dressed up with no place to go, so i called up a friend who was headed to Chick Happy Hour (CHH) in dallas and i got directions to the bar. CHH is a great concept, analogous to the Guerrilla Girl Bar they have in L.A. and austin and some of the other major metro areas around the country. it's a once-a-month grassroots bar invasion that aims to enable flirting, socializing, and networking outside the limited array of full-time gay bars. great concept, but i suspect the grassroots organizers don't adequately prepare the bars we invade. the bar chosen this time around was plenty big enough for all the people, but the parking was pathetically inadequate. anyway, i made my way over to the designated bar, found some reasonably safe-looking parking a block away, and went in search of my friends. found 'em, had some frosty libations, socialized, watched the volleyball players, discussed jumping into the pool fully clothed (the bar was called "the back yard bar" and was set up to resemble -- a BACK YARD!), and then felt the heat and the smoke and the crowd cutting off my airways.

i queried the available friends, friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends for a rescue inhaler and came up empty-handed. by this point, i was wheezing pretty badly. i got an over-the-counter inhaler at a grocery store up the road, but those things are really inadequate for a full-blown asthma attack and further, the medicine BURNS when you inhale it. that calmed things down for long enough for me to get back to my car and drive home to get my prescribed inhaler, but it was neither pretty nor fun. by the time i got home, my extremities were numb and tingly.

then, to make a bad day worse, i went out for whataburger after the medicine did its thing and i was breathing easy again. whataburger is not what made the bad day worse, despite what some of you may think. i had my mouth totally set for chicken strips dipped in gravy from whataburger, and i made the mistake of not looking into the bag when it was handed to me. i just drove home to eat it, and when i got home, discovered i'd been delivered a double-meat hamburger. bad day. worse.

even worse yet, it was storming pretty hard last night and my dadgum dog climbed on my head no fewer than five times. usually, i like storms. i like the sound and the thunder and the light and the rain and the atmosphere of the things. my dog, she does not. and she expresses her displeasure by putting her feet on my head, neck, shoulders, and face. so, dog on head, i struggled to breathe, and eventually was pulled down into sleep.

Molly and the Red Shoes

Last night, I tried out Molly's new dog shoes. They were NOT a scintillating success. The process of getting them on her was actually quite painless and she adjusted to them very quickly. She didn't try to pull them off, but she did take a very strange gait for the first few minutes she wore them. It looked like she was trying to step out of them, lifting her feet very high, like a Tennessee Walking horse. Once we got past that, she was her old romping self and we went on down to the river. There, the shoes failed. On the way down to the water, two of the shoes removed themselves from Molly's feet. I don't know if poor shoe design, poor dog design, or poor fastening technique is to blame. In any case, I tightened up all the shoes before she went into the water, to no avail. After the first fetch, she came back with only two shoes on. Both the back ones had come off, either in the grass or the current, I can't say which. I checked the two front shoes off and on over the course of the walk, but even with that, we lost another front shoe. By the time we got back to the apartment, Molly was down to one shoe, and that one had a blowout where the sole was detaching from the upper part of the shoe.

My inclination is to blame poor shoe design. I did purchase the cheaper of the two varieties of shoes offered at my local big-box pet store, but in my defense, they were a third the cost of the other variety. I'm going to look into buying something online that has a better design and a moderate price. The ones I had were merely slippers with a velcro strap that tightened up around the narrow part of the paw. Basically, sling-backs for dogs. So, hopefully with a more athletic shoe, I can protect Molly's little feet from the broken glass and other dangers of the river.

In the meantime, those of you who find yourself with an uncontrollable urge to litter, please get help. Carry your beverage conveyance (I KNOW it's inconvenient, but putting shoes on a dog is more inconvenient, I promise!) until you get to a garbage can, and if it happens to blow out of your car/hand/bag/etc., pick it up and chuck it back in. Thanks. Oh, and Molly thanks you, too.

Fish Tank Goodness

So, i managed to get out to PetSmart finally and buy shoes for Molly. yea! She has cut her little paws too many times down at the river, and she needed some protection. So, last week on Tuesday, my friend and I went down to PetSmart and bought Molly some shoes. She looked a little funny walking around in the one I put on her to check the size. However, she always walks a little funny when something like that is on her foot, and I'd rather she be walking funny because of shoes than because of bandages. Since I know you're all DYING to see how they turn out, I promise I'll post some kind of update on the progress of the shoe situation when I get a chance to try them out. Molly spent the weekend with her cousin-dog Orenda at my sister's house, since I was out of town. And here, of course, is the segue into the subject line...

I was in Phoenix over the weekend for a friend's birthday party. Supercoolfunstuff... yea! When I got back, my fish were not having a good day. I had shut off my computer when I left on Friday, because we were having storms and I wasn't entirely sure that my flight would actually leave. I didn't want to tempt the Wild Little Green Men in the sky into zapping my computer with lightning while I was gone, so I shut off the computer and everything else when I left. Of course, the filter and air pump stayed plugged in for the fish, but I did leave the tank light off. My apartment gets indirect daylight a-plenty through the mini blinds, so I figured that would take care of my fish while I was gone. They're tropical, and I've read in the books that they need to have a well-lit tank. It never says what happens to fish in a poorly-lit tank, though, and it doesn't really explain how lit a tank has to be before it's considered well-lit. This is probably heavy-handed foreshadowing, but that information would have been REALLY USEFUL LAST WEEK.

Anyway, when I got back from Phoenix, I noted that the coloration of all my tetras was "off". They usually look like this: My fish, however, did NOT look like that. Their blue top stripe looked very dark blue just above their side fins, and pale blue everywhere else. Ordinarily, the whole thing glows a uniform blue that varies from deep indigo through teal, depending on the lighting. Also, their red bottom stripe, (which is usually the color of freshly oxygenated blood) from mouth to tail was completely missing. They were translucent with a barely discernible pink tint. Finally, as if their coloring wasn't bad enough, they were effectively lying on the bottom of the tank behind the rock they usually hover above, and "gasping". That's what it looks like, anyway, they work their gills hard and rapidly and it looks like they're struggling for air. Errr... ummm... water. Which has air in it. So, air. Yeah, my fish were gasping for air. There were two that kinda stirred about, but the other four were only occasionally and spastically moving their fins, just enough to keep them from colliding with each other in the faint current at the bottom of the tank.

EEEEEP! Knowing how fragile fish are and how challenging it is to bring them back from illness, I set my friend to researching tetra illnesses online while I began trying to figure out what I'd done different lately that could explain this. I was gone all weekend, and I left them with a weekend fish feeder tablet. I haven't changed their water in about two weeks, and I just got some plastic plants. It's the first time I've used a weekend feeder since I got the tetras, so I decided giving them their regular flake food might fix this. Maybe the tetras weren't eating the fancy krill and spirulina so lovingly time-released by the tablet. So I turned on the tank light to let them know food was forthcoming (because fish appreciate the warning) and I opened the tank and sprinkled flakes in it. Well, the zebra danios (who were perfectly fine, by the way) gleefully ate almost all the food. The two tetras that were kinda swimming around made weak lunges at some of the food bits, but didn't appear to get much. In the meantime, I'm hearing terrifying things about sporatozoa and necrotic tissue being read to me from the internet.

I settled in to watch the fish and listen to the disease descriptions coming from the computer, and noticed that the most active of the two active fish suddenly had a red flush over parts of his belly which looked like it was slowly spreading. His blue color was never as bad as the others, but it seemed to be almost back to its normal distribution, not concentrated above his side fins at all. I thought that maybe since he'd gotten some food, he was perking up, so I tried the food again. Alas, the four at the bottom still didn't stir, but the two who were out got more of the food and seemed to be improving by the moment. Knowing you can't force-feed a fish that's less than an inch long without traumatizing it to death anyway, I resigned myself to writing off the four at the back and decided I would have to find an alternate weekend fish feeding arrangement. Bummer.

About five minutes later, I checked in again, and the two active fish were totally back to normal. Better yet, the four at the back of the tank were moving around and their color was returning! But they didn't get any food... at least not that I could tell when I was watching the others feed.

Newsflash: tropical fish need light. Lots and lots of light. Especially the kinds that "glow" when the light is shining. I thought that enough ambient light was getting in during the daytime through my blinds, but apparently, I was wrong. Food or no food, after about 20 minutes under the lights, all the tetras were back to their zippy old selves, and their color had completely normalized. *WHEW* And that, my friends, is Fish Tank Goodness.

Enginerdiness

So... how's this for weird? I was outside this afternoon in the "smoke shack" taking a break. I don't smoke, but it's got benches and it's in a shady breezeway, and it's covered in case of rain, so it's the ideal spot to sit and take a break. I could NOT stare at my monitor for another second lest I tear out my hairs by their tender roots. So, I'm out in the smoke shack and one of the smokers comes out to have a cigarette. She and I get to talking, and she starts telling me how my potential is being wasted in my current job and I should think about looking for a better position closer to Dallas. How am I supposed to tell her that I have a phone interview tomorrow for just that purpose? Anyway, I thought that was weird. The good news is, I have an phone interview tomorrow! I just got the e-mail setting it up today, although I had a rumor of it from an anonymous source two days ago. Anyway, I think it would be a good company to work for, so I'm very keen to find out more about the specifics of the positions.

As for my weekend, it was great. I played softball with my work team on Friday night, and we WON! We've lost two games so far, and this last brings our record to 2-1. Yea! I played pretty well, I fielded a couple of balls that came to me off the bat and I caught a couple at second to get the runner out. I had a really hard time with the pitcher, though. He had a weird pitch that had a lot of "hang time" and a really quick vertical drop over the plate. I don't want to sound like sour grapes, or anything, but it was a bit much for a slow-pitch, co-ed, 4th-tier league, in my opinion. That said, the pitcher himself was no peach. By the end of the game all his own teammates wanted to string him up by his toenails from the field lights, so I guess he's got bigger issues than whether he's putting too much heat or spin on his underhand pitch. I generally do pretty well at the plate, and I'm sort of what you'd describe as a "giant amazon", so I can usually smack the ball pretty far. Okay, I'm what I would describe as a giant amazon. Maybe you'd use another term, something like: Jolly Green Giant's Wife. I dunno. Point is, I was endowed by my maker with some really long limbs, which give me a really good moment arm for rotational motion, which in turn translates to a high linear acceleration rate when I transfer that rotational momentum... oy. Enginerdiness overcame me. I hit the ball hard. K?

Saturday I went on a motorcycle ride out to Hico, Texas with my friend Rose and her motorcycle club. That was a fun trip! The sun was warm, but not too hot, and the breeze was cool, but not too cold. The wind was pretty strong but nobody got blown off their bikes, and all the bikes stayed on the road, so I guess it wasn't that bad. We met up with a motorcycle club from Austin at a restaurant there in Hico, and I had fried pickles for lunch. Okay, I had something else, too, but it wasn't very memorable. The thing that WAS memorable was that I had fried pickles. yum!

Sunday was Scarborough Faire. I got my hairs braided, and they looked like this: That's an arrangement called a "Star Crown", if I recall correctly. Anyway, I had a good time at the fair. We saw several shows, some juggling, some bawdy tavern wenches, Ded Bob, and The Mud Show. Highlights: the tavern wenches, Iris & Rose (Wild & Thorny) sang a song about circumcision in honor of their Jewish patrons, since it was Easter. That didn't make any sense to me, either. I think it was just an excuse to sing about circumcision.

Anyway... at the Ded Bob Sho (which I highly recommend) I noticed that Bob had a new dummy. Ded Bob is not your run-of-the-mill ventriloquist show. In this show, the puppetteer is silent and wears a bag over his head while the dummy does all the talking. In fact, since the puppetteer wears a bag over his head, he might not even be a ventriloquist at all. Anyway, the puppetteer used to be named Smudge, and I would swear that this year Ded Bob was calling him Pudge. That's not the good part, though. The good part is that I got to be BobZombie #1!!! If you've ever seen the show, I'm the one who is shy, petite, and virginal and who ends up hopping mad. (You're welcome.) I think one of my friends took pictures. If so, I'll see if I can get a copy.

Finally, we saw The Mud Show. This was very different from before, when it was titled "The Sturdy Mud-Eating Beggars". I guess the beggars have eaten enough mud that they were able to retire, because I didn't recognize any of the players from my first several years of fair attendance. The new show features a lot more splashing in the mud (picture the first few rows of the Shamu show at SeaWorld), and a lot fewer potty humor moments. That aside, it's still good, dirty fun. The show was a re-enactment of the epic saga Beowulf, and I highly recommend it. Look at your bench before you sit down, though, and note that if there is any mud on it, you WILL become dirty at some point in the show if you sit in that spot.

Last bit: my dog got sick over the weekend. I would complain about how distraught I am over this, but really, she's a lot worse off than I am. She had the 'squirts' for three days, and has been on a rice diet since Sunday as a result. She had a much better day today, but she had to wake me up in the middle of the night a couple of times to get her outside. As unpleasant as that is, I far prefer it to her letting me sleep and then waking to find she's squirted on the floor. Yeah. ugh. Enough of that.

Those are all my thoughts for now. I'll say something profound about the job interview when it's over with.

power outages

I had a really great post mostly done yesterday when the power went out. Apparently, we're in the midst of some rolling outages due to an unexpected wave of heat that has everyone turning on their air conditioners.

Bleh.

Kindly direct your attention to my new subtitle. Enginerdiness is my new favorite word.

I'll try to get back to the old lost post as soon as I can.

just a quick note...

i'm alive, but i'm tired. i'm going to bed!

i have new fish, i still need to put up a picture or a video of them... i'll try to do that. i took some video of them, but it's not very exciting, frankly. i have a very small, very primitive webcam with a very narrow focus band, so basically i just point it at the fishtank and hope that the little goobers swim into focus. :)

i nearly got sent to victoria this week to do some research, but that was delayed at the last minute. just as well, neither of my parents were home, so i'd have been hanging out in their back yard waiting for the cleaning lady to come over with her key and let me in! wow, that would suck. so, hopefully i'll get to go next week.

if you haven't seen it yet, Willie Nelson did a gay cowboy song and video. the video was shot partly at the gay country bar here in dallas, the roundup. so go here to see it!

is it friday yet? well, it will be in fifteen minutes, so now i REALLY need to get off to bed.

"Name that Tune" meme -- ANSWERS!

Random quiz swiped from Trilia.net and crossposted to myspace

Rules for me:
1. Go to iTunes/iPod, set to shuffle.
2. Write down the first line of each of the next twenty songs.
3. If they are embarrassing, you still have to write them down. Sorry.
4. Any song where the title is the first line of the song must be excluded.
5. Only one song per artist.

Rules for you, dear readers:
1. NO GOOGLING (with a silent ", bitch!"). This must come out of your own brain. It’s on the honor code.
2. Leave your guesses as to which songs are represented above. They’ll be crossed out as people get them right. Guess song title. Album and artist are bonus, but not necessary for a correct score.
3. There may or may not be prizes, depending on how generous I’m feeling.
4. I’m not tagging anyone, but if you decide to play this game in your own blog, please let me know so I can play!

1. Darling I can see the clouds around you, and in your heart I know a sorrow grows. becca got this one! "Til A Tear Becomes A Rose" by Keith Whitley (also recorded by John Prine).


2. Hope. Everybody needs hope. Somebody's Out There Watching - The Kinleys


3. A hundred days have made me older since the last time that I saw your pretty face. joker2 got this one! Here Without You - 3 Doors Down


4. I was nothing but a lonely boy looking for something new. This fell under the "embarrassing songs" rule: All Revved Up With No Place To Go - Meatloaf


5. Everybody sings a different kind of song. Made For Loving You - Doug Stone


6. Well I'm a travelin' man, don't tie me down Give Back My Heart (You Fickle Redneck Woman) - Lyle Lovett


7. When you wake in the morning its always there. An obscure Celtic number I didn't expect anyone to guess: You Saw His Eyes - Mary McLaughlin


8. I search your profile for a translation. My friend K guessed that this one was the Ani tune, saying it was the only lyric "angsty" enough: Overlap - Ani DiFranco


9. We must hide our love, its beauty to enfold in our eyes.Rose got this one: My Secret Wish - Club69


10. Ice age, heat wave, can't complain. The World At Large - Modest Mouse


11. Every night, I'm lyin' in bed, holdin' you close in my dream. artist by rose "The Eagles". title by anonymous "Best of My Love"


12. On two bicycles, On a hillside desolate, Could nature make a man of me yet? This Charming Man - Death Cab For Cutie


13. Well mamma told me when I was three, Lord, the street'll never get you nowhere. Step That Step - Sawyer Brown


14. Paint the town, take a bow, thank everybody. Then The Morning Comes - SmashMouth


15. He believes in the family unit, the union of man and wife. He Wants To Get Married - Reba McEntire


16. She's an angel, and I ain't. Lord knows she deserves a saint. A little surprised nobody got this: Her Only Bad Habit Is Me - George Strait


17. Comb your hair and paint and powder. You act proud and I'll act prouder. A Classic! Settin' The Woods On Fire - Hank Williams, Sr.


18. If the night turned cold, and the stars looked down. opiate got the artist, Eric Clapton, although my version is by Sting. Title (anonymous) is "It's Probably Me". Bitter, anonymous?


19. I'm on a mission, I made my decision Geek Stink Breath - Green Day


20. We were all wounded in some domestic war. Enough Of Me - Melissa Etheridge

alright. i'll post correct answers as they come in.

My music taste is really more varied than the list would indicate, but it was a random sample of 20 from my library of several thousand tunes. So I guess the sample wasn't large enough to be representative... How did I do a whole list with no Jimmy Buffett on it?!?!?

South Dakota Abortion Ban...

I'm not a fan of abortion (who is, really?) but I am a fan of a woman having access to a legal, safe medical procedure that she, her doctor, and her faith all agree are the right one for her. I never, ever, ever want to read about a poor, desperate kid dying from the complications she suffered after a botched illegal abortion. I also want that kid to have clean, safe birth control available and education about her reproductive options, so she never has to face down a decision like abortion vs. adoption vs. single motherhood at 14, but that's a whole other blog.

Searching...

Song lyrics that resonated with me today:

Breathe deeply and hold on tight
Chase away the anger in my heart
I just can’t go back down that twisted road again
I’ll fall back down, I’ll lose my soul
There’s nothing left here of my heart to break

From "Searching" by Ciao Bella

haven't you always wanted a monkey?

Your Final Quiz Score: 32 right out of a possible 60
The Monkey's Final Score: 17 right out of 60

Well done, you have sent the monkey to his defeat. Your score is unquestionably higher, and thus the lowly monkey has been proven once again to be humankind's intellectual inferior. Good work, however your score does leave room for improvement. We should like to see the human dominate even more completely!

You scored in the 76th percentile.
(76% of quiz takers scored worse than you)

Geography Your score: 8 Monkey's score: 4 -- Quite a sufficient job.	History Your score: 6 Monkey's score: 5 -- You might have done better.
Science/Technology Your score: 9 Monkey's score: 6 -- Good enough I suppose.	Random Trivia Your score: 9 Monkey's score: 2 -- A handy defeat of the monkey.

Link: Monkey Challenge Trivia Quiz

DINOSAURS!!!

I went to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas this weekend. What a fun trip!

In Glen Rose, we stopped at a restaurant called Grannie's right off the old town square that was owned by a sweet -- well... a grannie-looking woman. She reminded me very much of my beloved, late, great-grandmother ("Grandmaw") in her dress with giant flower-print, matching neck-scarf, and Sunday shoes! She was within an inch of being as tall as i am, which means that for her day and time, she was GI-NORMOUS!!!! The food was delightful, Texas farm-food. If you ever find yourself in Glen Rose, stop off at Grannie's and eat. Yum! Well worth it.

The whole point of the trip was to get out to Dinosaur State Park and see the fossilized dinosaur footprints. I know that looks like "just a shadow" but the shadow in the middle is the footprint. The park was super-cool, and it afforded me the opportunity to take off my boots and wade barefooted in the water, as you can see. It's one of my favorite things to do in warm weather! Here I was searching for the footprints on a shallow ledge in the water. There were some kids on the ledge with me, trying to catch minnows in a butterfly net. They were way more interested in the fish than in the dinosaur footprints! Shortly after that picture was taken, I found a footprint, and turned to holler back at my friends about my discovery. That's when I discovered I was being photographed. In this last picture, I'm standing with one of my feet (my whole giant foot-long foot) inside the smallest toe-imprint of this fossil. All the fossils were three-toed, and some were much bigger than others. If we'd 'done' the park in the reverse order, where we went to the second set of footprints first, and the first set last, i would definitely have been swimming in my undies at the first set. It was a WARM day. As it was, the second location was too busy, too shallow, and too full of chitlins for me to strip down and swim. The first location was perfect, but we hadn't been out in the heat long enough to make me think of swimming. If I ever go back, I'll dress differently and be prepared to take a dip!

At the entrance to the park, they have two giant fiberglass statues. One is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the other is a Brontosaurus (now with it's name changed to Apatosaurus!). Those are probably the two most famous and recognizable dinosaurs around, and at the time the park was built they were suspected of leaving the tracks there. More research has shown that those two dinos didn't even live within 50 million years of each other, so they couldn't have laid tracks in the same strata. Brontosaurus (Big Thunder Lizard) has had his name changed to Apatosaurus (Deceptive Lizard) because, apparently, there's a lot of stuff about him that fooled early paleontologists. T. Rex (Tyrant King Lizard) is still the good old, terrifying T. Rex of my childhood. Anyway, they had these fiberglass statues, so they left them up because they're neato-looking and provide a great photo opportunity for the tourists. They now have signs near them stating clearly that these guys did not stomp around the park, but they're mascots so they get to stay. Here I am with my friend and the T. Rex.

Because I'm a nerd, I dug around until I found a website that explained which dinosaurs did actually leave tracks at the park. Here's what I found.

What Kinds of Tracks are Found in the Park?

The fossilized tracks in the Paluxy belong to two main types: many are three-toed, sharp-clawed prints made by two-legged meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods. Most of these prints (which are typically 15 to 25 inches long) are thought to have been made by Acrocanthosaurus, a 20-30 foot long carnosaur whose bones have been found in nearby areas. Others tracks in the Paluxy are even larger footprints (some over a yard long) made by huge, four-legged, long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs known as sauropods, or informally, "brontosaurs." The rear prints somewhat resemble giant bear tracks with large claws angling rearward, while the front prints are more round and elephant-like, with less distinct, peg-like toes. Sauropod tracks were unknown to science until discovered in Glen Rose in the 1930's. The most likely trackmaker candidate for the sauropod tracks is a dinosaur named Pleurocoelus, which was 30 to 50 feet long.

ALARM!!!!

My friend sent me this link. She thinks I need help waking up in the morning. Anyone who's ever had to deal with me before my first cup of coffee concurs, of course. Including me. Her favorites are 10, 6, and 1. Mine are 10, 9, 2, and 1. The only problem with 2 is that it requires one person to be awake to get the other person up. It's obviously not going to work for me. But if I ever get to have kids, my kids are going to HATE the grenade. Muahahahahahahahaha!

a monday meme

rather than saying any of the entirely-too-deep things that are in my head today, i've decided to post a meme! i know you're utterly surprised to hear that i'd rather deflect the topic than talk about my inner workings, but try to contain your shock. now, muster up some curiosity and do the meme! this, you may note, requires you to comment...

Ask me a question about EACH of the following:
- Friends
- Sex
- Music
- Religion
- Love
- Blogging
Then post this in your blog and see what questions you get asked!

Yea, Vermont!!!

This afternoon the Vermont state House of Representatives passed H865, which would add gender identity as a protected class to the state anti-discrimination laws. The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration.

NCTE congratulates the Vermont TransAction Coalition, as well as RU12, SafeSpace, Outright Vermont and the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force for their diligent work. Transgender Vermonters also should be thankful for Representative Bill Lippert, who has shepherded the bill through the state house.

The passage of the bill came on a voice vote, though the yes votes clearly outnumbered the neas. According to NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling, "When NCTE helped with training and strategy around this bill last year in Montpelier, it was apparent the folks in Vermont were committed to getting this law on the books as soon as possible."

If passed by the Senate and signed by the Governor, H865 would make Vermont the eighth state to have explicitly legislated anti-discrimination protections for transgender people. Washington state passed their law earlier this year.

NCTE Congratulates all of the advocates in Vermont for their hard work on this legislation.

National Center for Transgender Equality

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
email: ncte@nctequality.org
phone: 202-903-0112
web: http://www.nctequality.org

whine...

i'd like to whine loudly and childishly about the fact that i cut the tip of my pinky finger at lunch on my cheese slicer and now it hurts to type. grr.

oh, i might be hooked...

I went on a ride last night on the back of my friend's motorcycle. At one point on the way home, she asked if I was comfortable leaning forward as I was. She joked that I was probably warmer that way, using her to break the wind, but in the summer I'd be leaning back to catch the wind and cool off.

At the next stop light I said, "In the summer I won't be leaning back, I'll be *THERE*." I pointed to our right and behind us just a bit. She turned around to look quizzically at where I was pointing, as I finished, "on the next bike over."

So, I'm going home tonight to toy with my budget and figure out if I can afford a bike.

a friday meme

by the look of things, this migrated from somebody's myspace... oh, the contagion!

1. You have 10 bucks at a gas station, what do you get?
$5 in gas, a GIANT dr pepper, and a bag of 3d jalapeno cheddar doritos

2. If you had to be reincarnated as some sort of sea dwelling creature, what would you be?
no doubt, i'd be a hammerhead shark. they are the coolest looking things out there.

3. Who's your favorite redhead?
reneenee! except her hair's not red anymore. still, she's my favorite. amythest is a close second.

4. What do you order when you're at a pancake house?
crepes, whenever possible.

5. Last book you read?
working on robert jordan's latest. Knife Of Dreams

6. Have you made out with anyone on your friend's list?
yes, i have.

7. Describe your favorite pair of underwear:
a pair of boxers with spongebob on one leg and "talk nerdy to me" in large print on the other.

8. Describe the last time you were injured:
i got a papercut severe enough to require a band-aid on tuesday. i'll count that.

9. Of all your friends, who would you want to be stuck in the middle of a jungle with?
rose or brody or both. the jungle would be sorry it had tried to eat us by the time we got out.

10. Are there any odd things that make you feel uncomfortable?
when people have those surgeries where they put pins in to hold the bones in place and then those are attached outside their skin to some kind of traction thingie. it gives me a chillshiver right to my toenailhair every damn time i see that.

11. Tell me an embarrassing story from your high school years:
walking down the hall, i sneezed and my retainer flew out of my mouth, landed and slid across the floor. eep!

12. What is the wallpaper on your cell phone?
a random sunny color pattern in warm tones that reminds me it won't be graywinter for FREAKIN ever.

13. Soda?
don't you mean "coke"? i drink dr pepper flavored coke most of the time.

14. Flavor of pudding?
vanilla.

15. What type of shirt are you wearing?
long-sleeved black t-shirt with the freebird's world burrito logo superimposed on a picture of the earth taken from space.

16. Prescription medication?:
none for me, thanks.

18. How many people are on your friends list?
this only makes sense if it's posted on a livejournal or myspace blog.

19. How many people on your list do you know in real life?
this only makes sense if it's posted on a livejournal or myspace blog.

20. What are you listening to right now?
babble from down the hall

21. Most recent movie you watched?
The Woodsman with kevin bacon

22. Name 3 things you have on you at all times:
my hair, my hands, and my feet. everything else is mutable.

23. Would you rather give or receive a foot massage?
can we trade? i'd just as soon have either, so long as it involves skin contact.

24. Name a teacher you had the hots for:
can't say i ever have had a teacher crush. none of mine were remotely hot, aesthetically speaking.

25. What is a saying that you use a lot?
"that's a riot!"

26. How many people on your friends list are exes?
this only makes sense if it's posted on a livejournal or myspace blog.

27. What is your favorite part of the chicken?
any part i don't have to eat.

28. What's your favorite town?
whichever one i'm going to next! i love me some road trippin'...

29. Favorite kind of cake?
yellow mix cake with chocolate frosting. it's a childhood thing. (becca, joy, do y'all remember those microwave cakes? where you had to make the cake pan out of the box?)

30. What's the first word that comes to mind right now?
gumbo

31. When was the last time you saw your mom in person?
about three weeks ago she was up here visiting and i drove over to my sister's house to have dinner with them.

32. What makes you feel like puking?
ummm... the flu virus? botulisms? i don't generally barf outside of actual medical illness.

34. What did you have for dinner LAST NIGHT?
veggie patch pizza at applebee's

35. How long have you been at your current job?
almost 9 months

36. Is Tom on your friends list?
i think this meme must have traveled over from myspace. tom is the default friend on myspace the way frank the goat is on livejournal. and, yes, tom and frank are both on my lists.

37. What's the last thing you said out loud?
be a good girl, see you later. (to my dog, molly)

38. Look to your right, what do you see?
my cell phone, highlighters, engineer's scale, and stapler.

39. Who is the last person you spent over $100.00 on?
i sponsored a song for a local musician named kathy corbin who really needs to get a cd recorded and out there for sale. i hope the project is successful.

40. Who's your favorite villain?
Maleficent from disney's sleeping beauty

41. What's the last piece of clothing you borrowed ?
a pair of socks.

42. What's the last piece of clothing you bought?
Ka-Pow! boxers from Gap when i went shopping with brody this weekend. actually, he paid for them, so i owe him some bux... i forgot my wallet when we went to the mall. perhaps the fact that this did not surprise or dismay either of us, when it was revealed, will help reinforce the literal truth of my answer to number 22.

43. What phrase makes you laugh no matter where, when or how?
i don't think such a magic phrase exists.

45. What does your last text message say?
Realistically, in any relationship you're going to get your feelings hurt by something. Is it worth putting up with this in exchange for the good stuff?

Brody Brings the Ice

So, this weekend was the second time my friend, Brody, has visited me in Fort Worth. This is also the second time that Fort Worth has completely iced over, necessitating the use of sand trucks and ice scrapers for and among the populace. Coincidence? I think not.

We managed to have fun, anyway. We tried to trek across the metroplex to visit Ikea in Frisco on Saturday. However, just as we reached downtown Fort Worth on the freeway, we were halted by a wall of vehicles coming to the most rapid halts they could manage on the slick roads. There was a sand truck turned perpendicular to the flow of traffic and there were an array of flashy-wirly lights in the thick of things. Ordinarily, I'd be completely thrown by the combination of whirly and flashy things, but I managed to avert my eyes long enough to make an exit off the freeway before we were enmeshed in the traffic snarl. We had a minor adventure on our exit because it involved some unsanded bridges and some Texans who don't understand that the appropriate approach to such things is neither your accelerator nor your brake, and that a 2-second following distance is insufficient when the driving surface is ICE. Seriously, dudes, the Tundra in front of us was turned sideways relative to the direction of his movement and i think he might have bounced off the barrier wall more than once.

So, we ended up staying home, making stew and chili con queso, and watching movies. A great time! I must say that the movie Ray, while it is a terrific story and was very well made, is LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG. Longer than is comfortable to sit still for, really. We inadvertently watched the "Extended Version" which probably only added 10 minutes, at most, to the film. I was up and down several times while watching the film to stir the stew and let Molly out to potty (aside: if your dog can't hold it through the movie, the movie is DEFINITELY too long) and I still felt a little stir-crazy and chairbound when it ended.

The other film we watched was The Woodsman. It was intense. It deals with the struggle of a convicted pedophile (who apparently got off on smelling little girls' hair) to reintegrate into society. It's hard to find housing, hard to find a job, hard to find friends. In the end, the character finds redemption, but it's uncertain up until the very last moment whether he will or not. According to Brody, it's a very realistic portrayal of the sex offenders' struggle to be "normal". Some other areas of the film (like the love story and the family reconciliation story) suffer, just because the movie can't be long enough to treat everything with the same depth. All in all, intense, but worth watching.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, my fish survived me leaving them while I was in Austin last weekend. The weekend feeder tablet did the trick, apparently, because there were no floating fish skeletons waiting for me when I returned. We're into the third week of tank cycling now, and I'm researching other fish I can keep. I was really keen on one kind called the Black Molly, for the obvious and cheesy reason that it goes with my dog, Molly, a black lab. However, they have a water temperature incompatibility with the Zebra Danios I've got in the tank right now, so I think I'm going to look at keeping tetras. They come in a number of shiny color variations which I think would be fun, and they're supposedly not too hard to keep alive. This is good! The only thing I worry about is that if I get a bunch of them, I'll become mesmerized by their shiny flashiness every time I walk past the tank...

DAILY RANDOM!

names obscured to protect the supremely innocent, and the merely moderately innocent. you can decide which of us you think is which.

Her: something happened last night that I wanted to share with you...because I believe you would appreciate it--and my horror of the situation
Me: go ahead. i woke up this morning and saw i'd missed a text from you...
Her: I went to the gas station by my house to pick up a cup of ice on my way to the library last night. I had to write a fucking paper
Her: While walking from the freezer to the checkout.....I got "Ms. So-and-So"-d
Me: oh, no!
Me: a student?
Her: yes
Her: I wanted to crawl under the shelves
Her: Jeez, what if I had been buying beer or condoms?
Me: well, then the student would have been forced to go back to his/her insulated little life and cry to his/her friends about how s/he saw the TA buying beer or condoms and how it'd scarred him/her for life.
Me: you'd probably do the same thing... plus probably turning 10 shades of red.
Her: oh, sure...make fun
Me: :) ok, i will.
Her: it was a girl, by the way
Her: to save you from the gender games you have to play with the pronouns
Me: thanks.
Me: you've never had to go to a pharmacy and have a family friend instruct you on how to de-worm yourself, have you?
Her: um...no
Me: then i've got you beat on the "embarrassed at the register" game. hands down.
Me: unless you have something better than being caught by a student while buying ice...
Her: no, that's pretty much it
Me: ok.
Her: my kung-fu is weak and bows to your superior embarrassing moment.
Me: thank you.
Me: i'd been in mexico on a class project. in spite of everyone's best efforts at handwashing, drinking bottled water, and careful food prep, etc... some of us ended up with worms.
Her: I wasn't going to ask

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

the greatest little love-bugs ever would like to wish all my readers a happy valentine's day. they sure made my day, i hope they make yours! hugs and kisses!!!

ROAD TRIPPIN!!!!

yee-hippity-haw!!! i LOVE road trips!

I'm going to Austin tonight with a few friends... Deena, Teal, Reneenee, and Rose. We'll be going to see my friend Brody and his peeps at the Kings N Things drag show. And from there, the weekend is wide open! We're going to try to make it out to The Oasis for some awesome food and a gorgeous sunset, and maybe see Melissa Ferrick out at the Flamingo Cantina on Saturday.

yea! (did i cram enough links into that paragraph for you?)

And now, I shall bop off to do the HappyRoadTripDance!!! and attempt to get something productive done at work with what's left of my afternoon.

Oh, and I fed my fish... a big weekend rock that sits at the bottom of the tank and supposedly releases Spirulina and krill, or some such nonsense. We'll see. If they're alive when I get home, I'll be thrilled.

Oh, yeah... I finally got some fish for my tank. I got 6 zebra danios to cycle the filter with. This is what they look like:

I Tried.

I tried to pour my light into your darkness, to fill it up, to lift you and light you and show you your own light. You were a crystal cave that my spark could awaken to fiery color, to dazzle.

I didn't have enough light. Your darkness needed every spark I had, needed more the more I gave. I wanted so much to give, I would have died to give it all to you, and
YOU.
WOULD.
HAVE.
TAKEN.
ALL.

You couldn't let me go out for more light. You relied so much on me, you didn't have your own to give.
You wouldn't let me refill myself, and so I could never fill you.

We both went dark.

I tried.

I tried.

When I was cold, alone in complete darkness, underground, when no light was left in me -- you asked more even then. I was dead. My eyes were dead, my heart was a rock. It wasn't numb. It had never felt, forgot living and warmth and the light. How could you ask for more from me then? Where was I to get it? I didn't even remember what the light looked like.

Knowing I couldn't give you what you needed... it broke me.

For you, for my beloved, if I had it to give, if I'd had to scrape it out of my own heart with my own dying hand and leave myself a weeping wound to get it,
I.
WOULD.
HAVE.
GIVEN.
ALL.

HOW COULD YOU ASK ME TO DO THAT?

I used to shine.

I used to glow.

I remember it now, although I didn't then.

I used to light a hundred souls who returned that light, reflected and strengthened. I always had enough for myself, for everyone who wanted any, for everyone who needed, for friends and lovers and family and beloved. Always some reflected and some didn't, but there was always enough.

You took it all. You took from wanters, needers, myself, friends, family, everyone. Your dark swallowed me until no reflections came back to me. Enclosed, I tried to pour my remaining light into you. I tried to make you glow, so we could shine on each other. I was a gambler trying to recover a lifetime of savings with her last chip. I wanted to see the crystal cave lit from inside, to see you sparkle and shine and give back to me what I gave to you.

I tried.

I tried.

I tried.

And now,
for taking from me so carelessly,
for asking more from me than I had to give,
for swallowing me up,
for taking from me all I had,
for using me,
i hate you.

always know it's time...

I always know it's time for a little time off when I start thinking fondly of my days in the food service industry. To be fair, I was never your hairnetted burger-flipper, I was a tie-clad hostess at a nice, sit-down restaurant. Still, whenever I find myself at my desk and daydreaming fondly of those times and calculating whether I could pay my bills on that salary, I know I need a break.

So, guess who needs a break today?

luke

I've had this on my mind off and on over the last few weeks. Last Monday was particularly rough. I was hormonal and weepy and tired to begin with, and pictures of Luke's face kept jumping up in my head all day. I even sketched him during the staff meeting at work. I achieved a pretty reasonable likeness in a few of the doodles, because I scared myself with them when I ran across the paper on my desk yesterday. When I saw it, my brain injected this little ink sketch on yellow paper with three dimensions and color. It was eerily "real" for a minute. I was so rattled off my center when I saw it that I threw it away, but I wish now that I'd kept it. I did a little sketch of the scene, as well -- a view as I originally saw it, from across Wabash street. I sketch like autistic kids do, though. I see too much detail about how things are put together. I want to draw things the way I know they fit and function, not the way they look, so my perspective is always all wrong. I put in details that don't fit because I know they're there, even though I couldn't really see them from the distance I started sketching at.

Sketching it didn't help, though. The images were and still are there in my head... all a disconnected jumble. I was talking about this with a friend yesterday, and I think part of the reason I'm having so much trouble connecting the images and building a comprehensive movie of what was happening is that my perspective was not what it usually is. I usually see entirely too much detail about the physical world, as I mentioned. I may or may not notice that the couple in the corner are making googly eyes at each other, but I guarantee I'll notice whether the columns they're eyeing each other around are Corinthian, Doric, or Ionic. I usually have a near 360 degree view of my surroundings, always checking the edges. I may never turn my attention fully to those things on the periphery, but I know where they are and more or less what they are. In this situation, though, I was so completely focused on Luke and on his injuries and his condition that I remember feeling like I had tunnel vision. I don't multi-task very well in general, and it was all I could do to keep up with Luke. My surroundings, from the moment I put my hand on his throat to check for a pulse, virtually ceased to exist. I don't remember crowd sounds, I don't remember traffic noises. I don't remember light or shadow or the composition of the crowd or whether there was litter on the street. I only remember the maroon paint of the Blazer, the black glass everywhere, and Luke's brown skin and red blood. His hair was very dark, and curly, and frizzy. It was like mine is when I've given it the day off and not put any "product" in it. I don't even remember what he was wearing. I do remember the texture and color of the glove I picked up out of the Blazer... I just reached around the window frame into what would have been the cargo area and grabbed an eggshell-colored knitted wool glove. I remember thinking that I hoped it was clean, just before I used it to cover the wound on the back of his hand. It didn't seem very absorbent, and it was hard to get much direct pressure with the other injuries and the glass everywhere. He didn't seem to be bleeding too much from his hand, though.

I remember his face often. The red of blood on the brown of skin and the fear in his face when he realized he was alive and surrounded by strangers. His girlfriend came out of the building, I'm told, from which he had jumped. I never even saw her, but I'm told that she approached us at the car and looked down at him and then backed away. I never became aware of her at all. I was so grateful when Tuffy slid up next to me on my right side, because I felt safer then, with him there, guarding my flank. The surgeon who asked Luke about his medicines came up on my left side. I remember only that his skin wasn't white, I couldn't have identified his race beyond that. Later, Amy and Tuffy told me he was Asian, but I don't remember. I remember ignoring some interfering noise coming from that side of my body while I was trying to get Luke to lie still, I imagine he must've been speaking. Eventually he touched my shoulder, made me stop and pay attention to him, told me he was a doctor. When he did, I stopped talking to Luke, and just listened.

Amy saw the crowd come and go. Some people were claiming that he jumped from the "El" but that was clearly impossible from where he landed. It did look as though he had from across the street, though. A train went by on the "El" track just before we heard the sound of him landing on top of the Blazer. It seemed from the timing of the sounds that he'd been thrown from the train, or had been knocked off the track by the passage of the train.

And now, for a minute, my head is blessedly empty. So I'm off to bed. I hope this is the last of it, but I doubt it will be. Sorry, readers. Thanks for your patience.

Oof-ity, oof, oof, oof!

So, i got this iPod. I have been VERY excited about it, as anyone who's had to listen to me ramble lately can tell you. It's a refurb, but I bought it from the Apple store with the protection plan, so I wasn't worried about the usual refurb dysfunction. First off, the delivery required direct signature. That means it requires ME to be HOME during the day to sign it. Hello?!?!? Who does that? Fedex can't let my apartment manager sign for it and keep it in the office, I personally must show ID to get my package. So I had to drive up to the north end of town on Tuesday and fight traffic to get my iPod. Thanks, techie_, for the timely map support!

I had plans for the afternoon and evening, and they were better than an iPod, so I didn't even get a chance to open the box until I got home at 2 am. I opened the box, pulled out the 20 foot length of packing paper they used to keep the little box from rattling around inside the big box I paid them to ship me, and finally got to the little box containing my iPod. Yea! *poing-ity* Yea! I opened the little box, and dug through the foam and bits and put the charger together and plugged in my iPod. The second bad part happens here. The screen showed me the sadmac icon (except it's the sad mac face on an iPod body, so I guess it's technically the sadpod icon) followed by a battery symbol. Rose (who I called in a panic) assured me this was simply because it needed to charge and that I should go to sleep. I would wake up with a happypod.

I woke up to a sadpod, but I didn't know how long it should take to do the initial charge, so I didn't fret about it. I came home for lunch, though, and STILL had a sadpod. I went through all the troubleshooting steps on the iPod support page, and testing the USB cable was the next step in the flow. So, I decided to try out the USB cable and see if maybe the problem was with my firewire cable/charger/electric outlet setup.

Unfortunately, this is where the fourth bad part happens. All my back-of-box USB ports are taken, but I have two front-mounted ones that are conveniently located for this sort of thing, along with a microphone and headphone jack. The problem is that somewhere along the way, the circuitboard that the USB ports are mounted on broke loose from its mountings in the front of happybox (my computer), so the only way for me to use them is to open the case and support the USB port from behind with my fat finger while I push the cable into the port from the front. Otherwise, when I try to put the connector into the port, the port simply retreats into the happybox like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell. I decided to try rigging up a solution to this problem, while I had happybox open and amenable to such things, but in order to get a proper viewing angle and access to the board, I had to take off both side panels and the front face of my case. All of this is on my lunch break, mind you...

So I ended up with happybox in my lap, fashioning a little wire harness out of twist ties to mount the silly USB ports in their designated location. It worked for a while *POING*, but after two or three test connections, the harness failed *OOF*. I'll have to try some sturdier materials in the second iteration. However, at this point, i REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to know if the iPod would charge off the USB cable and i was tired of futzing with the ports. So I set happybox back on its home shelf, hung the face back on it, and pushed the power button. Nothing. Check the power supply switch, off, on, off, on. Nothing. Look at the clock. FRICKINFRACK! I'm already late getting back to work.

I returned to work with happybox in an unknown (but decidedly unhappy) state, a vague memory of having seen what looked like a spark thrown by the little USB circuitboard as it made contact with the chassis in a couple of places, and terrible fears that I'd shorted out my motherboard, or bent pins that connected power-on gadgetry, or Something Equally Dire. All this, and my iPod was still sad.

I slogged through my afternoon, my heart heavy with thoughts that I'd caused the demise of my beloved happybox. I had plans for the evening, too, but they were far outweighed by the urgency of repairing happybox. So I raced home as soon as I could after work and began methodically working through the potential sources of a power problem. I always start at the wall and work my way along the cords until i get to the power button. It's not always the most direct route, but it always gets me to the problem, and it's easy to keep track of what things I've tried that way. Long story short: I eventually found the (multiple) loosened connections, tightened them up, and happybox was running happy again. It is none the worse for the wear, apparently. Yea! *POING*

When i then plugged my sadpod into the USB cable connected to the front port of the now-running happybox, I got the sadpod icon again. This time, however, instead of a battery with an angry exclamation-point icon on it, I got a battery with a happy lighting bolt on it. Things were looking up! My iPod was charging!

By this time, it was too late to make it to my evening plans and I was more than a little frazzled, so I just did some futzing around on my computer. I downloaded and installed the latest iTunes and iPod software so that I'd be ready when my iPod was charged. I noticed that I didn't get any messages from Windows telling me that it'd found a new USB device, but I wasn't sure of the power state of the iPod so I didn't think too much of it at the time... Again, long story short, after a lot of troubleshooting: my iPod is dead. It won't reset, it won't wake up, it isn't recognized by Windows, it won't charge. I tested my cables with another iPod that belongs to a coworker, and the cables are good. So it's definitely my iPod. It's having dysfunctional refurbishment issues, I guess.

The redeeming factor to this whole oof-ity story is that I will be over near the Apple store anyway this weekend, so I'll just take it in and swap it out. That's the beauty of the Apple Care protection plan. They really do a good job of standing behind their products, so I hear. And while I'm there, i can hand over all my worldly possessions in exchange for some nifty accessories, like a protective cover and one of those iTrip doodads that makes your iPod music come out of your truck radio. Yee-haw! As the vicious murderer of several cell phones, I can testify to the necessity of a very rugged skin for my new gadget.

And, in the balance, I haven't lost sight of the fact that I thought I'd killed happybox, and I hadn't. That, in itself, is reason for a *poing*.

inspirational show tunes...

oh, my word. i LOVE this. i'm copying it so you lazy bums don't have to click through the link, but it can be found in its original form here, along with all the comments that were posted in followup. i think this is the funniest and sanest way to combat the hatred that i've ever heard of. i'm inspired!

This morning I had the most bizarre subway ride. I board the Number 3 train at Grand Army Plaza after 9 a.m. Find a seat, then settle into reading Henry James for class. I hear a woman’s voice gradually rising in volume. She is preaching the “Lord’s” word to the train car’s sleepy riders. Of course, I had forgotten the headphones for my subway evil sounds blocking device. The train stops and starts.
The words denigrating “gay devils” reach my ears. I stand up.

Me: “Excuse me, but do you mind keeping your voice down, I am trying to read.”

Preacher Lady: (screams) “I got to testify.”

Preacher lady hitches up her skirts and tells me that I am going to hell for interrupting you-know-who’s word. Two or three OTHER Christian ladies on the train start shouting at me and discussing my prospects as the Devil’s prison bitch. The last straw was a 50 something red faced man in a suit slamming his Bible towards my face.
There was only one thing I could do.

Me: “If you all don’t lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes.”

The other straphangers look at me with stony faces.
I begin to sing.
“Its very clear, our love is here to stay. Not for a year, but forever and a day…”

Preacher lady and the Jesus police start mumbling and beseeching G_d to strike me down and boil me in molten tar. (I look better in silver.)
The train reaches Wall Street. Confused subway riders check out the scene. I begin swaying and feeling the music.

The slamming Bible man looks like he is going to pop a blood vessel. “I cast ye out, Satan.”

I go into jazz dance crouch and then spring up to belt out, “THAAAAAAT OLD BLACK MAGIC, HAS ME IN A SPELL…”

Bible man has to get off the train as I wriggle and shimmy. “That same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine!”

Bible man exits. SHOW TUNES 1, FUNDAMENTALISTS 0.

“So when you walk alone and forlorn, and hear that Cadillac horn remember, love isn’t born, its made…and that’s why every window has a window shade…bad a biddle be bop…”

I try to discuss freedom of religion with the ladies, but all attempts at reasonable discourse fail.

By 34th street, the last of the Christian word warriors has left the train. 3 subway riders shake my hand and say, “I have always wanted to tell those idiots to shut up! Bless you.”

I am shaking. I don’t know what comes over me at times like this. I only know that I cannot stay silent. I wish that I had my ukulele with me.

At 42nd street, a woman strides into the car and starts PREACHING. The entire car bursts into laughter. I interrupt this new preacher lady and note that she is wearing a flowered straw bonnet.

Me: “Excuse me, Ma’am…but I must warn you that there has been a 12 subway stop donnybrook regarding the unwanted intrusion of religious beliefs into our morning commutes.”

Preacher Lady 2: “I got freedom of speech! And GOD TELLS ME THAT THE GAY DEVILS ARE CONTROLLING NEW YORK.”

Me: (standing up) “If you do not cease and desist fouling the air with homophobia, I must sing…SHOW TUNES.”

There are now 3 or 4 gay men on the train. They start laughing.

Preacher Lady 2: “The Lawd says you are going to …” (litany of punishments that would be fun with the right person).

Me: (sings) “The Girl that I marry will have to be, as soft and as sweet as a nursery… the girl I call my own, will wear diamonds and laces and smell of cologne…”

One of the boys on the train starts to harmonize.

Preacher Lady 2 makes her way down the car, pointing and exclaiming, “I have met the devil right here!”

Me: (sings) “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets…”

Dancing around the subway poles and doing my best Gwen Verdon kicks, I feel the spirit in me.

I close with “Pennies from Heaven” and make sure to get the Jazz Hands in for good measure.

As Preacher Lady 2 runs to the next car at 72nd Street, the doors open, a perfect end of song button for my gay pointing gesture.

The subway riders break into applause and I bow. Rock on.

Several straphangers whisper, Happy New Year to me in Hebrew.

An Orthodox lady hands me an orange.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

***************

This was written by Koaloha
Copyright 2004
Please give credit when quoting this material.
Please don't steal my stuff.

Yea, fish!

I inherited a fish tank from a co-worker of mine. This was several months ago, and I was very excited at the time about starting to keep fish. Unfortunately for the fish-keeping hobby, my life got busy. I kept intending to do some research, find a fish store, figure out what parts I was missing from the pump apparatus, set up the tank, stabilize it, research fish, buy fish, acclimate fish, cycle the tank... and I got overwhelmed. Plus, there was a fair (>$100) investment involved, and I could never squeeze that into the budget. It just didn't have enough priority.

Anyway, thanks to Dad (he rocks!) I had a little Christmas Cash burning a hole in my pocket. As luck would have it, I had a Saturday in my own hometown this weekend. It was the first time since well before Christmas, so I decided to be lazy at home most of the day and run a few errands, like getting my oil changed. I tried to get my oil changed, but the wait was obnoxious (3 hours before they could start on it!) and I didn't want to sit on uncomfortable lobby chairs reading for that long. So I headed back home, but I had to make a loop around the mall parking lot to get to an exit that would actually let me out with a light onto a useful major road, it being a Saturday afternoon and all the sheeple being out jamming the roadways leading to the mall. As I looped, I noticed an aquarium/fish store (called, simply, "The Fish Place") that I'd never seen before. I knew there was supposed to be one in the area, but it was kinda tucked back into a strip of small stores along the fringe of the mall, so I'd simply never encountered it before. I had a bad experience with the first aquarium store I tried, the employees there were woefully ignorant of aquarium equipment, and it really sidetracked my initial enthusiasm. I literally knew more about my tank gear than the employee who was trying to help me at the first store, and all my knowledge came from idly poking around two beginner sites on the internet.

Anyway, moving along... I went in to The Fish Place, with my DaddyCash burning a hole in my pocket. I was thrilled to find myself shopping a wide selection of not just kits but actual bits and pieces of hardware that I could customize my tank with. That was exactly what I needed, because I had some bits from kits, but some bits were worn, broken, or missing. The employees (not just one of them, but all of them!) were friendly and knowledgeable. They listened to me when I explained in lay terms what pieces I had, patiently explained what I possessed, what it was for, what else I needed and why, and helped me choose the right sizes and brands of bits to work with my tank. I ended up having to go back the next day for a few pieces that I missed, and even though some of the staff were different, and the store was very busy, they were friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient in assisting me. I'm so stoked to have found a place like this!

I had a friend come over and help me rearrange furniture in my office so I could set the tank up. Thanks, K! She laughed when I explained that I'd planned out the furniture arrangement by making a scale model of my office and my furniture, but everything fit where it was supposed to... As I explained to her: when you live alone, and you're longer on brains than brawn, it makes sense to make a scale model so you can try out arrangements on paper before you go shoving furniture around.

So I set up all the tank gear and I'm very proud of myself. I did it all in the right order the first time! I dug up a power strip so I could supply my tank with all the Little Green Men it takes to run an air pump, water filter, tank heater, and lamp. I put some seed bacteria stuff in the filter, and let it just run. Today, the water is cloudy and rather green. I guess that's the seed bacteria and algae growing and getting worked into the bio-filter. I'm supposed to wait a week or so and then take a water sample to the fish store, where they'll test it and advise me. Hopefully, I'll get myself some fish soon! For now, I'm enjoying the sound of water falling into the tank from the filter. It's soothing...

Home again, home again, jiggity jog...

So, I got home safe from Illinois (As K would have it: Gaaad's Country) despite a small airplane issue. When I checked in (over 2.5 hours early!) there were no earlier flights that I could get on standby, and there were no later flights, period. This flight was it. The one. The only. THE Wednesday night flight from O'Hare to Dallas. So I was very concerned when I saw on the departures board that it was listed as "delayed". I was very worried when I checked in with airline personnel and was told it was indefinitely delayed. No word. No news. No explanation. Blessedly, the flight reappeared on the boards about an hour later and the takeoff was only about an hour late. All in all, not bad for airline travel, and a damn sight better than spending a night stranded at the O'Hare Hyatt.

I found myself eating at Wolfgang Puck's Airport Express Cafe, and the only food they had with no meat in it was a Chicken Caesar Salad that I could have the Chicken removed from, or a squash soup. I actually was interested in the soup, but I wanted it as a side with a dinner salad. (Hello? Soup and Salad? Isn't that THE most common side combo known to the restaurant business?!?!) Apparently, at Wolfgang Puck's Airport Express Cafe, the Soup and Salad combo is UNHEARD OF. You can buy a $10 entree-sized styrofoam plate full of lettuce, and a $5 styrofoam bowl full of soup, but you can't get a small dinner salad and a cup of soup. Can't be done. So I had a $10 plate of lettuce. This is the second time I've ranted about this, and for the amusement of my gentle readers, I have included a quote from a friend who sympathized with my first rant. The quote is in the sidebar down to the right among the "Words I Like..."

So, once I was safely on the ground in the DFW metroplex, I made my way home and back into my routine. Joy. I'm thrilled to have my puppy dog back! Thanks to Rose for dogsitting!

Homeward Bound...

I've been in Naperville and Chicago, Illinois for the last week. Actually, for a week and a day. The time has been good for learning my trade, for making acquaintances, for deepening friendships, and for reconnecting with old pieces of my life. I'm gradually finding a viewpoint from which I can see the encounter with Luke, the jumper, as part of my life. It's not a surreal, otherworldly event like a bubble in my life now, nor is it something so monolithic that my life stops or goes into turmoil trying to flow around it. It just is. It happened, and I was there and I took part, and now I'm moving on down the stream.

I will probably never know how Luke's life turns out. I don't need to know, though, in order to know that I did all that I could. For all my glib statements in the past about just wanting to do the right thing, just to do my part, not to be in control of anyone else's actions... it was a struggle for me to embrace that philosophy in this instance.

I'm very fond of the Beginning-Middle-End story structure wherein everthing has a significance to the plot and there is a conclusion in which all the loose story arcs are tied up. I don't like movies and short stories and books that leave plot threads dangling. I realized through this experience that I don't like that in my life, either. I want the episodes of my life to be encapsulated into neat storylines, to have endings, even though they're not "The End".

So, I'm headed back home, this is an ending to an episode of my life. I miss my dog, and I look forward to rejoining my friends. I had a birthday alone, and that was actually not bad at all. I had dinner with my aunt and uncle the night before, and I talked on the phone to all my family, so I was hardly alone. I've enjoyed the break from my routine, but at the same time I look forward to getting back to the parts of my daily life that I love.

Oh, and I had Real Chicago-Style Pizza at Gino's East in Naperville. yea!

What a difference a day makes.

This is just a quick update to let you all know I'm still here. That isn't just a phrase to me today, the reason why will become apparent as you read on. First, the news: I've been in Naperville, Illinois most of this week for training for my job. I had the weekend to myself, so i went into the city to hang out with some friends from Texas. They have a gorgeous apartment on the lakefront with a view from the 42nd floor! Oh-Mah-Gawd! It's terrific, they're fun peeps, and the weekend was shaping up to be incredible.

Yesterday we went out to have the quintessential Chicago Hot Dog experience, and that's where it gets weird. On our way out to the hot dog stand, a guy jumped from a 20-story building across the street from us. He was literally directly across the street, about 30 feet away. He landed on a Blazer-type vehicle and smashed the roof in. Glass went everywhere. All my lifeguard instincts kicked in, I guess, because I ran across the street and started checking airway, breathing, circulation... I grabbed some wool gloves from the back of the vehicle he'd smashed in, stopped the bleeding from the obvious cuts and tried to get him to lie still and talk to me. Someone else pulled a jacket out and covered him to help keep him warm. His name was Luke, and he was 25 years old. This morning, the paper covered the incident in 9 lines of a 2-inch column. The paper said he'd been transported to a hospital in critical condition and that's all. The only words he could get out were his name, and his medications: Prozac. I'm still rattled about it. I was riding the "El" late last night and in the fluorescent light of the train car, I could see where his blood had smeared on my black leather jacket.

Now for the good stuff: We did manage to go on with our day after all that, got some yummy dogs (i had a beer brat!) and went to the Adler Planetarium. I went and met up with another friend who joined us for dinner at Kamehashi for sushi -- wow! I love Brazilian Lobster Roll! -- and then out for a few drinks on Halsted ave., the Chicago gayborhood.

I was really glad for the company. I would've been happy to spend time with my friends anyway, but I really needed it last night. I wouldn't have wanted to go back to a hotel room and sit alone with thoughts of Luke or try to distract myself with something like a book... I just don't think that would've worked. So, anyway, the phrase "an update to let you all know I'm still here" means something different to me today than it would've meant yesterday.

BUSY!

It's been a while since I posted, and I can only attribute that to holiday madness. I was on the road a lot, catching up with people for the seasonal celebrations, taking advantage of travel schedules to spend time with people I don't get to see every week, and generally being out of my routine. I LOVED IT!

I had a great holiday season, and got to spend quality time with everyone from my niece-dog, Orenda, to my old buddies from Austin, to my new friends in Dallas. My sister, the one with the new babies, got to slip away for a couple of days on vacation. My mom got my nieces, and I got my niece-dog! She is a yellow lab, which makes her a nice counterpoint to my own black lab, Molly, but aside from breed similarity they are about as opposite as cousins can be. Orenda was trained as a service dog, not necessarily a seeing-eye dog, but as a handicapped assistance dog. She didn't finish her training because she's a fraidy-dog and spooks at loud sounds, so my sister adopted her. Molly is the original "country dog". She likes to run, jump, bark, swim, fetch, chew and frolic. Orenda is a "city dog" who likes to have her ears scratched, lie in sunbeams, bring your cell phone to you, and sleep. Molly thinks my cell phone is the devil in a blue box with flashing lights. Orenda is so polite that she won't jump on the bed while I'm in it, unless I specifically call her up. Molly races me to the bed and gets stretched out across my side before I can even get my eyeglasses off. Orenda carries plushies around like they're her babies, Molly disembowels plushies and leaves their hollow carcasses on my floor.

This personality contrast makes walking them together a special sort of fun. :) Not only do I have to handle their leashes completely differently and remember two different sets of commands for similar activities, these two dogs physically go in totally different directions at all times. If Molly ever stops to pee, that's the instant at which Orenda suddenly wants to go forward. Orenda likes to stop and sniff a lot, so I spend a lot of time exhorting her to keep up while Molly tries to drag me off my feet.

The funniest, and most relaxing, part for me was when I got them down to the river and off their leashes. Where we start our walk, the river is very wide and shallow with a rocky bottom. Molly and Orenda both splashed around in that and had fun, until Orenda found a hole and fell in it up to her chin. She was NOT pleased at the sudden dunking and started paying attention to Molly's route a lot more. Molly used to fall in the holes, too, but she just bounces right up and keeps going. Orenda was a little un-done by her experience. So Orenda stuck pretty close to the bank (when she'd get in the water at all) for the rest of the day.

Over the course of the week, though, Orenda got a little braver every day. There was lots of riverbank to roam around on and other dogs' scents to sniff and sometimes she'd play defense while Molly was trying to get out of the water or return the ball. But every day, when we got to the shallow spot, she'd follow Molly out into the water and she'd get further from shore every time. Then she started climbing down the bank and getting her feet in the water, even at the deep places. She especially liked the spots where a drainage ditch would join the river and there would be a shallow little stillwater for her to stand in.

Finally, on about the 5th day of this, Orenda actually got in the water on purpose (she had fallen in once or twice) and splashed out to where Molly was swimming with the ball. Molly could only be described as STUNNED AND SURPRISED to find her cousin-dog out in the water with her. The water used to be a safe place where Molly could chase the ball without Orenda grabbing onto her jaw or her ear and generally playing defense. Suddenly, it was not. Luckily for Molly, she still has speed on her side. She and Orenda are the same height, but Molly is kinda like Jennifer Garner and Orenda is kinda like Renee Zellweger (especially in the Bridget Jones movies). Molly's just a little faster...

Anyway, Orenda finally started getting the hang of the country dog thing, and she taught Molly that it's best to eat your food when it's served and not to wait around until you're in the mood. :) We all had a good time, especially when they finally figured out that they both like to wrestle. I would sit back with a book and a cup of tea in the evenings and watch them throw each other around the room just like I imagine I'd do if i had kids. Molly won most of their athletic contests, but Orenda definitely has an edge over Molly in the "scary face" department. I'll see if I can bribe my sister into capturing it on film, because Orenda has the greatest snarl I've ever seen, and she can deliver it while her tail is wagging in play.