June 2002 Archives

celebrating with obviousman.

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i am suffering from a fierce case of inertia. i would say, oh, i'm not easily overwhelmed, because i like to think that about myself, but in all honesty, that's not true. i'm sitting in one hell of a messy living room. if i could just put that out of my mind, i could get these web-related things done and then get on to bringing even a little order out of this chaos. or if i could get up and do something about the mess, i would be able to settle in and spend some time on these online projects.

but the combination, the conflict, has me completely stalled. if i start one thing, the other rebukes me with its undoneness. that may not be a word. anyway, anything i start working on means i'm ignoring another thing that needs done.

so, so far, i've done nothing. well, there's this. but basically nothing.

i don't know how i managed to get so old at such a young age. not that i'm young. but you wouldn't think forty one would be the age at which you found countless things constantly reminding you, usually quite poignantly, of something years ago. i just never know when my brain will hop in the wayback machine, it's quite distracting.

and it's not the specific deja-vu, it's the glimpse of the background of the snapshot of the time it brings back. and it's not the memory or the sensation of remembering, it's the sadness of losing the rest of the memory. because my past is not a movie in my mind, it's a shoebox stuffed messily full of pictures and mental notes scribbled on scraps of this or that, not in any chronological (or any other logical) order. so i will suddenly flash on a moment or an event, and have no context.

and you know how they say about old people who are losing it, they can't remember what they had for breakfast, but they can tell you what happened [insert large number of years] ago like it was yesterday. well, great, but i have neither. i have snippets and excerpts and bits and pieces. and i don't know where my car keys are either.

and this is probably why i hate cleaning my house. living in clutter makes me feel so at home, considering the state of my brain these days. and probably other days too, i'm sure i've always been more or less like this, only now i have a weblog so i watch my thought processes more closely, always hopeful to get a post out of it.

the only thing i really clearly have, is a record of the last year and a half or so. words and pictures, organized and searchable. if only i'd grown up blogging, i'd have the memories here where i can play with them when i want to, not be left to the mercy of my own mental disarray.

i don't remember what the question was, but blogging is probably the answer.

Dodd thought of me when he found DIRK, and rightly so. i never tire of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. for instance, here's what's connected to cat.

interconnectedness and cats. that's what blogging's all about, is it not?

so. i was tired, and i needed rest. so i installed Soap::Lite and LWP::UserAgent and got an API key from google and made a new section in the individual pages for google results relating to the title. i may or may not keep the thing, it seems cumbersome. but, it's a toy, and i could no longer resist.

in other news there is a huge moth in here. somewhere. i heard the noise - the flutter-tap, flutter-tap-tap, faint and menacing. i looked at kitty to see if he was up to something, and he was looking around for the noise too. then i saw it. huge. size and shape of the space shuttle perched on the ceiling. my skin begins to crawl as i realize this powerful creature is too fast, too fluttery and unpredictable, and up too high for me to do anything.

so my skin is crawling. the moth heads south across the room, losing altitude, not looking like he felt well. and let me tell you ailing bugs bug me as much or more than the healthy variety. you just never know where they'll land, flailing about.

i'm going to have to try to sleep sometime. in this room. with this moth.

at least i have the google API installed. ha. like that helps.

what could be better than a chinese PDA running Linux? why, the babelfish translation of their site!

the new trackback feature continues to amaze and delight: TrackBack Development: Example of TrackBack threading. threading! go see!

i've been avoiding this but i can't resist anymore. apparently congress had nothing better to do. no issues of weighty import like health care for the elderly, the budget, defense spending, needed attention more than this. no, they dropped everything to address this national emergency: a court decision that found an advertising jingle being chanted by schoolchildren was unconstitutional. (thanks to sunshine day for that link and Kat for pointing me in that direction). they dropped their partisan bickering and came together to defend us against this horrible threat to our Democracy. then they gathered on the steps for a photo op and some sound bites. because, you know, this an election year.

tell you what. let's vote all these fools out of office, come november.

so you're asking, what's this, another new version of MT? sounds complicated! why should i bother?

it's not for the MySQL support, though that's cool. you don't have to have MySQL-enabled servers in order to run the new version of MT. the reason you should upgrade is the new TrackBack feature.

TrackBack is the next level in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things bloggy. and you know how i feel about connectedness. here's how it works: let's say i read someone's post about the trackback option, so i go and install the new MT. and then, when i post about it, i look up the trackback information on his entry (click 'trackback' below to see what i mean). i put that URL in the 'ping' section in my entry page. and when i save my post, it pings his entry. then if you go to his site, his trackback will list my entry, as a related post.

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note: Mena pointed out that there is a bookmarklet that will do the pinging of the posts automatically. i've not yet gotten that far into it, i just now got all this running. but apparently it's even easier than i thought!
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it's about community and interactivity. and toys. cool, geeky toys.

i've already pinged one of his entries, now i'm going to ping another one. i'm like the mad pinger today (xkot, i promise to mellow out in the future. i'm just a bit carried away right now).

but aside from just using it as a toy, imagine this: you read a post. that post has been pinged by two other interested parties. you read their entries from links in the "trackback" section. when you post, you ping all three entries, creating a network of connected entries on different sites.

there are many other really cool applications for this, but first, there have to be enough MT2.2 trackback-enabled blogs out there. only 2.2 blogs can communicate like this.

which is why you should upgrade.

this is kind of a test. i was running the upgrade to MT2.2 when things went wonky. did i backup first? fuck no. i've been beta testing, nothing went wrong with that. well, nothing much. i had two test bloggies running, just ducky.

so i suddenly had NO MT. thass right, none what so m-f ever. even the comments were broken. i reuploaded an older version of the MT comments file and at least that started working again.

but i had no way to post. so what i did, is upload a full version of the MT2.11 to another MT directory, but pointed the config file at the existing database.

everything seems to be here. now let's see if the bloody thing posts.

Are you in a joyless, faithless void?

Have you rummaged through the spiritual offerings of a planet that is so morally bankrupt, little seems good? Honest? Reliable?

Have you battered your way through churches that make you feel guilty? Offer little for introspection or personal edification beyond "worship?" Attract followers by hating others?

You may be like Squidward.

Are you ready for something new and better? Something honest, earnest and fun? Something that can make you feel good without making you feel bad?

Perhaps you have never considered going underwater to find a belief system worth investing in...you probably never, in your wildest dreams, thought that the secrets to living a happy, contented and fulfilling life could come from a tiny animated sponge.

Well, we're The Church of SpongeBob Squarepants and we bring to you, today, Good News!

yes, it's the church of spongebob

(and praise be to Dan for sending me this link!)

so with a clear head and realistic expectations, i started again. this time, i made sure i had all my tees dotted and my eyes crossed, and i reuploaded everything from a machine that wasn't crashing every three minutes. and the MT upgrade went smoother than a caramel frappuccino with an extra shot. mmm. caramel.

kdblog is now database driven for your pleasure. and now i have to figure out the whole trackback thingy. because it looks way cool. ooh! new toys.

firstly, here's a place to play with pinging, when you get your shiny new MT 2.2 running: TrackBack Demo.

i'm exploring the bookmarking feature right now. this rocks. if you are in a trackback-enabled page, you just hit your bookmarklet, and it lets you select the entry you're writing a response to, from a list.

remember when comments first became widely implemented, how interactivity changed blogging? from what i've seen today, trackback is the next level of this.

and for you meme aficionados, this puppy is a lean, mean, meme machine. oh yeah.

i should not complain, i know that a lot of people have worse summer bugs, in fact i'll admit that i have it easy. yet still i complain. i am an extremely bugphobic person (not sure the exact technical term there). i hate bugs.

first i hate the fleas that love the warm weather. apparently we have tough, super-fleas that enjoy living in the cozy nest of borax crystals that is our carpet. the cat's fine now, but they don't have advantage for people, so we're still suffering.

then there was the freaky bug that scared me and kurtwood the other night. a big long bug, wasp-like in body type but the color was a luminous red. chris swore that wasn't a stinger as he captured it and tossed it outside, but what else would a big probe-like thing protruding from a big red bug's butt be? i ask you.

and then there are the june bugs. the june bugs are cool in that they know when it's june, and they come out right on schedule. i'm not sure what they look like (i don't go outside much at night) i think they're kind of orangey-brown. all i ever really see of them is in cat puke. kitty loves the june bugs. every summer night he complains and complains till we let him out, because apparently june bugs are just as fascinating as can be, if you like to chase and pounce on things that jump and flutter. oh, he's a big bad june bug hunter, our kitty. but you'd think that after enough time it would occur to kitty that the consequences of eating junebugs is throwing them up? you'd think that enough of this negative, uh, feedback would teach him. but no.

then again, that's not such unusual behavior. my kitty needs to go to some june bug anonymous meetings, i think.

... and the resultant whining:

i am at work. i did not bring a lunch, nor do i have my car. i am stranded. and i am hungry. i was hoping/planning on (a) all the medicine i'm taking keeping my appetite down, and (b) there being some provisions in the goodie drawer. there were a few crackers. i ate them this morning. i drank much coffee, fortified with creamer-powder and sugar. i took my medicine. my back was nerving at me, (maybe it's hungry too?) so i ate a vicodin, half at a time, you'd think that would make me happy. but no. i ate several berry-flavored tums from the breakroom, because they're good for me. i may go get a couple more of those, they're yummy.

so i have hours to go (it's the theme of the week, me having hours to go before i can leave work). and desperation sets in. i rummage. i find a half eaten cadbury egg. you know, from easter time. i trim off the crustiest parts and eat the rest. i hope i don't die. can you die from old cadbury eggs?

i chewed nicotine gum. i drank tons of water. i have some chocolate coffee beans (however they have been rolling around in my desk drawer since last year). i'm considering them.

...of sleep. none of it good. woke up, head pounding, side effects most likely. also many things remain unsaid. pathetic. fuck.

tired. i get (yet) another cup of coffee and sit still and still fantasize about sleep. it's all i can think about, sleep. laying down somewhere soft closing my eyes letting go of the consciousness i'm clinging to with such questionable success at the moment.

i have a wide variety of sleep fantasies. the ultimate of course would be a soft sofa somewhere, followed by maybe a good recliner, and if not that the car would be fine, hell the beach in my pepsi blanket would do me. i can't leave work. so ... what? it's only 11:30. five and a half more hours. five. and a half. more. hours.

i said i wouldn't whine about my health anymore. can we call this boss-related instead of medical-related? i get here i tell him what's wrong and how i feel (un-pain-medicated). he makes a joke -- that looks like hair on your roof, not shingles. har-har. then i tell him the full details of the doctor adventures. then he goes out on the internet and first thing he says is 'are you elderly? it's most prevalent in the elderly'. (in case you're wondering, this is also a joke. i know, it's hard to tell). then he says, in AIDS patients that are taking strong medications, shingles are a sign of a stronger immune system. and i said, but in the case of an otherwise healthy person they are a sign of a weaker immune system, in my case due to stress. and he fucking argued with me. he said, oh, no, i think it means you have a good immune system. shingles a sign of health? right. sure. let's all hope we can be so healthy as to get this.

and it's monday.

i had to get this out of my system. maybe if i'd found better ways of venting stress prior to this, i wouldn't be sick right now.

so i'm sitting here at the computer. over by the dining room table, i see the cat start to squat. he's not a litterbox cat, it's either outside or on the rug, but usually he hides behind something. not this time.

so i yell out! out! and chase him out the front door. but for an instant there, maybe a little too long to be an instant, more like a moment, the urge was to grab my digicam and document this event for you.

almost too far. almost.

lime and chile fritos. vanilla coke. two and one quarter hours to go, maybe less. accomplished two major things today, three if you count working a full day when i had all the reasons in the world to stay home (well, except the reason of need. i did not have that). i have felt, variously, annoyed and enraged by any nubmer of current events recently, which i lack the energy to drag over here and tear up. there is no unfulfilled need for that sort of thing left anywhere anymore anyway. unless there is.

little devil on the left shoulder whispering about the pain pills in my purse. he thinks one would be good. he tells me without a trace of irony it would not hurt. and there is almost a need. well, no, yes, there is. that's decided. good.

i am not unhappy with the way things have turned out.

so the first sleepset, i was dreaming about making MT generate a page that would be a mailing list of all the authors on a surreally, so i could mail them all peptalks and things. completely impractical, but this does not deter me. second sleepset, i'm still bangin' away at that awkward, convoluted, possibly impossible bit of code. third time around, i dreamt about blogging about dreaming about the coding.

you know, i had hoped for something a little more surreal.

i think that children sense weakness, and instinctively act accordingly. kurtwood is a compassionate and polite child with a bit of a wild side. you know, a little boy. he's not the sort of child that would deliberately take advantage of mommy being in a weakened state, i really don't think he can help it.

so today he's eating a pizza lunchable. red sauce and shredded cheese. sitting on the white couch, with the food on the antique coffeetable. i tell him to go over to the table. he says this is the table. we go back and forth on this but to tell you the truth i was suffering the effects of a fierce gravity storm and had to give up and lie down. oy.

so he picks this moment to get a quizzical look on his face and say, 'i think that daddies grow boys and mommies grow girls'. i'm speechless. then he thinks a minute more and says 'maybe daddies don't make boys?' and looks at me for some sort of clarification on the issue.

a couple of helpless half-sentences stagger through the narcotic haze in my mind, none of them adequate to the task at hand. well, you go with what you've got: 'uh, no, only mommies make babies'. he's still looking at me expectantly. i add: 'but daddies help' and i'm thinking please please please don't ask.

thankfully he does not. *whew* that was close.

...and that's it.

so, i had to go back, because the doctor did not write on my chart that he had diagnosed me with shingles. and a damn good thing i did.

i got a wonderful doctor this time. she listened to me. she looked at the bumps on my back and she explained to me why they were where they were. whereas ole dr. quack yesterday said 'i'm not going to treat this, it's self-limiting', today's doctor said, i am going to give you some medicine. she said, first, an anti-viral, which may not help this outbreak but will lessen the chances the pain will continue after the bumps are gone. second, an antibiotic because you are running a fever and the bumps are warm to the touch, so you could have a skin infection. and third, yes, she gave me vidocin. lots of 'em. then she looked up what my health plan covered, that she could give me in generic form, to keep the cost down.

and the urgent care receptionist remembered me from yesterday and when i babbled to her about how the shingles didn't get written on the chart, she did some kind of paperwork thing and didn't charge me.

i left there feeling i'd been taken care of with compassion, as opposed to yesterday when i left sobbing thinking i was a whiner with VD of the back. all the difference in the world.

i took the pills before i started typing this, so in a few minutes i expect the pain will start going away.

so when chris got home i told him i had shingles. by then i'd learned at least that it was a chickenpox thing and not some incurable VD of the back. and he was actually alarmed about the pain i must be in, which to tell you the truth i only became fully aware of when i figured out that it wasn't me being a wussie about a little rash. i mean, knowing it's nerve pain and not just skin pain sure explained the shooting stabs of electricity making me jump here and then you know? or maybe you don't. hopefully you have no idea.

anyway he was sweet enough to head out for beer and bayer, which, four of each has got me feeling well enough to enjoy the vernal equinox summer solstice nicktoons special.

as good as it is to know that i wasn't just being a wimp about some welts, knowing that it's associated with severe pain freed me up to feel more of it -- then again, knowing i've had this all week and just got on with my life, means i'm not that much of a wussie afterall.

and i totally have a new bottle of aspirin. and some more beers. and nicktoons all night. i'm ok.

because i have grown sick of the sound of myself whining. suffice to say i'm not sick but i'm not well. i'm here. i'll be here and there. i'll be trying to get caught up on the things i'm supposed to have done by now and the new things i have to do. ok maybe i am venting. how the hell do you get herpes of the back is what i want to know. herpes zoster aka shingles. great. fucking great. and chris is going to say where did you get herpes and i'm going to say i don't fucking know, because i don't. apparently those cold sores i used to get as a little kid and haven't had for thirty damn years or something, just went underground in my nerves and have come out along the spinal nerves. doesn't that sound like a lame excuse? oh well. lame excuses are often true, while good excuses are often lies, ever notice that? i don't know why i'm saying this in public. i don't know why i am saying this here. it's sickening and gross, i know.

oh well.

An asteroid the size of a soccer field whizzed by Earth at a distance much nearer than the Moon, the biggest such space rock in decades to get this close, scientists said on Thursday.

we didn't even notice till three days after the closest approach.

"tell the chief robin and i have something in our pockets besides our hands"

you have to love the thinly veiled innuendo of a classic batman episode. to the batpole, robin! it's what makes it so much fun to watch with my son - the deadpan double entendres go right past his guileless five year old sensibilities, while i get a good hearty chuckle - more like a belly laugh.

and the colors. oh! the colors. the art direction is sublime. the costume design is brilliant. and the acting? scenery has never been so well masticated.

i love batman. this is one of those things from my childhood that has actually gotten better with age.

i'm not that much for tv - but this is just extrordinary.

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and for a follow up, there was a mermaid man and barnacle boy episode of spongebob. (mm & bb are batman and robin you know) -- voices by ernest borgnine and tim conway, with charles nelson reilly doing the voice of the villain 'the dirty bubble'.

just great tv.

Jessica rocks my world. go see the word pictures and the actual picture-pictures of the squirrels in heat. and then, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be totally grossed out by the tale of the exterminator and the roofrats. go there now!

literally. i am trying to adjust to this new 'improved' computer setup. i am sitting on the couch with my feet on the coffeetable, on either side of the monitor, keyboard on my knees, mouse on the couch by my side. i can almost see what i'm typing.

i miss my kitchen setup very badly. my uncomfortable 70's dinette chair sitting at that tiny round 70's dinette that is now being used for actual, you know, kitchen stuff. .argh. see that grungy spot on the wall? that's where i used to prop up my grubby feet. *sigh* i miss annoyingly propping my feet up on the wall.

sure, chris said if i really really hated it we could move it again. but i'd rather whine and complain. at least for now.

everybody's gotta have a hobby you know.

Faith made me the loveliest penguin skin! i am loving it very much.

i am not at all busy at work -- it's that feast vs. famine thing, and right now it's all about looking busy so i don't end up laid off right before the next feast. it's touchy.

so there are some things, some things that have been undone awhile. they were all patched up one way or another to work passably, while the correct solution eluded me. so on these slow days i return to these stalled issues, and find that nothing's changed and i'm really not any smarter than i was when i first couldn't figure the things out. bottom line is i've spent the last two days failing repeatedly to do any good at all.

the frustration levels are insane. the whole thing of leaving something and coming back to it usually helps, but these intractable errors refuse to budge.

i feel like my head's going to explode. and if this form doesn't start talking to that database, or those profile scripts don't start working, and soon, i think i shall have to simply go mad. it's the only way.

it's official -- skarlet and i are going to be blogathonning for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. we're doing a team blog so we can discuss the issues all night and into the next day, to raise awareness as we're raising funds.

to sponsor us, click that button in the sidebar - the big obvious red one.

why the EFF? there are so many worthy non-profit organizations out there. i've picked this one because i'm particularly alarmed by the complacency i've seen as regards the infringements on our digital privacy. and there are very powerful, very weathly interests who are very well represented in this area, and the voices of dissent are so easily silenced. and it's so much more than the fact that the digital content providers see us all as pirates waiting to pounce on their product, or the government wanting to track us through digital image recognition, national ID cards, and carte blanche in invading our online privacy.

right now there are so many other issues distracting us from what's being done to slowly take away our rights, the rights we treasure. what happens if we ignore this? years from now, when our quality of life has deteriorated, when our ability to enjoy the benefits of technology is rigidly restricted, when it's open season on our private lives, when big brother is something we shrug off and accept because it's always been that way, we will regret not standing up and fighting for our rights.

i'm supporting the EFF because it opposes the Orwellian future that the powers that be have in mind for us. they're good at convincing us it's for our own good, but rather than listen and just believe, let's examine the issues.

if you can contribute, even a little, that would be wonderful. and if not, we're looking to get into some lively debates, so you could support us by showing up and arguing with us -- helping us delve into the issues and really understand them from a variety of viewpoints. plus, it'll help keep us awake.

suddenly a half dozen urgent projects present themselves. or maybe it just seems like that many. it occurs to me call in (or, well, technically email in) sick to work, but that would be wrong. just because i'm not busy and will be there all day trying to make up stuff to do, rather than be here where i could do productive things in my jammies, is no reason to do that.

but i have the coolest new skin to install. which is going to take some fixing to the cookie script. and i have another site to put together and still another to get running. and to top that off, blogathon has launched. there's a month to get that ready, but i've been looking forward to being able to get started on this for a long time.

i'm blogathonning for the EFF, and more will be revealed -- it's going to be fun. and interesting. if i can get it all together in time.

lately i'm finding that as the afternoon wears on, that the longing to go home is more specific - specifically, i want to go hang out with my little guy, even if it's just to cheer him on as he plays crash racing team on the PSone.

now it's not that i ever didn't look forward to spending time with him, but there are some things that have changed recently, and somewhat dramatically. for one thing, since turning five he seems much calmer. much less likely to be divebombing off the furniture, scaring me and annoying the neighbors (it's loud when he does that). and the brief relapse of potty problems that we had a few months back has resolved itself, and so i'm no longer having to clean up those messes. and trust me, it's easier to treasure time spent with someone who doesn't accidentally poop his pants when he's too busy playing. and his communication skills have gotten better, either that or i've relaxed about all these other things and am more willing to discuss pok�mon and batman and things of that nature.

i think what we have here, is the end of an era -- he's a big kid now, going to school in the fall, and it's just such a relief to be past that wild child toddlerhood that permeated our lives with peril and stress for the last three or so years. i'm so ready for this.

yes, i actually went Outside. i actually spent the whole day off the computer, hanging out with this little guy. it was very relaxing and apparently i did need that.

and now back to our regularly scheduled obsessive internet usage...

i was having this dream for at least a couple hours before 6AM, when i woke up, ate a bowl of cereal, and went back to sleep, and back into the dream. just woke up. nine hours of sleep, six of it spent running from the Thing:

it started out, i was a middle daughter in a fifties kind of family - some kind of experimental thing going on, or some gate to hell, something - one day something came up the passageway, green slimy lizard dog, ravenous. we escape in a jeep, i remember fumbling with some sort of odd harness to buckle baby brother into the seat, and we were off, just us kids. my feet were cold, and somehow a pair of comfortable shoes and socks were on the porch - similarly, every time something was needed in the dream, it seemed to be there, as if i'd willed it that way.

but the lizard dog is just one manifestation of the Thing. the thing is Everywhere, and it wants us, it senses our presence on the earth if our bare feet touch anything with direct connectivity to the ground, and dipatches evil minions post haste. we seem to have a lot of money at first, and we always find shelter, then we'll be showering or something and realize we're standing on tile barefoot. ahh, here they come again. they're creepy things, but they're stupid creepy things, and we fool them and get away. slowly we make our way up the coast, and i mean slowly - years. we grow up, we shop for a lot of shoes, but we always find one of us has forgotten to wear them, and here they come again. always in a different form, usually many, many of them, sometimes with a leader-creature, but never very bright; we are much more clever (except we can't seem to remember to always wear shoes) and off we go again, gathering our things in a hurry and getting into the vehicle of the moment.

towards the end i have so many shoes, many quite similar, and i often end up fleeing in mismatched pairs. there are always shoes, lots of shoes. this might sound like a nighmare, but it wasn't - it was an adventure, and there was more annoyance than actual fear. and even though it was repetitive, it was consistently interesing.

in the dream i was thinking when i posted this i would title it '...and then they came upon the Thing', but that didn't make sense - that happens to be a song, maybe even the title, i heard a few times a few years back and have no idea who did it. but it was a cool song. if i could remember more of it than that, it might have been the dream's theme song.

i'm in a bit of a whimsical mood today.

why? why the hell not?

i mean, really. the backdoor is open and the sun is streaming in, i've been productive and the dryer is going, and the ocean breeze bringing the fresh downy enhancer smell into the house. the beer is cold and the internet is fascinating.

and apparently, so is the PSone, my son is having such the good time winning the hell out of crash team racing. he's *really* good. he plays at intermediate to advanced levels, and he goes fast. he understands the fine points and wins trophies right and left. and when he needs a break from playstation, he has great videos - he's getting into the scooby-do stuff now. and this is all electronic and aren't we supposed to be 'outside' doing, well, outside things?

sure, sure. outside. we like our electronics in this house. our technology is quite entertaining. we're geeks. we're pale. we're having a great saturday afternoon.

raise your right hand and repeat after me:

when it gets to the point where the simple act of removing my foot from the brakes causes the car to begin rolling forward too fast for me to handle it, i will give up driving.

when i begin driving in the parking lane (then having to swerve around the parked cars) because it feels safer than being out in the big scary street, i will give up driving.

when i have shrunk so much that i all that other drivers can see is a tuft of blue hair and my knuckles on the steering wheel, i will give up driving.

when i have to turn my hearing aid down so i won't be annoyed by all the screaming and hornhonking, i will give up driving.

when half the speed limit feels terrifyingly fast to me, causing me to apply the brakes at random intervals for no reason whatsoever, i will give up driving.

ok, i realize it's the last vestige of independence for many seniors. but it's really not fair to the rest of us drivers, to hang onto your license well past the point you can handle keeping up with ordinary traffic.

and i'd like to dedicate this to the extremely elderly gentleman that was driving down my street this morning, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, because there was a garbage truck in the driveway of where he wanted to turn. i waited for him because it was hard to tell what he was thinking as he crept down the street, until he came to a stop -- right in front of my driveway, yet still a good hundred feet from the driveway he wanted to turn into. totally oblivious to having me blocked in. when i could get out, i had to follow him through the parking lot. he got up the driveway ok but when presented with a number of parking spaces straight ahead, he panicked and hit the brakes, then crept oh, so, slowly, into one of them.

he had no business being behind the wheel of a large automobile. none at all.

i have a new inhaler. i love the weight of it in my hand, the security of enough albuterol to keep me sucking wind for a couple weeks.

the old one ran out quite suddnely circa 7PM this evening. i decided to get a generic primatene to tide me over and save that last script refill for ... when i really needed it. nevermind the doctors say primatene is bad. it works right?

didn't have the generic i'm used to, so bought the primatene without the mouthpiece - it was all they had. got it home, washed out an old mouthpiece. anticipating wheeziness, i took a puff. and i got worse. i tried. i deep-breathed. i visualized.

i got worse. 8:40 PM i call the pharmacy to see if they are open, can i get a refill. they say ok. i leave the house, get there, realize new insurance cards are home and i'll fail to save some six whole bucks if i don't go back and get them. i go back. i get them. it occurs to me that i have a brand new (almost) primatene i cannot ever use. i put it back in the box and get the receipt.

i get to the drugstore. i ask can i return this, i (lie and) say i thought it had the mouth thingy, and it didn't and i thought i couldn't get a refill in time and ... (the lady remembers me as the person that had to write three different checks because i was not breathing the best and kept writing the wrong thing in the wrong line) ... they give me a refund. brief guilt knowing i did take a puff. (flamers, flame away, yes i did lie. i confess.) (probably my asthma is karma, right?)

weirdness: up till this point i'm basically gasping for breath. i actually *see* the inhaler in the little tray. it goes back as they reprocess my insurance, but relief begins. the psychological aspect of having no inhaler is by far my biggest asthma trigger. pollen? cats? smog? no. i'm fine till i realize i have no inhaler. at that point, the panic tightens in my chest and it sounds like a herd of kittens is living in my bronchial tubes.

one time a guy i knew told me asthma is all in the mind. he told me he had a nephew that had asthma, and he told the nephew that he'd sold the asthma to a medical research firm back east, for fifty bucks. handed the kid a fifty. kid was cured.

how far is that from true? how much of this is what i think it might be, and not what it is?

poor, poor kitty. it was so time for an anti-flea shampoo. it would seem that the relief from itching would make the bath at least a tolerable experience.

but no. no, it wasn't any fun at all (if you look close, you can actually see the fleas on his face there) - we got them off to the best of our ability, we emptied that icky water out of the tub (yeeeech!) and gave him a good rinsing.

i know he must have felt better afterward, but where's the gratitude? where is the love, man?

had a hell of a time getting up this morning - lots of sleep, but i was in the middle of one of those really interesting dreams. i wish i remembered more of it, but the part that stands out is, ok, i was riding in a car with a blogger who shall remain nameless, and there was a dog on the freeway. a golden retriever, and it was trying to do a headstand on an oversized reflector thingy between lanes. so the unnamed blogger pulls over and barks at me, 'get me the rope i have in my backseat' and i did, and then he said, 'i have an expensive computer tied to the roof'.

it's hard to give up such an entertaining dream in favor of waking up and going to work.

i was going to blog more of this dream and should have done so while i still remembered it. in other news, i suppose the dreamlog has finally died away. been over a month, and things were sparse before that too.

while it lasted, it was really very good. i'm not taking the site down, i still harbor faint hope that one day i'll put that mailing list back together and send out a rallying cry to the troops or something, and it will live again.

my favorite dream ever posted was this one, called 'puppy love', by suey. go read that, it'll make you happy.

it's becoming a morning routine: i start getting the clothes ready, the child starts whining angrily, 'i don't WANNA go to margie's'. he yells. he wails. what's the problem here?

stupid rules. he has to follow the stupid rules.

now, this is nothing really new - the first mention of this came late last year when he informed me that he wanted to go on slime time live (a nickelodeon game show) to win the jimmy neutron ultra-orb toy he wanted so badly. when i mentioned santa might bring it he got angry and said, he didn't want anything from santa. why? stupid rules.

it gets better when he's full awake, but my little night owl child fights the 'bedtime rule' with more energy than i have to enforce it, and is consequently not ready to wake up at 7:45. and i know just how he feels, i wake up whiny too. it's pretty pathetic, one non-morning person trying to get another non-morning person ready to go, when both of them have no desire to get out of bed.

and i've not yet discovered how to engage my son in the sort of philosophical discussion that would lead him gently to the conclusion that we really do need rules in the world. we have a few too many for my taste, and too many rules makes me fussy too, but i do concede the need for structure. just, not exactly the structure we have, but some structure.

oh, it's all about the grey areas here. and all this confuses me so, when i'm trying to wrestle clothes onto a child that keeps burrowning under the covers and curling up in a little ball of anarchy.

remember the the thing at the mall? the one i said was ugly? i was wrong. i was so wrong. jilly was right about being enthusiastic about it -- because it just rocks.

today on the way home we passed the mall, as always (it's across the street, we kinda can't help it). thrillingly, all the fences were gone that had been keeping me from getting up close to the thing (along with my being too shy to say, 'umm, excuse me, can i come in and take pictures of your thing there', to a bunch of construction workers), and there was a party goin' on, fancy balloons and all. free food and everything, but i was too entranced by the thing. and a marvelous, marvelous thing it is. some of you asked, is it interactive? can you climb on it? in a word, yes. it is big and sturdy, and kids were scrambling happily up inside it. it is also a shelter from the elements, and you know, the colors do match the buses. the whole area is lovely, and there is a great matching round building which houses bathrooms and such.

i found my enthusiasm for this art piece, in the sheer functionality of the thing. i'm going to get some more pics, soon, to show the angles i just couldn't get with the sun where it was. in fact, i'll take kurtwood down there and let him have a bit of climbing fun. might even climb on it a bit myself. it's very climbable, and sheltering, and comfy, some truly brilliant design.

the thing at the mall makes me happy.

song always gets to me, and i never even lived it like this. i hear the child-voice, captured clearly and eloquently in these words. and i get a little misty whenever art alexakis sings everything will be wonderful.

so i have this new email client, the netscape seven preview release, and i notice it takes regular smilies and makes them into images. and then, i get things like these:

is this netscape's whimsical interpretation of certain, strange combinations of exclamatory punctuation? or are people putting these in emails?

either way, i find this rather fun. i'm thinking of putting in an 'insert smilie' script in my comments. would that be fun, or just weird and annoying?

one more question: a number of people are having trouble with my site skins sticking. if you're having problems, could you tell me (a) that you are having them and (b) if you have them on other skinnable sites, or just mine? thanks.

i couldn't do it. but i tried.

i hate to waste food. so when my son didn't eat his banana this morning, and chris brought it to me at the computer and set it down beside my mousepad, well, i figured, i'd eat the banana. i'm not much of a first thing in the morning eater - usually don't feel a bit hungry till i actually leave the house, or noon, whichever comes first.

but the banana was already half unpeeled. it would go to waste, if i didn't eat it. i didn't eat it right away, i was having coffee, doing this and that, wandering around, and i look over and -- the cat is sitting on the banana. well, not on it, but his butt fur is definitely touching the peel. closer inspection reveals no actual cat butt is touching the edible surfaces of the banana, but the proximity is there. the proximity cannot be denied.

i pick up the banana. i inspect it carefully for cat debris. i sniff it. the banana is perfectly good. i sit down on the couch, and take a bite of the banana. and i gag, no, more like retch, and have to spit the piece of banana into a nearby coffee cup.

there was nothing really wrong with the banana. it tasted just like a banana, nothing nasty about it. but i couldn't do it. this makes no sense, since i've been known to eat food i've dropped, been doing it all my life, forty-one now and still alive and kicking, nothing wrong with a little floor-food, as long as it's not hairy or anything. and certainly the cat's butt makes frequent contact with the floor.

i don't understand why i couldn't eat the banana. i comforted myself with the fact that it wasn't that wasteful not to eat the banana. but i am totally mystified by the triggering of the gag reflex in this circumstance.

officer: do you know why i pulled you over?
me: (all perky, 'cause i know the answer to this one, and i know it's not that bad) because my registration's expired!
officer: well, is it registered, you just haven't put the stickers on?
me: no, it isn't registered, but, i am licensed and insured!
officer: well show me what paperwork you have. why isn't it registered?
me: umm, because things have been really tough, and, babble babble etc and so forth
officer: are you on probation or parole?
me: (perky, i know the answer to this one too) no!

*sigh* i didn't tell him it's because i'm a flake with weird-ass priorities. i didn't mention that if i'd quit smoking when i said i was gonna, i'd have so much money right now. i didn't mention i consider DSL a utility just like electricity or gas. i didn't tell him about the bodies in the trunk or the .... wait, where was i? nevermind.

so, i have a month to deal with it and a handy fix-it ticket in my glove box that will keep me from getting any other fix it-tickets.

hey, i was gonna get around to it, ok? really. the ticket will just help me focus my priorities.

and i love my new spongebob skin more than sleep itself.

as for the skin sticking, all i can say is, give it a couple tries. hasn't stuck yet on IE but did right away on NS7. huh. eventually, they do seem to stick for me -- on all browsers.

thank you thank you thank you brandy!

yesterday started out well enough. felt good; the vibes, they were not bad.

loss of focus was duly noted, and gotten beyond. things were accomplished, and they were good things. much zimness.

and then there was the nap. i slept hard on the couch for a good two hours, then another half hour half-wakeful, losing the dreams. which is not a bad thing. flailing toward consciousness, i lost the awfulness.

they were not good dreams. they left a bitter aftertaste, which spoke of some of the feelings those dreams examined. i drove downtown for the usual cigarettes, all the while feeling the feelings expressed in my unconscious, scratching the sudden itchy rash on my right hand. and the more i scratched it, the worse it got (of course). angry, swollen rash.

came home, did some venting, lots of it. had a beer, had another. edited the venting. and it came to pass, the rash was gone. unbumpy, not red, just a little residual swelling.

'twas stress brought the rash, and venting brought its ending. whatever. on to the zimskin:

i am considering making the 'kd blogs zim' the default, since enough people can only use the one default. damn browsers. but do i want to identify to new readers, as a zimfiend? maybe i do.

and one more thing: where the hell is Jon Sullivan? i'd make that a link, but it wouldn't work, hasn't worked all weekend.

note: this is not for the squeamish or faint of stomach.

ok, so you know, you hit that afternoon lull, you settle into that trough, that rut, around 3 or so, earlier if lunch was big. and your thoughts are sluggish and fuzzy, and you have to snap out of it. here's what you do:

take a can of that aerosol 'cheese' (i told you this is not for the squeamish). must be a new can, preferably that has been sitting in your boss's snack drawer for a matter of weeks, long enough for the contents to settle. with me so far? ok, turn the can over and squeeze some cheese out on your finger (crackers? what are you, a big wussie?). and... POP! air pocket, loud like a bullet. wakes you right up. whoo-hoo! if you have a well-settled can, there should be lots of nice air bubbles, at random intervals. so the audible cheeze-pops wake you up, and the fear of the cheese keeps you alert. what is in this stuff? it's not cheese. nothing is that color.

this is what i call, livin' on the edge.

oh, don't worry i'm not on a housecleaning mission. i've only just moved the freerange list over to these servers and now i'm going to clear out the duplicates (even though, yes, in the pre-link database days i did tell you to add yourselves even if it was a duplicate - it was an idea i was considering, letting all links be freerange...)

anyway. point is all the links are now in one page. hundreds. and hundreds.

if you ever get bored, come here and surf my linklist. it rocks.

started out with a sense of purpose. just one more site skin, and integrating the freerange links into the main link page. (yes, these were my plans for a sunny sunday afternoonon. happy plans.)

sparing you the technical crap i was facing, i'll just say the task was pleasantly complex without being overly so. and it was such a rare state of mind for me, mid-day, wide awake, not late at night with a can of foster's focus medicine™, which comes with its own set of challenges as the night wears on but i'm digressing.

the child is, for all intents and purposes, an only child. and he ... how shall i put this delicately? he doesn't have to have someone to talk to, to never shut up. and this is not conversation. it's playing, it's ...

it's like loud bouncing and fierce imaginary spiderman play, involving several happy meal toys, folllowed by a britney spears/ac-dc medley, that went a little like this:

(sings) oops i did it again
(mutters) so annoying
(sings) oops i did it again
(mutters) so annoying
(repeat a few more times, then)
(sings) duhty deets duh duh duh dun dir che - ooh!
(sings) duhty deets duh duh duh dun dir che - ooh!
(repeat)

and i felt all my focus and purpose draining and fading away, and suddenly everything on the screen before me seemed beyond me. first i... no, before that, no, wait, i have to ...

never mind. ok, and i can hear at least a couple of you thinking 'pay more attention to the child'. trust me, he gets lots. we spend oodles and oodles of time together, communicating and sharing things. but there are no neighborhood kids around here, no school friends yet to make play dates with, and mommies just aren't that interesting after awhile, and so he amuses himself. and part of the amusement is annoying the mommy.

and now that i've lost focus and gotten off his computer (the old ftp client and code editor is still so much easier, and i was all about the efficiency today), and he's gone happily back to his playstation learning game, well, i feel a bit adrift. i will spend some quality time with two newspapers and a couch, and see if the focus comes back somehow. and somehow, i doubt it will.

she's brand new to dot net, one of these days. go say hi! she has a link today that nearly caused me to injure myself laughing.

and she writes with a lovely accent.

memories, from different perspectives:

a few days ago, miss b wrote of her memories of nine-eleven in new york. a stunning post from up close and personal.

and today i found this, on one of VASpider's exceptional web of new blogs over on dot net. the blog's called 'fox' and titled 'a wolf that sends flowers'. and there i found a whole different perspective:

" I will tell you what it was like to be someone seriously contemplating Islam as a faith and employed by the government on that particular day."

go ahead, try it out!

and, of course, let me know what you think... i need to try and find a zim font, but for now, this is what i could manage.

i've had any number of spongebob font search requests, and apparently, (this is how i figure it anyway) someone made the font then went googling for mentions of such a thing, and found where i said i would love to find it myself.

so the font found me. i love it when that happens.

the maker of this font, Aaron Doyle, has a geocities site, here, but i've uploaded the font file to these servers to save him the bandwidth. so here it is: spongefont squaretype (right click and save, it's the actual .ttf file)

added note: Aaron tells me this is his first font, and anyone who likes tweaking with these things is encouraged to do so.

me, i'm entertaining thoughts of a spongebob skin for this site. and an invader zim skin.

... just not for any particular reason. i just noticed it's been a good week since i've done anything but the news and weather -- link here, link there, bit of linux hooha sprinkled in, and otherwise almost content-free. i miss having things to say.

i expect things to improve in general, and quite soon. it might help if i could get over the feeling of having this unwritten yet overwhelming to-do list always hovering somewhere in my mind.

first on that list: a nap.

* * * * *
and yay, krix posted to poemgen, as did pete -- good ones.

poemgen doth rock.

speaking of dee dee ramone. i have a little piece of history. this article came out today, and has already been pulled from online, but i've scanned it: dee dee ramone was going to be playing the ventura theatre this friday. damn.

from rob brezsny's free will astrology (this time, via krix):

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22-Dec 21)

Week of June 6, 2002

It's time for your unbirthday, Sagittarius, that nervous holiday halfway between your birthdays when you suddenly acquire the supernatural power to read your own mind. To celebrate, I suggest three actions: Try to see the world through the eyes of people who are most unlike you; aggressively mess with mysteries that have always threatened to make you feel like a failure; and pull off a ballsy new rebellion against yourself every day. During your unbirthday season, you should ask millions of questions, especially this one: How can you know what you are unless you experiment with being what you're not?
* * * * *
now, i love these things, each and every time i read them, not because there's some correlation between being born when i was, and being who i am, but for the awesome philosophy that goes into each entry. the art of astrology is to write something that fits very diverse personalities, without making it too generic. this guy, is an artist.

just some pictures i took of my car this morning -- the hood of my car (see how the ashes gathered in the crease?) and the roof of my car. the ash pieces are getting bigger and more varied, yet the fire is actually heading away from us (though getting much bigger).

fortunately no scuba divers were hamed in the fighting of this fire.

* * * * *
r.i.p., dee dee ramone. not to sound cynical or anything, but initial reports indicate that he got good and ... well, you know, sedated. *sigh*

don't you love it when random strangers who don't know you from adam find your weblog and pop in to spew and pontificate in highly judgemental and uninformed ways? what, do they go surfing around the internet looking for stuff to condemn?

dreaming: there were kittens by the freeway offramp! i pulled over and rescued two of them, then there was a whole pile of more cats but they looked dead, but were just asleep. they ran away fast and i lost the other two kittens chasing them. they went into a lawyers office and disappeared. that's where i met rebecca blood and she wanted me to buy her book, and i said no, i already know how to blog, and she didn't even ask me for my URL! we were downtown, going to this new restaurant, and in the process we found a map of which restaurants give free food and special parking spaces to local politicians. and of course, my legs were hairy. i had some white tights that i kept taking off because they didn't go with my outfit, then i'd realize why i had them on in the first place.