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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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| For those of you who live in more temperate zones, you may not know that the key to making it in the frigid temps of places like Montana is dressing in layers. You wear long-johns (or thermal underwear for those who don't know what long-johns are) and then layer jeans or heavier pants over them on the bottom and then on the top, you layer short sleeve, long-sleeve, jacket, heavy coat, etc. On top of all that, you add a scarf, gloves or mittens, and some type of head wear. For feet, most go with some kind of boot: hiking, snow, Ugg...you name it. Boots are the thing. The thing is, college students don't have the kind of money necessary to outfit themselves in any kind of fashionable way. They mostly shoot for warm when the temps are in the single digits. The end result of this is classmates who wind up wearing whatever bits and pieces of Salvation Army, Thrift Store, hand-me-downs they can find. For the most part, they like like homeless people.  Mismatched 1970s sweaters over 1990's workout lycra pants with Uncle Fred's old broken down Sorel snowboots. It's not pretty. The girls who make some attempt at fashion are the funniest. They wear tights and skirts layered with long socks and snowboots. Seriously? This is the awesome fashion look you were going for? They look like bag ladies.~~~~~ In other news, Monilad has formed a rock band.  Yeah. Happily, rehersals for this rock band are NOT at our house. Although, Hubby generously cleaned out the garage and offered it for practice sessions. He even arranged for it to be heated.  (Did I mention the single digit temps we've been having?)Monilad is providing vocals, lyrics and writing the music for the band. She also has a solid drummer and lead guitar player. They have had 3 bass players in 3 months. I guess bass players are flaky. She can't write music fast enough, so they are also gonna play cover music as well.I love my child. I do. But I suspect that this band sounds like a stepped on cat when they are in full swing. I'm super glad I don't have to listen to it. Whatever. We'll support it as long as she keeps her grades up. |
So Friday I performed a Newtonian experiment in one of the parking lots at school.  I slipped on the ice and smacked the back of my head on my bumper. Catalog of injuries? Concussion. Whiplash. Severely bruised left hip. Bruised left elbow. Jammed left shoulder. Comedic value in the windmilling arms and legs on the way down? Priceless. The good news? I'm here to testify that we must be paying our bills, because the gravity still works in Bozeman.  I wandered into Calculus looking dazed (apparently) because a classmate sent me immediately to Student Health Services. (A little walk in health clinic on campus.) It is one building over from the Calculus building but I was so addled I got lost on the way. I had to ask someone to point me in the right direction. By the time I got there I was very queasy.  Those of you who have had concussions know what I mean.When I got there they told me that the wait would be an hour and a half, but when I told them why I was there, they gave me the bum rush into a room past about eight people in the waiting room. (I think they were afraid I might sue the school.) They shined little lights in my eyes and what not and then were going to send me to the hospital in an ambulance for a CT scan. I declined. Ambulance rides are expensive. Hubby was on his way, and I let him assess me. We wound up going to the ER for the scan, and I got to wear a pimp neck brace for the trip there. (It was hot and I know you are jealous.) Apparently since the Natasha Richardson thing (google it if you don't know who that is), they get freaky about even small head injuries. The good news was the scans showed I'd done my little pea brain no permanent injury. Plenty of room for it to rattle around up there cushioned in all that fluff and wool, I guess. The bad news is my left hip and neck are KILLING me. My left hip aches like a bad tooth. It throbs from too much walking (which I do on campus) and then it stiffens up from the hour plus I have to sit still in class. And then when I get up to move, it's back to the throbbing. I think a long soak in the bath is in order tonight.In the meantime....it has snowed more and is icy and crappy. Can't wait to rush right out onto the ice with my gimpy leg tomorrow.  It's a slip and trip waiting to happen! Steel bumper here I come! |
Meeting Kåre Enga in Udon Thani  was excellent!!He's even more witty and fabulous in person. And, I know you will all be jealous, he gifted me with some of his tiny poetry books and read a couple aloud for me. One is one of my favorite poems of his, "Speak soft my name."Kare, you will laugh to know that upon seeing the little folded books, Monilad deconstructed one and said, "These things are epic! I'm totally making one!!" (They are very clever, I wish you all could see them.)We had a very enjoyable visit at the library and then the Food Co-op where Kare got to meet the famous Hubby. (Kare, Hubby was actually VERY chatty with you...he's normally a super quiet guy. He liked you.)Somehow after meeting Kare, I'm more inspired to write. I can carry a notebook and jot little musings down during the day. I know that I'm busy, but writing is important to me, too. I need to make time for it. And I agree with Kare, we need to do some sort of Blogville Bloggers Retreat. Meeting Kare in person was like seeing an old friend, not like meeting a new person. I already knew him in a way. Meeting him in person just added another dimension, a layer, to the man I've known for several years. It gave him a face and a voice, but the words were the same, the soul was the same. Now I want to meet you all. Even you Party, even though you are really a baggy kneed old lady. |
| Thought I'd drop a line and let you know I'm back in the swing of things. I'm hopping this semester and my classes are all challenging this semester. No nice slacker classes. Calculus is going to eat my lunch. Mineralogy will be heavy on memorization. GIS (computer mapping, basically) will be an exercise in my lack of computer skills each week. And Historical Geography is going to be interesting to say the least. The prof is a RABID atheist and isn't shy about preaching (pun intended) why creationism ISN'T science. Great, grand, wonderful....get on with teaching me the science, then buddy...stop telling me why everyone else is wrong and get on with telling me why you are right. Whatever. I guess I just don't have the patience for intentionally contentious people anymore. Work is getting in the way more and more. I just don't have time to study like I need to. I need to find a different way to make extra money in less time. I've considered prostitution, but I think I'm past my prime on that. Same for exotic dancing. But, I gotta come up with something. Something I can set my own hours for. Maybe I can sell Tupperware. (Do people even do that anymore? )I'm looking forward to a quick visit with Kåre Enga in Udon Thani tomorrow afternoon. He will be passing through to points east. There is a stop in Bozeman, so he and I will get to meet for coffee, etc. Kare' will be the first WdC'er I've met in real life, so I'm pretty excited. I'll blog about it tomorrow night time permitting. |
When I was a kid, I remember when we got our first VCR. I was in the fifth grade and it was an electronic marvel. They had been out a few years and we weren't the first family on the block to have one or anything, but it was still pretty cool. Sort of one of those milestone childhood moments. (The younger set needs to quit snickering now.  )We kids weren't really allowed to operate such an expensive piece of equipment alone (times were different then) but neither parent was really technologically equipped to run the damn thing either. Playing a video tape sometimes took ten or fifteen minutes if Daddy was in charge. Mother would hand the remote over to one of my brothers and say, "Make it work." One thing no one could work was the clock on the stupid thing. It was forever blinking 12:00. ~blink, blink, blink~ in LED red that lit up the living room and flashed in your eyes while you were trying to watch TV. ~blink, blink, blink~ So, one day Daddy "fixed" the clock on the VCR. How? He rummaged around in the junk drawer found a roll of black electrician's tape and affixed a strip across the blinking numbers. Problem solved. I inherited my parent's skill set (or lack thereof) with electronics. (You should see my mother on a computer. )Everytime I want to play the Playstation, I have to call my daughter in to change the TV over to the right channel, change the stereo tuner to the right station, and then flip some other switch over so I can play. (It's an involved process.) I also need help to play a DVD. Hubby and Monilad have tried explaining it to me several times, stressing the simplicity of the setup each time. They always lose me at about step 5 or 6, though. Yesterday I went and bought my books for classes this semester. One of my options was a hardback book for calculus for $150 or the downloadable ebook version for $86. Foolishly, I chose the ebook version. I thought, "Yea, I'll save money and save paper for a book that doesn't need to be printed for me." Silly, silly me. I spent 30 minutes on the phone this morning with customer service trying to figure out what I'd done wrong in downloading the stupid thing. The guy I was on the phone with was very nice and I told him I was quite sure the problem was user error and I might be dumb, but at least I was pleasant. He laughed. By the end of the thirty minute phone call, his laughter sounded kinda forced. Hey...I TOLD him it was me. He finally figured out what I'd done wrong and sorted me out. So now I get to work calculus off a computer screen. My other books are so heavy I almost wish I could have gotten ebook versions of them as well. Although, the rest of my classes are in my field, so I'll want to keep the books. (The calculus book disappears in 6 months. So I guess I'm just renting it for the semester.) I suppose if my calculus book goes wiggy I can hunt around in my junk drawer and put electrician's tape on my screen. That'll fix it. |
| Oh, glorious shopping! What a fabulous day. Everything was wonderful. My girlfriend is a new friend (I've only known her since September.) and we haven't ever spent a whole day together. Even though I like her, I wasn't sure what kind of shopper she was. (Those men in the crowd may not understand that statement...I think the women will.) People shop differently. It's important to find a....hmmm....compatible shopping partner. What makes someone compatible? Well for me some can be downright disastrous. I have one girlfriend I'm banned from shopping with. Hubby won't even let me go to the movies with her. (No, my husband doesn't control me, we just decided it was for the best.) The reason? When I'm with her ALL my bad bipolar spending instincts are triggered. When shopping with her, I have nearly bankrupted us before. It's all nuance. We go to all the most expensive places, We look at all the wrong things. I just find myself making BAD decisions when I'm with her. I don't blame her. It's my fault. But when I'm with her...common sense just flies out the window. I know some of you know what I'm talking about. You all have that friend you do all the stupid things with. Things you wouldn't normally do unless you are with this certain person. I have another friend I won't shop with because she spends the whole time complaining. Nothing is right. Ever. The clothes won't fit. The colors are wrong. They don't have her size. When we eat lunch, the food isn't good. It's maddening. I come home from spending the day with her feeling depressed and negative. I like shopping with Monilad if she's in a good mood, but if she's in a bad mood, Katie bar the door. I wind up exasperated and exhausted just dealing with her moods. Her moods put me in a mood and then it's like a wagon rolling downhill from there. My mood feeds her mood, til by the time we get home we are all but shouting at one another and there goes our nice day out. But with R, I had an EXCELLENT day! She is a bargain hunter deluxe. She knows all the extremely cheap places to shop. She doesn't mind going where I need to go. I didn't mind going where she needed to go. Lunch was a cheap but enjoyable affair. We looked at fabrics together at JoAnne's in the mall and had fun and laughed alot. I got everything on my list of things I was looking for. AND we went to the movies and saw Sherlock Holmes. We laughed through the whole movie. It was really good. I thought it had a better story line than Avatar. It also had better, wittier dialogue. Sure the cinematography couldn't touch Avatar, but I'm sure they didn't have Cameron's budget. It was just a well made film, IMHO. I loved the interaction between Holmes and Watson. It was just so well done. And they left it open for a sequel. I love it when they do that. My friend and I have already made a tentative date to spend shopping at the Salvation Army and the thrift stores in town, too. She has some fabulous clothes and things in her home she has found at the thrift stores. I'm super excited. I love a bargain. |
| My bosses are off to a trade show for the rest of the week so I'm taking tomorrow off to play with a friend. There's nothing for me to do at work with them gone and last Friday the boss man asked me to scale back my hours to my school hours (2-3 hours a day instead of 5 or 6). It seems $$ is tight as we head into the New Year. I had been hoping to make a few bucks while I was off school, but not to be. Oh, well, it's only for a week and a half more and then I'm back on school hours anyway. But tomorrow, I'm having a FUN day! My girlfriend and I have already decided to eat Chinese food at the mall. Possibly have Starbucks at the B & N there later in the afternoon. We even discussed taking in a movie. I'm thinking Sherlock Holmes. I've heard good things about it. I have a gift certificate for JC Penney's from my MIL so I am going to spend that. (I even have a list of things to look for! Usually I just go in blind and hope for the best. ) And my friend wants to go to JoAnne's to pick up some fabric. Ah....a whole day to play and spend money on myself with good company! I love winter vacation. |
School starts on the 13th. Which is a Wednesday.  Why do institutes of learning not like to start semesters on Mondays? Public schools inevitibly start midweek. And now college starts midweek each semester. What, I ask, is wrong with Mondays?I'm just saying..... ~~~ My house is clean and aside from the naked tree, all the holiday stuff is down, packed and put away. Yea! I didn't have to do any of it either. This was the least labor intensive holiday I've ever had vis-a-vis decorating. My child took care of it all. Since she doesn't have a job, she and I have come to an arrangement wherin she can "work" for me and earn gas money for her car. ~~~ Speaking of which... A couple of weeks ago, she smucked a deer on the way home. She'd had her license about three weeks and WHAMO! Right at dusk about two miles from our house. I got an incoherent, sobbing phone call from her. "Momma, ~choked sobs and mumbling~" "What happened, baby? Are you ok? Did you have a wreck?" "~sobbing~ Um, yeah...I hit a deer." "Well are you ok?" "~pause~ Yeah." "Is the car ok to drive?" "Hang on. There's a guy coming to help me." After much back and forth between her and the Good Samaritan who lives in the house right by where she hit the deer. (He was outside and saw her hit it.), he assured her she'd done the right thing hitting it because her only other options were the ten foot, very steep, ditch on her right, or a head on collision in the other lane (it's a narrow two lane road). He certified the vehicle safe to operate (like she didn't puncture the radiator or anything). So he told her to pull up in his driveway out of the road and wait til she calmed down and then head on her way. The whole time, Hubby is arm waving in the background and demanding does she need us to come get her. I said no. I told him if we did, she might be afraid to drive again. She needed to work her own way out of it. She was only 2 miles from home, once she calmed down, she was fine to drive the rest of the way. The little blazer she drives is fine except for an extremely dented front bumper. She tagged the deer right at the front license plate. Killed it immediately. I asked her later was she so upset because she'd hit a DEER? Or was she upset she'd HIT a deer? She said she didn't care about the deer and that the stupid thing shouldn't have been in the road. Pretty much, she wasn't worried she'd smucked Bambi. She was worried that killing Bambi had put her car out of commission. Ah....that's my little pro-hunting NRA member! ~~~ Hubby has been feeling ill lately. His neck and back are bothering him. I keep telling him to go to my massage therapist, but he pooh-pooh's me and tells me he's fine. He hasn't had a good night's sleep in several weeks. Frankly he's driving me nuts. ~~~ Back in November, I bought the new book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The one written by Brandon Sanderson. I still haven't read it. I kinda feel like I'm procrastinating reading it. Normally when I get a new fiction book, I tear through it like grease through a goose, but I told myself that I should wait and re-read the whole series fresh and then come at it with the weight of the rest of the books behind it. (For anyone not familiar with the series, there are 11 other books-LARGE books-in this series.) I think, though that part of me doesn't want to read it if Sanderson can't fully capture Jordan's writing style. I think it will piss me off. I need to know the end of the story though. I know that Sanderson is writing off of Jordan's notes, but I need it to be as good as the rest of the books. Also, as much as I want to know the end of the story, I don't want the series to end. Reading this book will be the begining of the end (The last book was too big-they made it into three books--three LARGE books.). I'm afraid they are going to go and kill characters I care about. It'll be Gus in Lonesome Dove all over. I just can't go there again.  I think I've never forgiven Larry for killing Gus. If Jordan kills off Mat or Perrin I'll be super-pissed. I suppose he has to kill off Rand to make the series work, though. They've been foreshadowing killing Rand off since the first book. Perhaps he won't. We'll see. I'm up to book 7 in re-reading the series. Book seven is always where I get bogged down when I re-read this series. It's always an uphill battle through the rest of them from here on. At 300-400 pages per book, it's alot to bog down in! Except book 11. It goes fairly fast. I suppose I'd better get cracking if I'm going to get through them before school starts. |
| Hope everyone had a nice holiday. My in-laws have been here since Wednesday and we have been doing stuff with them all week. We had a lovely Christmas. Santa brought us all Snuggies. (I thought of you Special Kay  when Santa picked them out.  ) They are warm and cozy and I wonder why we didn't own them before.Monilad got software for writing music. And a MIDI keyboard for writing it. She also got the cutest little amp and microphone. It's 6" by 4" by 2". And it really amplifies sound! It sounds like a much larger one. The in-laws got us lots of gift cards. Always the right size and color. Hubby, bless him, got me a nook!!! I'm super excited. I won't get it until Feb. 1st., but I'm still excited. He also got me a gift card from B&N so that I can start loading it.For those of you who don't know what a nook is: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp It can hold 17,500 books in it. That's a whole LIBRARY! In something the size and weight of a paperback book!! eBooks are fairly cheap as well. A new book that is still in hardback can be as little as $9.99. Something that's gone to paperback can be as little as $1.99! Many of the classics are out there in the cyberworld FREE! Yup...FREE! ~sigh~ I'm so content. Is there anything as exciting as the prospect of portable and easily accessible books? On our vacation to Vegas this past year, I actually brought along a second suitcase full of nothing but books. We actually had to PAY for my books to make the trip to Vegas.  Hubby was pretty pissy about the whole thing. Now, I can just pop my nook into my purse and Voila! A whole library of books at my fingertips. No extra baggage fees. I love technology.  |
| Since the semester is over, I've been trying to dredge up some sort of Holiday cheer. Without much luck. I haven't baked any cookies or wrapped a single gift. I DO have them all bought. I am one of those who tries to buy throughout the year having figured out long ago that if you spread the holiday spending out over the year then it doesn't hit you with bills come January. We did pick up a couple of last minute things for Monilad last week that arrived today, but they are safely ensconsed with all of the other gifts (even the ones for my in-laws who arrive tomorrow afternoon), unwrapped and jammed in the closet of my sewing room. We don't even have a tree yet. Hubby and Monilad are going out to get us one tomorrow at some point, they say. I'm well out of it. Hubby says we will wait for his parents and then decorate it tomorrow night. ~shrug~ Whatever. I'm finding it hard to care. I did do the grocery shopping for Christmas dinner. Which, I might add, will be very low key. We are having ham in the crockpot. (It's a spiral cut ham and I put it in with a jar of applesauce, cooked all day it's yummy!) Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. And we aren't doing 25 side dishes either. I'm taking a page from my Thanksgiving this year. Simple, simple, simple. One starch (a potato dish), one vegetable (green bean casserole) and that's it. No need to make a bunch of food it would take Sherman's Army to eat. There are only 5 of us. I am going to make breakfast for us two days and then simple lunches, so that should be plenty of cooking. I might do pistachio salad along with my bread pudding dessert. Monilad, my MIL and Hubby all love pistachio salad. (Even if FIL and I hate it. )So, even though I'm technically prepared for the Holidays, I'm just not in the mood for them. At work, the three people I work with and rely on the most are all three going on vacation this week and next week. They are on a rotating schedule of being gone so that two of us are there at all times, but it's a little stressful to wear three different hats besides my own. Two of them are intregal to our fledgling internet business, so part of next week another woman and I have to handle the internet alone (the other two normally handle it). We have to do the whole operation from reciept of order, to pulling the order off the floor, to packaging it, to shipping it, to notifying the customer, to invoicing it so we get paid, to answering the phone if people call instead of ordering online, etc. It's not hard, but there are alot of steps, every one of them important. I know I can do it, but dealing with work and the in-laws is stressful. I guess I'm just burned out on being stressed. I need some normal unstressed time. I need some, "Hey, this is normal day-to-day life...nothing hinging on it, nothing stressful about it," kind of time. ~sigh~ Probably I just need to quit whining. Hubby didn't even ask me if I was going to send out cards this year. I'm afraid I'd have hit him with something. I gave them up a few years ago because it just became so labor intensive. Find the damn cards, get everyone to sign them, hunt up people's addresses, address the damn things, buy the stamps, stamp them, send them off, get some back in the mail due to having Cousin Freida's address wrong, etc, ad nauseum. I finally just decided, screw it. If these bastards want to talk to me or hear from me they can email me or call me. I'm going to the chiropractor tomorrow to get all cracked out before the in-laws get here. I wish I was going in for a 2 hour massage instead, but I'll take what I can get. I suppose it's weird too that once the Christmas frenzy is past, the New Year's hoopla will be started up. It's just such a freaking waste of time this last two weeks of the year. No one actually gets anything productive done these two weeks. There is a freakish, panicked energy in the air, but it's all so useless and pointless...people are like hamsters on a wheel, running madly but getting nowhere fast. I'm really looking forward to the first week of January, when it's all over, when we are back to the daily grind. I need me some grind. |
| This semester is in the books. I've already gotten my grades for two of my classes. A C+ for my preCalc. Yay! I know it sounds crazy to be so excited for a C+, but I really worried I wouldn't pass that class. And I teared up when I saw my grade for my Geomorphology class. I got an A-. I was so freaking excited. I almost started bawling. I couldn't believe it. I sweated blood for that stupid class. I never thought I'd get that good a grade! Now I'm just waiting for my Chem grade.Last night to celebrate end of semester, Hubby took me out to dinner and a movie. It was a surprise. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and then the late showing of Avatar!I was stoked about seeing it, but after seeing it, I'm only semi-stoked. Don't get me wrong. The cinematography gets 5 stars. But the plot? Think "Fern Gully" meets "Dances with Wolves" meets "Star Trek." The science and technology of the story get 5 stars, they were truly original. The underlying axe that was being ground, though? Yeah...could have done without that. Also could have done without the "the military is bad!" message. That was kind of annoying. But the science and technology was top-notch. That and the cinematography really put the movie over the top for me. Even the less than stellar acting was made up for by those two things. I can forgive alot for good sci-fi. I recommend it if you are a sci-fi/fantasy fan. But, like I said, don't go expecting an incredible story line. It's extremely predictable and formulaic. It's like there is a template for sci/fi/fantasy films floating around in Hollywood and everyone writes from it exactly. The story idea is original, so it is sad that the plot isn't. Another saving grace for the movie is Jack Horner's music score. Always a fan of his stuff. Horner is Cameron's go-to guy like John Williams is Lucas' go-to music guy. He brings it. I'd like to get the soundtrack for the movie. It's really grand and fabulous. |
| Here it is, the week of the semester all college students spend the semester both anticipating and dreading. That's right, campers, it's finals week! And, yes, I'm a little freaked out. But, I'm excited, too. Excited because it means the semester is over and I am this much further down the road toward my elusive degree. Freaked out because I am currently in danger of failing my pre-Calc class. I've taken the week off of work and am thinking of paying rent to the Math Help Center because I'm all but living in there right now. I'm feeling ok about Geomorphology and Chemistry. Not, "Yay, I'm going to get an A!" kind of ok, but more, "Yay, I'm going to pass these classes." kind of ok. But, then, as my Geomorphology lab partner and I say to one another..."C's mean degrees!" OK, study break over. Back to pre-Calc. Those secants and tangents aren't going to calculate themselves. |
Katya the Poet  had an interesting tidbit in her blog a couple of days ago. (I'm playing catch up.)She referenced this site: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ It's a writer's site where they give you odd bits and facts about writers and writing. Take for instance.... Did you know that today is the anniversary of the day that Alfred, Lord Tennyson published "The Charge of the Light Brigade?" If you've never read the poem, go do so. It is excellent. It depicts the suicide charge of the Light Brigade against the Russians. They knew they had no chance, but charged anyway because they were ordered to by commanders who were more concerned with personal agendas than their men's lives. For those heavy metal fans among you, you might be interested to learn (or perhaps you know) the Iron Maiden song "The Trooper" is a tribute to those same soldiers. The lyrics depict the story of one of the soldiers. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I've definitely saved the Writer's Almanac in my favorites and will be referring back to it. There are some nifty and interesting things to see there. Thanks, Katya the Poet ! |
| You ever have one of those days when you feel like you kind of have you crap in a pile. I mean you are really hitting it on all four cylinders. It seems life is kinda starting to come together for you. Maybe sorta. Then you go pee and realize you've walked around all day with your underwear on inside out. Yeah, nobody knows, but you realize that feeling that you've got your life together is just an illusion. It's all a big facade. And then you start wondering if anyone else in class is sitting there with their with their underwear on inside out. Or backwards. Or with mismatched socks on. You know they look fine on the outside, but who knows what kind of chaos is going on where no one can see. This song is for all those people out there. ~cough, cough~ All of us people out there. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I'm in the library at school. There is an area where you can go to sit in groups and study and no one cares if you talk above a whisper. (In other parts of the library it's no talking allowed...the librarians are quite fierce.) I come here because the tables are nice sized and near plug-ins, they let me have my coffee here and for the most part no one bothers you. At the table across from me, three psych students are working on their end of semester projects. I finally put in my iPod because they were bugging me. Here's what was bugging me: They met with the teacher and had a serious discussion with her about the fact that their projects apparently were studying "normal" vs. "abnormal" people. Seriously? They are still teaching that crap? What the fuck is normal? It's as asinine as "sea level."1 There is no such thing. They are arbitrary, man-made constructs. There is no such thing as "normal" in today's society. Is "normal" a modern American family with a husband and wife and 2.2 children and one dog and one cat? Then explain the fact that 1 in 4 Americans experiences some form of mental disorder in their lifetimes. One in FOUR. What the fuck is normal about that? They were discussing if Christianity is normal. ?!?!? Really? How does someone's religion reflect their normality? Does that mean that people of other faiths aren't normal? It was bizarre. The teacher just sat there and listened to them and nodded like they were making sense. Perhaps I didn't understand the assignment, but it sounded like anyone who didn't fit the Cleaver profile of the 1950s wasn't "normal." And the more I heard the more pissed I became. Hence the iPod. I struggle with normal. Again I assert it is a stupid word. Footnotes |
| My daughter could absolutely make it on Survivor. She can scavenge for food with the best of them. About 4:30, she made herself a chicken pot pie in the microwave.  This I can live with. It's what I buy them for.At 9:45, she decided she was hungry again, but didn't want to cook, so she rumaged around instead. Here is what she came up with: She found a leftover hardboiled egg that I didn't use for Thanksgiving and made an "unassembled" deviled egg. I watched her...it consisted of the peeled egg eaten whole, interspersed with bites of a spoonful of Miracle Whip with a sprinkling of paprika on top. It was bizarre to watch her eat it. Then she made (and I quote here) "ghetto" nachos. She upended the last of a bag of tortilla chips, mostly crumbs, onto a plate tossed a handful of shredded cheese onto them and microwaved them. This she ate with a fork. For dessert, I watched her go to the pantry with a Chinese soup spoon and pour the bowl of the spoon full of Mrs. Butterworth syrup. I almost gagged watching her eat it. She also had a random leftover fortune cookie. Good news, her luck will be changing this week. She informed me not to worry about her. Her scavenging skills are up to par and she'll survive college just fine. I was out tonight, so I know she fed her father, he's a funny guy...he likes regular meals. What I don't know is why she didn't feed herself until 9:45. I forgot to mention. My bizarre, scavenging daughter got her driver's license last Wednesday. We made her wait a whole six months longer than the state would have made her, but we felt she wasn't ready until now. She was pretty stoked that she got to run to the store for me Thanksgiving Day to pick up a couple of things I forgot. It was pretty freaking awesome just handing her the money and the list and saying, "Go. Be careful." No more late night pickups at school for football games. No more Mom-taxi. It's a fabulous sort of freedom. But at the same time there is a voice in my head screaming, "MY GOD, I'M NOT OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A CHILD WHO IS OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE!!!!" This weekend she informed me she leaves for college in eighteen months. MY GOD, I'M NOT OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A CHILD IN COLLEGE!!!!!! |
| Blurg. There is one piece of pumpkin pie left. Pretty sure that I'm gonna polish it off in a little while. There is 5 lbs of turkey meat left. Looks like turkey sandwiches for the next week. (I swear 10 lbs was the smallest bird I could find!) There is just enough dressing for me to have right before I finish the pumpkin pie. I'll probably have the last of the Hawaiian bread with it. Monilad has called dibs on the last of the cranberries and the mashed potatoes and gravy. And that rounds out Thanksgiving 2009. It was a good year and a good long weekend. I had to work Friday and that broke things up. Monilad and Hubby actually went out on Friday and did some window shopping at the mall. They were going to see the matinee of "The Blindside" but it was sold out, so they invited me to see the later one with them. If you haven't seen it yet? Go see it. It's excellent. Really excellent. Sandra Bullock should get an Oscar for it. The guy who plays Michael Oher is also fabulous. Otherwise we've just vegged out all weekend. I have homework that needs doing, but all I've done is read, watch TV, play Playstation, play WoW and cook. It's been very relaxing. We have the Playstation Lego games: Batman, Indiana Jones, and all the Star Wars games. If you've never played the Lego games, I highly recommend them for stress relief and as a general overall feelgood time. An hour playing Indiana Jones, whacking things with a shovel and watching them blast apart into component legos is so theraputic. In the Batman game, you can be the Joker and shake hands with other characters and shock them and it blasts them apart. It's fabulous. Hubby laughs at me because the Lego games are all rated 10 years and up. His games are all rated M (Mature), but mine are for little kids. Hey, I know my speed. I don't have the talent or skill necessary to play his Call of Duty games. But, I'm hell on wheels with a shovel. I gotta get back to Batman now. I'm about to trap Poison Ivy. |
| There is a difference between the two. I'm almost forty years old. I like to think I've spent my whole life learning. About what? Everything. I consider any day in which I haven't learned something new, a day wasted. Most of the time, I don't mind teaching myself things. Most of my arts and crafts hobbies are self-taught. The only exception is quilting. I went to a woman to learn that. (I didn't know how to use a sewing machine and only so much could be self taught. Those things are dangerous if you aren't careful! )When I decide to learn about something, I just dive in, head first. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead! I go to the library and check out books, I research it on the internet, I buy books, I buy supplies if needed and then I go for it. If it's something purely academic, I just exhaustively research. Sometimes, though, I like to be taught things. Teaching yourself things can be frustrating at times. Teaching yourself means making all the same silly errors everyone before you has made. It means working out all the kinks yourself. It means no encouragement but your own. It means no praise, no help, no nothing. It means you are it. All alone. Not everyone can have a teacher/student relationship, though. Hubby and I can't. Even though Hubby has a teaching degree and is one of the most patient, kind, excellent teachers in the world, he and I butt heads and all but come to blows when he has to teach me anything. I know it's because I'm a horrible student. Teachers either love me or hate me. I'm the one in the front row asking endless questions. I'm the one with my hand up asking, "Don't you mean...?" I'm the one questioning your methods, your answers, your method of teaching. Not because I'm trying to be trouble, but because I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to understand. I'm not a passive learner; I'm an interactive learner. Don't give me pages to read and tell me to learn it myself out of the book, damn it. I came to you, the teacher, so you could teach it to me. I can learn it myself out of a book! I need you to clarify, to explain, to demonstrate, to....I don't know, teach! ~sigh~ Sorry for the rant. I'm stuck in learning something. Oh, well. Moving on..... |
| Like a stone thrown in a still pond, our words and our lives ripple out to touch countless others. Twice in the last week and four times in the last month, I've been told that some small bit of advice, something offhand-even meaningless to me-at the time, helped change or shape the lives of people. Two of them people I've never met in person. I visit certain blogs here and comment in them. I have a kind of rythym or route that I take through the blog page. In some blogs, I don't comment, I am a silent reader. I've learned that I have my silent readers. But just as their words matter to me, in my life, my words matter to someone else in their life. Ripples, touching one another, sentiments, feelings, opinions, advice, cycling round and together we make up a community. Helping one another, supporting one another. I discovered I helped one woman get a job with an offhand bit of advice. Just a silly two line comment left in her blog, but because of it, she was ready at the interview. How many lives have you touched? How many ways have you changed the world around you with the words you've left on these pale yellow pages? People can bash blogging if they want. But I think we serve an important purpose. We are a community. We are a support network. Maybe in small ways, but some safety net is better than no safety net. My life is enriched for knowing you all. So if I haven't told you before, I am now. Thank you. Thank you for the many ways, large and small, that you touch my life. |
| I'm sure I'm going to open up a whole shit-storm here, but I'm gonna throw it out there. I'm not sure what everybody's hard on about Sarah Palin is. I mean, I'm not sure why she is so reviled in the press and why she incites such hateful words and angry responses in more liberal circles. I kinda like her. She seems like a nice lady. She's got a normal American family with normal American problems. Hell, she's even got crazy extended relatives. I can relate to that. I think McCain's people mishandled her when she was his running mate and caused alot of her grief with the press. I also think the crap about the clothing and the budget and what not is a tempest in a teapot and just total bullshit. I don't think she was hiding anything or stealing anything. I also think it's crap that the AP devoted eleven "fact-checkers" to double check the contents of her book and yet no one to question Obama's miraculous birth certificate. They also didn't convene a panel of "fact-checkers" for Obama's book, Biden's book OR Kennedy's book. What the hell is up with that? I can't figure out why the mainstream media is so afraid of this woman. Or why Newsweek would run a cover article about why she's basically the Anti-Christ in their opinion. I'm also sad that women especially seem to be threatened by her success. Women are different than men, I have discovered over the years. A man can see another man succeed and either cheer him on or get down on himself for not reaching those same heights. A woman can't see another woman succeed without wanting to pull her down or be jealous and bitter about the other woman's success. Hillary Clinton would never have been accepted in the political arena if it weren't for the fact that she rode her husband's coattails into it. It's how she got men to accept her as an "equal" and it's how she got women to accept seeing her in a position of power without hating her for being there. She may be a smart, capable woman, but if she had tried to break into the political scene by herself the way Sarah Palin is, she'd have been pulled down the same way. So why do I like Sarah Palin? I think she's smart, funny, politically savvy and interesting. And she doesn't take shit off of anybody. Pretty sure we are gonna get a copy of her book, too. I also wrote another poem for "Dew Drop Inn"  . It's supposed to be your take on an origins myth. I did mine of the scientific origins myth. It's called "Invalid Item" . I've gotten some nice feedback from it so far. And if you want to read a really great one in this same vein, read NOVAcatmando 's "Invalid Entry" . Hers is incredible!If you like writing poetry at all or want to expand your poetic horizons, stop by Katya the Poet 's "Dew Drop Inn" . She is really opening my eyes and helping me to grow! Or you can follow NOVAcatmando 's "Invalid Item" , she brings a wide range of poetry to bear in there...her recent entry about Rothko poems was very enlightening! |
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