Banking Caveat 2007

Lest you think there is any such thing as a reliable float anymore, I wish to report that the check which I presented at the counter at 5:55pm yesterday at Bank of America cleared my account at Wells Fargo yesterday and that news plus the scan of the check appeared in my online access late in the evening.

Stunning.

Smuggery in the birthday season 2007

It's truly gratifying to be carded - in New Orleans no less - when you're got double the necessary years to go into a place.

(My jealous friends remarked "Well, you noticed that lady did have very thick glasses", but I found the security person quite perceptive).

Lovely weekend! 2006

What a gorgeous day it is outside. I'll be heading out into it soon, but I just woke up half an hour ago. It's been an intense week for my brain at work - good but busy - and I guess I needed the dreamtime; I slept for over 10 hours.

Not much news to report. Life is good, I've been relaxing in the evenings, having fun tramping about town with my sweetie, trying new restaurants & bars, seeing the occasional concert, watching Top Chef, cooking and trying to make myself pack a lunch more often, being depressed by the news, trading CDs with lala.com, playing computer games (Geneforge lately), writing Discardian, and making slow progress on my home to-do list.

Hope things are good with you!

Generally Good 2006

Hello, yes, I'm around, just not very posty.

Everything is pretty much fine. Weather variable. Health took a hit through the whole middle of the week with a beastly cold, but I'm on the mend now thanks to the care of The Lovely Man Who Feeds Me Soup And Reads To Me.

Work as usual has the potential to be highly stressful, but I'm managing pretty well under the load. (Thank you David Allen and Merlin Mann for the boost to my productivity and time management skills over the last year).

Didn't get to go to SXSW this year  :(  but that's because I spent all my money on my fabulous trip last year and this tasty maxed-out Powerbook :) so it all balances out.

Yes, yes, I will start getting some of the Tanzania pictures up soon - Kenya's all there at least - and I'll add in the travelogue in the blog one of these days. (I do wish the TypePad gang would get around to improving that post date selection tool so it was easier to select a day months or even years in the past. It really is the fly in my blogging ointment. *sigh* I've tried suggestions, whining, reminders, cupcakes, pointing to the good way to do it (thank you, Flickr!) and am beginning to wonder what it will take to get that feature. I wonder if they'll do contractual development? Only problem is they make more money than I do, I suspect. Poop. I hate waiting.)

You begin to see why I haven't been posting lately. So boring! Good lord. Go watch The IT Crowd or something. At least things catch on fire in that.

Laggy 2005

I woke up at 5something this morning - which I guess is reasonable since I went to sleep about 10pm - and didn't go back to sleep after.

I've frittered away the hours since just reading stuff online. Just reading journals and stuff.

I should clean up my stuff from my trip, deal with bills & receipts, prepare for the workweek ahead, but no, I'm just laying in bed being a slug and listening to a random assortment of music.

Slug Sunday. :)

Mood: a little bit stir crazy 2005

Now that my foot is healed enough to start being able to leave the house and walk to nearby places I'm having a harder time just staying in. I overdid it a bit today though and should put it up, give it some ice and elevate it.

But I want to go sip cocktails with my witty friends and flirt with cute boys.

I want new and odd music and clever interior decor and talented bartenders and at least one outrageous fashion mistake to wander by our part of the bar.

Since the witty friends and cute boys aren't currently beating down my door trying to coax me out, I guess I'll go get the ice pack.

Sunny Saturday 2005

Lovely light today. I slept in and then woke, unfortunately, from a dream about work (I could do without this sort of overtime or at least without the knowledge that my subconscious is grinding away all night). Mercifully, instead of dim grey gloomy light the house is bright and inviting and sunshine scrubs away tension.

I lazed about for an hour checking email, looking at things on the Web, chatting on phone and IM with friends, before getting up and getting going on small tasks around the house.

My foot is healing. It'll be two weeks ago tomorrow and the bruising and swelling of those two toes has gone down. It's sore if it gets touched, so life continues in "cautious hobbling" mode. I figure another week and I may be able to upgrade to "being very careful and walking slow", but it might take another two.

Fortunately, there's plenty of things I can do without having to walk a block. Little bits of housework, balancing my checkbook, preparing for my trip to London & Africa, more futzing about with iMovie.

When it's time to put my foot up, there's a good game of Pharoah (with the Cleopatra expansion so pyramid building isn't such a pain in the ass), a movie from Netflix (Kinsey) or loaned by friends (Horatio Hornblower), or any of the score of books I'm reading.

Today I'm enjoying my unflooded house in my neighborhood without the sound of gunshots and the clean, drinkable water that comes out of my tap and the electricity powering the music on my new Mac. Count your blessings.

Good evening... 2005

Suiting myself on Saturday night.

Target audience, people, target audience 2005

In my subway station, Castro Street, there are now many ads for a popular mouthwash's new pocket breath freshener strips. The ad pictures a pretty woman in a white summer dress peeking coyly to the side at the handsome man standing beside her (in an elevator, I think). He is looking up abstractedly into the middle distance with a slightly suppressed smile.

The ad text says
"When there's only an instant to make a first impression..."
(or words to that effect)

Now I live in the Castro, one of the neighborhoods of the world most densely populated by homosexual men. There are a lot of good looking men here. A whole lot. (And that's rather pleasant, I find).

But I know where I live and the odds that implies, so when I saw the ad for the first time, my brain finished the sentence it opens:

"...minty fresh breath won't help you much if he's thinking about cock."

Thoughts on a Wednesday Night 2005

Working late is for chumps.
I am apparently a chump.
But, I am a chump who will be a good deal more ready for her big meeting on Friday.

I should not write the rent check in the morning before work because apparently I can't write out big numbers in text properly before 9am.

Thanks to a visit from the landlady (for a replacement check), I have clean dishes. (She's not THAT nice, though she is nice; I did them, like we all do so much of our cleaning, out of Guest Fear).

I really should finish one of these 15 books I'm reading.

This weekend is gonna be great. Even if I don't do anything at all, the combination of not-being-at-work and not-being-sick is so exhilarating!

One nice thing about cold San Francisco summers is that you still get to make winter favorites like roast vegetables.

Mmm, parsnips.

Thoughts from a summer festival 2005

Gosh, it's a lot hotter in the south bay than in San Francisco.

Outdoor movies are a wonderfully silly, happy thing.

Not all band managers are dorks, but the one's who are, hoo baby, welcome to pricktown.

Some of the best hugs I got this weekend (from these folks I see once a year) were from uniformed San Jose police officers. Shame they have to wear those dang lumpy vests under their uniforms, but these guys overcome that handicap with great skill.

There are few things nicer than a Filco festival on the Fourth of July. No significant incidents, good food, mellow crowd, great crew and fantastic fireworks. Really one of the prettiest shows we've had.

It is LOVELY to be home to quiet and my own bed and the rest of the day to recover before a short work week at my real job.

Still alive. 2005

Yes, yes, I've been really quiet, but things are fine. I'm just spending long intense days on the computer at work and not been inclined to pick it up again at home. It'll be better in a week after I get through all my big presentations.

How are you? What's going on in your world? Or, if you want a less far-reaching question, what's the last delicious thing you ate?

My answers:
Excellent.
Happiness and busy-ness.
Kickass wonderful hamachi at Osaka Sushi on Castro Street near 18th.

Week continues to be excellent. 2005

I'm back in San Francisco after the conference.

Having a wonderful time!

Winding down a busy week 2005

Lots going on this week at work - product beta test in full swing plus managing some contractual development, plus supervising projects being done by our interns this semester - but going well, so it's a good kind of tired.

Had a great day yesterday. Helped Kristin with her move - driving the truck & helping organize the load - which went nice and fast. Kristin knows how to treat her helpers right and her new apartment looks beautiful - full of character and good light. Afterwards there was a shower (all praise the glory of indoor plumbing and a good hot water supply) and a nap before a sublime dinner of sushi at Shi Mo with an attractive man.

I finally got to bed at a reasonable hour and slept in a lot, but just shy of too much. The light is beautiful here this morning, birds are singing and the sky is blue. I had the last of my friend Vicky's lemon marmalade on some toaster waffles, a glass of OJ and a mug of faux coffee and now I feel quite content.

It's so wonderful to have all this sunshine pouring in the windows. I think that, though it'd be a good walking day, I'll just stick around home and recover from all the lifting yesterday. I don't feel bad, just aware that I've been doing things. Shannon arrives tomorrow, so I'm feeling an incentive to clean up a bit. Not that she's afraid of the occasional dust rhino, but I figure I can use any vague guilty sensation which motivates me to get housework done.

Enjoy your day! Put on some music you like and do what feels right.

Elsewhere 2005

No posts from Dinah all week? What's going on?

Well, reading a book (The Eyre Affair, which Kristin recommended), watching the extended versions of The Two Towers and Return of the King with some bunny, playing Kingdom of Loathing (now level 13, go me!), getting ready for my new part-time roomie Shannon to arrive, and working on Bloggers Without Borders (mostly fixing small typos and pestering Jonas with suggestions and questions).

Cold 2004

The weather is cold here in San Francisco. I've been really enjoying cooking things in the oven. I'm thinking I might move my bed into the kitchen where it's cozier. Unfortunately, my bed seems to be larger than my kitchen.

Do you think that cold weather causes simple declarative sentences?

A real weekend 2004

After conferences, Fray Day, and being sick, I am so happy to have a weekend with no obligations. Yes, a friend has a literary event at his house tonight. Yes, another friend is having a house-warming tomorrow. But I don't have to go. I can bow out if I really want to.

Now that I've
- stayed up as late as I felt like playing games (Kingdom of Loathing) and watching movies (two episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs)
- slept in as late as my body decided to let me
- worked on a home project bringing up my old stereos from the basement so that I can start weeding through old records and cassettes to do a bit more Discardia
- cooked a new recipe (Chopped Eggplant with Cocoa Nibs from Alice Medrich's Bitter Sweet cookbook (disappointing: mostly the right ingredients, but not put together the best way, and even the amount of oil & salt I cut from her recipe wouldn't save it)
- studied more math (part of my ongoing project to beef up my math and science knowledge)
- had a nice chat with my friend Corey
- played a bit more Kingdom of Loathing
and am about to take a nice shower, I'm more ready to consider going out and being social. I did say consider, mind.

Budgetary Changes 2004

I am now officially living la vida grad student, except that I'm not a grad student and and I have a stunning apartment. That's right. Chris found a place and I'm keeping this one. He'll be making a move over a while, but soon I'll have a guest room and double the rent.

If I am suddenly more reluctant to meet you to do anything that costs money, now you know why. On the bright side, you're probably be trading The Dinah Who Dines Out for The Dinah Who Cooks Yummy Dinners For Friends.

Only one problem: the dining table & chairs move out with Chris. (Mum, remember that holiday present of helping me out with plants for the balcony? I think I may need something a little more woody...)

The end of a short weekend 2004

I could definitely do with one more day to be home from my trip, but tomorrow it's back to work. It'll be a busy week, I know. I was out of the office the last 6 work days between taking a day to relax before the busy-ness, getting sick, and the trip to Cleveland.

The flight back was fine. We had a good tailwind so arrived 20 minutes early or so. I stopped at Ti Couz on the way home and had an excellent crepe (carmelized onions, tomatoes and sausage) and some tea. Napped for an hour or two and then did epic laundry (four loads!) and grocery shopping. Stayed up late chatting & writing email & stuff which was fun.

Today I slept in (in my own nice bed with the clean sheets) and am definitely feeling much better. Still a little coughing, but doing pretty well. Min Jung and Jason got me out of the house and down to the Folsom Street Fair which was odd but fun until the crowd got far too thick and I began to get a little panicky. Icky sensation. Had to shuffle through the crowd for two blocks before I could get some breathing space and calm down. They definitely need to lay the booths out with better spacing. It was extremely unsafe when the crowds packed in. After escaping we walked back to Rainbow Grocery and then they came over to my place where I invented a new drink which we were going to call a Honey Crush, but Googling now I see the name is taken. Since it's based on a drink called the Bee's Knees, I guess it'll be the Cat's Pyjamas instead:

Cat's Pyjamas

2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce lime juice
1 barspoon honey
3 ounces Korean crushed apple juice

Shake with cracked ice;
strain into two chilled cocktail glasses.
Garnish with a lemon wheel.

Tart, sweet, sassy.

How to Clean: Procrastinator's Version 2004

Which is more fun: cleaning house or reading websites? How about cleaning house or reading a book? Cleaning house or taking a nap? Uh, yeah, basically most things are more fun than cleaning house, right.

So here's the thing: if you're a small-scale hedonist and are bad at making yourself buckle down and do chores, how can you force yourself to get on it? The answer is simple: fear.

Here's what you do:

1. Mid-afternoon on a Saturday invite twenty friends to stop by sometime between 4:30 and 11pm.
2. Go to the corner store & get ice & mixers for cocktails.
3. Clean house, but not too strenously to stop and be a gracious host. Periodically pause to wash your face, brush your hair and rest for a moment.
4a. Have a nice time with the friends who show up.
4b. (If no one shows) Have a nice cocktail in your clean house.

A is for Americano.

Away. Back Now. 2004

I was away for the weekend. Home now. Had a good time. Sorry about having to go to work tomorrow, but, truth be told, if I had another day off, I'd probably spend at least part of it doing a bit of work because I am enjoying it these days.

Slow Saturday Morning 2004

It is Saturday isn't it? I'm a little muddled after my busy couple weeks. Many great social events. Watched some movies (Rashomon, Sexy Beast). Had some nice time with friends. Got a little behind on housework, bills, responding to email, etc. Did some catching up (including working an extra 2.5 hours last night and getting a gratifyingly big chunk of email at work answered and bug calls opened), but the house still needs sweeping, laundry still needs doing and my checkbook still needs balancing. Ah well. Was filled with joy at my friend Jay winning the Movable Type plug-in contest. Was filled with smaller scale delight at getting to try Movable Type at work to manage my enhancement list. This morning I slept in until 9:30ish and that was so very nice. I've got a trip to a hot tub this afternoon (and a nice ride on the train) to look forward to this evening.

All is pretty darn good.

At the laundromat 2004

While waiting for my wash I picked up a 1982 issue of Architectural Digest which was lying about. My goal was amusement at the ads and then-fashionable decor - a sort of do-it-myself Interior Desecrators - and I found that, but I also found a nice little piece by Russell Lynes "The Satisfactions of an Imaginary Museum". Must remember to look for more of his writing.

I should have been in bed a couple hours ago 2004

I blame movies, comment spam and sheer bloody-mindedness for my late night. On the bright side, I cleared up the comment spam, reported the offenders to their registrars & hosts, listened to the commentary track of Fail Safe and chatted with boys. My housemate was extra cool and brought me a slice of pizza from Marcello's. Mmm. Every now and then my body just screams out for some pepperoni.

Now it's midnight and I don't want to go to bed now. I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I don't want to volunteer this weekend. I feel lazy and petulant and I just want to booze it up, sing along with weird bands and sleep until noon. Of course I will actually go to bed and put in a productive day at my job which I do actually like a lot and I will volunteer this weekend and have a great time and see old friends and probably get more work done while I hang out in the operations trailer between handing out radios and dealing with the crisis du jour.

It's funny. I am tired, but I've got that classic exhausted little kid who won't lie down thing going on.

The Life 2004

I have been living one hell of a life the past week and a half. It's been fun, but now I'm tired and needing to take a lazy Sunday to recover. Pride 2004 will just have to carry on without me.

In chronological order:
Suffered massive comment spam attack. Obtained great big set of data to recognize that comment spam pattern even when I only get one isolated message. Very handy for those abuse reports.

Saw Rube Waddell at Cafe Van Kleef. Great band, great bar.

BBQ with my old out-laws (B.J.'s parents). Genetic and official ties aren't the important part; they and B.J., his wife Bev, and her parents are part of my extended family.

Allergy attack prompting this message to my co-workers:

Hi,

I got woken up at 4something in the morning again with these horrible allergies and took the half tablet of Benadryl which doesn't normally make me too drowsy to function, but apparently when combined with either especially bad allergies or that time of day makes it impossible to wake up.

I am now moving sluggishly in the direction of the office ("...what rough beast slouches towards Emeryville...").

Regular allergy sufferers, first, my profound sympathies. Second, how the heck do you cope with this? Do I need to go to the doctor and get some prescription stuff to be on all the time? Do allergy shots help? And how long into summer do you usually suffer?

Representing all the dwarves (with Bashful manifesting in his Tardy aspect and Groggy, Itchy and Scratchy substituting for Greedy, Doc and Happy),

Dinah

Hanging out late at Tantek's place with Min Jung, Matt, Dunstan, Simon and Jane.

Dinner at Crepes on Cole with the WaSPs and party at Tantek's place. (Matt's pictures)

Thought I'd get a good night's sleep to recover from the prior 3 short nights. Allergies woke me up at 4am again.

Back to Cafe Van Kleef for As Is Brass Band (oh joy!) and my delighted introduction to 1 Man Banjo (Sean Lee), about whom you'll be hearing more. Caught ride home with the band and thus reached bed around 3sumpthin.

Set alarm for 7:30a.m. Woke up at 7:28a.m. Had a surprisingly functional and creatively charged day at work.

Expected to come home and go to bed early. Instead went to dinner with Dunstan and Min Jung, joined after a while by Tantek, Matt and Anil. Then we rambled around North Beach and ended up at the Bubble Lounge where champagne, foie gras, and chocolate with strawberries were consumed. (Here's a picture which sums up the decadence of the evening). Some of the party were interviewed by an HBO TV crew for Real Sex. Dunstan expressed a certain preference which I can hardly wait to see the footage of; I think I may want that sound bite as a system error sound. I stroked Matt's head until he became blissful. I got to see Liz, which was a pleasant surprise.

Finally, O joy! Sleeping in.

High tea at The Palace with a bunch of beautiful, intelligent women to celebrate Heather's upcoming wedding. Certain topics were approached and then veered away from ("You can't talk about that here; we're at The Palace!") and Anil would have been thwarted from making certain hand gestures, had he been there.

Went to Kaiser's pharmacy finally and picked up some of their generic Claritin stuff. I look forward greatly to non-sneezing, non-itching nights and days.

Started some food marinating, napped, cooked and then headed out at midnight to NIMBY in Oakland for the Extra-Action Marching Band benefit for their mission of good will from Amsterdam to Sarajevo. Wonderful humans. I got to see a few Burning Man art pieces I'd only enjoyed in pictures before and listened to more great music. Amazingly, I arrived during Freddi Price's second song, "Oh Father". and got to hear his whole set including an extremely-heartfelt version of John Lennon's "God". Wish I'd had the equipment to record that; it was perfect. Yes, Lennon's song when you thought about it, but in that moment, fully Freddi's.

The poor guy had some turbulence in the first part of his set. The power on the stage went out while he was singing, so there was a little dicking around fixing it and then he started belting the song out with no mike and no stage lights and no guitar amp. Just as people were huddled in close, clapping, feeling the raw version, *boink* back comes the power. A cheer from the crowd. Freddi's sideways smile, a grin and he steps up to the mike to really launch into it and *pwing* his guitar string breaks. Blink, blink, and then he roars with laughter. One song with no high string, followed by a quick string change, and then back into it. A great show, most definitely.

Oh, and Extra-Action was huge fun; there were other good bands to be heard (e.g. LOOP!STATION), art & wild outfits to be enjoyed and all the lunatic pleasure of an all-night party. I contributed a vegi dish to the food choices (recipe coming later) and kept the marching band hydrated during their set. At the end of the night, which is to say at 6am this morning, I gave four happy people a ride back into San Francisco and returned the City Carshare car. In bed by just after 7am and slept until 11:30am or so.

I feel pretty good. My legs are tired from standing and stomping my feet on cement all night, but it was fine fine fun. I encourage you to get out and do something. Share yourself. Appreciate what other people have to share. Life is good.

no news is, in this case, good news 2004

I'm feeling much more cheerful this weekend, but just don't feel inspired to write much of anything. I cleaned house. I played computer games. Went walking a little bit. Had a drink with friends at Zeitgeist. Cooked soup. Saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban again. Still like it, slightly less rabidly, but a lot. Much sneezing. Still fine-tuning the allergy medication ("half a Wal-Dryl minitab? Hmm, not too dopey, but still a little itchy...") And that's really about it. Slept well. Nice weather. Pretty views. All fine here.

Small plates and a full course meal on a Friday night 2004

Last night was an excellent way to round out the week. I walked from the transbay terminal to the Mission district and had dinner with my friend Lenny at Esperpento (mmm, spicy potatoes, spicy chicken, grilled asparagus, garlic shrimp, good bread to sop up the sauces, and the best sangria in town) followed by the benefit for Right to Write at Amnesia.

That was a hell of a show. As much as I adore Amnesia - gotta make it down there more often - I think this line-up better do a repeat performance at a larger venue. The Whoreshoes are a ton of fun (I need to hear the song about "let me be your bull" again); Lord Loves A Working Man is getting amazingly good (and should really start thinking about their first CD); and good ol' Rube Waddell, even with Max and Freddi just having done a fantastic set with LLAWR, can get the whole place on their feet stompin' and hollerin'.

So, I stayed to the end. Closed the bar. Caught a cab home. Got to bed a little before 3am and slept pretty solidly.

Now it's coming up on 2pm, I've had my shower and a great big glass of water, but no breakfast. Today being officially "Stairway Day", I had planned on doing another nice big walk and making sure to include one of the city's many beautiful staircases, but I find I have a blister starting on the ball of my left foot. I guess the only walk I'll be doing is to the drug store to buy insoles for my newest shoes. I'm hoping if I am nice to it today and wear the right things tomorrow, I'll be able to get some walking in.

Larry (Reverend Whupass of Rube Waddell) said that he'll be playing at the Odeon Bar tonight and I would like to see what he does when he's not being a Rube. Plus I feel I ought to give the poor ol' Odeon a second chance. Larry says the porn isn't usually on the screen and it would be nice to be able to write up a review of an evening there that wouldn't scare away quite so many folks. (I do note though that my previous review is now no longer the #2 hit for a search for "odeon bar" on Google and is instead one of the last. Not sure what prompted that demotion, but I'm betting it has something to do with last week's comment spam attacks.)
Given how I'm feeling right now though, I don't know if I'll make it down for the show. Not even sure if I'll try to get out for the KFOG Kaboom. Too many late nights in a row and now my body clock is all discombobulated.

(It's now almost 3pm. I got distracted by the Google result thing and then reading some email and having a little snack. I think maybe it's just going to be a spacy day.)

Why all the trouble? 2004

So why was I so reluctant to leave the house for extended periods of time this weekend and doing all that handwashing instead of a big laundromat expedition? Because I don't have a laptop with a wireless internet connection.

I was working on two projects. One fun one which has a ways to go. Announcements later. One tedious one which I think may have worked out okay.

I've given up on buying Intuit software for the Mac. Quicken 2002 was a deep disappointment - buggy, crashy and, I hear, missing features available in the Windows version - and from the reviews Quicken 2004 for Mac is no better. Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth out there. It's a damn shame, really. I've been using Intuit products for almost a decade and a half. The started out on Mac and set the standard for personal and small business software. It's clear, though, that they've forgotten their roots and aren't about to rediscover them.

Intuit - if you think dropping Mac sales mean lowered demand, you're just in denial about the crappy products you've been putting out. You used to be good; hell, you used to be far and away the best. What happened?

I don't know, man; it's like some great musician going on the skids and losing his chops. Now he forgets the words, fumbles over the chords and he smells like he hasn't taken a shower for weeks. There's still time to clean up the act, but I won't be at the shows until I hear things have gotten a whole lot better.

So where will I be? Well, I spend the weekend trying some things out and there's this new act called Liquid Ledger I'll be giving a try. It's a bit heavy in the financial management terminology and it's missing autosave (argh!), but the planned features look right and it's a native Mac application. Best of all, it's built by Canadians. Must be good, right?

Another Lazy Saturday 2004

As is my wont, I slept in this morning and made up for a few short nights earlier in the week. Finished watching a video (Sister Wendy's Story of Painting), made a nice omelette, read email and then popped the DVD in the post back to Netflix so I can get the next one faster.

Now I'm feeling mellow (no better word for it, really, just roll with the 70s overtones) and disinclined to go do laundry. Once I tried handwashing everything but it was such a pain and this time there are sheets to do. Alas, the laundromat is in my future. After my little episode last weekend (scratched the rental car by rubbing it against another occupied car, did I write about that? *sigh*) I don't want to rent a car unless I really have to. Thus I am faced with the multiple loads of laundry and the prospect of taking multiple trips to the laundromat or having to get a car and trying to find a laundromat with a parking space next to it. I'm leaning towards the former, but thinking wistfully of the pleasure of having it all done and over with quickly.

So once again my brain comes back to wanting to do laundry at home so that I can work on bills and websites and other cleaning and such between handling the loads. It's a quarter to 2 on a sunny day. It'd all dry nice and quick... but oh the hassling with the bathtub and the hand scrubbing... but I haven't had a shower yet today... So indecisive!

***

Part 2:
2:45pm

How to wash sheets and pillowcases in the bathtub.

Don't do this unless you have a little metal mesh lint catcher for the drain. Just don't. You'll pay enough to the plumber to cover hiring someone else to wash your clothes for a couple months.

Also, don't do this unless you have a sunny, breezy area in which to dry the clean things and something clean to dry them on, like a clothesline or a drying rack. And don't start less than 5 hours before sunset.

This actually takes almost as long to describe as to do, by the way.

Plug the tub.
Put the sheets and pillowcases in the tub.
Fill the tub about one third full with water at your normal showering temperature.
While it's filling, squirt in a couple small squirts of mild liquid soap like Dr. Bonners. (Today I used Lush Happy For Sad shower gel).
Get naked, get in there, close the shower curtain and walk around on the laundry. Note the change in water color - oo! It's working!
When the tub is about at that one third full point, switch the water up to the shower and do your normal showering routine (except don't shave, you don't want little hairs in your sheets).
About halfway through your routine, or when the water reaches the two thirds full point, swap the plug for the little mesh lint catcher and let the water start to drain. You may need to empty the lint catcher if the water drains very slowly after a while.
Once you've finished your routine, pick up a pillowcase and rinse it in front of you in the shower spray. Rinse it good - your face will be on this and you don't want any soap residue. Drape it up over the shower neck or something when it's rinsed and you've given it a light little squeezing to get rid of the excess water. (You don't want to really wring and twist your laundry, it wears it out).
With the pillowcase(s) done, once the water is pretty well drained out, it's time to rinse the sheets. This is a three part process.
1. Statues - Put the sheets in front of you while you face the shower. Pick up one by the end and spread it out in front of you letting the shower rinse it. Fling the rinsed part back over your shoulder. About halfway through each sheet take a moment to adopt a series of Grecian statue poses. (Oration optional). Finish rinsing the sheets.
2. Stomping - Swap the lint catcher for the plug again and fill the tub up to about one third full while walking around on the sheets. You don't actually stomp since that'd be splashy and potentially dangerous, but give 'em a good stirring up.
3. More Statues - Swap the plug for the lint catcher. Rinse the sheets by the statues method again.

By now your sheets should be clean and the water rinsing clear. Put the sheets down at the non-drain end of the tub. Give yourself one last rinse to get any lint off and turn off the shower. Dry off and get dressed while the sheets drain a little. Set up the drying rack and locate your clothespins. Put the pillowcases out to dry (if using a rack put them in the inside middle). Then squeeze a sheet dry enough to carry through the house and put it out to dry (on one side of the rack). Then get the other sheet.

Relax.

After an hour or so, check on the sheets and turn them over (and rotate the rack).

***

Update:

It's 7:15pm and the stupid flannel sheets are still wet where the sun wasn't hitting them. This whole idea sucks. Forget about it and go to the laundromat.

I slept like a ton of bricks... 2004

...and awoke, predictably, feeling thick, ruddy and disinclined to move under my own volition.

Lining up the ducks 2004

I'm in an intense activity period at work for another couple weeks, then things should ease up a bit. Having to be in high gear all day makes me less willing to commit to social activities. If I'm in the mood to socialize after work, I'll look at what's going on and then see if I could still join in. If I haven't responded to your Evite, this is why.

At home, I've been trying to do a little Discardian action to clear out actual and virtual clutter. Caught up on bills and budget sort of stuff. Now whittling through stacks of little things to deal with, physical and electronic.

I upgraded to Eudora 6.1 in the hopes that it will be a little closer to the mail program of my dreams. I'm also beta-testing Gmail (name: metagrrrl) and, while the features are attractive, I won't move my data there until the export path to get it back is clear and easy. One nice thing about the new Eudora is that I was able to import my mail from Apple's Mail program and I'm looking at how I might be able to import some old backed up email from the PC. It would be pretty cool to have all my still extant electronic correspondence in one searchable chunk. Once I have it, the next goal would be to weed through it and see what is really worth keeping.

Spam continues to plague me terribly. It's about 30 or 40 junk messages to each real one. Eudora is about 95% accurate in its sorting and only a few things get classified as junk which aren't but it's still enough that I can't just trust the filter. (Does anyone know if Knowspam has changed their methodology so that you don't get tons of "Mail undeliverable" messages back from the "Prove you're human before I'll deliver this" messages it sends out to faked addresses in obvious junk mail?)

I upgraded my Mac to OS X 10.3.3 after James told me "Panther ith the anther, baby". Still wandering around my virtual space figuring out what's changed. Anyone got any hot tips for me? I'm taking iChatStatus for a test drive - anyone had any bad experiences with it I should watch out for?

Tonight I'll be going to see half of Rube Waddell in other guises:

Sunday night, April 18 at Amnesia (853 Valencia SF)
Lord Loves a Working Man, Max A. Million's proletarian soul machine, plays songs of the labor of love to the lumpen along with the Mahatma's Az Iz Brass Band, a pseudo gypsy horn ensemble that will take you places you didn't know existed, dancing all the while. 9pm

Now I'm going to go eat a yam.

End of Laziness 2004

My vacation this past week turned out to be kind of a break from new content on the site apart from my SXSW reports. And I celebrated Discardia this weekend by discarding the notion that its creator has to acknowledge it at all (though I did discard my old PDA to a teacher friend of mine - my token effort to offset school funding cuts).

Now I'm back to work. My computer started my day reporting "Downloading 1 of 860 messages" when I opened my email program. I'm making surprisingly good headway against them. Got through the first pass on everything and now have my inbox down to 123 messages left to work through, about 75 of which predate my trip. Not too bad for the first half of the first day back.

Astoundingly enough, I haven't lost the relaxed feeling yet, thus, maybe I'll blog more later and maybe I won't. I did manage to put up a nice new picture of me down there in the sidebar, though. (Thanks, Heather!)

Empathy. No, Really. 2004

I've been busy. Really busy. At work. It's the biggest product beta test ever for my main product and I'm the first and pretty much only point of contact for the customers who are beta testing. I have to hold a whole lot of details in my head, respond to lots of email quickly, and keep at least token progress happening on my other duties. It's a workout and I come home wiped out mentally.

I've been playing some Civilization, reading, watching movies, surfing the web, but mostly taking long showers and going to bed early. I've been listening to the same songs over and over while I stare out the window on my commute, even when the train is going under the bay. Also I find my stress-relieving technique of spinning long, incredibly convoluted fantasies kicks into high gear and all I can say is thank goodness for cute actors. Remarkably soothing to contemplate them, really.

So, with all this going on, my capacity to create intelligent, insightful posts that will give you intellectual satisfaction and a sense of purpose is pretty much at a standstill. Good thing no one was counting on me for that, eh?

Uh, point? What was my point when I started this post? Oh, yeah, empathy.

One thing that happened during this period of frequent mental vacancy and arms sore from too much typing which I didn't post about at the time is that TypePad got a big update and I leapt into it like a little kid on Christmas morning, but, alas, no change to the method of inputting the date of a post. I totally understand, really, I do. The Six Apart folks work way harder than I do and have been keeping at it steadily for years. It's fine. I have plenty of recent posts to deal with and anything within the last 5 years isn't too painful to set using the current method. It does mean you won't be seeing any more of my early years showing up in the archive for a while though.

I've hardly even played with my new Treo much.

You know I'm wiped out when I have a brand new device which will allow me to blog from anywhere and I've hardly posted at all.

Reveling in unproductivity 2004

As I think must happen every year as a result of holidays and my work schedule getting a little loosy-goosy, I have switched back to being a night-owl. Last night I went to bed around 1am but didn't fall fully asleep until 3ish. Then I slept until 1pm! I guess I needed it. Tonight I had dinner at midnight.

Obviously I didn't get much done this morning - though I woke up very well-rested which certainly counts for something - and the rest of the day hasn't been startlingly fruitful either. I totally forgot that today was my opportunity to go pick up my new glasses which have been ready now for a week or more. I guess I'll go into work late some morning or get them next Saturday. While Chris was out for a motorcycle ride I did get some minor cleaning done around the house, but I can't say I've even got the place back to a neutral thoroughly clean state, let alone made any headway on the neglected to-do list.

This evening around watching more of the first season of Kids in the Hall and the old John Cusack film "Better Off Dead" I did finish entering all my bills in Quicken and balanced my bank statements, so I guess I can have a gold star on the calendar for that. Still, it's a bit sad to look at the piles of papers and think about projects I've hardly put any work in on during my extra days off in the past couple weeks. Oh well, sometimes doing nothing is just what one needs.

***

Heh. And now it's a quarter to 2 in the morning. I started writing this post a little before 1am and then just went over to IMDB to check the spelling of John Cusack's name... Another hour gone by and no progress on any projects. I can tell already that Monday morning is going to be very tough.

Catching Up, Sort Of 2003

I just deleted about 250 email messages from my inbox which I have read and don't need to keep or do anything with.

That brings me down to 977. *sigh*

"Oh" they say. 2003

Important things learned on a Tuesday evening:

- That whole "set aside enough clothes to get you through the two and a half weeks of your move" idea works really well.

- Afterwards you'll have a lot of laundry to do.

- You might think that going to the laundromat to do all the laundry would be cheaper than paying the ladies at Gay Cleaners (yes, that's the real name) to wash it for you, but given certain surrounding factors, you might be wrong.

- If the dryers are really wussy seeming and the High Heat is lukewarm and you're plunking quarters in like this was Vegas to get things dry, maybe you should clean the lint traps instead of waiting until your stuff is finally almost done and the maintenance lady comes in and cleans them and suddenly the dryers are two or three times as effective.

- If you're going to forget a load in the washer until the rest of the stuff is halfway dry, maybe it shouldn't be the load with your sheets and towels.

- If you're going to have to rush rush rush to get stuff back to your place in order to return the car share car in time because the drying took twice as long, you'll probably do something like tear one of your pillowcases on some sharp bit at the bottom of the back of the driver's seat.

- When you get back to the lot to return the car, there will probably be some creepy old guys parked in the handicapped and car share spaces apparently just standing around drinking (soda? beer?) by the bus stop behind Walgreens. They will move, but they'll be dorks about it and make you wait for them move both cars, not just the one in the car share space. Also there will probably be someone else sitting in their car in the other car share space who will be completely oblivious to their need to move.

- As much as you hate honking, when you're all stressed out, you will honk. This is why driving is bad. When you walk, you don't honk.

- To move the car forward into the parking space rather than backwards frightening the pedestrians in the driveway behind you, it is best not to have the car in reverse.

- A slice of pizza from Marcello's, a brisk walk up a hill and slipping into clean sheets cures most ills.

Moving 2003

I am stiff and sore and aware of muscles I forgot I had.

Moving sucks.

On the other hand, the new apartment is absolutely sublime.

Very Small Achievements 2003

Well, I'm still sick. I got through my day of work all right yesterday and was even able to enjoy seeing the movie 'Rivers and Tides' about Andy Goldsworthy (Great stuff!), but when I woke up aching and coughing this morning I realized I wasn't going to be able to shake this sinusitis without some more bed rest. Thus I'm back to Monday's routine: pot after pot of herbal tea and naps. Fortunately, I do feel better than I did Monday so I have some optimism that this is actually working.

So, what can I accomplish while I'm sitting here in my feety pyjamas drinking two pots of tea in a row - hydration, baby, it's all about hydration - and eating a little breakfast before settling down for a nap? Update copyright dates on all my web site page templates, that's what. Happy new year!

*whew* Changing a dozen twos to threes, that's a good day's work for this sick little monkey. I'm outta here.

Free time! 2002

I was going slow this morning, resting up and hoping I've finally shaken the fevery illness I've had for the past few days. I was finishing a book (Hollywood History of the World, a fascinating critique of historical accuracy in American film and a more comprehensive approach than that found in the also excellent Hollywood And History: Costume Design in Film) and was running up against the time when I really ought to put it down and have a bite to eat before my friend Fil comes over. Fortunately, I read fast and the book had lots of bibliographic information filling up the last pages, so I finished it and took a quick shower. When I got out, I checked my email and noticed that the computer thought it was 11:30am.

Odd.

Then I realized it is that early; the clocks changed last night and I have an extra hour. Hooray! This sort of thing doesn't happen much more than once a year, so you've got to treasure it. :)

la la la 2002

Everything's fine. Really. I just haven't been inspired to write much for the past little while. Lots of offline real-time socializing, some hard work moving stuff from one storage unit to another, mellow time with Chris, Philip Glass & troupe performing the Koyanisquatsi soundtrack live to the movie last night at the symphony. That sort of thing. Oh and listening to books on tape and playing the Game Neverending. And sleeping and reading and cooking. Speaking of which, I'm a mite hungry. How about you? What is your body telling you? Mine says "Stretch, drink some water and eat something."

O sleep, why do I neglect you? 2002

I should have done as I told a friend I was going to do. I should have gone to bed early and gotten 9 hours of sleep. Instead I took a nice hot bath, read a magazine, did the dishes, wrote some email and then listened to a book on tape for a while.

I felt very relaxed, but my body is now informing me that that ain't the same as sleep. My mind is foggy, my head achy and my eyelids drooping. My job doesn't have a whole lot of mindless tasks - or at least I don't know enough yet for anything to be mindless. I guess it's a mercy that I'll be in an eagerly awaited training from 10-noon.

*yawn* *blink blink* *stare*

Temporary Cat? 2002

I need a home for Oban, the little black cat, for approximately 2 and a half months. She is a housebroken, friendly 6 year old who does not like other animals. I am pretty sure I have a new home for her - the prospective cat owners still need to meet her - but they can't take her until they are in their new place in a couple months.

I would just take her myself but
-it's against my lease
-I'm allergic to the dear beast
-my apartment is only 300 square feet

If you are in the greater San Francisco area and would like to provide a foster home for a couple months for a nice little indoor-only cat, please email me at this domain.

Hm? What? Must have dozed off... 2002

Hi. I was away visiting my parents. Usual sort of visit, lots of sleeping, reading, eating and walking. Very relaxing. Um, not much news to report. actually, why not pop over and wish Edmond happy birthday and good fortune in the remainder of his journey to the Canadian border?

Home. Safe. Tired. 2002

Too much driving. No messages or email regarding jobs.

Cures:
- sweet supportive email from my pal Edmond
- Annie's Macaroni & Cheese
- glass of sherry (muscle relaxant)
- computer games

I'm Driving In My Car... 2002

Well, technically speaking, I'm driving in my company's car, or rather, I'm probably driving as you read this. I'm picking up Grandma Susie in Shafter (near Bakersfield) and taking her to visit GranMary in Merced. Then we're meeting up with my Mum in the East Bay for a handoff. Grandma Susie and Mum will head up to Edgewood (their home in Mendecino County) and I'll come back home to San Francisco and lay on my face enjoying not driving.

I've got a pretty good stack of music lined up - variety for my solo part of the trip and classical for Grandma - so I'm actually looking forward to it in a way, but it's a lot of driving. The good part is that the second half is when I'll have company - by then I'm usually bored with the whole "sitting in a comfy seat enjoying my stereo system" thing.

On the whole though, and I can safely say this even before the trip, long-distance truck driver is not one of the career choices I'm considering. I'm thinking something more like flannel sheet tester.

"Hmmrm? Oh, I'm almost done with my evaluation; few more hours...*snuggle* *snooze*"

A pretty day 2002

Beautiful weather today - it'll be nice tonight for the KFOG fireworks show. Not sure yet if I'll go down to the pier or watch it from elsewhere, but it's not a show I want to miss.

My meeting with my boss went fine. He seems resigned to my not wanting to do the same job any longer. He offered me something else which may or may not pan out; I'm considering it. It has some exit points and would pay the bills, so it seems doable in the short term at least.

Stopped at REI and picked up a few items for Edmond, then came on home, again found a parking space on my block and bumped into the man from the post office with 2 packages for me. These are #2 & #3 of the boxes Edmond has sent back with things he doesn't need, but the big excitement is that they also have the flash card with the first pictures from the trail. I'm booting up Edmond's computer now (ugh. Windows. How gauche.) and will make a post to his site when I have them ready for viewing.

Everything's Fine 2002

I'm fine. Engaged in mundane activities including a big resupply box checking & packing marathon. I took a picture of my chaotic room - currently full of half packed boxes, bags of GORP, scales & other Edmond-care paraphrenalia. (Is that spelled right? Hrm. Oh well, too much to finish up before bed to go check. You'll live.)

More tomorrow or Friday...

Picking Up Speed 2002

Starting to feel a bit better. Had some allergies this morning, but not bad considering I'm dusting & vacuuming.

I did achieve my goals Friday - except instead of 19 calls I made 2 or 3, but actually reached someone and got to do the survey which took as long as the other calls would have). Man, sales & marketing work is not my thing. I can do it (I give good phone) but ick.

Yesterday was mostly puttering around the house and then going to a great birthday party (Thanks Mike!). I am still crappy at pool, but I had fun anyhow and we got to ride in a 12 person limo - very surreal, especially with Mike playing Stephen Kent/Lights in a Fat City digeridoo music. Gotta get me some CDs of that...

Today I was going to go hang out with Kevin but he had a horrible horrible allergy attack - naturally, he showed me pictures online of his red puffy eyes, he is such a documenter (but who am I to talk?) - and so I'm home, listening to Edmond's CDs and cleaning house. I'd like to have my music louder but I have a fussy downstairs neighbor.

Note to anyone seeking an apartment:
Question #1 is "Does it have any upstairs neighbors?" to which the answer must be "No", but you also need to ask Question #2 which is "Does the downstairs neighbor lead a normal life and leave his apartment rather than sitting in there all day & night being bothered by every footstep?" to which the answer must be "Yes". Shoulda asked that, oh my...

Upward Trend 2002

I'm doing somewhat better today. Got out of bed about 9:15 and immediately got dressed, cooked some breakfast and started working on the day's project: moving some of my stuff into Edmond's storage unit.

Odd thing happened while I was making breakfast. I had a glass bottle of real maple syrup. It was almost empty, but I saved it to add just a tiny bit of flavor to my cream of rice. I turned it upside down and left it balancing on its screwtop metal lid in a clear spot on the stove which happened, though I didn't think about it at the time, to be right above the pilot light. When I came back in a while later, the syrup had oozed down the sides of the bottle and then, in accordance with some physical principle I don't quite understand, rose up around the lid (through the screw tracks?) to pool on the stove around the bottle, now completely empty. It wasn't hot enough to boil, so what happened? (I love science in action, just wish I'd actually had better training in its basic principles. I guess I traded that for interpersonal communication class which has proved more useful. Ah, hippy school!)

Now I'm in the lull before the next burst of activity. I need to go get my* car from where I parked it a couple blocks away and load it up with these boxes of genealogy papers, role-playing games, old souvenirs & stuffed animals (Mr. John Barrymore Toad, my crocheted frog made by Grandma Muriel, and Lil' Cthulhu, made by my friend Laura Bowen, who has the cutest little claws and wee yarn tentacles (um, Cthulhu, not Laura)), and holiday stuff.

I'm on the verge of a major conversion from atoms to bits. I now have my scanner set up (thanks Edmond!) and have begun sorting the ephemera of my life so that I can extend this blog back in time, pre-1998. My general plan is to do this in the Dinah section of the site and to make the dates of the posts match the date (as best I can) of the item being documented (e.g. diary entry from when I was twelve, picture of me at age two, fake movie poster I made in college, etc.)

So, like I said, this is the lull before I go get the car and lug all this heavy shit downstairs and then drive for an hour and then unload the car and then drive to work and then make 19 sales calls and then take the train home. I don't want to start that string of unfun. I must move the car before noon (street sweeping time on that block), so I guess that means I can play computer games for 45 minutes, eh?

Mmm, procrastination, my favorite flavor!

*Well, when I say my car, I mean "the company car which I've been using for the last couple years". It belongs to SoftDevices and now that I live in San Francisco, I'm actually happy to leave it at the office instead of dealing with city parking and worrying about it getting broken into.

Communication Backlog 2002

One side-effect of moving (which I know many of you will be able to identify with since 2002 seems to be Year of the Move) is that lots of small things get set aside for later, After The Move. I have a bunch of receipts, bills, etc. to go through that would be over a foot high if I stacked it and 1001 pieces of email in my inbox - none of which is spam. Oh and another half dozen that need to be answered in my Musee Mechanique email folder. Ah, and my few SXSW pictures to put up.

Forgive me if I haven't gotten back to you yet. I'm digging myself out of this drift.

Lazy Saturday Morning 2002

Still having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, but it's getting better slowly. Due to a late night awake period, I wound up sleeping until noon. Now I'm sipping my tea, checking email, clipping my fingernails and thinking about where I'll go walking to work off some of the rich fatty food I've been eating in the last few weeks.

It's fun having friends in different parts of the world. I was chatting via instant messenger with Jay in New Orleans and he signed off with:

well, I need to go buy crawfish. I'll talk to you soon

Now that's just cool.

Time Sucka 2002

Oh yeah. I'm back online. As evidenced by the fact that I just spent over an hour surfing weblogs standing up while my dinner waited for me in the kitchen and I failed to go to the grocery story to purchase bread to eat with my nice soup. Crackers & connectivity for dinner tonight, my friends, crackers & connectivity.

Hallalujah! 2002

O the joy of reconnection! I am online at my new home.

Unfortunately, I don't have a cable long enough to take the phone line over to where I want the computer to be, but this problem is easily solved with a visit to Edmond's Garage Emporium of Cables. So I'm currently standing by the foot of my bed, leaning against the wall and typing on my mini-keyboard which is resting on the open drawer of the cabinet my monitor is sitting on. I'll need to be careful not to trip over the power strip which is in the middle of my hall between my bed and the bathroom, but this is all a small price to pay for connectivity.

Now I have much email to sort through and I need to make my bed (having done my first laundromat laundry in a few years), but progress is being made! Huzzah!

Getting Twitchy 2002

I'm fine. Really. Pretty much over the flu except for an occasional *ugh* productive cough. All the stuff that needed to go from the old place to the new (and some of it is even put away!) Most of the stuff that needed to be moved out of the old place to somewhere else is moved. Oh, there's still the rest to deal with and the cleaning & repairs, but progress has been made.

And I'm still waiting for the right modem to allow me to connect to the DSL line I'm currently paying for. Hrmph. And the 3 prong plug next to the computer - the only one in my place - turns out not to be grounded. Grrr. I guess I asked for an adventure & I'm getting it.

Anyhow, I'm still disconnected from email & internet for days at a stretch, so if you don't hear a response for a bit, don't take it personally! I'm coming back soon, just waiting for the wires...

Slow Climb Uphill 2002

I'm starting to feel better, but still definitely not at 100% or even 90% yet. Still on the hot tea & soup regimen.

Fortunately, I am at 80% done on the move. Tonight I will take another full car load and thus completely empty my room. That will leave some stuff in the garage and in the backyard, but I hope to take care of it with my Mum tomorrow. Then I'll just need to put in a day or two on repairs & cleaning and I'll be all done.

As for the new place, I'm mostly unpacked, but it's clear that I need to sell/donate/throw away some stuff. Moving from half a 3-bedroom townhome with garage to a 300 square foot apartment is quite an exercise in voluntary simplicity.

So, I'm understandably tired, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy Lazy Day 2001

Well, I didn't make it to San Francisco, but I did have a nice big walk today. I slept in (lovely to recharge the batteries), puttered around a while sorting out some old records (yes, alphabetizing, mmm) and then we walked to downtown Mountain View. It's about 2 or 2 and a half miles, a nice walk. We had lunch at Fiesta Del Mar and enjoyed the amazing molé sauce. It was a beautiful walk. Really nice to enjoy Edmond's company and the nice weather and the beauty of the ginko trees along Middlefield Road.

I haven't done anything productive this evening - playing Civilization III again - but that's fine. Good to relax. I'm not feeling stressed the way I was last month. Things are going much better. I've released a lot of worry and I'm spending the day tomorrow with someone who restores my soul, so it's only getting better. I wish this peace and happiness on everyone - it may not come around often, but when it does, enjoy it for the blessing it is.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise... 2001

I went to bed around 9:30 last night and got to work this morning by 8am, a time in recent past more likely to be associated with the alarm clock than the office building alarm passcode.

So here I am.

No one else here. Quite possibly there will be no one else here for another hour. I guess I should get some work done, huh?

Weak Flesh 2001

My wrist and arm pain is getting worse again, despite a nice ergonomic setup at work and at home. This morning when I woke up my lower arms were not sore, but definitely felt fatigued - and this despite taking an evening off from the computer.

I did have a lovely evening last night. First I lay reading on the couch downstairs eating blue corn chips and Happy Jackal salsa (highly recommended). Then I moved upstairs to my leather chair, Luxury, and finished The Tipping Point while listening to a new Bach sampler CD . Ahhhh... delightful.

And now here it is Friday. My last day of work before a two (TWO!) week vacation. I'm taking Kristin to lunch today so that will make it go even faster. Sneaky Dinah.

Hmm, but I suppose it won't go by until I actually go to the office. I guess I better make that grueling 4.3 mile drive and start looking productive. (Now I'm here and it's colder inside than out. Office building dorkery!)

MetaGrrrl has a messy desk 2000

No, it's not pleasing to the eye. I will make it nicer someday, but for now, I am a desk slob.

Tie? 1999

Here's a rather nice tie. Too wide for me, but very pleasing.

Damn. 1999

I'm supposed to be giving feedback on eBay. Surfing aimlessly is way more fun.

Flog Blog 1999

I'm selling stuff on eBay again. This time it's a piano course from the 50's and 4 LazerTag sets. Eclectica lives!

Prudence kicks in 1999

Changed my mind about buying a new car. Instead I'll buy off the lease for the Saturn which Joe & I got. Not really the car I want, but a better solution fiscally speaking. Not a bad car, just not the little hatchback o' my dreams.

Still grading... I thought I'd be done by now. Ack! I want a fun weekend, dang it. Maybe next time.

Friends don't let friends teach grad school.

Solo party Chez MetaGrrrl tonight 1999

Having a lovely bowl of popcorn with garlic salt & parmesan cheese accompanied by a Bloody Mary. No reason I couldn't be out and about having fun elsewhere, but I'm getting stuff done. Grading web projects, listening to Everclear, buying a car.

Yeah, and missing Edmond. Sure it's fun to have some time alone, but he's just easy to be with and the playa is a long way away. When he gets back his hair will probably be really long, maybe almost an inch!

Lazy Times 1999

Yes, I've been neglecting my journal. We'll both live.

Happy birthday tomorrow to my pal, Tracyl! :)

Time to go lie on the couch and be useless.

Good Things 1999

6:02pm
Another weekend frittered away on hanging out with friends, helping my parents, letting my parents help me, making my apartment a nicer place to live, spending time with That Guy I'm All Mushy About and generally improving my life.

Where are my priorities?

6:07pm
Oh, yeah, and I'm helping turn the world upside down. It's the last paradigm of the century; get on the cluetrain.

10:20pm
Didn't do any work this long weekend as I'd planned to, but got lots of other things done. (HP was closed Friday so I couldn't get in to do anything).

Last night I slept really well. Today I went for a nice walk and I ate right. I am going to see if I can keep this trend going. Heck, I think I'll even floss. What a paragon of virtue I am! (Oh, quit coughing like that).

Coolness: I just heard local 80's band Game Theory played on spinner.com [Link (& company apparently) dead as of January 2004]. Yeah, there sure are some advantages to DSL despite all the hassles.

Nice little home activities 1999

10:30am
It's a beautiful day. I'd like to go out walking, but my antibiotics (for my sinus infection now mercifully almost gone) say I should avoid the sun. *sigh* I'll just look out the window and maybe water the plants on the porch. Sugar snap peas are now coming up nicely.

Got a nice letter from my friend Paul full of corrections on my interpretations of header information in my How to Stop Spam page. I'll put those corrections in later today. Thanks, Paul! (Hmm, I probably ought to ask mail-whiz Edmond to have a look at it too and explain it to me a bit more). [As of January 2004, I've decided not to migrate that content into TypePad. It's too out of date and I don't want people wandering into it off Google.]

Uncle Larry had more evil ideas for the Personal Revelation Disclosure Form - 1A. I'll try to get those in today as well.

If you like bird-watching, world music, and/or hiking around the San Francisco Bay Area, Larry & Lynn's site is well-worth a visit. They have a great set of links on a variety of other subjects too.

Ah, just too nice a lazy Sunday morning to be sitting here in front of the computer! More later.

3:17pm
I am Mighty Apartment-Rearranging Dinah!!!
Grrr! Look out!
My mother is selling the house she bought in 1969 and moving completely to Edgewood, the house up on the Mendecino coast which she and my stepdad, Paul, share with his mom, Muriel, and (soon) her parents, Bob & Susie. The old house was a great place to grow up and we all love it, but Edgewood is better and none of us want to live in Martinez at the moment. So, anyhow, she's selling the enormous Martinez house and that means all the stuff in it needs to be taken or left for the buyer (a great "as-is" deal!). Well, I'm taking an antique couch which I have always liked. It has swans on the ends of the arms and is more attractive than it sounds when I say that. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I'm getting a couch. A six-and-a-half-foot-long couch. And I'm putting it in my already a bit crowded studio apartment. Heh. Hence the cleaning and rearranging. I think it will be just fine now, but there is no way I can fit anything else into that closet.

4:17pm
*whew* I'm all tuckered out.

6pm
After my shower and a bit of puttering around online I feel better.

I just bought a lovely hat from those fine red rabbits at The Hat Factory.

Mongering 1999

Just signed up to sell through these guys:
[and then I had a CDNow logo and a search input which allowed you to select Artist, Album Title, or Song Title searches. Ah whatever. They're now (August 2003) part of Amazon and I find the Associates program much easier to work with. So much so that I can't be bothered to recreate the image and form tags for this old post.]

I'm selling stuff on eBay.

Productivity 1999

Didn't get half of what I wanted to get done completed this weekend, but I did have nice visits with some friends and got & responded to some great feedback on my proposal. Thanks, Squishy! And it's only 6:15, the laundry is done and half put away and I have the shopping list all ready for the trip to the grocery store. I suppose it's conceivable I might even get some work done tonight.

Good news, I suppose 1999

Still alive.

La la la lazy 1999

I feel extremely lazy this evening. There are a lot of things I could work on, probably should work on, but damned if I feel like being productive. I guess I'll just be a slug. (Hey, I went to UCSC; it's even appropriate!).

Grad School Exhaustion 1998

Changed almost every page of the site to insure that the pages aren't overwide. Haven't messed with the Eclectic Encyclopedia or Inkspot yet.

SJSU School of Library & Info. Sci. is looking for someone with Oracle experience to teach an introductory database management class. You must have a masters degree, it matters not what in, to teach. Let me know if you're interested.

Tired. So tired.

This and that 1998

Phone line still dead at home. AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

*whew* I'm online again. Dang, that was close. Good thing the library has access.

Had a good weekend except for the unconnected parts. Met (non-electronically) Peter Merholz and had a great conversation about the web and webfolk and all kinds of stuff.

Wrote the abstract to my thesis.

Got quoted in JOHO. Am smug.

Current resume now available as a Word document and plain ol' vanilla text. [Links to resume removed December 2003 since I'm not job hunting and there are limits to how much I want up on the site. Teen angst, sure. Everywhere I've ever worked? I don't think so, bunny.]

Making Another List (I love lists!) 1985

[probably written sometime between July 7th and mid-August, 1985, in planning for my junior year abroad in Wales]

Things to bring: 1st try
- 2 pairs jeans (ratcage [I'm not sure what I meant by that. I have a vague memory of having a rat cage which was a converted aquarium and it might have had a dark blue back which matched the color of a pair of jeans] & light blue)
- 2 sweaters (green/grey & dk blue)
- 2 turtlenecks (cotton blue & brown & green?)
- 7 pairs underwear
- 7 pairs socks
- 2 bras (3?) [and then the 2 and (3?) are crossed out and 4 is written in]
- 7? t-shirts
- black cotton dress
- wool pants
- wool vest
- dress shirt
- rain boots [next to which is written "ship?"]
- capezio shoes
- Tights?
- Cape? [next to which is written "ship?"]
- sneakers
- All Eap [Education Abroad Program] papers which will be needed over there
- Let's Go [Britain] 85
- Stately Homes [a travel guide from a past trip with my family, I think]
- tape player [next to which is written "ship?"]
- tapes [next to which is written "ship?"]
- safety pins
- Swiss Army knife [A gift from my father, I think]
- (bring little blue purse)
- sewing kit
- band aids
- recipes
- some stuff for personalizing my room [next to which is written "ship?"]
- Woolite
- Dr. Bonner's? [Peppermint castile soap]
- new wool skirt (I'll need to get something to wear with it. Make a fichu? [My Dickens Faire influence showing through; most mid-80's college students don't use the word "fichu"])
- deodorant
- glasses
- hairbrush & comb
- journals & cash book

[That is the last entry in the "Beginning... Sept. 1983 by Dinah Saunders" journal]

Notes to self & sweetie 1985

CALL Alice (you ninny!)

[First long-term relationship]! I miss you!

More post-sophomore summer 1985

I think I'm allergic to the house. Shit. What a hassle.

It's summer. I shouldn't still have all these "have-to-do" things. Clean room. Clean bathroom. (Vacuum). Move up Santa Cruz stuff sorting it en route. Not too bad, really. All I need is a free day.

Pinel [my primary school] reunion Sunday. I better call Alice [Kinney, my beloved primary teacher] tomorrow.

Good night, World. Dinah's gonna crash for all too brief a time. And no skin with me. No loving male. Rats.

Best laid plans 1984

1. No pinapple for Lisa. Necklace instead.
2. Oh well.
3. I'll visit in person.
4. Keep smiling!
5. [checkmark]

Planning for College 1983

In a blank book which I assume to have been a gift, in which the inside front cover is silver writing reading "Beginning... Sept 1983 by Dinah Saunders" (so probably not from someone in my family, who do know how I spell my last name), are these notes on the first six pages, presumably from the summer of 1983:

Things I Need:
- washcloth
- screws for picture hanging + hanging wire
- coffee cups
- plate + silverwhere [sic]
- big package of detergent
- tea
- hot chocolate [not checked off]
- celtic harp music
- Robin Williamson + other records
- big pillow
- mirror [not checked off]
- What People Wore
- popcorn popper, corn & oil
- other pens
- tapes they borrowed [Don't know who they were]
- stamps
- string + rings [?]
- pallette [?, sic]
- down jacket
- salt (butter flavor?) [sic, not checked off]
- Complete Shakespeare
- weyrs [this refers to a project based on Anne McCaffrey's books, one of which I am re-reading today, July 1st 2003, by coincidence]
- Rocky Horror Book

Food (?)
Sunday - chewy spaghetti, yucko but good salad
Monday - actually good tacos (a little flimsy, but...)
Tuesday - soup + salad good(!)

More Stuff
- staples (stapler type) [as opposed to the generic supplies sense, I suppose]
- herbs [not checked off]
- rest of [Renaissance] Faire stuff
- Rocky Horror stuff
- t.v. [I don't remember having a t.v.; that's odd]
- chalkboard [not checked off]
- Edward Gorey books
- J.B. Toad [a fine knit frog made by my Grandma Muriel]

Bring to S.C. [Santa Cruz, though I think all these represent lists of things to take to university with me. Maybe they're for separate trips home & back to school]
- T & T stuff [Tunnels & Trolls role-playing game]
- CA I.D. card
- Victrola case [yes, as a teenager I had an empty Victrola case, which I kept blankets & things in]
- big pillow
- sewing stuff
- Arch. stuff [this is followed by "???", so I think I must have been making this list in Santa Cruz and then when I was in Martinez and gathering things together, I couldn't figure out what it referred to]
- cloak [yep, also had a floor-length, wool cloak as a teenager. It was a present from, um, Eric Griswold, I think]
- blue quill
- pea soup recipe
- loaf pans
- videos
- birdseed
- lamp
- Halloween stuff

Monday
- laundry + shower
- pack
- patch
- window for Jeff [stained glass?]
- find glasses case
- get check from Jinx [yes, even at 18 I referred to my mum as Jinx and my stepdad as Paul]
- tell Jinx about grants
- trim hair [not crossed off, circled with "next time" written next to it]
- J+P's prez's [by which I meant "Jinx & Paul's presents]
- pay Paul back $15

Bring
- chalkboard? ["next time" is written beside this]
- stereo
- prez's
- records + tapes
- The Blue Sword [the Robin McKinley book]
- cheese + crackers

Tuesday
- leave prez's for J+P
- put foam on bed/put sheets to wash
- roll up sleeping bag + blanket + towel
- make sure I have $, keys, ID + proxy cards, check for $922
- toothbrush, etc.
- double check

2 boxes
stereo
duffel bag
suitcase
backpack
dice box [scratched out]
cork board
wine bottle

Bring to SC
- cards
- some T&T & weyr stuff
- poncho
- corkboard(s)
- clothes to left of Miss Glitz [wish I could remember what outfit earned the epithet "Miss Glitz"]
- down jacket?
- shoes by door
- 1 shelf Only of books

Leave Behind
- board games
- some RPG stuff [Role Playing Game]
- Miss Glitz
- some costuming stuff
- top hat, etc.

That's all she wrote 1979

Howdy!

abandoned project 1979

[after six and a half months with only one entry]
Opps [sic], so much for the diary.

President's Day Weekend? 1979

Here I am on holiday and I don't write much when I'm on holiday.

*wuuphh... what a stench - I seem to have a severe case of fartinitis. Oh yuck. [Yeah, such a genteel young lady]

I made lotsa money today selling pussywillow and baby-sitting Kirsten; (I made 9.40) Not bad.

G'Night.

A minimal diary entry 1979

Hello

Uh huh. 1979

Kjell [my step-brother] is here.

[Bianca] Bonkers is a nice rat after all.

I want to fantasize so I will turn out the light right now.

G'night.

Entropy wins 1979

Too sleepy to write.

G'night.