Flutending

The double entendre (when not Freudian, when MW definition #1 and not 2) is my favorite.

No, I am not tending to anyone with influenza, but I am contemplating pretending I've been virus-ridden for the past four days.

Too much evidence in the e-world and real world exists to the contrary, though, so I'm left with no real reasons for why I have not been able to come out and play, or work, or stay in and work, or barely do anything but bathe, eat too much and misbehave.

I made a meeting Monday and I made an opening Tuesday. I went to work Tuesday. School Monday was cancelled but I worked on school anyway. I have kept up with dishes and pets. I am going to a baby shower and will fix food for that tomorrow.

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A bit of time has gone by … the inbox is down to 126, with about 100 of them flagged to transmit/enter … another six or so in process of replying … coffee did not help (but to create a freaky ovarian-ish cramp for an hour); I am still tired and bored at heart and discouraged.

Glad I don't have to go "cover" the American Royal parade in the morning.

Sad I missed a personal deadline … when it's every Wed/Thurs/Fri, it's tiresome, and obviously, I'm not that sad about it / since when does sadness serve as a motivator … You would think that I'd even have jumped at the opportunity to create invoices so as to receive (portional) money "for" the past 14 weeks, wouldn't you? In my head, I know that tomorrow is soon enough, that it's not the end of anyone's world, that I'm human and can pretend I can use that for an excuse just this once.

Once?

Funny.

Grocery store is a great place for the anti-social and spacey, but it's dangerous b/c weekly calorie-count is way up and stomach is not working correctly, despite adding lots of vegetables and avoiding rice.

Allons-y.

Salem Mailbox

Considering the fact that the USPS "decided" without warning or notes (unlike UPS) to stop delivering the mail "because no one is ever here" (with the caveats exposed during inquiries that: we don't know where your mail is; you should call the next day before 8 a.m. — but be sure to let it ring and ring and ring and ring, because "he" does not answer the phone; when you do call AND go down to the PO, there will still be zero answers), I present this excellent use of USPS property.

Two weddings and a road-trip

goal pile fall '09

not get swine flu

do term paper*
*(get "enrolled" after being in class weeks and weeks … )

have dad at home for several days without exploding

make magazine grow in artists' usefulness

do other job

see if someone wants to fix a roof and eaves and much much more! for under $10k in january

not explode in general

not think about "transforming second half of my life" while also not having (had) babies

(republished from Facebook notes, 9-4-09)

You'll just end up doing it with someone else

"they" are all leaving facebook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html?_r=1

i don't really agree with those issues. don't do ratings and quizzes, don't say anything you don't want the whole stupid world to know, and just share events without necessarily saying whether you are going or where you have been. i never feel like we're co-stalking or co-ignoring.

the people who are lurking never really posted much in the first place. we've found no one has the time or energy to write to people directly, to all the people they wish to care about. honestly, we meet so many people in real life that it's overwhelming to know who(m) to maintain ties with, which kind, at what intervals.

that's how i feel anyway.

as for over-marketing, unlike the sexy "girls" who try to hook up with one on myspace all the time, the predatory marketing here seems fairly tame and infrequent. sure, i have nearly 300 "friends" at the moment, but many of us have career interests in common and live or are connected to the same accessible geography. we even see each other in person unless we live too far apart.

i appreciate hearing about web sites my cousin finds about advertising trends. i like hearing about healthy lifestyle choices people are making. peer pressure can be electronic and positive. some of us are stuck at computer screens wrecking our eyes and tendons for some cause that is really all for the effect of making some money to stay alive well enough to enjoy each others' company.

so we might as well "see" each other online during the computer-hours of life and get a head start.

the way the article plugged for twitter and ignored myspace was interesting, wasn't it? the way it undermined most of its own arguments for why people are leaving facebook was a little dull. the way i'm on linkedin but never go there because it's so ugly makes me guilty of being a lurker too.

show me a social networking tool that requires no maintenance (ie: no need to be profitable in order to compensate someone to spend time working on it), and then we'll have something to discuss. people want to keep in touch. if they want it without advertising, they should get together and build that. is twitter like that?

(republished from Facebook notes, 9-2-09)

Centipede, Millipede, 8/21/09

PS: they are all dead now, despite the fact that when we came home after a week of having the windows shut that the place was a mold factory … damp and gross and prompting even the most A/C-hating individual to crank it to 70º … black mold starting its path on places on the toilets no one expects … white floury clouds of spore powder flying into the air when morning glory vines are pulled …
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C: Loved loved loved the arcade game,
Until that roller ball would pinch my palms …

Feeling compelled to clarify on the alleged centipede-harboring-issue, lest everyone think I live in some kind of crawling pit of filth (and starting with how I sweep a lot but, as you know, can't deliberately kill non-lethal spiders and actually contemplated getting an owl somehow to deal with those mice that one time):

Centipedes are nightmarish and terrible things. The fact of their Jurassic past and tropical present keeps me from going to certain countries or geologic ages (sure, I can time-travel, why not).

I crushed a one at Mildred's a few weeks ago.

"My" "centipede" colony is contained in a flower pot where a baby jade plant is growing. They seem to be in various stages of life, and after I looked up both C and M, I find that there is a reason that a few seem to have more legs than the rest and the kind of fast-acting, wanna-hide gumption one comes to fear in centipedes: they are millipedes.

They all are kind-of tiny 1/2" by, oh, maybe 2 mm in diameter (like the mixed measurements?) … being "kept" only because I like to look at them and try to pretend I can get over my disgust. I am fascinated by the life of soil. Remember the little grey silverfish-companion bugs that lived in there? Now they have herbivore friends.

These friends will continue to grow, the Internet photos and data indicate, and apparently they migrate a lot, live "quite a long time," whatever that means, and can create 50-300 eggs, which hatch over a period of days. One site claimed they were incapable of reproducing indoors. I'd rather not experiment on this one; they might have adapted to new environments by now. If they are "greenhouse millipedes," they are an invasive species from Japan or elsewhere in Asia that are now ubiquitous on our continent. None of the photos really look like my creatures. They are still too small.

I don't see them trying to escape … except for a pile of dead juvenile ones I saw curled up outside the pot all in a cluster, which is how I noticed them and whose corpses I attributed to a spider hanging out around nearby around the bend (with no scientific proof, of course, and s/he's does not seem to be eating them anymore that I can tell; I can't find the arachnid).

It is not smart to think my will power and that very cottony and wide spider web encircling the base of the flower pot will stop them. The web seems especially well-designed to catch things that move and have wiggly mass like millipedes. But that would mean attributing both scouting and decision-making to a spider. That's some spider.

What's really stopping me is the fact that I am going to have to carry the thing outside (it's a 12-incher, full and heavy and crusty and full of spider webs and probably a spider besides — and who KNOWS what's on the bottom between the pot and tray???), remove the plant (hoping for the best) and dump it out.

All gross and tactile and worse than mere harboring. And, when my husband agreed to do it (easily), I couldn't let him take them away when we walked over to get it / them. Yes, insane. I wish I could tweeze them out without freaking out so that my Java finches might eat them. Only I don't know if they will. Mealy worms, sure (no, I don't buy those to feed them; are you kidding).

New lesson is an old lesson: you have no idea where that dirt has been.

Eggs are everywhere, and I've always liked science and am more pro-life than a lot of my actions would indicate.

But there is no way I'm having 'pedes running around my personal living space. There could be dozens.

So, relocation day is nigh.

Land Sea Monkeys could be the next million-dollar idea.

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I am sad they have died.

(republished from Facebook notes 8-21-09)

You know it has been too long

When you can't remember which version of which password is going to work.

Thank Googleness for forgiveness and multiple tries.

Just like a carnival game.