Don’t rely on jobs for anything. They will always try to get the most of out you
by providing as little to you as they can.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nugget and Titus.
.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
3553 Playing tourist
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The green has nothing to do with this post. Well, very little.
I intended to go to the country house this week, leaving Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But Tuesday morning The Man asked what my plans were for the week. He was going to be in NJ on business somewhere toward the end of the week and wanted to set up the schedule so he could visit when I was free. Naturally I got all excited, and said that my time was flexible, and when could he be here?
Tuesday afternoon, I got the temperature alert for the country house - 98 degrees Wednesday and Thursday. The a/c is dead there, that's one of those things on the "to fix" list, so my time suddenly became even more flexible. It would be well over 100 in that house.
By early afternoon Tuesday, The Man's schedule had changed, too. No NJ. He was going to be in Washington, DC, for two days.
So, long story short, I'm in (well, near) DC. Arrived yesterday, leaving tomorrow. He's working during the day, but we have the evenings and mornings.
Many men don't really want to hear what a woman has to say. They say they do,
but they don't, and they telegraph that. They end up teaching their women
not to say anything important, and then complain because they never say anything important.
-- Me --
----------------------------------------------------------------
The green has nothing to do with this post. Well, very little.
I intended to go to the country house this week, leaving Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But Tuesday morning The Man asked what my plans were for the week. He was going to be in NJ on business somewhere toward the end of the week and wanted to set up the schedule so he could visit when I was free. Naturally I got all excited, and said that my time was flexible, and when could he be here?
Tuesday afternoon, I got the temperature alert for the country house - 98 degrees Wednesday and Thursday. The a/c is dead there, that's one of those things on the "to fix" list, so my time suddenly became even more flexible. It would be well over 100 in that house.
By early afternoon Tuesday, The Man's schedule had changed, too. No NJ. He was going to be in Washington, DC, for two days.
So, long story short, I'm in (well, near) DC. Arrived yesterday, leaving tomorrow. He's working during the day, but we have the evenings and mornings.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
3552 Water, music
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
My phone rang during the dance class last night. It was a township automated red alert call, saying that the water was contaminated, and we should boil water used to wash dishes etc. and drink bottled water or boiled water until further notice. A few minutes later Daughter called with the same message, with the additional info that several people had been hospitalized.
I bought some bottled water on the way home. The store was full of people also buying water.
When I got home I found an email from the township with a link to further info. They suspect that the contamination occurred from damage to a pipe during construction.
Now, here's the good part. Right there in the township notice, they say that "the contamination was detected in a water sample taken Friday, June 15." Note that the alert didn't go out until Monday evening. People were showing up at the ER over the weekend. I'm surprised that they admitted a delay. How does someone break a pipe and not know it? That leaves them open to a lawsuit claiming that "they should have known - why take samples if you're going to be so blasé about them?"
Gee, thanks anyway for eventually letting us know....
At risk are "infants, toddlers, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems".
Given that the Nugget had been drinking it, and given that I drink at least 3 quarts of the stuff a day, I guess I'm not so very elderly, and our letting Nugget eat mud pies and whatever she finds on the floor is good for her immune system.
-------------------------
I've been reading through old posts, dating from late 2005 or so, and adding labels so I can find stuff. I found some posts about some of my musical interests. I do love me some drumline action.
This is an Amy/Navy drum battle. I'm not positive which is which - I suspect the guys on the right are Navy - but the guys on the left won hands down as far as I'm concerned. (Odd that they are not as precise as college drumlines. The guy on the far left is the only one with "the stoic posture". And why are the guys in the back masked? Weird.)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRikZ2Mwao]
I also love bagpipe, uillean pipe, bodhran, and hammered dulcimer. The old post at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2007/07/1349-another-passion.html has videos of them.
---------------------------
I've been disturbed by people who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose". Now there's a new one that I'm seeing more and more often: "break" and "brake". Even so-called professional writers are screwing that up. The mental image I get when someone writes "break the car" is, I suspect, not what the writer intended. "She slammed on the breaks" is a mind-blanker. I get no image.
.
"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend
will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'."
-- Groucho Marx --
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My phone rang during the dance class last night. It was a township automated red alert call, saying that the water was contaminated, and we should boil water used to wash dishes etc. and drink bottled water or boiled water until further notice. A few minutes later Daughter called with the same message, with the additional info that several people had been hospitalized.
I bought some bottled water on the way home. The store was full of people also buying water.
When I got home I found an email from the township with a link to further info. They suspect that the contamination occurred from damage to a pipe during construction.
Now, here's the good part. Right there in the township notice, they say that "the contamination was detected in a water sample taken Friday, June 15." Note that the alert didn't go out until Monday evening. People were showing up at the ER over the weekend. I'm surprised that they admitted a delay. How does someone break a pipe and not know it? That leaves them open to a lawsuit claiming that "they should have known - why take samples if you're going to be so blasé about them?"
Gee, thanks anyway for eventually letting us know....
At risk are "infants, toddlers, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems".
Given that the Nugget had been drinking it, and given that I drink at least 3 quarts of the stuff a day, I guess I'm not so very elderly, and our letting Nugget eat mud pies and whatever she finds on the floor is good for her immune system.
-------------------------
I've been reading through old posts, dating from late 2005 or so, and adding labels so I can find stuff. I found some posts about some of my musical interests. I do love me some drumline action.
This is an Amy/Navy drum battle. I'm not positive which is which - I suspect the guys on the right are Navy - but the guys on the left won hands down as far as I'm concerned. (Odd that they are not as precise as college drumlines. The guy on the far left is the only one with "the stoic posture". And why are the guys in the back masked? Weird.)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRikZ2Mwao]
I also love bagpipe, uillean pipe, bodhran, and hammered dulcimer. The old post at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2007/07/1349-another-passion.html has videos of them.
---------------------------
I've been disturbed by people who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose". Now there's a new one that I'm seeing more and more often: "break" and "brake". Even so-called professional writers are screwing that up. The mental image I get when someone writes "break the car" is, I suspect, not what the writer intended. "She slammed on the breaks" is a mind-blanker. I get no image.
.
Monday, June 18, 2012
3551 Belated Father's Day
Monday, June 18, 2012
I went to http://www.myphotostitch.com/Make_Pattern/Make_Pattern.html, submitted the following photo, and printed out the resulting free cross stitch pattern. Maybe I'll get it done by 2014.
No one raindrop ever feels responsible for the flood.
-------------------------------------------------
I went to http://www.myphotostitch.com/Make_Pattern/Make_Pattern.html, submitted the following photo, and printed out the resulting free cross stitch pattern. Maybe I'll get it done by 2014.
.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
3550 Mystery visitor
Sunday, June 17, 2012
For a while now, perhaps a week or two, this blog has been heavily visited by someone(s) in or near Washington, DC. Whoever it is, they are not the usual visitor. Feedjit shows them visiting the latest six or so posts in quick succession, every day, sometimes several times a day. Feedjit also shows where the link is that they came in on - like I know when someone comes in through a Google search, through Google reader, a link in an email, or via a link in another blog or website.
This visitor will visit five or six posts in less than a minute, and each visit is coming from a different site - and none of those sites have a link to this blog! In other words, the link origin is faked, and I suspect the "Washington, DC" may be faked, too.
At first I thought it was someone who didn't want me to know who they were, so they were using a proxy. Now I think it may be a spam robot. (There's a (very) remote possibility it could be my own government, triggered by my links to middle eastern blogs and that I read a lot of middle eastern news reports and comment on foreign blogs and reports, but that's just paranoia.)
I'm half tempted to take word verification off. If it's a spam robot, it'll show its colors immediately.
This is reminiscent of a few years ago when I was getting a lot of visits from Fort Meade, near Washington. I'd heard, when I lived in that area, that Fort Mead is full of spies. I asked in the blog "Who's coming in from Fort Meade?", and the visits immediately stopped. Strange.
Anyone else seeing anything like this?
.
Stop dwelling on your childhood and embrace your adulthood. Growing up is becoming the person you wanted to be.
----------------------------------------------------------
For a while now, perhaps a week or two, this blog has been heavily visited by someone(s) in or near Washington, DC. Whoever it is, they are not the usual visitor. Feedjit shows them visiting the latest six or so posts in quick succession, every day, sometimes several times a day. Feedjit also shows where the link is that they came in on - like I know when someone comes in through a Google search, through Google reader, a link in an email, or via a link in another blog or website.
This visitor will visit five or six posts in less than a minute, and each visit is coming from a different site - and none of those sites have a link to this blog! In other words, the link origin is faked, and I suspect the "Washington, DC" may be faked, too.
At first I thought it was someone who didn't want me to know who they were, so they were using a proxy. Now I think it may be a spam robot. (There's a (very) remote possibility it could be my own government, triggered by my links to middle eastern blogs and that I read a lot of middle eastern news reports and comment on foreign blogs and reports, but that's just paranoia.)
I'm half tempted to take word verification off. If it's a spam robot, it'll show its colors immediately.
This is reminiscent of a few years ago when I was getting a lot of visits from Fort Meade, near Washington. I'd heard, when I lived in that area, that Fort Mead is full of spies. I asked in the blog "Who's coming in from Fort Meade?", and the visits immediately stopped. Strange.
Anyone else seeing anything like this?
.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
3549 More Billly Blob
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Back in 2007 I discovered Billy Blob. Very strange cartoon videos. I was reading over old posts from back then, followed a link in an old post, and discovered a new video since then.
[http://youtu.be/zJYKIN480rA, also at http://billyblob.com/cartoons/we-are-science-probes.html]
.
You’re not as awful nor as brilliant as you think you are nor in the ways you think you are.
----------------------------------------------------------
Back in 2007 I discovered Billy Blob. Very strange cartoon videos. I was reading over old posts from back then, followed a link in an old post, and discovered a new video since then.
[http://youtu.be/zJYKIN480rA, also at http://billyblob.com/cartoons/we-are-science-probes.html]
.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
3548 Favorite Christmas Carols of the Cracked
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Schizophrenia - Do You Hear What I Hear?
Multiple Personality Disorder - We Three Kings Disoriented Are
Dementia - I Think I'll be Home for Christmas
Narcissistic - Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
Manic - Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees ...
Paranoid - Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me
Pyromania - Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How Beautifully You're Burning
Borderline Personality Disorder - Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
Personality Disorder - You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why
Attention Deficit Disorder - Silent night, Holy ooooo look at the pretty, can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells...
Asperger Syndrome - Huh? Carol who?
.
If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't want to, you'll find an excuse.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[Note for strangers searching for carols - "3548" is the sequence number for this post, not the number of carols.]Schizophrenia - Do You Hear What I Hear?
Multiple Personality Disorder - We Three Kings Disoriented Are
Dementia - I Think I'll be Home for Christmas
Narcissistic - Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
Manic - Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees ...
Paranoid - Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me
Pyromania - Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How Beautifully You're Burning
Borderline Personality Disorder - Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
Personality Disorder - You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why
Attention Deficit Disorder - Silent night, Holy ooooo look at the pretty, can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells...
Asperger Syndrome - Huh? Carol who?
.
Monday, June 11, 2012
3547 Grave robbers and fashion vultures
Monday, June 11, 2012
Grave robbers:
I am not particularly sentimental or religious. I mostly think sterile cemeteries are a waste of material. If the state would permit it, when I've finished with this body, I would like to be dropped off in the woods somewhere to feed the beasties and trees. Seems like that's the way it should be.
So am I weird that I am very annoyed when archaeologists dig up bodies? It really bugs me to see people down in a hole dusting off bones. Those bodies were put there for a reason, there were people with beliefs involved, and I don't care how "respectful" you think you're being, I say Hands Off!
It really does bother me. I don't know why.
---------------------------------
Fashion:
Fashion, whether clothing, furnishing, design, anything, makes no sense. The sole purpose of fashion is to make you feel inadequate and force you to buy new stuff. It has been so ever since Ogg discovered there's a market for bearskins.
When something new becomes fashionable, I wonder how many people ask themselves, "Is this new thing better than the old thing? Or just ... different."
Let's rebel.
.
Have you ever heard a friend repeat something you said, but mess it up completely?
Now imagine a billion people doing that.
-- Jesus Christ --
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grave robbers:
An archeologist cleans a skeleton during excavations in the Black Sea town of Sozopol, Bulgaria on June 1, 2012. Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with iron rods to keep them from turning into vampires, the head of the history museum said. According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried. (STR/AFP/GettyImages)# From The Big Picture, http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/06/scenes_from_bulgaria.html.
So am I weird that I am very annoyed when archaeologists dig up bodies? It really bugs me to see people down in a hole dusting off bones. Those bodies were put there for a reason, there were people with beliefs involved, and I don't care how "respectful" you think you're being, I say Hands Off!
It really does bother me. I don't know why.
---------------------------------
Fashion:
Fashion, whether clothing, furnishing, design, anything, makes no sense. The sole purpose of fashion is to make you feel inadequate and force you to buy new stuff. It has been so ever since Ogg discovered there's a market for bearskins.
When something new becomes fashionable, I wonder how many people ask themselves, "Is this new thing better than the old thing? Or just ... different."
Let's rebel.
.
3546 End of last week catch up
Monday, June 11, 2012
I have finished Madame Bovary. I'd never heard or read a synopsis, or seen any of the movies, so I had no real inkling of the story. Somewhere along the line I'd seen a deathbed scene from a very old movie, possibly a silent movie, and occasional references to Mme. Bovary's romantic nature and her many assignations. So I had, without thinking about it, assumed she was something like a Parisian courtesan, and that she died a lingering death of "consumption", and that her lovers sadly abandoned her in the end. Or something like that.
The real story is very different.
As soon as I finished the book, I watched a 2.25 hour French version on YouTube with subtitles. The movie left out a LOT! (Also, the movie made it seem more like she was lured, beguiled, into debt by the predatory merchant with no concept of what she was doing. In the book, it's more like the merchant was just filling her hunger. And the movie didn't really get into how her neediness put so much pressure on Leon. So, don't go by the movies.)
Check one off the very bottom of the bucket list.
---------------------------------
According to the GPS, the country house is about 360 feet above sea level. Harumph. It seems higher.
---------------------------------
When I return from a trip to the country house, I have to time it just right. I have to leave by 2 pm at the latest, or wait until after 5 pm, to avoid rush hour on the Garden State Parkway. The rush hour traffic isn't bad - it's that there's always at least one accident that has traffic backed up for an hour. Friday I left at 5 pm, but it turned out that was a mistake. The Rhinebeck Fairgrounds was hosting a huge antique motorcycle show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The traffic jam heading toward the (two-lane) bridge over the Hudson River was horrendous.
As I crept along, there were three motorcycles in front of me. Stop, go, stop, go. I gave them plenty of room, especially because I appreciated their staying in the lane. We were passed by dozens of motorcycles roaring down the shoulder on our right, which royally pissed me off. I mean, if I'd had a gun ... or a barrel of roofing nails .... They were ignoring courtesy, rules, and speed limits. But worst of all, it was THE MOTORCYCLE CLUB'S SHOW that generated all this traffic! It was THEIR FAULT! And they're just blowing by while we innocents suffer?
When I finally got across the bridge and onto route 209, motorcycles continued to blast by. 55 mph speed limit, and they had to be doing at least 85. At least.
And they wonder why motorists won't give them a break? QUIT PISSING US OFF! Quit acting like laws, rules, and common courtesy don't apply to you.
---------------------------------
I usually return from the country on Thursday, but I was late this week. So Friday I expected more traffic than usual. I never use the GPS on that trip because I know the route. Friday I had it on for no particular reason, and as I entered NJ, I was shocked to hear something I'd never heard before: "Severe traffic ahead. Recalculating."
Huh? The traffic application is optional. I didn't know I had it.
The GPS took me off the Garden State Parkway onto route 3 east, to the NJ Turnpike. I'm glad I obeyed. The view of Manhattan from route 3 is amazing! From the top of the first hill off the Parkway, the cluster of tall gleaming buildings rises high above the trees ahead. It looks for all the world like a scene from a fairy tale movie. The sun was in the west hitting the scene full on, and the sky was clear.
Oz!
One of these trips I'll try to take a picture.
----------------------------------
At some point every morning, Nugget goes to the window, points urgently, and says "Amma! Amma!" Daughter escorts her across the street, and we have this routine. Nugget pounds on my door, "Amma! Amma!". I yell, "Who's that beating on my door?" (Billy Goat Gruff voice) and open it. Nugget hustles past to look for cat toys (which she prefers to kid toys).
On Thursday, Nugget said it was time to visit Amma, and Daughter said no, Gramma isn't home, and distracted her. On Friday, Nugget was more insistent and wouldn't be distracted, so Daughter brought her over. Nugget pounded on the door ... and there was no answer. Daughter tried to explain that the van wasn't in the driveway, Gramma was with the van, gone bye-bye. Van gone bye-bye, Gramma gone bye-bye.
Big disappointment.
(Hercules looked up "Amma" to see if it had a meaning and was surprised to find that it is appropriate. I could have told him - "Amah" is a nursemaid throughout much of southern Asia and India. So I don't mind if Nugget never masters the "Gr" part.)
.
Harvey Korman, on his using Viagra: It would be like putting a new flagpole on a condemned building.
-----------------------------------------
I have finished Madame Bovary. I'd never heard or read a synopsis, or seen any of the movies, so I had no real inkling of the story. Somewhere along the line I'd seen a deathbed scene from a very old movie, possibly a silent movie, and occasional references to Mme. Bovary's romantic nature and her many assignations. So I had, without thinking about it, assumed she was something like a Parisian courtesan, and that she died a lingering death of "consumption", and that her lovers sadly abandoned her in the end. Or something like that.
The real story is very different.
As soon as I finished the book, I watched a 2.25 hour French version on YouTube with subtitles. The movie left out a LOT! (Also, the movie made it seem more like she was lured, beguiled, into debt by the predatory merchant with no concept of what she was doing. In the book, it's more like the merchant was just filling her hunger. And the movie didn't really get into how her neediness put so much pressure on Leon. So, don't go by the movies.)
Check one off the very bottom of the bucket list.
---------------------------------
According to the GPS, the country house is about 360 feet above sea level. Harumph. It seems higher.
---------------------------------
When I return from a trip to the country house, I have to time it just right. I have to leave by 2 pm at the latest, or wait until after 5 pm, to avoid rush hour on the Garden State Parkway. The rush hour traffic isn't bad - it's that there's always at least one accident that has traffic backed up for an hour. Friday I left at 5 pm, but it turned out that was a mistake. The Rhinebeck Fairgrounds was hosting a huge antique motorcycle show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The traffic jam heading toward the (two-lane) bridge over the Hudson River was horrendous.
As I crept along, there were three motorcycles in front of me. Stop, go, stop, go. I gave them plenty of room, especially because I appreciated their staying in the lane. We were passed by dozens of motorcycles roaring down the shoulder on our right, which royally pissed me off. I mean, if I'd had a gun ... or a barrel of roofing nails .... They were ignoring courtesy, rules, and speed limits. But worst of all, it was THE MOTORCYCLE CLUB'S SHOW that generated all this traffic! It was THEIR FAULT! And they're just blowing by while we innocents suffer?
When I finally got across the bridge and onto route 209, motorcycles continued to blast by. 55 mph speed limit, and they had to be doing at least 85. At least.
And they wonder why motorists won't give them a break? QUIT PISSING US OFF! Quit acting like laws, rules, and common courtesy don't apply to you.
---------------------------------
I usually return from the country on Thursday, but I was late this week. So Friday I expected more traffic than usual. I never use the GPS on that trip because I know the route. Friday I had it on for no particular reason, and as I entered NJ, I was shocked to hear something I'd never heard before: "Severe traffic ahead. Recalculating."
Huh? The traffic application is optional. I didn't know I had it.
The GPS took me off the Garden State Parkway onto route 3 east, to the NJ Turnpike. I'm glad I obeyed. The view of Manhattan from route 3 is amazing! From the top of the first hill off the Parkway, the cluster of tall gleaming buildings rises high above the trees ahead. It looks for all the world like a scene from a fairy tale movie. The sun was in the west hitting the scene full on, and the sky was clear.
Oz!
One of these trips I'll try to take a picture.
----------------------------------
At some point every morning, Nugget goes to the window, points urgently, and says "Amma! Amma!" Daughter escorts her across the street, and we have this routine. Nugget pounds on my door, "Amma! Amma!". I yell, "Who's that beating on my door?" (Billy Goat Gruff voice) and open it. Nugget hustles past to look for cat toys (which she prefers to kid toys).
On Thursday, Nugget said it was time to visit Amma, and Daughter said no, Gramma isn't home, and distracted her. On Friday, Nugget was more insistent and wouldn't be distracted, so Daughter brought her over. Nugget pounded on the door ... and there was no answer. Daughter tried to explain that the van wasn't in the driveway, Gramma was with the van, gone bye-bye. Van gone bye-bye, Gramma gone bye-bye.
Big disappointment.
(Hercules looked up "Amma" to see if it had a meaning and was surprised to find that it is appropriate. I could have told him - "Amah" is a nursemaid throughout much of southern Asia and India. So I don't mind if Nugget never masters the "Gr" part.)
.
3545 Write
Monday, June 11, 2012
I copied this directly from Roba at http://www.andfaraway.net/blog/2012/06/11/pixar-rules-for-narration/, because I knew if I simply linked to it, nobody would read it, and it's well worth reading.
“Story basics” from Emma Coats, of Pixar:
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about until you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
[From Pixar Touchbook, http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html]
.
You can cope. You can always cope, no matter what. And then later,
you can be proud of having coped.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I copied this directly from Roba at http://www.andfaraway.net/blog/2012/06/11/pixar-rules-for-narration/, because I knew if I simply linked to it, nobody would read it, and it's well worth reading.
“Story basics” from Emma Coats, of Pixar:
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about until you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
[From Pixar Touchbook, http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html]
.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
3544 Noises
Sunday, June 10, 2012
There's still that sound coming from somewhere across the street. Like high-pitched tree frogs with a mechanical undertone. It drives me crazy. Daughter and Hercules can hear it on my porch and in my front rooms. They don't hear it in their house. Nobody knows where it's coming from. It's random, several hours a day, sometimes early, sometimes late. A compressor? A pump? The source seems to be impossible to pinpoint.
I mentioned that the people directly across the street got a dog, Christmas of 2010, one of those tiny silky dogs that people like to put topknot bows on. The girl there walked it a little at first, but quickly lost interest. The man comes home from work and sometimes I hear him yell, "Put her in her cage!' I think the poor little thing spends most of her life in a cage. Two or three times a day they put her out the front door on a chain, and then seem to forget her. She quickly does her duty, and then sits in front of the door and whines for half an hour, 45 minutes, yesterday afternoon it was an hour.
You know, I could stand a little barking, but that high-pitched "YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee" (keep saying that for a half hour) is driving me crazy. How can they not hear her and let her in?
I miss the silence of the country house.
.
"Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace"
~Dalai Lama~
------------------------------------------------------
There's still that sound coming from somewhere across the street. Like high-pitched tree frogs with a mechanical undertone. It drives me crazy. Daughter and Hercules can hear it on my porch and in my front rooms. They don't hear it in their house. Nobody knows where it's coming from. It's random, several hours a day, sometimes early, sometimes late. A compressor? A pump? The source seems to be impossible to pinpoint.
I mentioned that the people directly across the street got a dog, Christmas of 2010, one of those tiny silky dogs that people like to put topknot bows on. The girl there walked it a little at first, but quickly lost interest. The man comes home from work and sometimes I hear him yell, "Put her in her cage!' I think the poor little thing spends most of her life in a cage. Two or three times a day they put her out the front door on a chain, and then seem to forget her. She quickly does her duty, and then sits in front of the door and whines for half an hour, 45 minutes, yesterday afternoon it was an hour.
You know, I could stand a little barking, but that high-pitched "YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee" (keep saying that for a half hour) is driving me crazy. How can they not hear her and let her in?
I miss the silence of the country house.
.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
3543 NYC-Speak
Saturday, June 9, 2012
"They" say people in New York City talk fast. That's not precisely true. It's not really talking fast, it's running things together, with no attention to distinct syllables, let alone accented syllables. That has the effect of speeding it up because it shortens it, but it's not the same thing.
The Nugget was hugging a doll when The Man was here, and he said to her, "Gimilmo. Gimilmo." She stared at him, confused. It took me a few seconds to figure out that he wanted her to give him the doll she was holding, an Elmo muppet. I said, "Show the man Elmo", and she give him the muppet. He hugged it properly and gave it back, and she fell in love with him.
Mostly he doesn't do that NYC-speak, except when he makes some offhand remark, and then I flat out don't understand him. He says, "Yeah, I mutter". I used to ask, but now if I don't catch it, I just let it go. If it's important, he slows down and says individual words.
I mentioned the Nugget's confusion to Daughter, and she said that yeah, since she's been talking to the Nugget, she's much more conscious of how fast she talks, how she's slowed down now and doesn't run things together when she talks to the baby. But she still gets frustrated by how non-NYC/NJ people (like ME!) talk so slowly. She wants to shake us, "Come on! Get it OUT already!"
She and I both get frustrated when we talk on the phone. I have to ask her to repeat every other phrase. "Slow down, please." She says she understands a bit better now, and almost apologized for accusing me multiple times of going deaf.
.
Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands
until they've flung it away.
-- Sophocles --
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They" say people in New York City talk fast. That's not precisely true. It's not really talking fast, it's running things together, with no attention to distinct syllables, let alone accented syllables. That has the effect of speeding it up because it shortens it, but it's not the same thing.
The Nugget was hugging a doll when The Man was here, and he said to her, "Gimilmo. Gimilmo." She stared at him, confused. It took me a few seconds to figure out that he wanted her to give him the doll she was holding, an Elmo muppet. I said, "Show the man Elmo", and she give him the muppet. He hugged it properly and gave it back, and she fell in love with him.
Mostly he doesn't do that NYC-speak, except when he makes some offhand remark, and then I flat out don't understand him. He says, "Yeah, I mutter". I used to ask, but now if I don't catch it, I just let it go. If it's important, he slows down and says individual words.
I mentioned the Nugget's confusion to Daughter, and she said that yeah, since she's been talking to the Nugget, she's much more conscious of how fast she talks, how she's slowed down now and doesn't run things together when she talks to the baby. But she still gets frustrated by how non-NYC/NJ people (like ME!) talk so slowly. She wants to shake us, "Come on! Get it OUT already!"
She and I both get frustrated when we talk on the phone. I have to ask her to repeat every other phrase. "Slow down, please." She says she understands a bit better now, and almost apologized for accusing me multiple times of going deaf.
.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
3542 I am shocked!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
I go to maps.google every so often to look at the street view of houses I have lived in. They're gradually filling in more houses as time passes. The latest country house doesn't have a street view yet, nor does the current city house.
Today I looked up where we lived in the St. Louis area.*
I'm sorry I did.
At almost every house I'd lived in since I was on my own, I've planted a dark red lace-leaf Japanese maple. I love them, and I never got to see any of them grown up, but it felt good anyway. Like I'd left a gift for the new owners and the old neighborhood.
So I was looking forward to see what 35 years had done for the tree I'd left in St. Louis. I had planted it on a bit of slope outside the door. It should be 7 feet tall and spreading 14 feet around and lush by now.
I'd also planted barberry bushes along the line of the porch at the St. Louis house, and a crepe myrtle at the north corner of the house. Rose of Sharon bushes at the side of the garage. The upper windows had window boxes spilling petunias, and there was a long box under the window along the porch, full of geraniums. The lawn was super fine thick red fescue that I kept cut to 4 inches so it looked lush and shiny, and it was loaded with crocus bulbs that would have multiplied amazingly.
I am shocked!
Not only is there NO sign of the Japanese maple, the barberrys, the crepe myrtle, or the rose of Sharon, the upstairs window boxes are gone, there's nothing in the lower window box, and the lawn looks like crap, with thin brown scalped patches (you can't cut red fescue so short!) It looks like somebody came through and tore out everything living. The place has that bare naked look of new construction. It looks blasted!
The only token to landscaping is a 20 foot multi-colored totem pole smack in the middle of the front yard.
.
*The address is in a comment, where, I hope, it's less likely to turn up in a search.
Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
-- Bertrand Russell --
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I go to maps.google every so often to look at the street view of houses I have lived in. They're gradually filling in more houses as time passes. The latest country house doesn't have a street view yet, nor does the current city house.
Today I looked up where we lived in the St. Louis area.*
I'm sorry I did.
At almost every house I'd lived in since I was on my own, I've planted a dark red lace-leaf Japanese maple. I love them, and I never got to see any of them grown up, but it felt good anyway. Like I'd left a gift for the new owners and the old neighborhood.
So I was looking forward to see what 35 years had done for the tree I'd left in St. Louis. I had planted it on a bit of slope outside the door. It should be 7 feet tall and spreading 14 feet around and lush by now.
I'd also planted barberry bushes along the line of the porch at the St. Louis house, and a crepe myrtle at the north corner of the house. Rose of Sharon bushes at the side of the garage. The upper windows had window boxes spilling petunias, and there was a long box under the window along the porch, full of geraniums. The lawn was super fine thick red fescue that I kept cut to 4 inches so it looked lush and shiny, and it was loaded with crocus bulbs that would have multiplied amazingly.
I am shocked!
Not only is there NO sign of the Japanese maple, the barberrys, the crepe myrtle, or the rose of Sharon, the upstairs window boxes are gone, there's nothing in the lower window box, and the lawn looks like crap, with thin brown scalped patches (you can't cut red fescue so short!) It looks like somebody came through and tore out everything living. The place has that bare naked look of new construction. It looks blasted!
The only token to landscaping is a 20 foot multi-colored totem pole smack in the middle of the front yard.
.
*The address is in a comment, where, I hope, it's less likely to turn up in a search.
Monday, June 04, 2012
3541 Challenge
Monday, June 4, 2012
June! Agh! Already?
-----------------------
The GPS says my city house is 29 feet above sea level. Not enough, I think. Next time I go to the country house, I'll have to check there.
------------------------
I went to a small hafla last Friday evening. Some kids were selling raffle tickets at 20 cents each for some charity. I bought five. I won. First time I've ever won a raffle. Each of the vendors there had contributed something to the raffle, so I won a shopping bag containing a tiny glazed mirror exactly the right size for the sink in the half bath, a CD from the group who performed the music, a nice jingle hip scarf, a plush camel, two long sexy yarn hair doflinkies, an anklet, and a couple other things I can't remember now. After I got home I found a card entitling me to a hula hoop - which annoyed me because I'd actually considered buying one from the vendor. (After reflection, it has occurred to me that said vendor, knowing there was a coupon in the bag since the hoop wouldn't have fit, should have searched out the raffle winner. Hey, there weren't that many people there.)
--------------------------
Sumthin' else I don't understand: Howcum if God tells you to do X, like join the priesthood, marry a particular person, or run for national office, then you can publicly claim God speaks to you and many people will believe you and consider you favored by God.
But if God tells you to do Y, like kill a particular person, set fire to yourself, or bomb a building for political reasons, then the courts and public opinion consider you insane if you claim God told you to do it.
Who are we to decide what God will or will not tell a person to do? To whom He will or will not speak? Who are we to ascribe motives to God? If Man did not create God, then how can Man define God? We can read God's mind? We know what He's likely to say, and to whom He's likely to speak, and what His ulterior motive is for what He says to them? If He says only things we want Him to say, then we have created God in our own image.
Read the Bible. That God ain't necessarily nice, doesn't always play fair.
--------------------------
I've been playing "Every Word" on the Kindle. I'm not good at it, but I figure it's good for me. They give you a bunch of letters, and you have to find all the words that can be created from those letters to rack up points, and at least one word that uses all the letters to proceed to the next level.
Yesterday I was given W S T O G H R on level six (of ten). I had to find 34 words of 4 letters or more, including one using all seven letters. (The program, by the way, doesn't accept proper nouns or abbreviations (a lie! It accepts things like "prof" and "ref") or a a lot of other perfectly good words. There's this "list". So if you find more than 34 total, some of them weren't on the "accepted" list.)
Anyway, try it.
I worked at it forever, handed it to Daughter, and she got the seven-letter word almost instantly.
Um, no, I don't remember what it was. Sorry. Take a whack at it in the comments. (I'll bet Becs gets it first.)
.
Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.
-- George Bernard Shaw --
-----------------------------------------------------------------
June! Agh! Already?
-----------------------
The GPS says my city house is 29 feet above sea level. Not enough, I think. Next time I go to the country house, I'll have to check there.
------------------------
I went to a small hafla last Friday evening. Some kids were selling raffle tickets at 20 cents each for some charity. I bought five. I won. First time I've ever won a raffle. Each of the vendors there had contributed something to the raffle, so I won a shopping bag containing a tiny glazed mirror exactly the right size for the sink in the half bath, a CD from the group who performed the music, a nice jingle hip scarf, a plush camel, two long sexy yarn hair doflinkies, an anklet, and a couple other things I can't remember now. After I got home I found a card entitling me to a hula hoop - which annoyed me because I'd actually considered buying one from the vendor. (After reflection, it has occurred to me that said vendor, knowing there was a coupon in the bag since the hoop wouldn't have fit, should have searched out the raffle winner. Hey, there weren't that many people there.)
--------------------------
Sumthin' else I don't understand: Howcum if God tells you to do X, like join the priesthood, marry a particular person, or run for national office, then you can publicly claim God speaks to you and many people will believe you and consider you favored by God.
But if God tells you to do Y, like kill a particular person, set fire to yourself, or bomb a building for political reasons, then the courts and public opinion consider you insane if you claim God told you to do it.
Who are we to decide what God will or will not tell a person to do? To whom He will or will not speak? Who are we to ascribe motives to God? If Man did not create God, then how can Man define God? We can read God's mind? We know what He's likely to say, and to whom He's likely to speak, and what His ulterior motive is for what He says to them? If He says only things we want Him to say, then we have created God in our own image.
Read the Bible. That God ain't necessarily nice, doesn't always play fair.
--------------------------
I've been playing "Every Word" on the Kindle. I'm not good at it, but I figure it's good for me. They give you a bunch of letters, and you have to find all the words that can be created from those letters to rack up points, and at least one word that uses all the letters to proceed to the next level.
Yesterday I was given W S T O G H R on level six (of ten). I had to find 34 words of 4 letters or more, including one using all seven letters. (The program, by the way, doesn't accept proper nouns or abbreviations (a lie! It accepts things like "prof" and "ref") or a a lot of other perfectly good words. There's this "list". So if you find more than 34 total, some of them weren't on the "accepted" list.)
Anyway, try it.
I worked at it forever, handed it to Daughter, and she got the seven-letter word almost instantly.
Um, no, I don't remember what it was. Sorry. Take a whack at it in the comments. (I'll bet Becs gets it first.)
.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
3540 Good enough
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A while ago I wrote about "good enough", and how Jay would get trapped in tweaking projects looking for perfection. Lifehacker recently posted a simple solution to the problem, a way to avoid the trap.
Before you even start the project, simply first define what constitutes "finished", what Lifehacker describes as the "definition of done". (The term comes from a software development strategy called Scrum, but it can be applied to almost any situation. See What Can Software Developers Teach us About Crushing the ‘Perfection Bug’?.)
You make a list of all the criteria the project must meet to be considered done. The criteria should be measurable. When it meets those criteria, it's done. Period. You can stop tweaking.
In software development, you are handed a list of requirements and specifications. If compactness, elegance, and performance are part of the requirements, they should be listed. To landscape your front garden, decide up front what effect you want to accomplish. Planning a party? Define what you want to happen. Note that the list is not simply a shopping list. It's effects you MUST accomplish, and it should be a minimum list.
Perfectionists will continue to add specifications, expanding the list as the project proceeds. You can't do that. Spend enough time on the definition of "done" up front, and then resist the urge to add to it. When it's done, it's done. Good enough is good enough.
Jay's problem was an emotional and psychological fear of never being good enough. I blame his father for that. J Senior demanded nothing less than absolute perfection, and perfection was defined as "the way *I* would have done it". If the child Jay didn't do things perfectly, his father pointed out all the flaws, and took over the project himself. He had the attitude that if it wasn't exactly the way he himself would have done it, exactly the decisions he would have made, then it was "stupid", and he used that exact word. I heard him say "That's stupid" to Jay a dozen times before I told him that if he ever again implied that my husband was stupid, I'd feed him a list of all the stupid things he says and does, "starting with your haircut and what you feed your dog! It's no damn wonder she has a heart problem!" He never did it again, but I could see him biting his tongue as he glanced at me.
If it meets "done" criteria, and if the criteria are good, then it is done and good enough.
.
Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A while ago I wrote about "good enough", and how Jay would get trapped in tweaking projects looking for perfection. Lifehacker recently posted a simple solution to the problem, a way to avoid the trap.
Before you even start the project, simply first define what constitutes "finished", what Lifehacker describes as the "definition of done". (The term comes from a software development strategy called Scrum, but it can be applied to almost any situation. See What Can Software Developers Teach us About Crushing the ‘Perfection Bug’?.)
You make a list of all the criteria the project must meet to be considered done. The criteria should be measurable. When it meets those criteria, it's done. Period. You can stop tweaking.
In software development, you are handed a list of requirements and specifications. If compactness, elegance, and performance are part of the requirements, they should be listed. To landscape your front garden, decide up front what effect you want to accomplish. Planning a party? Define what you want to happen. Note that the list is not simply a shopping list. It's effects you MUST accomplish, and it should be a minimum list.
Perfectionists will continue to add specifications, expanding the list as the project proceeds. You can't do that. Spend enough time on the definition of "done" up front, and then resist the urge to add to it. When it's done, it's done. Good enough is good enough.
Jay's problem was an emotional and psychological fear of never being good enough. I blame his father for that. J Senior demanded nothing less than absolute perfection, and perfection was defined as "the way *I* would have done it". If the child Jay didn't do things perfectly, his father pointed out all the flaws, and took over the project himself. He had the attitude that if it wasn't exactly the way he himself would have done it, exactly the decisions he would have made, then it was "stupid", and he used that exact word. I heard him say "That's stupid" to Jay a dozen times before I told him that if he ever again implied that my husband was stupid, I'd feed him a list of all the stupid things he says and does, "starting with your haircut and what you feed your dog! It's no damn wonder she has a heart problem!" He never did it again, but I could see him biting his tongue as he glanced at me.
If it meets "done" criteria, and if the criteria are good, then it is done and good enough.
.
Monday, May 28, 2012
3539 Stress
Monday, May 28, 2012
Clarifying the previous post - the guy has not had reassignment surgery. He's just wearing women's clothes now, and "being" a woman. He is 100% male physically, and it all works. He never felt that he was actually female. It's just that in addition to all the maleness, functional testes and penis and attraction to women, he also has ovaries. Just stray accidental ovaries floating around in there, nothing else. (It could be worse - there are people with entire stunted twins inside them.) Anyway, the estrogen from the ovaries causes some feminizing effects. Since discovering the existence of the ovaries, he has decided he's "actually" a woman.
Huh? "Actually?" I know a guy who has four thumbs, twelve fingers. Is he "actually" alien?
If he had the ovaries removed, he'd be the husband and father, the MAN, he thought he was, and was quite happy being, before he discovered the ovaries. I think he's incredibly stupid, and he's getting very bad medical and psychological advice.
------------------------------
This month has disappeared so quickly. Poof. That saddens me. It seems that the older you get, the faster time passes. I don't know whether it's because you get so much less done, or that over your shoulder you see a shadow catching up. On the other hand, I don't want to get as much done as I used to. It's time to slow down and watch the butterflies.
I've been thinking about stress, and the effect it has on health. There's a lot more stress here than at the country house. Not like there's stuff poking at me, it's just an atmosphere. Days are a lot less relaxed. It's like things are going on all the time. There's no pause, no pause in time. The air is dirtier. There's an undercoat of noise. It feels like there's more demand on me, even though no person is demanding. And I feel like bits and pieces of my body are giving up.
The Man has been experiencing a lot of stress, and it shows. Nothing I can do about that, except not to add more.
Jasper doesn't seem to be more stressed. I'm gone two or three days a week, but although that would badly distress a dog, I don't think a cat is stressed by that. Oh, it's obvious he missed me, but that's not the same as stress.
Dogs are pack animals. Their humans are their pack. The most damaging thing you can do to a lone dog is to ostracize them from the pack, either tied outside, shut out of the room, or confined to a cage. They need a pack, and they need to be with the pack, no matter what their status within the pack.
Cats are just the opposite. Most domestic cats come from lone-hunter stock. They seem to like being alone, and if they don't have a lot of other stimulus, they will chose the company of one other animal or human. (If they do have a lot of stimulus, humans become mere can openers.) Usually a cat in a family will chose ONE of the humans to be his or her special human. Cats don't jockey for status. They assume their status is high, because there is no pack. There are articles on what stresses a cat, but the articles address sudden changes, like how to handle moves, new people or pets, or schedule changes. What about constant low level stress?
At the country house, Jasper saw birds and squirrels on the deck. Here, he also sees other cats in the yard and on the patio, and at first it scared him so badly he pulled the curtains down. Is that a temporary freakout, or a constant source of stress? Can that be why whenever he is downstairs, he stays close to me? He was more independent in the country.
I wonder if anyone has done a study on the comparative health of dogs secure within their pack (human or canine family) and dogs who are constantly stressed by being shut away from the pack. I wonder if there have been any studies on the comparative health of cats who are the only pet, and those who don't get "alone time". (I'm thinking of those retirement homes for cats, that are supposed to be such wonderful places, but I wonder if it's actually stressing to cats who had until "retirement" always had alone-time when they wanted it. Domestic cats are not herd animals.)
Theories?
.
"Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think."
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson --
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Clarifying the previous post - the guy has not had reassignment surgery. He's just wearing women's clothes now, and "being" a woman. He is 100% male physically, and it all works. He never felt that he was actually female. It's just that in addition to all the maleness, functional testes and penis and attraction to women, he also has ovaries. Just stray accidental ovaries floating around in there, nothing else. (It could be worse - there are people with entire stunted twins inside them.) Anyway, the estrogen from the ovaries causes some feminizing effects. Since discovering the existence of the ovaries, he has decided he's "actually" a woman.
Huh? "Actually?" I know a guy who has four thumbs, twelve fingers. Is he "actually" alien?
If he had the ovaries removed, he'd be the husband and father, the MAN, he thought he was, and was quite happy being, before he discovered the ovaries. I think he's incredibly stupid, and he's getting very bad medical and psychological advice.
------------------------------
This month has disappeared so quickly. Poof. That saddens me. It seems that the older you get, the faster time passes. I don't know whether it's because you get so much less done, or that over your shoulder you see a shadow catching up. On the other hand, I don't want to get as much done as I used to. It's time to slow down and watch the butterflies.
I've been thinking about stress, and the effect it has on health. There's a lot more stress here than at the country house. Not like there's stuff poking at me, it's just an atmosphere. Days are a lot less relaxed. It's like things are going on all the time. There's no pause, no pause in time. The air is dirtier. There's an undercoat of noise. It feels like there's more demand on me, even though no person is demanding. And I feel like bits and pieces of my body are giving up.
The Man has been experiencing a lot of stress, and it shows. Nothing I can do about that, except not to add more.
Jasper doesn't seem to be more stressed. I'm gone two or three days a week, but although that would badly distress a dog, I don't think a cat is stressed by that. Oh, it's obvious he missed me, but that's not the same as stress.
Dogs are pack animals. Their humans are their pack. The most damaging thing you can do to a lone dog is to ostracize them from the pack, either tied outside, shut out of the room, or confined to a cage. They need a pack, and they need to be with the pack, no matter what their status within the pack.
Cats are just the opposite. Most domestic cats come from lone-hunter stock. They seem to like being alone, and if they don't have a lot of other stimulus, they will chose the company of one other animal or human. (If they do have a lot of stimulus, humans become mere can openers.) Usually a cat in a family will chose ONE of the humans to be his or her special human. Cats don't jockey for status. They assume their status is high, because there is no pack. There are articles on what stresses a cat, but the articles address sudden changes, like how to handle moves, new people or pets, or schedule changes. What about constant low level stress?
At the country house, Jasper saw birds and squirrels on the deck. Here, he also sees other cats in the yard and on the patio, and at first it scared him so badly he pulled the curtains down. Is that a temporary freakout, or a constant source of stress? Can that be why whenever he is downstairs, he stays close to me? He was more independent in the country.
I wonder if anyone has done a study on the comparative health of dogs secure within their pack (human or canine family) and dogs who are constantly stressed by being shut away from the pack. I wonder if there have been any studies on the comparative health of cats who are the only pet, and those who don't get "alone time". (I'm thinking of those retirement homes for cats, that are supposed to be such wonderful places, but I wonder if it's actually stressing to cats who had until "retirement" always had alone-time when they wanted it. Domestic cats are not herd animals.)
Theories?
.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
3538 I'm actually a MAN! Apparently a gay man....
Saturday, May 26, 2012
The kids left for Pennsylvania this morning, to visit Hercules' folks. Returning late tomorrow.
The temperature was 75 F at 9:30 this morning, but it's very sunny and humid, so it feels hotter. Supposed to get into the 80s. I've finally turned the A/C on.
I've got a van to unload, bookcases to assemble, acres of laundry piles, and a drift of paper and photographs to sort and file, so I'll appreciate the uninterrupted alone time. Naturally, I've brought papers down from the country house, but but not yet the file cabinets. I'm using those brown accordion folders.
I found a large box of vacation photos in the country house den closet. Not MY vacations - Jay and his ex-wife's vacations. I started to throw them away, and then reconsidered. I know where she lives. So on my way back, I stopped at her house in the village and dropped them off with her boyfriend. I'm glad she wasn't home, because I really didn't want to talk with her, but I do feel virtuous about giving her the photos. (Even though when she and Jay split, she took every photo she could find, and Jay had to beg for some of the negatives. Yeah, residual bitterness. She knew they were important to him and it did crush him. He was a shutterbug.)
----------------------------------
Google "Steve Crecelius". Stories all over the internet about him/her. I guess there's a dearth of real news. Or maybe it's just that sensationalism sells advertising. When I read the first story (Yahoo front page), it annoyed me so much I searched around to find a REAL story that didn't appeal to the ignorant. Doesn't exist.
He was in his forties, I think, father of six children, and discovered from a kidney ultrasound five years ago that he had ovaries, in addition to the usual male equipment. The headlines say he discovered he's actually a woman!.
Um, no. He's a man who also has ovaries and therefore estrogen, in addition to the testes and testosterone. There's no uterus or vagina, although the estrogen did cause small breasts. Otherwise he has all the usual secondary male sexual characteristics, like a beard, and he's attracted to women.
But he has decided he's actually a woman!, since as a child he enjoyed playing with his mother's makeup (lots of little boys do), likes dresses, and he "walks like a girl". Um, a girl walks like a girl because she has wider hips, and has been culturally conditioned to walk that way. You, Steve/Stevie, do not have a girl's hips, you are still not a girl. You just have some extraneous ovaries kicking out estrogen that confuses your head. Let's not forget that the testes and everything that goes with them works just fine. If you're confused, have the ovaries removed. You obviously don't need them.
His wife took him shopping for his first bra. (Another forehead dent in my desk.) Steve, you've gone all your life without a bra. You don't need one now. Even REAL women don't need bras to be women.
The male/female classifications are not black and white. 100% male and 100% female are extreme ends of a spectrum. There are many gradations, many combinations of accoutrements, and many physical and hormonal reasons for them. Something like 1 in 10 babies are born somewhere on that scale other than the extremes (probably more, it's just not immediately obvious). Wikipedia has a good article on it (intersex). Most people fall somewhere close to one end or the other. I for example, are high in androgens, and have what is medically termed clitoral hypertrophy (clitoromegaly), although not freakishly so, nothing to write home about. I'm just well beyond the norms. But there's never been any question that I'm completely female.
Until now!
Oh my God! I mostly don't wear makeup, I've never liked makeup, wear it out socially only because it's expected and a sexual advantage in attracting male attention. I don't especially like dresses and skirts, prefer pants, but wear "feminine" things, again because it's expected and a sexual lure. I really do like attracting men. But ... Holy Crap! According to Steve/Stevie's logic, I'm actually a man!
So stop calling me Silk. I'm really Sylvester.
(Heh. I can't wait until Steve hits menopause and the estrogen wanes. How silly is he going to feel then?)
--------------------------------
Yeah, I know that there are men who go through sexual reassignment surgery to become women, but are still attracted to women. Yeah, I know it's all mixed up, both physical manifestations and psychological. But Steve's case is different, in my opinion, in that he never "felt like a woman trapped in a man's body". Never felt homosexual. He just had a slightly feminizing influence from more estrogen than is usual in males.
.
Female spiders eat the males after mating because collecting
life insurance is easier than collecting child support.
----------------------------------------------
The kids left for Pennsylvania this morning, to visit Hercules' folks. Returning late tomorrow.
The temperature was 75 F at 9:30 this morning, but it's very sunny and humid, so it feels hotter. Supposed to get into the 80s. I've finally turned the A/C on.
I've got a van to unload, bookcases to assemble, acres of laundry piles, and a drift of paper and photographs to sort and file, so I'll appreciate the uninterrupted alone time. Naturally, I've brought papers down from the country house, but but not yet the file cabinets. I'm using those brown accordion folders.
I found a large box of vacation photos in the country house den closet. Not MY vacations - Jay and his ex-wife's vacations. I started to throw them away, and then reconsidered. I know where she lives. So on my way back, I stopped at her house in the village and dropped them off with her boyfriend. I'm glad she wasn't home, because I really didn't want to talk with her, but I do feel virtuous about giving her the photos. (Even though when she and Jay split, she took every photo she could find, and Jay had to beg for some of the negatives. Yeah, residual bitterness. She knew they were important to him and it did crush him. He was a shutterbug.)
----------------------------------
Google "Steve Crecelius". Stories all over the internet about him/her. I guess there's a dearth of real news. Or maybe it's just that sensationalism sells advertising. When I read the first story (Yahoo front page), it annoyed me so much I searched around to find a REAL story that didn't appeal to the ignorant. Doesn't exist.
He was in his forties, I think, father of six children, and discovered from a kidney ultrasound five years ago that he had ovaries, in addition to the usual male equipment. The headlines say he discovered he's actually a woman!.
Um, no. He's a man who also has ovaries and therefore estrogen, in addition to the testes and testosterone. There's no uterus or vagina, although the estrogen did cause small breasts. Otherwise he has all the usual secondary male sexual characteristics, like a beard, and he's attracted to women.
But he has decided he's actually a woman!, since as a child he enjoyed playing with his mother's makeup (lots of little boys do), likes dresses, and he "walks like a girl". Um, a girl walks like a girl because she has wider hips, and has been culturally conditioned to walk that way. You, Steve/Stevie, do not have a girl's hips, you are still not a girl. You just have some extraneous ovaries kicking out estrogen that confuses your head. Let's not forget that the testes and everything that goes with them works just fine. If you're confused, have the ovaries removed. You obviously don't need them.
His wife took him shopping for his first bra. (Another forehead dent in my desk.) Steve, you've gone all your life without a bra. You don't need one now. Even REAL women don't need bras to be women.
The male/female classifications are not black and white. 100% male and 100% female are extreme ends of a spectrum. There are many gradations, many combinations of accoutrements, and many physical and hormonal reasons for them. Something like 1 in 10 babies are born somewhere on that scale other than the extremes (probably more, it's just not immediately obvious). Wikipedia has a good article on it (intersex). Most people fall somewhere close to one end or the other. I for example, are high in androgens, and have what is medically termed clitoral hypertrophy (clitoromegaly), although not freakishly so, nothing to write home about. I'm just well beyond the norms. But there's never been any question that I'm completely female.
Until now!
Oh my God! I mostly don't wear makeup, I've never liked makeup, wear it out socially only because it's expected and a sexual advantage in attracting male attention. I don't especially like dresses and skirts, prefer pants, but wear "feminine" things, again because it's expected and a sexual lure. I really do like attracting men. But ... Holy Crap! According to Steve/Stevie's logic, I'm actually a man!
So stop calling me Silk. I'm really Sylvester.
(Heh. I can't wait until Steve hits menopause and the estrogen wanes. How silly is he going to feel then?)
--------------------------------
Yeah, I know that there are men who go through sexual reassignment surgery to become women, but are still attracted to women. Yeah, I know it's all mixed up, both physical manifestations and psychological. But Steve's case is different, in my opinion, in that he never "felt like a woman trapped in a man's body". Never felt homosexual. He just had a slightly feminizing influence from more estrogen than is usual in males.
.
Friday, May 25, 2012
3537 Hair! The solution!
Friday, May 25, 2012
Hair saga: When my hair was long, it was easy. I just trimmed the ends, and for bangs I'd grab a hank, hold it straight up and make one cut, automatic taper. Done. I'd been doing that all my life, because when my mother was in charge of my hair, I'd never had a salon cut that didn't leave me crying.
Eighteen months ago I decided to go short. I tried salons again, thinking that hey, I'm adult, I'm in charge now. They pretty much did what they wanted to do, not what I wanted, no matter what I said, and I wasn't happy.
I tried cutting it myself, and it took forever, with much twisting and swearing. The top and sides were ok, but I simply can't wield scissors with my left hand while looking at the back of my head in the mirror. I tried using clippers on the back, but blending where it meets the upper back was hit or miss, and it's too difficult to get it the right length anyway.
I'd finally get it sort of right over a period of several days or weeks, snipping hither and yon, constantly with itchy bits of hair all over me, the bathroom sinks, and the floors. And then when it finally looked good, within a week it was too long again and time to do it all over again. It was choppy from my hacking, so to go to a salon and say "cut it just like this, but shorter" would be asking for trouble. They'd try to "fix it" and guess wrong.
I've been moaning over it. It was now about a half inch too long to be manageable. Sigh. Here we go again.
I went to the country house (I'm not calling them the old and the new house any more; they are now officially "the country house" and "the city house") this past week and found the solution to all my hair problems in the back of the coat closet.
In about the mid-'90s, we had tried a haircutting thingy for Jay's hair that attaches to the vacuum cleaner. It sucks the hair into a tube where there's rotating blades, and the clippings go into the vacuum cleaner. (There are three versions on the internet. I won't recommend any particular one because they all have advantages and disadvantages, but I will say that the RoboCut and clones is infinitely adjustable for various lengths, where the Flowbee and clones has multiple set lengths, which is important to know if you want a smooth taper.) It didn't really work on Jay's hair because he had strange thin spots on the back of his head where the hair had to be cut slightly longer to cover them, so it got packed up and stored in the closet. (My hair was very long then, so I wasn't cutting mine.)
I brought it down to the city house, and this evening I tried it. It works! I LOVE my cut! It's perfect! It took less than 10 minutes, there's no itchy bits on me or on the floor, and it's done. Done done done. And so what if it needs another trim in a week or two? It took less than 10 minutes! I can give myself a quick trim before going out for dinner.
I had to sketch out the lengths I wanted. I measured the hair all over my head and made a chart marking the length all over. Like a sketch from the front and the side, with the hair sticking out light-socket-wise. I decided to play it safe and take off only a half inch all over. It's always easier to go shorter if that's not enough. I started at the top, set the tube to to 3.5 inches, then graduated to 3.0 upper back, 2.0 from the top of my ear around to the other ear, and taper down to 1.5 below that. If you scrub the tube up and down a bit, it blends nicely.
And believe it or not, both sides of my head are now the same length! I've never been able to do that by hand.
My only sadness now is that I was afraid to do it before The Man visited. I cut it about six hours after he'd left. Too bad. But at least I can easily maintain this.
.
The underwire in a woman’s bra deflected a bullet. It also lifted, separated, defined and supported. Her terrified thong tried to hide and was almost impossible to remove from the scene.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hair saga: When my hair was long, it was easy. I just trimmed the ends, and for bangs I'd grab a hank, hold it straight up and make one cut, automatic taper. Done. I'd been doing that all my life, because when my mother was in charge of my hair, I'd never had a salon cut that didn't leave me crying.
Eighteen months ago I decided to go short. I tried salons again, thinking that hey, I'm adult, I'm in charge now. They pretty much did what they wanted to do, not what I wanted, no matter what I said, and I wasn't happy.
I tried cutting it myself, and it took forever, with much twisting and swearing. The top and sides were ok, but I simply can't wield scissors with my left hand while looking at the back of my head in the mirror. I tried using clippers on the back, but blending where it meets the upper back was hit or miss, and it's too difficult to get it the right length anyway.
I'd finally get it sort of right over a period of several days or weeks, snipping hither and yon, constantly with itchy bits of hair all over me, the bathroom sinks, and the floors. And then when it finally looked good, within a week it was too long again and time to do it all over again. It was choppy from my hacking, so to go to a salon and say "cut it just like this, but shorter" would be asking for trouble. They'd try to "fix it" and guess wrong.
I've been moaning over it. It was now about a half inch too long to be manageable. Sigh. Here we go again.
I went to the country house (I'm not calling them the old and the new house any more; they are now officially "the country house" and "the city house") this past week and found the solution to all my hair problems in the back of the coat closet.
In about the mid-'90s, we had tried a haircutting thingy for Jay's hair that attaches to the vacuum cleaner. It sucks the hair into a tube where there's rotating blades, and the clippings go into the vacuum cleaner. (There are three versions on the internet. I won't recommend any particular one because they all have advantages and disadvantages, but I will say that the RoboCut and clones is infinitely adjustable for various lengths, where the Flowbee and clones has multiple set lengths, which is important to know if you want a smooth taper.) It didn't really work on Jay's hair because he had strange thin spots on the back of his head where the hair had to be cut slightly longer to cover them, so it got packed up and stored in the closet. (My hair was very long then, so I wasn't cutting mine.)
I brought it down to the city house, and this evening I tried it. It works! I LOVE my cut! It's perfect! It took less than 10 minutes, there's no itchy bits on me or on the floor, and it's done. Done done done. And so what if it needs another trim in a week or two? It took less than 10 minutes! I can give myself a quick trim before going out for dinner.
I had to sketch out the lengths I wanted. I measured the hair all over my head and made a chart marking the length all over. Like a sketch from the front and the side, with the hair sticking out light-socket-wise. I decided to play it safe and take off only a half inch all over. It's always easier to go shorter if that's not enough. I started at the top, set the tube to to 3.5 inches, then graduated to 3.0 upper back, 2.0 from the top of my ear around to the other ear, and taper down to 1.5 below that. If you scrub the tube up and down a bit, it blends nicely.
And believe it or not, both sides of my head are now the same length! I've never been able to do that by hand.
My only sadness now is that I was afraid to do it before The Man visited. I cut it about six hours after he'd left. Too bad. But at least I can easily maintain this.
.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
3536 Kitchen flooring
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Writing about bathroom sinks reminded me about the current trend in kitchen floors.
People want stone, tile, or a stained waxed cement floor in the kitchen (which is more visually attractive than it sounds). That's what's "in".
Duh? Why?
People in the kitchen are standing 90%+ of the time. One rarely sits in the work areas in the kitchen. You're on your feet. Also, fragile things get dropped. So why on earth would you want a rock-hard floor?
So many of the big box stores have polished cement floors, and I actually suffer if I have to wander around them too long. I go in with a list and go directly to what I want by the most direct route, and get out. They might sell a lot more casual purchases if the floors were kinder.
A proper floor for the kitchen is resilient. It has some amount of gentle give. Like poly-sealed wood, or a resilient tile or sheet goods over wood. Those industrial-looking rubber tiles are a good idea for the feet, legs, and back, but the raised plug surface texture they all have makes them a bit hard to clean. (And why do they seem to come only in gray?)
In the '70s there was a brief spate of carpeted kitchen floors. That didn't last long for obvious reasons. What were designers thinking?
The kitchen floor in the new house is matte ceramic tile. I don't like it. It's hard and cold and unforgiving.
.
Wildlife officials say cougars are expanding into the central U.S.
Residents are advised to lock up their teenage sons.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing about bathroom sinks reminded me about the current trend in kitchen floors.
People want stone, tile, or a stained waxed cement floor in the kitchen (which is more visually attractive than it sounds). That's what's "in".
Duh? Why?
People in the kitchen are standing 90%+ of the time. One rarely sits in the work areas in the kitchen. You're on your feet. Also, fragile things get dropped. So why on earth would you want a rock-hard floor?
So many of the big box stores have polished cement floors, and I actually suffer if I have to wander around them too long. I go in with a list and go directly to what I want by the most direct route, and get out. They might sell a lot more casual purchases if the floors were kinder.
A proper floor for the kitchen is resilient. It has some amount of gentle give. Like poly-sealed wood, or a resilient tile or sheet goods over wood. Those industrial-looking rubber tiles are a good idea for the feet, legs, and back, but the raised plug surface texture they all have makes them a bit hard to clean. (And why do they seem to come only in gray?)
In the '70s there was a brief spate of carpeted kitchen floors. That didn't last long for obvious reasons. What were designers thinking?
The kitchen floor in the new house is matte ceramic tile. I don't like it. It's hard and cold and unforgiving.
.
3535 More stuff I don't understand
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
I don't understand English. I suspected I didn't understand, but I didn't know how completely I didn't understand until I took the ESL (English as a second language) teacher training. For example:
changer
hanger
anger
Angie
Why are they all pronounced differently? What makes the "g" and "a" different?
I don't understand.
I do understand why the Québécois insist on speaking French. At least there is consistency in pronunciation. There are rules!
Speaking of pronunciation, I watched a video yesterday, a kid demonstrating how to do something. Every other sentence started with, "Ima". Like "Ima put this in the bowl, then Ima mix in the powder, then Ima add some water." It took me a few minutes to realize that he was saying "I'm going to" (I think...).
It's no damn wonder English is so difficult. We don't even speak it any more.
--------------------------
I have a plan of attack.
I'm going to make an appointment with a specialist in blood vessels, and find out about why it hurts so badly when anyone messes with my veins, why they blow out and shut down, whether there is some way to make it easier to have blood drawn and to get contrast dyes, and get some details about my "fragile capillaries" and exactly how dangerous it would be to have the kidney stone zapped.
Then I can maybe make some educated decisions on what to do next.
---------------------------
I don't understand the fascination with pedestal sinks in the bathroom. They're like granite counter tops. You ain't got a high class house without 'em.
Why?
Granite (or any stone) counter tops don't make sense because they stain unless you constantly reseal them, are high maintenance, and their density is unforgiving if you set a piece of fine china down a bit too hard.
Likewise, pedestal sinks make no sense whatsoever. There's no room on top to set anything down. That was ok when bathrooms were huge - usually because in the dawn of indoor bathrooms, they were converted spare bedrooms. There was plenty of space for cabinets and counters next to the sink.
Somewhere a long time ago, as bathrooms became designed into new houses and therefore became smaller, someone looked back and forth between the pedestal sink and the cabinet that had to be also in the room for storing or setting things down, like the toilet paper, shaving items, tooth brushes and toothpaste, soap dish, drinking glass, combs, blah blah, for which there was no room at the sink, and said, "hey, let's combine them! Let's cut a hole in the cabinet top, set the sink in, and then we'll have lots of convenient space to set the things we use at the sink!"
Brilliant! Like sliced bread!
Now middle-class bathrooms are tiny, and people want to stick a pedestal sink in a tiny room that has no space for a separate counter or cabinet - simply because pedestal sinks are fashionable.
It makes no sense to me. Hell, I want the biggest sink cabinet and countertop I can get!
.
Sometimes one person's inability to understand looks like another person's inability to explain.
-- Dilbert --
------------------------------------------------------------
I don't understand English. I suspected I didn't understand, but I didn't know how completely I didn't understand until I took the ESL (English as a second language) teacher training. For example:
changer
hanger
anger
Angie
Why are they all pronounced differently? What makes the "g" and "a" different?
I don't understand.
I do understand why the Québécois insist on speaking French. At least there is consistency in pronunciation. There are rules!
Speaking of pronunciation, I watched a video yesterday, a kid demonstrating how to do something. Every other sentence started with, "Ima". Like "Ima put this in the bowl, then Ima mix in the powder, then Ima add some water." It took me a few minutes to realize that he was saying "I'm going to" (I think...).
It's no damn wonder English is so difficult. We don't even speak it any more.
--------------------------
I have a plan of attack.
I'm going to make an appointment with a specialist in blood vessels, and find out about why it hurts so badly when anyone messes with my veins, why they blow out and shut down, whether there is some way to make it easier to have blood drawn and to get contrast dyes, and get some details about my "fragile capillaries" and exactly how dangerous it would be to have the kidney stone zapped.
Then I can maybe make some educated decisions on what to do next.
---------------------------
I don't understand the fascination with pedestal sinks in the bathroom. They're like granite counter tops. You ain't got a high class house without 'em.
Why?
Granite (or any stone) counter tops don't make sense because they stain unless you constantly reseal them, are high maintenance, and their density is unforgiving if you set a piece of fine china down a bit too hard.
Likewise, pedestal sinks make no sense whatsoever. There's no room on top to set anything down. That was ok when bathrooms were huge - usually because in the dawn of indoor bathrooms, they were converted spare bedrooms. There was plenty of space for cabinets and counters next to the sink.
Somewhere a long time ago, as bathrooms became designed into new houses and therefore became smaller, someone looked back and forth between the pedestal sink and the cabinet that had to be also in the room for storing or setting things down, like the toilet paper, shaving items, tooth brushes and toothpaste, soap dish, drinking glass, combs, blah blah, for which there was no room at the sink, and said, "hey, let's combine them! Let's cut a hole in the cabinet top, set the sink in, and then we'll have lots of convenient space to set the things we use at the sink!"
Brilliant! Like sliced bread!
Now middle-class bathrooms are tiny, and people want to stick a pedestal sink in a tiny room that has no space for a separate counter or cabinet - simply because pedestal sinks are fashionable.
It makes no sense to me. Hell, I want the biggest sink cabinet and countertop I can get!
.
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