September 2002 Archives

He had thin, wavy hair, limp with grease, and eyes creased at the corner. His skin was tanned, aged by the Texas summer, but camouflaged by a scruffy beard. His station in life was clear, and mine probably was, as well.

He approached me, and I ducked my head. I don't make eye contact with strangers if I can help it. He said, "Excuse me, Ma'am..." and my eyes glanced up again, involuntarily.

"I know that I look scary," he acknowledged, "but I'm really harmless. Do you think you could spare some change?"

"I'm really sorry," I replied. "I don't have any change at all today."

It's easier to lie when you're telling the truth.

I turned around and walked away, glancing briefly over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't being followed.

When I am old, I will live in a lighthouse by the sea, with a lantern room that looks out upon three hundred and sixty degrees of earth. It will be cold and damp and hard to heat, and I will walk up and down the thin metal steps with a blanket around my shoulders.

In the chill of autumn and winter, the fog will cover the earth like a thick, suffocating blanket, but from my lookout, I will see out over the low-laying clouds. The birds will fly above the fog as they migrate to warmer places, and I will watch them as they pass, camera in hand.

Downstairs, my little lighthouse will be kept warm and cozy by a fire stove, and the homey living area will be surrounded by built-in shelves full of books -- fine literature, science, art, photography. The dark walls will be full of art, pictures of inconspicuous beauty magnified, and I will rotate the pictures frequently so that I can never become bored with them.

There will be a cat on each couch, large, fluffy, and content, and a rug on the floor to keep me warm.

In the spring and summer, the fog will lift, and on the ground below me, I'll see the rocky beaches and the birds fishing for their supper. The trees inland will be vibrant and green, gnarled and bent by the coastal breeze like my aged hands. At the bottom of my lighthouse, I will cultivate a garden, full of vegetables and flowers, and surrounded by a white picket fence.

A small, dusty path will lead into the trees where few ever venture, lush and full of life, with a trickling stream traveling through it and toward the ocean. Wild berries will grow there, touched by nothing but the birds who feast upon them, breaking the silence with their songs.

It will be but a short walk down the road to the small village that I call home. The local pub is there, warm and inviting all year round. It will be full of locals, all familiar to one another in this tiny place, but occasionally, a stray tourist will stop in, looking for a drink, and find kindred spirits and decide to stay.

The younger tourists will bring new blood into the village and raise their families there, behind small picket fences, away from the dangers and cares of the city. The erstwhile visitors will be educated and proactive, and they will cherish the serenity of the place as I did when I first arrived there.

And I will walk along the shore in my bare feet, taking nothing but pictures and leaving nothing but footprints.

From cnn.com:

President Bush suggested today that an agreement is close between Republicans and Democrats on the wording of a resolution authorizing him to use military force against Iraq. "Soon, we will speak with one voice," he said.

Is it just me, or does that sentence sound like some sort of villainous plot? "Soon, we will speak with one voice" sounds an awful lot like "Soon, we will take over the world," or "Soon, victory will be ours!"

...um, "I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!"

1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind?
I like to listen to music, take a nap, check my email. If the weather is nice, the most relaxing thing I can do is take my camera outside and find some tiny piece of inconspicuous beauty to capture.

2. What do you do the moment you get home from work/school/errands?
I check my email! No really.

3. What are your favorite aromatherapeutic smells?
I love rosemary and mint smells, but I have a linen spray that smells like lavendar and vanilla, which I absolutely adore. It's so relaxing.

4. Do you feel more relaxed with a group of friends or hanging out by yourself?
By myself, most definitely.

5. What is something that you feel is relaxing but most people don't?
I like to take a few minutes of my own to leisurely go through my favorite webpages and diaries/weblogs. I do it first thing when I wake up in the morning -- it helps me transition from sleep to wakefulness.

P.S. Happy birthday to my dear Dr. Y and to my favorite kid sister, who today is officially not a kid anymore. I hope she doesn't mind if I maintain the moniker, despite her new-found adulthood.

My good friend Kara and I are going to WebDevShare in Indiana on October 6th! I'm so excited. Phil tells me it's been very dry in that part of the world lately, so the leaves have been dry and not very pretty this year, but I've never been to Indiana or anywhere near, so I look forward to seeing what I can see.

I saw Mack Brown at Subway today. I was right behind him in line. He's shorter than I imagined he'd be, and he kept a very low profile, ducking his head and sitting at the table in the rear corner. I don't think anyone else noticed him, for that matter, but I know it was him. Proof? He had a gold ring with an orange 'T' of some kind of gemstone.

It's the first time I've seen 6am in a long time.

I woke up at about 5:45, wide awake for no good reason at all, and realized that I'd forgotten to put my nose ring back in before I went to bed. I'm always a bit paranoid about the piercing closing up, since my navel closed up within an hour when I took that ring out, several years ago. In the end, it took a little manipulating, but the nose ring went back in just fine.

Now it's 6:30-ish, and I'm not sure what to do with myself. I'm sort of in the habit of waking up at 7:30 and rushing to get to work.

Word from my mom about Stella:
Dr.Posey called around 9:00. He said she was ok and said they would see how she ate this evening. The results of the culture he sent out today won't be back until Thursday or Friday. He has never seen anything like it and won't predict. He says that if it is something as "simple" as an infection, she could be on antibotics for a couple of months. If it's cancer, well.....neither of us wanted to go there.

What's the weather like in Bloomington in early October?

(No, that's not a rhetorical question.)

It's the first day of Autumn today, and the weather in Texas has been cooler, at the very least. But if there's one thing Texas is lacking, it's fall color. Will the leaves start to change color in Indiana by two weeks from now? Have they started already? Let me know!

My pretty girl Stella lives with my mom now, and what a sweet cat she is. She had emergency surgery today to remove some kind of intestinal obstruction, and she's recovering at the vet. The original plan was for my mom to bring her to Austin with her tomorrow for me to babysit, as she'll be out of town for a couple of weeks, but Stella needs much more care than that, so she'll be at the vet, at least for the time being.

Have I mentioned that Hurricane Isidore could be headed for the coastal bend?

Um, yeah, global stress.

I've come to a very momentus decision.

I want a hedgehog.

I will name it Hedgewig.

In case you ever wondered -- and even if you didn't:

The top 4 results from google.com for the phrase, "go to hell" as of right this moment are:
1. microsoft.com
2. hell.com
3. aol.com
4. disney.com

1. Would you say that you're good at keeping in touch with people?
No, I'm very very bad at keeping in touch with people. Most of the people I consider friends today, I've only known for a year or two.
2. Which communication method do you usually prefer/use: e-mail, telephone, snail mail, blog comments, or meeting in person? Why?
It depends, of course, on what communication methods are available to me to contact a specific person. Which I use depends on how friendly I am with any given individual, but in general, I prefer the more impersonal methods. In order of preference, I'd say: blog comments, IM, e-mail, telephone, snail mail, meeting in person.
3. Do you have an instant messenger program? How many? Why/why not? How often do you use it?
Yes -- I have several, but I only use AIM regularly. I use it several times a day constantly. I've got it at home to talk to friends. I've got it at work to talk to coworkers. There's much IMing going on in my life. At work, we use it as a common form of communication -- it's far more convenient, given our organization's size and disjointedness.
4. Do most of your close friends live nearby or far away?
Most of my close friends live nearby. I tend to fall out of touch with them when they move far away. This excepts, of course, my internet friends, who generally live far, far away from here.
5. Are you an "out of sight, out of mind" person, or do you believe that "distance makes the heart grow fonder"?
I'm rather "out of sight, out of mind." I wish I were better at keeping in touch.

Here's a little controversy for you. The New York Times printed an article (picked up by Slashdot) about students using Netspeak in class and formal writing. As might be expected, there were a few different philosophies represented.

The purists say,

"Kids should know the difference. They should know where to draw the line between formal writing and conversational writing."

The more accepting teachers point out that language is evolutionary, and that the legions of netspeaking teenagers are developing it and adapting it to their own needs.

This is Phil guest-posting. Rachel's letting me. Such a nice girl! :D Since I have a birthday coming up in under a month, I thought I'd go ahead and ask people to watch eBay for some of these things, 'cause I love you all.

• One (1) gigabit logic board. These will probably mention having been removed from a G4. Check here for details; I'm interested in the second model and over.
• One (1) G4 processer module. Manufacturer is not an issue. Heat sink is a plus, but not likely. New is okay but I don't think you people want to spend that much on me. 667 MHz is a good starting point.
• One (1) 22 Apple power supply. You can buy these on eBay. PLEASE make sure it's a 22-pin model. (Not that anyone will get it.)
• One (1) ATI Radeon card. Not a new one, by any means; a first or second generation one (64 MB of memory, maybe) will be fine.
• Some more RAM if you really want to, but I have 256 and I happy with that.
• One (1) kick-ass case. Try here - I'm fond of the Red Dragon case, myself, as well as the Green Dragon and Noblesse cases.
• Drives that are compatible. I'm currently thinking of:
• One (1) CD-RW drive.
• One (1) DVD-ROM drive.
• Two (2) hard drives, preferably big ones. (Hehehe...a pair of big ones? ;))
• One (1) floppy drive.
• That's all.

So, if you see anything inexpensive, let me know and I'll tell you where I live. ;)

Forgive me for being so late to catch onto this story -- I'm a girl without a newspaper. Seems there's a resident in Austin's very snooty Westlake Hills neighborhood who is selling her house (worth a half-million) because of a mold claim, and in the meantime, she's letting Leslie (our local eccentric and mayoral candidate, not She Who Must Be Obeyed) live there.

It's been a languid kind of weekend. Think cloudy skies and pomegranates.

There's been a great deal of talk in some of my weblogging circles about weblog linking and friendship. It's a different dynamic from some face-to-face friendships, to be sure.

"yes I know what time it is
in fact, I just checked
I even know the date
and the month
and the year
I know I haven't been sleeping
and when I do
I just dream of you
dear"
--ani difranco

I'm keeping the television off all day tomorrow. I'm removing the bookmark to cnn.com from my web browsers (at least temporarily) so that I don't go there during my idle websurfing. I'm spending a quiet evening with friends and coworkers. I'm making tortellini with pesto. I'm carrying my digital camera around with me all day in my new backpack. I'm taking pictures if I see anything I want pictures of. I'm keeping my options open.

What I planned to buy today:
• a pair of pants like Sarah's
• a corset
• maybe a nose ring
• the new Ani DiFranco cds
• tickets to the Ani concert in Austin next month

I ate a bit of mocha almond fudge ice cream before bed last night and had the strangest, most vivid dreams about New York City (where I've never been) and gay boys on public transit. Oh, and John Cameron Mitchell, of course. (Yeah, okay, Rachel.) It made me wonder what would happen if I started experimenting with other flavors of ice cream before bed.

I've been a little scarce lately -- haven't been much in the mood to write or take pictures. No worries, I'm fine. Maybe it's just the season that has me feeling a little down. That blasted anniversary is coming up in three days, and like CY, I'm rather sick of people telling me how I should feel about it.

My mentor at work sent me this gif, and it made me laugh. Okay, so it's an inside joke, but I thought it needed to live on a webpage -somewhere-...

I signed up today for guitar lessons through UT's informal classes, which start in a week. I took guitar lessons in middle school and learned two songs and about three chords, and while rumor has it most great rock bands survive on less than that, I'd like to learn more so that I can put my guitar to good use.

I bought my guitar about five years ago in Bakersfield, CA, where I'd gone on vacation. It's a Martin DM -- a beautiful blonde guitar -- and I purchased it rather impulsively from a guitar shop there. I've always had a bit of brand loyalty toward Martin. My dad, who's a very talented guitar player, has a Martin from about 1969. It has a beautiful, rich sound, which is helped a great deal by his playing, of course.

Your courage will bring you honor. (in bed)

Daily Numbers: 3 1 5
Lotto Six #'s: 23 12 28 15 37 14