Marek and RageBoy, this is for you

Audio Blogger for the phone enthusiast in all of us.

Marek, go ahead and sign gonzo engaged up for the free trial. That place is just waiting for a two-minute phone call from the asylum.

Places by those who've lost a paycheck but still have their sense of humor

"Oh no, they can't take that away from me..."

Was rambling around today and found some really great sites and blogs brought to us by the unemployed, a bunch with whom I feel a tingling eventual bond. For your reading enjoyment, I present you with:

The Unemployee of the Month who lives here.
Where the Hell Did My Job Go?
Unemployed Theo
Laid Off in America
Invisible Matrix

the revolution just started. today. now. can you feel it?

just this minute. from posting down but not out. yah, I'm down. way down. stepping down to the live wire, the current, where the water hits the sun. That's where I found it. The flip-flop of the tide, turning and carrying me back. something. starting. so hard. swimming. sick of choking down salt water. are you sick of choking down salt water? It'll kill you. You know that. Looks good, but it rips the water right out of your tissues.

that salt water will kill you.

start purging. everything you ever had, don't use it. everything you ever did, forget it.

start new, start here.

white on black.

all there ever was.

down but not out.

just am.

huh?

So Jenna says to George, "Daddy, I had a dream last night. I was down here playing with the kitty until you came home from work, and when you came home and came upstairs, my head was off. It was right here on the floor. Then the kitty cat scratched my forehead."

Me: "The cat scratched your detached head's forehead?"

Jenna: "Yep. And the doctors couldn't fix it."

okay then.

fishrush is really rushing.

At last count, Kent had posted 19 times today. Living up to the rush in fishrush, he's basically scaring me.

looking back from that place in the distance

lemme ask you a question in southernese: All ya'll who work in big-time consulting, do you feel it?

Do you feel what I feel? The chink in the armor, the crack in the wall? it's coming. Don't get scared. It's has to happen; it had to happen. Did you know we've been part of the plan all along? Makes me smack my forehead. You too? Sheeeit!

This is where we hold hands. This is how we spot each other. This is where we keep track of what upside down looks like. Sure, I know, we'll have to do a few cartwheels along the way--whoho, where's the ground where's the sky? Which way's up? What happened? SHIT! Someone grab my hand!

Everything that got us here isn't. If you're not in it, it's hard to see it. It's hard to see the shift. But I see it. Every day. And in my lifetime, this is my lifeline to get through it.

On the other side is a really pretty place that we won't know we were responsible for building until we see it in the distance. Just like I see it now.

It took them to get us here, and they never even noticed. How ironic is that? So fitting. Some nights I laugh myself to sleep over it.

Some day I'll be able to write more. The details. By then it will be trite, cliche, too late, and I'll be kicking myself for not saying more back then. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just permalink this post up and say:

"See? That's what I'm talkin 'bout. THAT'S what I'm TALKIN' BOUT!"

Don't worry. I've got it all under control.

from the folks who brought you bloogle...

It's Gargle, or well, maybe Toogle!



p.s., scroll up. Gary's looking for some sucker--I MEAN blograpreneur--to take over Blogstickers. Me think it's just another ploy by Gary to get Google's attention. I mean, what's a blogging tool without blog stickers?

Gary, remember the little people who stood by you.

Details at one pot.

cross blogging silliness and tiredness

I'm here, there, and everywhere. I'm tired. I offer this idea on a google portal page for mobile bloggers, which I've barely thought through, but when has that stopped me.

I offer this over at Tom Matrullo's place, in which he raises some really cool points on the authority of the byline, about a great idea encouraging all journalists to blog so that when we read their non-blog meanderings we know what hues color what we read, and about another dozen things I could easily write myself silly on but am too tired to do just that.

Carry on, in, about, behind, above, and so forth while I pass out please.

And, if anyone, anyone please, can simplify the RSS story into three or four simple steps I need to take to get the RSS feed working through Blogger on all these blogs I've spawned, that would be great. I've turned RSS on. I've selected "Full" for the descriptions. I've copied the URL offered by blogger as my RSS URL and put it in my templates, as with this blog. I've posted and published about a dozen different ways, since that seems to be what it takes this week to get a fricking post to stick. And still, bloggers who want the RSS feed for Googlers and Stir can't get them--there's nothing in the descriptions or something. I don't know.

Advice appreciated.

"ffffooooooommmm"=the sound me, having read something profound.

He says: "We need translators. Those shamans of old who speak both the language of the tribe and the language of the gods. We need translators who can live in one language and then shift and live in another. We need language travelers. Language shifters. The world is much richer than the best constructions of English language can ever reveal."

And here, I will turn it into poetry for him:

We need translators
those shamans of old
who speak
both the language of the tribe
and the language of the gods.

We need translators
who can live in one language
and then shift
and live in another.

We need language travelers
Language shifters.

The world is much richer
than the best constructions
of the English language
can ever reveal.

-Marek J.

smart mobs via m-blogging

This paper on Smart Mobs and the HipTop Nation blog is being presented in Greece at the upcoming conference on Human Computer Interaction, according to its author, John Lester of Harvard Medical School. The paper talks about the now infamous Holloween Scavenger Hunt that took place via HipTop Nation.

The paper is short and not ground breaking, except that it is because it chronicles a day in the life of a smart mob. Imagine if this mobile community of practice were gathered for something more nobel than a scavenger hunt--maybe in the hunt for a vehicle used to abduct a child or for other crime-fighting scenarios. More dreaming and conjecture when I have time. Leave thoughts as you will...

blogger is sucking up a blue streak today... posting may be sporadic.

this isn't so good

I've had posts that aren't publishing on blogger from yesterday. badabing--shit ain't workin'. Nothing on blogger.com to tell me why. Good thing I don't make a living using this blog.

Here's what it says in my error message:


Errors:
code: 553
message: Permission denied.
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/rss/allied.xml
Files Transfered:
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/archives/allied_archive.html
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/homes/allied.html
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/archives/2003_02_16_allied_archive.html
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/archives/2003_02_02_allied_archive.html
file: /tmp/blogmover/3199544/archives/2003_02_23_allied_archive.html

Yo Yo Yo YO!!! this is makin' me crazy.

George is back!

George just got in, and it was so neat that he could sneak into bed, where Jenna had crawled up beside me at some hour of the night, as usual, and it was just time for her to get up. So he started talking to her and playing with her little ears. She sleeps like he does. Hard. Once she finally falls asleep, when she's intent on sleeping, she will sleep through anything. Comes from having a bedroom above George's studio, with late-into-the-night recording sessions, bass drum booming, and there's Jenna, content and sound asleep.

So anyway, she finally starts to stir and I say, "I wonder when Daddy will be home." and he says "I don't know" and she finally catches his voice in her dream and bolts upright--DADDY!!!--and leaps onto his chest, into his arms.

What a great way to greet the day.

is anyone else late...

...getting their kid to school every single day?

i am.

running now--more later
......

this is some weird shite, this dream blogging

I just read what I wrote last night while, virtually, unconscious. To you, it may not seem so extraordinary, but for me, reapproaching the computer screen remembering not thing one about what I posted, well, is sort of fascinating, if not unnerving. It all starts with being able to type with your eyes closed. They should teach that in school. And to do said typing when you're very, very tired, in a position that lets you pretty much fall asleep.

Who the fuck is Lee Ann Webber, why did her name run through my unconscious? And *who's* got his math in *where*, and why is it going to make him mad, and should I care? These are some odd punctuations within last night's blogging mini-dream.

But then, if I put my analytical lenses in my back pocket, if I feel hard enough, I understand.

Wshew.

Dream a little blog with me.

sitting here drifting off to sleep, convincing myself I should throw a few words in here. Know, please, that I could fall asleep at any second. There. just there I nodded off--my eyes are closed as I type this you see--and my eyes are closed and some imaginary blue bear with the magnet on its back is here--i haven't seen it before--and jenna is shy to show it to me. images and a big face asks, "why are we starting something when we can't start anything?" there was a large faced man just asking me that. I come into consciousness just long enough to type this. And there, pizza hut drivers are running across the parking lot asking did the parked car, did they just get another pizza? And then just words:

You don't know her, Lee [Leigh?] Ann Weber.
He's got your math in there, and he's going to get very upset.

Screw tracking our dreams. I say blog *while* you dream. That's the end of this session--I'm going to sleep. before I do: The trick in dream blogging is to lose consciousness, or teeter on the edge there, let the dream run past you and then poke your head in to say, gotcha. I saw that one go by, and keep your eyes closed and type while you are asleep.

that's all.

He's Back and He's Mac

As they say, once they go mac.... Lest you thought he'd fallen off the backside of Boulder, RageBoy's back in blogland with his new toster/macintosh, which in addition to simmering human palms, is apparently full of processing power and something called BSD Unix--which I of course assumed was rough sex for the newly castrated, and, well, consider the source.

Wait til he goes wireless. We'll never get rid of him.

Jenna talks to Marek

Jenna talked to Marek today, and this is what I heard from the back seat.

"Hello? Heee hee hee hee. Heeee. Hee hee. You're funny!
Heee heee heehee hee hee hee. hee hee.
Wanna talk to my mama?"

It was great.

The Story About the Baby

Saw this on daypop. You have to know how it tugged at my heartstrings after my ordeal the other night. The writing is awesome--humor and wit A+. Can't wait to keep reading it. "Parent, Child, Vomit" -- the picture says it all.

I was telling a friend the other night, I have a new plan to get Jenna to sleep. [she's standing in front of me right now, showing me her paper, practicing her cursive writing, "mama--does this say Mark? I think it says Mark! Look at my cursive M!"] Anyway, so, my plan is to have no plan.

My plan is to surrender completely.

To let her roam the house until she falls over and passes out. Not to care if it is midnight or 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. Not to care if she paints the rug again. Not to care what kind of tape she uses to hang what kind of pictures all over the house. Not to care if she if she writes 2003 on the wall again. Not to care if she stacks six chairs on top of eachother again to reach the candy box in the top cupboard. Not to care if she takes all my checks and hides them under her bed again. Not to care if she cuts Barbie's hair or her own hair or puts on her tap shoes and dances across the linoleum floor at 4 a.m. or decides to use her waste basket as a potty again because she's too tired to walk to the bathroom. And somewhere around morning, I think she might fall asleep.

I think it could work.

Half of Blogland Goes Blind!

She's such a horndog.

Google, you should buy YACCS too.

Posted on googlers too.

wtf blogger access

two days of unreliable posting and access to blogger.
what, are you guys moving my blog to a new server one fucking post at a time?
i still love you.
you are pissing me off.

I just knocked my head against the freezer door six times on purpose

Excuse me while I hurl myself off the deck.

It's about being a mom. You see, I just spent the last two-and-a-half hours trying to get my kid to sleep. No, it really is that bad. When you're a parent (especially parenting solo--week two with George gone), you look forward to the sleeping child like you once looked forward dancing and drinking the weekend away. It's your time, when they pass out. It's the only time you get. Because you know where they are, and you know they're safe, and for once in the long fricking day they are QUIET! Angelic. As soon as the eyes seal for real, your whole spine relaxes.

Jenna's been sick with strep throat. For some children, that might mean they quiet down and rest. Not mine. She has this internal energy bank where she puts her hyper tokens, so if she's out of sorts for a day, that bank fills up with these little coins, and the minute she feels an ounce better, she cashes those suckers in--the whole lot at once, and spends them in one wild frenzy. It feels like she's pelting me with them. I can't keep up. Not with the crafts, not with the mess, not with the books, not with the meals, not with the questions, not with the smarty pants answers, not with the baths, not with the hair, not with any of it.

She's a tornado of wellness. I am useless. Where in the hell did Kansas go?

I should be used to it by now. She's five and she has never slept.

She's the baby who nursed every hour and a half, for 20 minutes on each side, and you do the math, okay, you do the math on what kind of break I had in between feedings. And you think it gets better, right? I look at other people's kids, and I think, look. They're so calm. It's clear that the parents are in charge. I bet their kids go right to sleep at night. Yah well, not if yours is like mine. She is in love with life, and that means she's going to suck mine right out of me.

Parents with calm children give me a lot of advice. It doesn't work with our kid. If she's painting, she's quiet. If she's drawing, she's quiet. That's it. The rest of the time is a manic dash through the day, me being rained on by her energy tokens that she saved up the last time she was sick.

In my day, parents drugged their kids. Horrific? My entire extended family raised their kids on "Dr. Parker's Green Medicine," which worked just fine for us kids when we were fussy and couldn't sleep, and worked on the mothers too. A teaspoon for you, a teaspoon for me. Dr. Parker practiced and made house calls until he was in his 80s. I think the entire city of Rochester was raised on that green medicine.

And was that really so wrong?

If I had some now, I'd drink the whole bottle.

Dr. Parker, God rest his soul.

Technorati is basically depressing

More later. Internet service is down--hiptop is up. The beauty of redundancy.

to no one in particular

She wasn't so much tired of being, as she was tired of being *here.* Not so tired, really, of raising an OH SHIT above the noise as of that oh shit being, like, 3 point helvetica, resonating maybe three feet. An important three feet to her, but still, three feet, not twenty three.

As more people come, and as more people have been here a longer time, she sees something she didn't expect: what they want isn't what they said.

They don't want truth and rough edges; what is important to them isn't what they tell you is important. In seeing real honesty for the first time, she suddently sees how the superficial shines that much more brilliantly.

It makes her squint. Sometimes cry.

It's not at all what she expected.

It's not why she came.

She has a few questions, but so far hasn't found any answers.

Her question today is: Who the fuck are you?

Your monologues are disingenuous, and I am disengaging. You can't hear my song anymore. Not without someone telling you that you should be listening.

You've forgotten how to be real.

Or maybe you never knew.

shopping online

(BTW, This wasn't the post I was talking about below. In fact, I don't remember what I sent via hiptop earlier. Maybe I'll never know. Google, can you hear me? Fix that antiquated m-blogging email process in Blogger. Thank you.)

i posted from my hiptop this morning and it still hasn't shown up...

...look forward to a non-sequitur sometime soon.