junior insomnia

10 minutes go by. I think she's asleep. Hope. Spine relaxes. And then:

"Mom? Do you have more blood than me?"

"Jenna, it's sleep time."

"But do you? Just that one question?"

"I'm not sure how that works. I guess so."

"Is my blood filled up to my neck?"

"It circulates around your body in your veins."

"Oh."

"Go to sleep Jenna."

"I bet Daddy has more blood than you."

"Probably. Good night."

***two minutes of silence elapse***

"Mom, what if we had the same body temperature?"

"We do, Jenna. It's time to sleep though."

"Wow, really? What is it?"

"We can talk about this tomorrow."

"I can't sleep--can you just tell me what our temperature is?"

"98.6, unless we get sick and have a fever. Then it goes up."

"Oh yah. I remember. What about dogs? Are theirs like ours?"

"I don't know. I think they're about 100 degrees."

"WOW!! They're warmer. They have a lot of fur."

"Yes, now Jenna, you're working toward restrictions if you don't just be quiet and rest. Do you want mommy to go lie down in the other room? I can't sleep if you're going to be talking."

"No. I'll stop. Pigs don't have a lot of fur though. Or giraffes. They have short hair. And elephants--they just have hair on their tails and stuff. I wonder what their temperatures are...."

Netflix Rocks

Netflicks is the Webvan of DVDs. And I mean that in a good way.

Webvan, I still miss ye.

this site is kind of a memorylane.com.

Before eating Wheat Thins

Turn the box upside down and gently tap on the bottom four times. Then turn upright.

This distributes the salt that has settled on the bottom nicely over the wheat thins.

Don't thank me. All part of the service.

Frank means business

Frank wants to incorporate us. Hell, I'll try anything once. Well almost. At least we could get a group health insurance plan? Maybe?

Doc and Shelley are Dizzy

Sounds like Doc's got that nasty flu. Feel better Doc. Just so you know, you blog great while delerious.

Meanwhile Shelley had vertigo but took really good photos and wrote straight and winding prose in spite of it.

Burning Down the House

George does the laundy around here when he's in town. I've never been good at it (hint for all married women--screw up his underwear a few times and he'll bump you to the side in the laundry department). I'm not patient enough to do good laundry. I think grey is a nice color. I don't care if blues aren't bright and white's aren't blinding. So I tend to separate into threes: Whites, Darks, Lights. If it dosn't fit one of those, it goes into to its closest cousin's load.

George on the other hand sorts by hues. Blues/greens, red/pinks, yellows/beiges. The lint in the dryer looks like a single crayola crayon when he's done. Not like my lint. My lint is generally grey.

So today I decided to wash a few throw rugs he's had downstairs forever. I figured he didn't know what hue was best, plus rugs are dirty, so he was probably waiting to wash them all by themselves.

So I washed them.

That wen't well.

Then I put them in the dryer.

That didn't go so well.

I was drying my hair after taking a shower, the laundry humming along downstairs, Jenna painting in the living room. I thought my hair dryer might be on the fritz--smelled kind of like burning hair, then burning cloth. Oh well. I turned it off and sprayed some leave-in conditioner on, got dressed, and went down to check on Jenna. I noticed the burning smell getting worse. Oh shit.

Down the basement steps I flew into the laundry room. No smoke but DEFINITELY a baaaad smell. Opened it up. The lint tray was overflowing. The dryer seemed no worse for the wear.

So I shook the rugs out and brought them upstairs. Checked the dryer over well. I got there in time. No harm done. Except my pride. And except for one throw rug that shrunk from 4'x2' to 2'x1'. It resembles a dish towel now. I bet if it had a tag, it would say Line Dry or something.

So that's why he never washed that rug.

hmmmmm.

DVD city

Not having cable the past year has been great. You don't get great reception without cable, so we've only had a few channels to choose from, thankfully PBS comes in great. We've spared Jenna from the soft teen porn and shoot-em-ups (since we don't watch the news). Now add a DVD and we get to watch just what we want! This weekend it's been Jimmy Neutron, Care Bears, Agent Cody Banks, Sand Lot, and Andy Griffith.

Yah baby!

Elaine's been watching movies too...

Okay, ten minutes til Jenna's bedtime--let's see how many posts I can get in.

Halley wins the first anual holiday blogging award for posting through a holiday weekend when no one else is around. I enjoyed following Halley and Jackson around New England and through the streets of Boston dragging their tree home.

good mail day

Well, partial payment from The Client arrived today. WSHEW! I treated myself to a trip to Target and some footy pajamas for Jenna, which, for some odd reason, she's been wanting. She remembers wearing them when she was little and has been whistful for the days of old. Grabbed some new earrings for ME (hadn't gotten any since 'the piercing' a few weeks back) and was out the door.

Dark and cold in Atlanta tonight. People buzz down the roads, through the stores, with a gotta-have-it mania that would frighten me if it weren't so contagious. The Target checkout girl asked if I'd like to save an additional 10-percent. I said I sure would unless it meant applying for a credit card. She frowned. Always a catch.

As excited as Jenna is about the new TV, she was just as excited about the styrofoam in the boxes. We came into the living room yesterday to find a four-foot long boat she had built with the white end foam pieces from the TV box, complete with a mast. She used masking tape, kleenex, chairs, a pillow, part of the box, and the old remote control. It's quite something. She had already designated her little plastic chair as the refrigerator, and had stashed pringles and oatmeal-strawberry bars underneath. She added her change purse (can't get caught on a desert island without it) and set sail while we watched Nemo.

George was off on a trip to record in Florida for a week or so. Today Jenna and I had a girl's day. I washed her hair, and set it with curlers and dippity doo. You should have seen her little head full of pink curlers. Yeeee! It came out great, big loose shirley temple curls amidst her thick crown of dark brown.

It's been a good couple of days.

desperate times

Hey, Desperate Dad, hang in there. It will get better. I can relate. I didn't lose a whole lot of money, but I was making over $100K a year at my last job and where did it go? And what was I thinking? And what when clients don't pay? I hear you. Best of luck on your ebay auctions. Putting a link to your auctions on your blog is smart. I need to start scarfing things from around the house. At one time I was making $400 a month on ebay. Now, there's just not that much left to sell.

Desperate Dad's auctions are on ebay. The scary thing is, I too am looking across the room at a never-viewed copy of A Beautiful Mind, still in its wrapper. What are we afraid of?

RB's Thanksgiving Quilt

It's quite beautiful.

TV

I'm bound and determined to get a television today.

I don't care that I shouldn't. I don't care that I haven't been paid. I worked my ass off and I want to spend $100 on a TV.

We don't have cable, and haven't had a working TV downstairs in about eight months. So we rarely watch TV. But we have discovered the coolness of DVDs on the fuzzy TV upstairs. Jenna is having a blast with the extras they put on DVDs--little games, stories on how they made the movie, bloopers. How cool DVDs are!

So, the sales circulars show amazing deals on TVs today, this mother of all shopping days, and I'm on a mission.

Any advice on the best place to get a cheap TV and DVD player, leave me a comment. I'm betting on Circuit City or Walmart.

Doldrums

I can't stand my mailbox anymore. Are we allowed to take them down? The other day I was thinking that bloggers should put their weblog URL on their mailboxes along with their house or apartment number. You know, like this is my street number, but *this* is who lives here. I imagined our mail carrier home at night checking out my blog. I imagined her looking through our mail the next day before putting it in the box, maybe honking twice to let me know the check I've been waiting for is there, or maybe honking once to say don't bother today.

Today I'd like to rip it off the post. Creditor calls are getting closer to knee breaking this month as they scramble to get any spare cash before we might be so bold as to spend it on family and friends over the holiday.

Yes, I got myself into this mess, and I was getting myself out of it, until one client decides that paying me is not a priority. Today the last invoice for them comes due. I'm waiting for $5k that would let me sleep at night. I'm wondering if I'll ever get it.

On that note, if there is a lawyer out there who would write me a persuasive, if not threatening, letter to this client for free or barter, drop me an email. I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, but phone calls and emails ain't workin' with this client.

Denise Filed Her Brief!!!

Happy Giving of Thanks to Denise and her now family of three!!!.

way cool.

misread spam

You know you spend too much time posting when you think the subject line says:

"Want a blogger penis?"

Yahoo IM FIND THEM Feature, Coming Soon.

Isn't interesting the way IM works? It amazes me how my clients are just a buzz or bllliiiinnng away at any time of the day or night.

Isn't it interesting how a client can buzz you out of a good nap to ask you to jump onto a project, BUT when a client owes you money, they can pretend their buzzer is broken.

BLINNGG, BUZZZ. Are you there?

So, I am requesting that Yahoo IM add a "FIND THEM!" button, which dispatches a real live human to a waiting jet that soars to the client's location, through the front doors, up the elevator, down the corridor, and into the client's office, all while holding two big cymbals to crash together in front of the avid avoider's face.

CLASHCRASH CLASHCRASH.

Perhaps you didn't hear me buzz?

sans form

smoke
laps fire
enmeshment
is what the learned
tell me.

But what
when you can't
have one
without the other?

No form to these lines
words
stanzas
step outside
of form
just me
just words
self-reliance
of text
without paper
standing alone
in thin
air.

the people on the elevator go up and down, up and down, up and down...

Guess who we met!!!

Today after school, Jenna and I took an exciting drive downtown to the Mariott Marquis to meet AKMA and Margaret. WOW! They are so wonderful. Everything you've read is true. Yes they're that cool. Jenna has fallen madly in love with Margaret, whose image I'll have a hard time living up to these next five days off from school. Because Margaret, it appears, has no fear of heights, she didn't think anything of riding Jenna up and down 47 floors in the glass elevators. The one trip I took to the top convinced me that they should charge admission on those elevators. DAG! That is a long way up. Jenna would have dug it if they'd gone another 47.

AKMA was nice enough to hold onto the twenty items I had to bring with us, including Jenna's dance bag filled with markers, paper, turbo-speller, etc. AKMA looked so calm and collected lugging a girl's green sparkle ballet bag around on his shoulder, complete with a design of pink ballet shoes and bows.

George was home nursing a three-day long (and counting) stomach bug, but got to make an appearance by phone.

Margaret must have given Jenna some post-hypnotic suggestions, because she slept all the way home and is still sleeping now.

WOW!

I am bathing in the serene glow that comes with spending time with AKMA and Margaret. Thank you, you two.

You are wonderful.

Solving the COBRA Premium Problem

I have a plan.

All I need is one of those "print your own checks" programs and this signature I found online:



Let's see, how many zeros do you think he's good for--still six?

bad mail day

Again no check. Again $4K sitting somewhere besides my bank account. COBRA due this week or else. And then the mail comes.

Oh, goody, it's the folks that administer my COBRA plan. I always like to hear from them! They make me so happy.

It appears our COBRA premium is increasing from $969 a month to nearly $1,300 a month come 1/1/04.

It appears going postal might be the best solution after all.

When Hilary Clinton talked about the healthcare mandate as first lady, times were pretty flush for us. The dot-com boom was in full swing, and companies were wooing even unqualified candidates to come work for them because of their great incentive packages. Most of us in the technology sector had pretty reasonable health insurance, and pretty good health insurance. We even had extra money to give to the United Way and other organizations that help those and need. I for didn't tune in too keenly to what Hilary was yammering on about.

Now that lean times are upon us, I wish someone who made a difference (AKA: not me) would turn up the volume on the healthcare / health insurance crisis for this next erection. Errr. Election.

The day two forty-somethings and a kid have to pay $1300 a month for health insurance is the day I start getting really pissed off.

This poll from What the Nation Thinks shows that 70-percent of respondents believe the U.S. should have a federally funded national healthcare plan to cover all citizens.

Me too.

Spanning the Monkey Since 1909

Some of my old cohorts from TheBorganization have started a team blog. These guys have deep tech knowledge and a fairly twisted outlook on life, which should make for interesting reading. First glance: I dig the name.

the big blue blog

Frank said this is cool, and he's right.

How to Get Fired Because of Your Blog

...With apologies to blogger.

Do you blog at work? Do you surf porn blogs like there's no tomorrow while you're supposed to be problem solving? Do you think management is so stupid that they'd never think to search you up on Google and find out you've been posting photos from the ladies bathroom since you bought your cool new camera phone three months ago? Well, you're probably right. But that doesn't mean one of your pesky co-workers won't blow you in.

These days, many companies are laying off employees by the hundreds, even thousands. You don't have any job security, even if you think you do, so what difference does it make if you blog at work? The fact is, you'll probably be let go next week anyway, so don't give away your intellectual property (your blog and what you know about blogging) with the illusion that anyone at your company will care. Once you've given them a ten-word definition of blogging, that's all they'll need to sound smart at lunch, on the golf course, and at that next emerging technology conference.

If you think your blogging will make you a star at work, start looking at your company's severance policy today!

How to Get More Hits than Your Company's Website

At the same time, your blog can be a powerful tool for making you more powerful than the company that currently pays your salary (the one that provides you with two days funeral leave if your spouse kicks the bucket). It's very common for bloggers who are intelligent, who write every day, and especially who take pictures of the loading dock at Microsoft, to become far more popular and better liked than the companies they work for. Research from Perseus shows that 97% of bloggers land better jobs once they've been shit canned for blogging at work.

You see, there is a God!

In fact, getting fired because of your blog is one of the smartest marketing moves you can make. Straight to the top of Daypop, Technorati--hey, Andrew Sullivan will probably shoot you a link. That's right. You can be out from under your boss's thumb and working for the coolest new startup, or even the Dean campaign, tomorrow. If you play your cards right.

Layoff or Shitcanned: Two Paths to Blog Freedom

The truth is, your position will probably be eliminated on Wednesday of this week. (They like to let you go right before a holiday weekend, to give you some extra family time, let you stuff yourself with turkey and numb your brain with tryptophan, decreasing the likelihood you'll come back Monday and blow away the Human Resource Manager after you pack your little poetry magnets from the last COMDEX show in your take-home box.) It doesn't matter if you're careful with your posts or not. Corporations have the most uncanny ability to overlook talent, brains, and tenacity in favor of ass kissing and the status quo.

With this in mind, you have two options for shedding your current employer: Layoff (involuntary separation), or Getting Fired (terminated, separated with cause).

Both of these approaches have their good points. For instance, getting laid off usually means you get a severance check, which means you'll have a couple week's salary to spend on your first COBRA health insurance premium. On the other hand, blogging something worthy of getting fired for means you'll be famous on the Web, and may land that book deal you've been hoping for. Or at least a spot on Instapundit's blogroll.

Blogging: Just Do It!

Knowing that you won't have a job much longer anyway, we here at allied recommend that you blog everything. Absolutely everything. Blog about your lame-brained boss. Blog about your loser clients. Blog about the accounting department do-nothings who have fine tuned the art of looking busy while instant messaging their pals in prison but can't cut you an expense check until February of 04.

Blog about your mother, your brother, your fat aunt Sally. Blog about your priest and that little problem he has keeping his hands on the prayer book. Blog prose, blog poetry, blog photos, blog jokes. BLOG TIL YOU DROP.

Because if you think you're career is safe the other way, you're just fooling yourself.

TAKE ME OUT OF THE MIDDLE, WHY DON'T YOU!

An Open Letter From The Contractor to The Client Who Doesn't Pay

Dear Client:

Remember when you called and pleaded for my help on this project and that project and this project and that project? Quick turnaround, you said. Tight deadline, you apologized. We have everything you need--we'll send it right away. I say okay. You sounded so sincere. So I put another project aside for you, which I've done before, to bust my ass turning around your project in two days. You loved it. You always do. You seemed so very happy.

So when Net 30 turns to 45 turns to 60, and my COBRA insurance is riding on thousands of dollars your enterprise has failed to pay me--when my kid could lose medical insurance because of your sloppy accounting processes--how do you think that makes me feel?

It makes me want to go postal. That's how it makes me feel.

But I don't go postal. Instead I decide this: I won't be working with you anymore. Don't call me again. I have clients who pay me well and on time. Like you, they like my work. But unlike you, they understand that the fast, quality service you get from a small business comes with one extra little pricetag. No, it's not extra money. It's TIMELINESS OF PAYMENT. It's NOT playing the float with my business, and my life. It's delivering to me like I deliver to you. If you're not nimble enough to deliver, I don't need to work with you.

I have a solution for the thousands of dollars you owe me right now. Why don't you and my creditors talk directly. Wouldn't that be a great timesaver for all involved? Yes, I will simply hook my creditors up with you, and you two can arrange for you to cut checks to them directly whenever it might please you. My creditors have all the time in the world, andn they'll only charge you 600% interest if you're late.

Take me out of the middle. See? I can be more productive and happier not dealing with either of you, and you each get what you want. No intermediary needed. Call it an exchange, a marketplace, a hub. I don't care, but I don't want the job of explaining anymore why I haven't given YOUR money to THEM.

I hope this arrangement suits you. I know it makes me happy.

P.S., I hope you get laid off with six kids at home.

Respectfully,

Your Contractor

last night and today... reading and writing in blogland

Last night I was on the bed, looking for something--anything really--to read, when I spied my old English Literature textbook, from eighth grade (sometime after the Civil War, if you must know), which I had dragged up from the garage last week, having found it burried in a box marked MISC. All of my boxes are marked MISC. But that's not the point. I enjoy grabbing my old books from time to time and re-reading what I worked so hard to learn as a schoolgirl.

I started reading the pages, past Ben Franklin rambling along up to William Carlos Williams. My eye drank in the poetry and prose. Being a rather progressive textbook for the time, they even tossed in some ee cummings. Reading this book in eighth grade was the first time I'd seen anything by authors and poets that spoke to me, really touched me. Beyond storytime, this was literature. It was also the first time I realized that I was allowed to write out of bounds, like cummings. It almost made me cum.... ings. I mean, it almost made me declare myself an English Major right then and there. But that declaration would have to wait until college.

All this is beside the point. I think. Or beside some of the point.

The point is that I noticed something I think is incredibly significant. What I noticed is that the writing from the cast of "The 'Best Of' American Literature"--and I'm talking about the writing, the composition, the themes, metaphors, voicie, all of that--is less intriguing to me now, less pleasing to me, less telling, less satisfying, less relational, less compelling, less imaginative... just *less than* the writing of many of the barely known and well-known bloggers I read regularly.

These famous words from these famous writers--many of whom did realize fame during their lifetimes--hadn't moved since eighth grade. The writing felt so rigid. Something about single themes confined to a column or two, a few pages or so, fell flat for me. These were writers I had grown up loving. Some of them anyway. Their writing hadn't changed.

But because of blogging, my ears have changed. All of our ears are changing. Stories and poems are telling themselves in new ways out here, and we like it.

Admit it. You know you do.

Our ear for voice, for authenticity and passion and grief and desire and rage, they are becoming re-tuned and more highly expectant. And every day, there are bloggers delivering astounding passages acrosst the Web. For many, writing is not their career, their work, their life's ambition. They're just regular people telling stories and learning bit by bit how to tell them with more humor, awe, suspense, and magic than the greatest writers I've ever read.

Damn. Ain't we something? We really are.

Just as I suspected!

It appears The web *is* a playground after all!

This is good news.

For most of us--those with nothing to lose here--this is splendid news. For Ultra A-Listers and blogging software vendors, maybe not so good. But for anyone who came here to be human, it's good to know we can continue to screw around see what happens.

On my blog playground, it looks like this:

(Pictured from left to right: Laurie, Shelley Powers, and Euen Semple.)

Run, wrestle, swing, lick vanilla frosting from a can, catch bugs, split a pack of cigarettes, smoke them behind the school, set a date to run away from home, write in the dirt with sticks, read, write, dream, forget, remember.



Because we have never had this type of public before, one that combines mass-ness with the ability to keep your name and voice and the possibility of direct connections among individuals and groups, the Web is a playground for new forms of social interaction.
--David Weinberger

tap tap tapping away

I've been quiet in the writing department this week, as you've probably noticed. No good reason. Well a couple--some woman's health issues (I'll spare you the details, this being mixed company and all), but I'm doing pretty well today. Trauma is a powerful animal to be sure. Dang.

Anyway, at the risk of your thinking I've lost my mind, one thing that's helped me this week is this. It's a seemingly bizzare method of reducing fears and anxiety through tapping various places on your body combined with some eye movement techniques. When I first learned about EMDR a year or so ago, I was intrigued, mostly because research shows that it works. No one was saying why, but people who had been suffering from the effects of PTSD were finding quantifiable relief with EMDR.

I never tried EMDR, but I remembered it. So when I came upon EFT it seemed to combine some self-hypnosis stuff with some EMDR stuff with some accupressure stuff. And since the EFT people GIVE AWAY FOR FREE all you need to try it, I said what the heck. Let me start tapping.

I won't say that it's a cureall. But I will say for me it's been a great tool for disrupting my, uh, less than comfortable thinking during some recent stressful times.

Just thought I'd point out the EMO Free site and the tapping technique because there's a wealth of information there, including a downloadable training manual, and it's all free.

Happy stress reduction!

I don't want to, but I can't resist

So Michael Jackson's under arrest. Look, I don't know if the guy is guilty or not. In my brain of brains, I think he's deserving of a slew of personality disorder labels, but that doesn't mean he molests children. He could very well be innocent and is most probably impotent.

I don't know if he's completely wacked or not. I suspect he's at least partially wacked, not least of which wackiness can be traced back to the reign of Joe Jackson.

BUT, I also think the DA is wacked , and I think the parents who send their kids to sleepovers at Neverland are wacked too. Would I trust the word of a parent who let their kid sleep over at Michael's crib after the first allegations surfaced? No. Would I trust my child to the overnight care of a celebrity? No. A sick kid? Double No.

Let's recap then: Everyone's wacked. I trust no one.

Can we be done with it now?

On blogging and popularity and gender and voice...

NetWoman was so nice as to interview me a while back. The interview is up today here.

Thanks for caring what this tired old blogger has to say, TK!

just nice.

Checking in on smitty's place this evening and found one of those posts that stuck me to that blog in the first place. No one can do one sentence like Gabe.

At school and again that feeling like I am here but not really present, you don't have to tell the truth to them says jr...and joe he says nothing because he is asleep, he came all the way over here just to make fun of your cloths says josh, yep and I am thinking with friends like this...but this is better and at least I feel it some of the time these days like I should, like I did before, I know or I wish I were not so alone, that it was not like this for me on these cold morning dragging myself out of bed and seeing it all so clearly and missing her no not the last one, never the last one always the same one who I can still taste and smell even though it has been years.

Sing it to me, brother

"Amerikans just don't copulate with life any more." Marek takes Amerikan music to task. And he should know. He's a citizen now. The best one we have. Listen to him. Go copulate with life. Like Marek says so. Don't ignore him. He has a gift. No noise, only gold. Marek told me this.

entICEing

Over at the jer zone there are some photos that remind me of Shelley's rocks. (you had to be there.) Makes me want a pond I could leave on all winter to make pretty ice sculptures. Except it hasn't quite hit freezing in Atlanta yet.

In another corner of the blog world, Paige has ice too. And I have no idea why.

Meet Up Can Put Its Feet Up

The folks at meetup have some extra cash thanks to ebay's founder. Seems the dean bloggers utilitized meetup right into an indispensible poli-and-social-hookup tool that garnered some attention and a couple million.

So, have I told you I'm building this great new app bloggers love called BreakUp? Yes, it completely removes the necessisity of in-person breakups, AND you can schedule breakups, create reminders, and even invite your new mate to join in on the fun! Should be out by Valentine's day.

Sure could use a couple hundred thou to get the kinks worked out.

Then there's this other beauty called BeatUp. This is great for getting even MORE personal with the folks you meet through MeetUp to whom you take an instant disliking.

Seamless integration with MeetUp means that your next fight can be scheduled for five minutes or five weeks after you first meet a really annoying person through MeetUp. Ding Ding--Your Brawl Is Calling!

I'll take $25 for that one.

Anil says VCs are coming. I say, just in the nick of time!

Scooby Dooby DOH!

Hell hath no fury. And the doofus doesn't even know it.

Brittney, shut the fuck up.

"I probably have more older fans than the younger ones, but I think the reason why everyone talks about the younger fans so much is because the parents are concerned," Spears was quoted as saying. "And in the end they shouldn't be concerned because they should trust their kids and believe in their kids."

Not caring about being part of the machine you're plugged into is one thing, Britt. But, um, please save the parenting advice.

Like, okay?

follow the bouncing link

Over at Frank's Place, during Frank's nice rundown of an interesting post by Ken-Put-It-All-In-Perspective Unconditional-Blogger-Love Camp on what blogging *doesn't* mean, you'll find a comment by Meg who noticed a quote on Frank's page that read:

-Ayya Khema, "Who is My Self?"

I giggled out loud when I read Meg's confession that at first glance she thought the quote read: "Who is My Serif?"

Hey, Meg girlfriend, my serif ain't much to look at, but she's reliable as hell: Times New Roman.

And you?

Breaking News Alert........

RAGEBOY HAS COMMENTS BACK!

three pairs of shoes and two peds later

back home safe and sound. Our little girl likes shoes. I don't remember liking shoes quite so vigorously when I was six. She hops from box to box, of course grabbing sandles right off the bat, obviously not concerned that it was in the 30s here a couple of nights ago, and not concerned with the fact that we were there to get school shoes, not beachware.

Unable to decide between the saddle shoes (UGH!) and the black sneakers, we got both, and added a pair of basic black leather buckle-up shoes. The shoe dude was nice, and decided to give us half off the third pair since we'd already used our "buy one pair, get another half off" deal on the first two pairs of shoes.

Is this incredibly boring? Yes! It is! You should have been there with us. Then I'd let you complain.

Anyway, they have these cool new laces out that make me wish I were young again. They come with beads and little girls can spend a joyous half hour beading their own shoe laces.

I for one feel much better that her conservative little saddle shoes, which I remember TOO WELL having to keep clean and tidy, have been jazzed up with these neat little beaded laces.

We got some nifty little peds too--on sale of course. One pair has little lion king heads sticking off the back, and the other pair has little powerpuff girl heads sticking off the back.

Combined with the saddle-shoes-with-beaded-laces, the peds with powerpuff girl heads bouncing up and down as she walks will make quite the fashion statement, don't you think?

Stay tuned for our next installment of "Fun with Daughters" when we go looking for new hair bands, the "ouchless" variety please.

Off to look for shoes for jenna

how is it that kids' feet grow so fast? And then not? If you could predict it, that would be nice. But you can't. They'll go through six months, a year even, and their feet stay the same size. So they wear out the shoes they have, and you buy new ones, and as soon as you do, their feet grow. So you buy new ones a size bigger. And as soon as you do, their feet don't grow for six months, during which time they wear those shoes out and so you buy another pair, but you don't go any bigger because they're just growing into the last pair. And as soon as you buy those, their feet grow two sizes in two weeks.

It makes no sense I tell you.

There'd be money in one of those online calculator that ccould track predicted shoe sizes based on your kid's past patterns.

If not money, there'd be lots of grateful parents with extra money in their pockets.

somebodies love me!

In the top ten on Blogger Forum this week.

I could say I don't care, but I do. Feels good all under.

Bad Teen Poetry, Part 3

Paige started it. Laurie dared to add hers. Worthy of a blog of its own, add a link to your bad teen poetry in my comments box. Lucky for me, I think, I was more interested in horses than boys as a teen. So mine's not mushy. I'm still digging for those.

Okay okay. Here you have it--my first ever words published nationally:

The Horse
by Jeneane Dimino
Age 14
Published in Horse of Course Magazine
May 1978

They can run like the wiind, or walk slow and sure.
They can be firey hot, or gentle and pure.
They can be black as the night or light like the day.
They can be a chestnut, or even a bay.
They can be strong and hard or have legs long and thin.
You can ride them for fun, or race them to win.
They can be well taken care of, or left in the stall.
You can love them a lot, or care not at all.
Don't ignore them, they need us so much!
They need our affection and tender touch.
If you don't believe me, go right to othe source,
Don't take my word for it, go ask a horse!


I got ten bucks for it.

Shut up, all of you!

Locke and Load

"Locking and loading and finally going postal from the high bell-tower of a mind at once unhallowed and unhinged."

What are these multi-cortex posts of his, the words and pictures and tables and colors and links, this visual juxtaposition of madness and guffaws?

Something.

Oh, she's gonna kill me for this link...

Laurie has a most excellent post that reminds me why I love blogging. She has shamelessly (well, maybe with some shame) unearthed a very "moving" poem she wrote as a high school teenager with a crush on Andrew McCarthy. Oh geeez. If you were one of those incredibly deep high school kids--I know I was--who wrote heavy poetry in a composition book clutched to your chest, complete with far-out doodles on the covers and spine, don't miss this.

Laurie is every girl.

To salute Laurie's courage, I suggest that we ALL try to dig up some high school--or better yet, middle school--poetry this weekend. It's only fair not to leave the lady hangin' out there on her own.

{she pads off to bed giggling softly.}

off to the movies

The Sessum family is looney, but you knew that. We're off to see the new looney toons movie tonight with jenna. I never liked cartoons as a kid (yah, I know, weird), but I'm hoping to enjoy better the blend of real-life characters with those annoying cartoon characters.

that's all folks!

How Spy Sweeper Saved My Life

or at least my laptop. Spy Sweeper from Webroot has changed my life. And I'm not kidding. And they're not paying me to say so. Though I wish they would. Or at least throw in a free subscription for George's limping-along PC. How did I miss all the spying goin' on round here?

For the last few months, my laptop had been getting sicker and sicker. I had no idea what was causing the fluky problems I was experiencing. They were random and therefore not easy to replicate. Some of the things that were haywire included: 1) After browsing about a half-day's worth of sites for work (and blogging of course), I'd start to get pages appearing with broken image links, broken text links, and things would get worse and worse until I couldn't access a page at all. 2) When the browser got completely hosed -- the only page it would bring up was a search page, or a page from my cache that had nothing even remotely to do with the URL I'd typed in -- I would have to shut down completely. 3) Usually on the way to shutdown, things would short circuit even more and the system would hang, requiring a hard shut-down and reboot. 4) Scan disk would activate on startup, and the whole sequence of events would start all over again.

This continued, until it got SO bad this week, I couldn't view TWO web pages in a row without having to restart.

I was ready to throw this thing into the driveway and celebrate its screaming demise.

I started thinking and reading up on spyware, which I knew was out there, but I didn't really realize that it can be more of an obstacle to hassle-free Internet use than viruses. That's what webroot says, and I believe it. I was near insanity, not being able to blog or google or shop or ANYTHING!

Anyway, I installed the trial version of spy sweeper and it located 145 instances of spyware on the ol' Dell and 440 traces, all of which it quarantined nicely.

And I haven't had a problem since--pages come up, no broken links, no annoying search pages begging me to reach inside and strangle them.

If you've been having problems like this, check it out. They seem reputable--if anyone knows any different, please let me know because I think I'm gonna buy the $23 subscription.

Back in b'ness....

-jeneane

a boy, his blog, and his mom.

"With the raw materials in my blog, she could actually construct an accurate picture of who I am. This is fucking serious."

the evolution of archetypes

I've been meaning to tell you about the dream I had two nights ago. It referenced the new terrorism archetype we get to pass down to our children as fodder for their dreams. Cool!

I'm walking down the street (not my street or any street I'm exactly familiar with) and all of a sudden I see crowds of neighborhood folks (not my neighbors exactly) who had been talking, maybe having a neighborhood barbeque or something, running for their lives. Screams, oh my god's, and eyes to the sky as they ran back to their given homes. I stood in the middle of the street and saw a man looking skyward, his hand shading his eyes, and even though I couldn't see his eyes, I saw terror.

I looked up and there it was. A plane disguised as a giant rectangular birthday cake, so innocent looking, like one of those planes that pull the silly banners behind them, and out from the bottom layer of vanilla frosting, the plane was spraying something that looked like white flour (but I knew it was poison) over the neighborhood.

oh shit!

I ran to my car with a single mission on my mind--FIND JENNA! I realized at that moment that when the birthday cake of death comes, I won't have time to both duct tape and plastic sheet the house AND go get my kid. There won't be time. I'll have to choose. And in my dream I chose to get my kid.

I woke up with the alarm clock as I was racing to find Jenna. I remember exactly how the flying birthday cake of death looked. I wish I could draw it for you. I now understand that the duct tape and plastic sheeting were a waste of money, because poison flour waits for no woman.

Jung spins in his grave.

computer hell

I didn't just abandon you--please know that. I was writing up a storm when my computer became unworkable. I still don't know what's going on. Although I use virus protection, I think I've been put under the control of alien spyware or some such hijacking phenomena which renders my browser useless. Today I installed some spyware killer utilitiy--we'll see if it helps. I ran a check on my drive and it found about 30 instances of spyware and 400 traces. Whatever the heck that means. So I had it quarantine those buggers and we'll see what happens. I'll be happy if I can visit more than two web pages in a row without a page of broken picture links, lost designs, and generally scrambled up non-workable (even after hitting refresh several zillioin times) pages staring me in the face.

ugh.

anyway, I got a whole post in before the laptop lost its marbles again.

this is progress!

ooooh cool.

I've long been anti-aggregator because I think it disturbs the eyeball-to-brain-to-blog-to-comments-to-brain-to-post flow which I think is at the core of good blogging. Then Shelley clued me in to bloglines. Sheesh. Color me a convert.

Pretty nifty and well integrated within the blogging experience. Gimme a week. I'll report back. And let me know if the lil' subscribe button over there on the left works, kay?

Authentic Dog*

I think it's risky business when people own dogs they don't license.

Dog licenses are necessary for several reasons, not the least of which is that to get a license, your dog has to be vacinated against rabies, and this practice reduces the incidence of rabies and the associated health problems the disease poses to other animals and to humans. Many wild animals can carry rabies, and leaving a pet--especially a large dog that roams--unvaccinated and unregistered is simply irresponsible.

It is with some hesitation that I point to Frank Paynter's dog, Fang, as an example of an accident waiting to happen.

Fang remains unlicensed and has not been vaccinated. At the same time, Frank has posted about how prone Fang is to roaming, and about how unpredictable Fang can become on occasion.

What if Fang were to happen upon a child collecting pine cones in the woods? What if Fang, having recently killed a rabid raccoon, bit the child? That child would then have to undergo a round of very painful treatments, and just as devastating for Frank, Fang would have to be destroyed.

That is why I am urging Frank to have Fang vaccinated and to get him properly licensed in his township. I also urge the Towns and Counties across the U.S. to do a better job enforcing the laws that are already on the books. They should be following through and fining the scofflaws who refuse to license their dogs.

I'm sorry, Frank, but sometimes an intervention is required.

*

Dedicated to shelley.

further reflections on meeting bloggers in person.

no two bloggers are alike.

all bloggers are alike.

I thought everyone knew me.

Everyone does not know me.

I thought I knew everyone.

I don't know anyone.

Allied sounds weird when said outloud as part of my identity, as in, Jeneane Sessum of Allied.

I don't know whether to pronounce it UHlied or AHlied or AAHlied or even Allaheyed.

I gave little thought to my blog's name when I picked it in 2001.

I think maybe I should have.

Blogspot is viewed by some as the low-rent district.

I'm glad I live in the low rent district.

More people know Blog Sisters than Allied.

I'm glad more people know Blog Sisters than Allied.

What the fuck does Allied mean?

I don't know.

I thought a blog gathering is where everyone hugs and weeps with joy to finally meet siblings separated at birth.

Not all bloggers weep.

Not all bloggers hug.

Not all bloggers were separated at birth.

That's probably a good thing.

Some bloggers are very serious about blogging.

Some bloggers are not very serious about blogging.

I sometimes giggle when I see bloggers handling money.

There is no good reason for this.

So Many Shamans, So Little Time.

I'm a shaman, you're a shaman, he's a shaman, she's a shaman, wouldn't you like to be a shaman too?

feeling palley like Halley

When I think of bloggers meeting bloggers, I think of Halley. Who doesn't? My guess is that Halley holds the world record for blogger actually greeted in person by another blogger. Across the country she goes, carrying the blogworld in her designer handbag, having no qualms or reservations about encountering bloggers in their realworld flesh. We are all Halley's friend in that respect.

Last night I channeled Halley, using a tiny piece of her outbound energy to get my behind out of the house--which required asking my sister to watch Jenna overnight, packing her up, fixing her several medicines for the p.m. and a.m., and dropping her off on my way to the Atlanta Blogger's Gathering, hosted by the super-personable Greg Greene at the 5 Seasons Brewery on Roswell Road.

I got there late, something I've consistently been for the last six years, as they were paying the check, but it was fascinating to meet some real, live, in-person bloggers. I only wish I'd gotten there in time for the lively discussion it seems they had.

The best part of the evening for me was meeting John Adams. What an amazing human being John is. Rather than talking about blogging and bloggers and bloggers blogging about blogging, John told me really cool stories. He has a blogger's heart. Conversation with John is musical--you play something, he takes that and turns it around and adds to it, then he passes it back to you to inform with your voice, and suddenly together you've created this amazing dialogue.

To me, that is blogging.

Pleasure to meet you, John.

After that it was off to see George play the late session at Hueys, which has some spicey n'awlins food peppered with sweet jazz all weekend long.

We finally departed at about 5 a.m. Hit the sack at six, up at 1:00 with a phone call from my sister that Jenna was ready to come home, off to grab her, home to the keyboard, with an urge to tell you all that after two years, I met some realworld folks who blog.

Don't worry Anthony--you'll always hold the spot as the very first co-blogger I knew outside our house. Come to the next get together--would be great to see you guys.

See also:

Photdude

Ricky West

Kelley

california raisin some questions here...

Shelley thought I raised some good questions in my second comment to her post about the California Tax Board using content written in her weblog as part of the criteria considered when determining how much she might or might not be able to pay them.

That crosses the line in a lot of ways, as did Bill Kearny's uninspired comment in the same thread, which I also reference in mine. So I said this. Food for thought I think:

-------------

...If I see one more blogger using the "oh stop your whining" cliche I'm going to puke. It's a technique for silencing and a substitute for thoughtful prose. In other words, it's LAZY.

Just to clarify something: We're not talking about a public journal being read by the public in this instance. We're talking about what you've written in public within your weblog, which, HELLO, could be fact or could be fiction, being used by the government in their financial assessment of you and what you may or may not owe them.

Not sure about you or Shelley, but I'm just thrilled to know that the IRS is a valued reader of this blog, just as I'll be thrilled to have a chat with the HMO folks over the phone one day, indicating that they've read every sentence I've written about my daughter's asthma, and would like to deal with me financially based on the pixel trail I left behind.

And what if I told you it's all a lie? What if I told you I made it up? What if I confessed she's never wheezed in her life? What if I say, that was all an experiment to guage the interest of my readers on specific topics, or, if I declare that I was doing research? Or, that it was ENTERTAINMENT, not necessarily fact?

If Shelley turned her blog into a novel, the IRS wouldn't be discussing the theme or content with her. They would be interested ONLY in the INCOME she derived from the novel. As far as I know, shelley hasn't made her first million off this blog yet.

Therefore, I believe our blog content is NOT fair game for the IRS research minions. ONLY blog income is.

I'll happily report my latest $11.00.

Hello? Anyone still have a pre-Bush bone in their bodies?

Again, let me say it with feeling this time, when it comes to the CONTENT and CONTEXT of our blogs, there's something SMELLY about being held financially accountable based on what we say (or perhaps eventually what we DON'T say) in our individual post or sentences. Get it?

----------

Good.

The Shelley Powers Institute of Technology

This is an awesome essay penned by Shelley on all manner of things regarding comment spamming, what to do or not do about it, virtual wars and attacks that take down blogs, what to expect, what to fear, putrid bottom feeders, angry algae, and how not to take this shit lying down.

I feel like I just went to a really cool class where I learned about something I didn't know was happening. You know, that all-a-buzz feeling.

elaine's coming back

Sowly but surely, Elaine rides again on a new computer.

It's good to see you, Elaine!

oooooh!

congratulations. you are the "you smell like
butt" bunny. you're brutally honest and
always say what's on your mind.


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks, RB!

backward

this is the park where I used to ride my horse when I was a teenager. It looks just the same. I'm misty.

leastman lane

In the late summer, she'd sit on the rocky bank and watch the clay dry under her fingernails. The thick clay beneath the water was the best thing about the creek in mid-August, those tiny tadpoles making freckles and lines, darting in and out of what looked more like chocolate pudding than dirt.

On the hottest days she looked forward to finishing chores, to sinking into the softness of the creek, then stretching out on the bottom, gouging fistfulls of clay as she half floated, in cutoffs and a t-shirt, soaking head to toe in crystal water.

This was the only way to cool off after a ride, after the stalls were clean. The horse flies never followed her down to the water's edge. Neither did her nightmares.

we're talking about assholes over on gonzo engaged.

Don't Miss It!

net times

George: "I'm trying to think of what they call that illness--it gets you really sick. I can't remember. It's right here (knocking his head), I've almost got it. I just have to think..."

Me: "You don't have to think anymore. There's Google."

um, holy shit?

shelley.

shhhh.

Denise, could you conjure us little guys--well, me--up a lil ole disclaimer for this here blog indicating, kind of like they say at the end of a (usually accurate and truthful) movie, that what you read here is a mixture of fiction and fact that even I haven't sorted out yet? you know, nothing here represents anything real or if it does it's coincidental and toss something in about the fact that we're WRITERS and this is a CREATIVE space and leave us the fuck alone?

I mean, if you're not busy buying diaper genies and stuff.

I'm floored. I always thought the insurance companies would be first.

Two Years and Two Days Old

EEEKS! I missed my own birthday! Allied turned two November 4th. Seems like 22.

member this?

The web fridge project.

Now THAT was blogging.

I just future posted this to December 31, 2004--here's a copy for today. Consider this a beta test. ;-)

I just figured out that with blogger's future post, theoretically, we can post wahayyyy into the future. Say, December 31, 2004, which, since I'm writing this on November 4, 2003, is quite a few months from now.

It's playing with my head. This wondering will I still be here then (and I don't just mean "here" on this blog)? My goodness. How much will change between now and then, and do I really want to post THAT far into the future?

And so, I guess if I can say one thing into this black hole of blogging made possible by some funky new future posting functionality, it's don't forget love.

Don't forget heart.

That's what we came here for.

Peace.

And happy 2005 everyone.

I like mine fried.

Our samsung TV recently bit the dust. We'd been fans of Samsung in the past, having had a microwave that lasted like 18 years, and some other gadget that lasted about 394 years. But this TV died way before it's time. Like after two years.

We often still turn it on, just to listen to the clickclickclickclick of it not actually turning on at all. It gives us hope. Or something. Used to be if we let it chatter away with its clicking for two to three hours, and it'd come on. Then we started never turning it off, knowing that actually getting it to come back on would be a tricky and lengthy process. Then, as you may remember, the kind folks at the local power company shut us off for a day (something about them wanting money for electricity). Now we wait 24 hours, 48 hours: nothing.

Which is to say, if they can't make a good TV, why would I want them boiling my underwear? In fact, why do I want to boil my underwear at all? In fact, who does boil their underwear? And why precisely?

Hmmmmmmm.

This is deep.

Thanks to the jer zone in advance for giving me some interesting dreams.

The trails

Let me tell you a story of a young girl who rides horses. She is strong, with tight thighs that like riding bareback best, the tickle of chestnut hair, matted, hot against her skin, holding on for dear life, a best friend who loves to gallop ahead, to race her thoroughbred through the woods, always in the lead, choosing the toughest trails, the steepest hills.

She goes for it every time. Part of their friendship is in her following. Every time they start slow, then build speed, branches snap and reach for her cheeks, the trees throwing razor sharp twigs like confetti, this is a celebration of the trails. With each coming branch, she lowers her chin to his mane, squeezes tighter with her calves.

She never expects to stay on all the way there and back again, she is ready in an instant to let go, to throw herself into the brush, take pine needles in exchange for flying. Even as her senses urge her to slow him down, she knows that it's too late. It's always too late. There's no way to pull back once you pass the concrete walk that cuts through the trail by the pond.

Four legs galloping flat out, she sees his nose stretch forward, jerking the reins loose, nostrils puffing, grabbing the bit, it's not her ride anymore.

There is a point during a gallop where you stop stopping, stop hoping to ever stop, with no choice but to go on, you submit to fear, riding on the edge, too fast to feel your own breath, you become motion. The wind no longer fights you for your breath because you are the wind.

What you do is give in and ride.

What you do is ride.

the solution really is poetry

"You know when I was young, a child even, it was like it was singing to me all the time," she recalled. "I mean it was like everything was in metaphor, everything was in lines, everything was in phrases, and it would just go through my head continuously. I thought the supply was endless. It was, for many years."

-Ruth Stone

from Wood s lot.

debt

The economy's getting stronger, they say, they've said for a week now, and yet I have to wonder, how do we dig out? How do any of us with lost jobs, lousy or non-existent severences, newly-aquired COBRA paymenets, and tax bills waiting to jump out and suck any bit of progress from our veins in a matter of weeks--how to we catch up? How? How do we recover from an entertainment industry bashed to nothing by 9/11? How do we eeek just that little bit more out of who knows where to get ahead?

We give them $100 here, $500 here, $1000 there. Making progress. Phone calls getting friendlier, a little bit anyway, every now and then a human creditior says: "Thanks for trying, you're making progress."

It doesn't matter. It's not possible. Is it possible? What can you do go earn a chunk of change big enough to make a difference, to make a dent, to stop the lein they've put in motion? What does it take to do more than get by, or is that the point?

Maybe that's the point.

Relax, get by. You're okay. You've always been okay. Don't use your energy fighting it, let it wash over you and away. Today's all we have. Blessed to have a roof, no leaks, warmth, medicine, food, wheels, a yard, green grass, crazy autumn leaves, the piano, warm blankets for Jenna, toys, books, a mailbox where sometimes good news comes.

Each other.

competition in the blog world

It's something I didn't really think would follow us here as quickly as it did. Or should I say, follow me here, personally. Which it has. To a greater or lesser degree, depending on the day, I feel competitive with some of my blog classmates.

Will you admit the same?

You do, don't you.

Precisely why? Why do I spend a single ounce of incredibly valuable mental energy letting such unproductive thoughts reverberate between my newly-pierced earlobes?

It rises and falls in me.

One week I'm all about community and having fun and not giving a shit and playing like we used to play. The next week, I'm all about, damn--how come I still have a 6/10 google ranking when so many others have jumped to 7/10. What's their secret? Are they better writers than I am? (That's rhetorical--don't answer it.) Are they writing about more interesting topics? Is it that they focus? Do they link to more important people than I do (that's easy to do--no offense, I mean, I LOVE you all)?

Is it because they meet bloggers in the flesh--at conferences, meet ups, in academia, etc? I think that may be part of it, just as it has been with bloggers first moving to the telephone to deepen relationships. With more bloggers meeting bloggers, and with more sanctioned blog-focused events, there is a core circle of bloggers who are further deepening their relationships. I think this helps nudge the boundaries of their communities further outward. Bigger community, more links, more links, more credibility.

Sucks, don't it?

The truth is, I don't go to conferences. I don't have the money or the free get-away time, at least not now, to do so. And I don't have a focus here. I'm an excellent writer, though I don't always demonstrate that here. The point is, whatever the secret ingredients are to blog ranking success, I just don't have em.

Most days I'm glad about it. I've confined my voice in the corporate world in order to focus, to provide exactly what was expected. And I keep reminding myself that here, I don't have to do that. Here, I don't have to do anything, and I can do everything. I also have to remind myself that the freedom to write everything and nothing at all is worth more than a bump in google page ranks.

Although, if and when I do bump to 7/10, we're having a fucking PARTY over here--do you HEAR me? I'm not going to pretend I didn't notice it happen, like some folks. HELL NO! It's partay-down time. Get your grass skirts, wake the kids and phone the neighbors, BYOB (bring your own blog), and we will party our behinds off.

Yah.

Uh-huh.

You better believe it.

Reciprocal Linking Day

TODAY ONLY! That's right. Today only, you link to me, I link to you. And why the hell not?

First of all, my blogroll's a mess. I haven't used blogrolling.com because I've always had this idealistic notion that it's cheating. That you should tend to and prune and nurture your blogroll by hand, because it's the most selfless part of the blog. The posts are all about self. The template is all about dazzle and functionality. But the blogroll is about people. So, like a doofus, I've added and added and added, and forgotten to ever update links to those who've moved blogs. For some really crazy reason, I actually ENJOY taking the long way past their old home to get to their new blog. What is that? It's really not the best use of time, but stopping by Mike Golby's old place and stopping by Michael O'Connor Clarke's old place -- for crying out loud, pick a blogger off my blogroll and you'll probably stop by their old blog too -- gives me this warm feeling. A kind of "oh! I remember when we hung out there--that was a great place" as I click any variety of "I've moved!" links to get to the blog's new location.

Anyway, where am I going with this? I'm so excited actually. I have TWO FREE HOURS and my brain about me, which means its blogoramabama time! Anyway...

All of this is to say, my blogroll is unweildly, and my neighborhood relationships need some serious tending to. SO, if you want me to link to you, link to me and leave a comment with your blog's URL, and I'll add you to this blogroll-in-progress that lives on the left side of the page. Somewhere. Don't ask me where you'll end up. But somewhere over there.

Oh yes, I almost forgot! Secondly, I'm looking for some new blogs to read.

Thirdly, ta-ta!

It's Hot.

What is this weather in Atlanta? It's been a week of heat that has nothing to do with fall. What is it this grey drisley morning, 75 degrees? A couple of days ago, with the sun beating the pavement, it had to be 80, no? What, did I flip too many pages on my calendar? What, is this global scalding? Global sweating? The wasps are mad with the warmth--they've risen with a vengence from wherever it is they go when it gets cold. The leaves are jumping back onto the trees, unraking themselves and hurling their crisp little bodies skyward. And I read that the groundhog saw his entire ass--which means no fall, no winter, no spring. It's right back to summer for us.

Rock me gently

It wasn't that I never liked rocking chairs; it was more like I couldn't see how they would be particularly useful.

Growing up, into my teens, 20s, 30s, I'd sit in a rocking chair at my sister's house once in a while, rock back and forth a few times, wish I could get what was supposed to be so special, so relaxing, about it.

The truth is, at best sitting in a rocking chair made me feel a little queasy, a little anxious, like I should just get up already. I mean, if I'm expending all this energy to stretch my legs back and forth, I might as well be doing something, right?

I love the way they look, don't get me wrong, and I always have. I have my grandmother's antique green rocker, which I've moved around with me since I had my first apartment 20 years ago. For most of those years, I didn't sit in it much. I enjoyed having it, not using it.

I love wooden rockers the best, even the naked variety you can get at the unfinished furniture store. Too look at, I've always found them mysteriously beautiful. To sit in them, well, I never quite could relax.

Then Jenna came along, and into her little baby room went a rocking chair for mommy, eventually a nice big rocker with a tall back, and a soft pastel cushion. Little did I know that this sturdy wooden rocker and I would become long-time companions.

Children change everything. Nursing changes everything. Yes, even how you feel about furniture.

For more than a year, I sat in that chair every night, at first nursing that sweet and never-tired bundle to sleep, and when bottle came along, it was the same place, same routine, back and forth we'd rock, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, letting down and drinking in each other's eyes, daughter to mother to daughter: you are so wonderful.

When it wasn't me rocking, it was George, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Reading and humming until she would finally give in to sleep.

It wasn't until I re-arranged Jenna's room a few months back that I finally moved the rocker out to give her more room for her toys and books. The rocking chair had become more a chair for a dozen stuffed animals, for half-dirty-but-still-wearable clothes, for pens and pencils, for stubbing our toes on, than a rocking chair. So I lugged it down to George's studio where it holds a bundle of cords and equipment that aren't quite meant for a rocking chair either.

I hadn't missed the chair, nor the rocking, hadn't even thought about it until tonight when I was laying at the foot of Jenna's bed, trying to coax her to rest on this night when she was having a particularly difficult time falling asleep. Without thinking, I took my leg, half off the bed already, and pushed my foot against her dresser, and started to gently rock the bed, slowly and gently, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. For a long time. And I thought back to how the room once looked, the corner where the chair had once sat. How different the world had become in just six years.

Back and forth, back and forth, thoughts subsided, followed by that opiate rush. mmmmmmmmmm.

It wasn't long before she was asleep, and it wasn't long before I realized that once you've rocked your baby to sleep, you never experience rocking quite the same way again.

I don't think it matters if you don't rock again until your 60 or 70 or 100--when you start rocking, the mystery tells its tale backwards to you. It all comes back: the let down, the blessing of that hormonal opiate, nature's way of removing the fear and the awkwardness, and the magnitude of new motherhood. Rocking brings with it the magic of forgetting that you haven't slept in days, weeks, months. With baby rocking, the way everything is fades so far away.

Fade away, fade away, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Six years now past my days of rocking and feeding baby, tonight's bedtime rocking session was a treat for me. It was a treat remembering the softness, the comfort, the awe, the certainty, the unknowing, the pleasure of it all.

And, I heartily admit, a treat to know I don't have to do the same thing again in 3 hours.

The beauty of the back and forth moves within the memories that come back--and forth, and back, and forth--when you rock. The sweetness in having rocked is that you can always rock.

ray sings

Ray captures the essence of God v. Allah in this old time ditty.

A product of the segregated north

I've been following the story of the mayor's race in philly, where katz v street is big news. What I find most interesting about this story may not be what the rest of America finds interesting. What interests me in this race, this "race" race, with its thick dividing lines between very angry voters on both sides, is that I don't think this same situation could occur in the south.

The reason is that segregation is inherent within the cultural fabric of the northeast united states.

The reason is that the south is further along on the path of trauma recovery from slavery than the north.

The reason is that the south's denial broke a long time ago.

The reason is, the north is still in denial, and the institutional machinery and economics of the northeast rely on its remaining in denial.

From a neighborhood perspective, from a community perspective, the geographic boundaries in the northeast ARE the demographic boundaries. The level of segregation I have noticed--hell, experienced--in the northeast is astounding in the year 2003. You have city, black. You have suburbs, white. You have media personalities (anchor people) White Men (maybe a black or Asian woman thrown in the mix for boldness), and you have counterculture personalities (black, Hispanic). And it's not easy to move among those dividing lines.

The mayor's race in Philly, and the breakdown of voters geographically, and the us versus them mindset, is so typical of the segregated northeast that I wonder if it really surprises me at all. The whining over bullying and injustice from the Katz people won't surprise me if he loses, the outrage and explosive rage from the Street people won't surprise me if he loses.

This is coming from someone who lived in the northeast most of her life, followed by time in Iowa, Illinois, Virginia, and now Atlanta. I know, as a mom and wife in an extra-ethnic family the last many years, the difference between living in the north and the south. I know the mindsets. I know the innuendos. I know the covert. I know the barely seen and the unseen.

I've traveled through the south over the last decade. You want a test subject in race relations, send a black man, a white woman, and a mixed child trouncing across this country.

The difference is that in the south, integration has become inherent. Travel the country roads of Alabama, where you feel the hair prickle on the back of your neck as you look at some of those old, old, crooked branch trees, flashes like whiplash of men hanging dot the spaces behind your eyes. Shiver. Chill.

You walk into a backroad convenience store. You glance at the white clerk, old and wrinkled, you wonder about his history, his daddy's history. You get your bottled water and bag of chips. You walk to the register where your husband's waiting. You see that they're talking now. The old clerk's drawing him a map of some fishing spots, and suddenly they have something in common. An old man of color with a flannel shirt walks in, nods, off looking for a tie-down for his truck. Before long someone points to an article in the paper and a loud discussion starts about the government and know nothings and know it alls, and smiles, and "oh, go on!" hand waving, and nods and, when everyone's had their say, it's: "Ya'll take care now." And you're on your way.

It doesn't matter where you go, country or city, most of what you find in the south is people. People who talk. People who like to tell stories to people. People who like to hear stories. The northeast is to the southeast what institution is to blogging.

In Atlanta, in the larger more prosperous cities of the south, the color that determines power is green. And green is NOT synonymous with White.

People live where people live. Money lives well. No money lives shitty. Colors are blended on both sides of the have and have-not divide.

Once dubbed (and proudly so) "the city too busy to hate," atlanta's success as a diverse city works because ain't no color not focused on that green color.

In some ways that makes this city an anomolie in the south. In other ways, it's just the rest of the south on steroids.

I need to write more about this, because I have something brewing on this topic, which relates to the idea of trauma and race and this country. Which relates to what communities that have begun working through that trauma look like. Which relates to where we are as a people. Which relates to just about everything.

But first I must get to work.

peace, philly.

For more on race and politics and folk, read Shelley's Dixieland post.

george sez monkeys wanna piece of the pie--err banana--too.

mad monkeys want their nuts.

my head hertz

My head is killing me tonight. never was one to suffer from headaches until I turned 40 or started blogging--haven't pinpointed the pivotal event actually. Anyway, frigging OUCH!

Taking some Advil is probably a good plan. Instead I searched up "exploding head" on google, thinking that, if I could put into words what this headache feels like, it would be that my head's about to explode.

Good ole google.

You now have proof that you should NEVER EVER think too hard. Print this out and take it in to your boss in the morning. It ought to buy you six or seven extra coffee breaks during the day.

...the doctor urges people to take it easy and not think too hard for long periods of time. "Take frequent relaxation breaks when you're doing things that take lots of mental focus," he recommends.

Stop with all of those overly serious posts, while you're at it. We could be killing one another out here.

No, but seriously, a further search of google tells me that the exploding head story of 1999 was another urban legend.

Damn. I really wanted to have this one.

tearscape

running tide if waves had feet
shoes slip quickly, skim the crests
bounce one to the next in time
reggae bass beat
wraps the sea
in meaning
or is it the other way
around?

shredded
heart through the skimmer
who can cobble together
a filter
for pain?
run me through it
catch the jagged edges
pieces of heart and womb
in the trap,
send joy back through
back into wet waiting,
refresh, recreate, reincarnate
send me back
as water.

Is there anything else?

what a dance

Meg's Tech Woman's Blog Prom list of inviteeeeees is shaping up nicely!. Has the makings of quite a night!