Going Up in Blog

Disclaimer: To the in*surance company lowlife plants, who I'm sure are monitoring what we say here to use for their own purposes--i.e., to rape us of our benefits when we need them the most--I claim that the following post is completely fictional. I am not a smoker. I don't use Nicotine. Never much cared for the stuff.

How to quit smoking? It's time. I quit once for four years, quit during and after pregnancy, but me and butts go way back. I mean way. And now I need to wean myself from this addiction. Again. The last time I quit for any substantial amount of time was when Bill Clinton won his first term as President. Bill Clinton didn't influence my decision to quit. I miss him, though.

But about smoking. Bill Clinton's winning the White House didn't make me quit. It was more, well, I don't know, I woke up and figured I'd always remember the day I quit by marking it with the Presidential election. I also assumed at the time that he and Hilary were health nuts--healthcare nuts--and that the personal freedom of smoking would go up in smoke as quickly as the price of cigarettes would skyrocket. I was right about some of that. I'm not sure which part.

I found seven benefits from being a non-smoker after a long long stretch as a smoker:

1) Freedom: No more having to remember to bring a pack with me. No more running out at 11 p.m. to get a pack because to wake up without one was just too much of a stretch for my imagination. No more buying lighters. No more running to the ATM to get money to buy a pack or a carton, depending on the week and my particular level of stress.

2) Acknowledgement of the "present moment": Smokers escape the present moment by smoking. They live outside the moment every time they light up. Smoking is a welcome distraction from what is actually happening in your life, in the world, in your head. Smoking allows you to be "half present" at all times. This may seem like a benefit. Well, it is. Yes. Oh yes. But it is also a challenge within the confines of human relationships--like relationships with people who don't smoke, like your children. To step outside for a smoke when a child wants your attention is to abandon that child a dozen--or twenty--times a day.

3) Key Realization = It's "Okay" to do one thing at a time: When you smoke, you are always multi-tasking, even if the other task is simply thinking. You are making all the physical and psychological movements it takes to smoke, and you are almost always doing something else in tandem: talking on the phone, walking to the mail box, looking at the stars, calling your shrink. Quitting is admitting, it's okay to only do one thing at a time. I can survive if I slow down. That's hard.

4) Health: This is redundant. The physical benefits of not smoking are a matter of record. Breathing in and out being one significant health benefit.

5) Smell: You don't smell like smoke if you don't smoke. You save money on perfume and breath mints; your skin is not so dry because you aren't washing your hands every time you're going to meet with your boss or HR person.

6) Social Conformity: When smokers were forced to take their dirty little secret outside, a sub-culture sprang up. We are the sidewalk dwellers. We are the cool kids grown up. We share a common bond as thick as a tobacco field. When smokers go outside--whether we've ever met before or not--we like each other. Smokers are really nice people. Sorry, but that's a fact. We've grown nicer and nicer as we've been humbled and humiliated and sent to the dungeon to complete our sacred rites with our own kind. Somehow, that only makes us nicer. Because we feel good about the rest of you when we smoke. But when you quit, you are allowed back into average society. It's not the place any former smoker chooses to live, but life is a lot sunnier up there on the second floor.

7) Financial savings: Yah, well, there's that. Baaah.

As I read the benefits I've carved out above, I think that maybe I am ready to quit, again, and let blogging replace my smoking habit. Because a blogging addiction can replace many of the comforts smoking offers:

1) No Freedom: Having to remember to bring your hiptop with you--putting off going to bed at 11 p.m. because you have to get one more post in, being "stuck" on vacation without a connection and the ability to partake.

2) Living Outside the Present Moment: Blogging lets us do this. I don't pay attention to anything much when I'm blogging. I can ignore my family, friends, and animals. I can live and bounce among hyperlinks and remain completely distracted there.

3) Key realization = It's "Okay" to do twelve things at once. When you blog, you are always multi-tasking. You can be answering email, cutting HTML text, talking on the phone with work colleagues, and adding people to your blogroll all at the same time, without missing a beat. This helps to reinforce #2.

4) Health: This is redundant. Blogging offers many health hazzards to help shorten your life, or at least make it more painful. Carpel tunnel, eye strain, back problems, and let's not forget about the very act of sitting still for hours at a time--we are becoming blogpotatoes. These are all very important health detractors that blogging offers.

5) Smell: Why take a shower when I can post a blog entry instead?

6) Social conformity: Bloggers are the cool people of the net. We've taken our nasty habit and our dirty conversations outside the walls of business, family, religion, and every other imaginable social construct.

7) Financial drain: DSL, hosting, hiptop, graphics program, phone bills--blogging is a fine new money pit.

So, on second thought, maybe I'll quit blogging and keep smoking. I'm still not sure which one will be my final undoing.

Stay tuned...

Malcolm in the Middle?

Now Malcolm's really in the middle--in the middle of me and Farrago, because we apparently convinced him to start a blog to house that witty brain he tosses around the neighborhood. Can't wait to see what rises out of dohboy's place.

sunideus is about to get very, very cold.

And for a very good cause!.

Check out these crazies, and if you have a spare dollar for the Special Olympics, send it her way. She's legit and I trust her. You can see Suni and her work friends jumping in last year.

Since I live in Atlanta and have lately been complaining about the kind of cold I used to roll my eyes at up north, I can certainly spare $5 for those whose challenges humble me.

we're not alone.

Raising Hell: a new genre in parenting. Yahoo picks says, "This isn't an advice rag, and it won't tell you what your baby should be doing at three months or two years. Instead, the writers present new twists on parenting with liberal doses of wry humor that even singletons will enjoy."

How did I miss this site?

Thanks to madman for the link.

duuuhhhaaaammmm!

wow. she's really good. and will you look at her?

Serena kicks ass on this site.

she digs me!!!!!!!!!!!

Way better than a bloggie. Way better. This:



oh yah! Brooke says this about me:

"the blogger who most deserves to be in the bloggies because she is simply the blogger most in love with this community and what we do."

Dig it.

The Blogs I Eight This Week

Here are eight blogs I've stumbled across lately, ala my post below. They include, but are not limited to, demonstrations of fine writing, or humor, or rants, or pain, or all or none of the above. In no particular order, check 'em out:

a girl named bob - you name it, she writes about it. and then some. check out the freaky contact lens post.

Because I Say So - "buttery, bite-sized bits of tender bitchiness from your favorite Wandering Jew." Her words, not mine. Damnit.

Greg Beato - Greg, are you a relative? valentis? diminos? Rochester? You know Rick? just curious.

Blu - She loves my husband best, but that doesn't hurt my feelings. much. ;-)

citizen of the world, aka glovefox - what a fine writer! her post on bullies should not be missed.

dasheekee jones - you fucking go, girl.

Diary of a Madman - what did you expect, something galant and enchanting? I'm thinking he's one of Halley's alpha males. His boobs of the day pics are usually stunning, and ya, okay, I look at them. so what?

Friday Fishwrap - creativity on par with Gary Turner. Her fridge is on par with his too.

p.s., more to come...

there are so many great kick ass blogs out there I'm going out of my mind reading them and adding them to my blogroll like six times a day.

...and that doesn't count any of the bloggie also rans, which I haven't had a chance to check out yet.

Where did all these great blogs come from? I remember a year and a half ago stumbling around our little circle.

The circle doesn't have edges. I should have known. But words have edges. They are cutting me, these new blogs I'm reading.

I'm bleeding.

what are we going to do? what am I supposed to do? Where is the manual for what we do next?

I thought it would be different. I thought those who followed after us--you know--I thought we'd reach critical mass.

I thought a bunch of not-so-great wannabes would wind up here--listen to me, will ya, what kind of shmuck am I? I thought a bunch of, well, not very interesting people would wind up here and this place would not be the same and I'd get all crabby trying to find stuff to read.

But the opposite. I should have known.

There is so much great writing and thinking and humor and pain. And joy. But lots of pain. And fun. Did I mention pain?

I'm reading at least five or six new blogs a day. By accident. We're really cooking now. I'm hopping from my "regular reads" blogrolls into their "regular reads" blogrolls and I'm traversing humanity at light speed.

I'm imploding or something.

I need more eyeballs.

I need blogs on tape.

something.

I can't

keep

up.

THIS is just the coolest place.

blogging our journey

Our age is only one dimension of who we are. But it is a dimension. Isn't it? Or is it? This is what I was thinking, in relation to blogging, as I drifted to sleep last night. I enjoy reading bloggers of all ages--my blogroll attests to that. I have friends from the blog world on both sides of my 40 years.

But I do admit to an affinity for reading bloggers who wade around in the same 40-ish trenches as me. What they write, because of where they are in their journey from birth, often resonates with me. They're looking back at the hard stuff that brought them to this edge of mid-life, and they're looking ahead, lugging a backpack of worries and concerns not unlike my own.

Naturally, I hyperlink in my head to what blogging must feel like for the 20-somethings who've grown up online (like we didn't), and for the 60-somethings who are braver than most of my relatives of the same age for just being online. If bloggers are, in some way, a family--which many of us have said is so--then our ages, our birth order, do come into play in what we say, what we write, how we relate. No? I think yes. Not every post, certainly, but in the bigger picture of our blogs.

I think of how boring I must seem to some of the cool, hip, young bloggers who probably aren't so interested in my meanderings over my daughter, house, family, work. I think of how trite I must seem to some of the older bloggers who've walked this road before me.

They must want to shake me sometimes.

I think of Elaine who is a blogger, mother, grandmother, on the far side of 60. I try to put myself in front of her keyboard and wonder what it must be like to watch the younger bloggers leap, stumble, fall, and how if I were her, I would probably want to be forever saying, "Watch out!" or "Oh no, don't do that--I tried it and it did not, I mean not, work."

I admire Elaine and other bloggers of age for mostly taking a seat beside us as you watch us fumble along--sometimes succeeding, sometimes realizing, sometimes hesitating--on a road of years you've already traveled. For trying to stay positive and reassuring as we find our own way. Please do that--we need it.

And I am going to try to remember these thoughts I've had, 20 years from now, if I'm still here, if I happen upon a post of some 40-something blogger who's making her way through an unkind world as best she can, revealing herself online as she goes.

I'm going to take a seat beside that woman-I-once-resembled and maybe I'll place my hand on hers, just for a moment, as she looks out her window to the East, and I look out mine to the West, as we take this ride together.

.

this.


(thank you Richard for the link.)

thanks to farrago, you will never run out of really cool popular blogs to read.

She who gave me an award (okay, well, if you're on her blogroll it's yours too... just look down by my amazon crap--you'll see what you've won) has a great post of all the varied Bloggie nominees complete with hyperlinks. I agree, whatever about the Bloggies, like, who cares, I wasn't nominated, no sour grapes here, whatever, they're young and cute or Oliver Willis, (dude, I'm kidding; you've been on my blogroll for over a year), and all that, so fine, it's not like these awards mean anything and the prizes aren't all that great, so really, like Farrago, I don't care or anything. BUT there are some really awesome blogs to get acquainted with in this list.

Maybe some of us loser bloggers will even break through the cool ceiling and end up on thhheeiiirrr blogrolls one day, or, or, or even win a Bloggie. gasp! What ever would I wear?

As a side note, I nominated Shelley, like, a half zillion times (yah, I figured Shelley would say now, don't do that I'm not all for those lame award things, but I did it anyhow because she inspires me), and I nominated a whole LOT of you folks in the initial voting. Poopers. I think I'm bad luck.

Ah well. All's well that ends.

May the Powers that Be Repeat Twain's War Prayer as They Close Their Eyes Tonight

George has a great post which begs the question, "How do they sleep at night?" His post details a war oposition manuscript that was apprently written by Mark Twain but never published. It has a pretty heavy ring for the bell that tolls for us all right now, with words like this:

..."help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..."

I dug a little deeper and came up with more info on when and why Twain couldn't publish his 'War Prayer'. The page is pretty pop-up intensive, so here's what it says:

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

Mark Twain wrote "The War Prayer" during the Philippine-American War. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper's Bazaar rejected it as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." His editor was "responsible to his Company," he explained, "and should not permit laughs which could injure its business." In his private notebook, Twain expanded his thoughts about the rejection of the story into a series of maxims about freedom of speech:

None but the dead have free speech.

None but the dead are permitted to speak truth.

In America -- as elsewhere -- free speech is confined to the dead.

The minority is always in the right.

When the country is drifting toward Philippine robber-raid henroost raid, do not shirk your duty, do not fail of loyalty, lest you win and deserve the reproach of being a "patriot."

The majority is always in the wrong.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.(1)

Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish "The War Prayer" elsewhere and it remained unpublished until 1923 when his literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, included it in Europe and Elsewhere. A decade earlier, Paine published long excerpts from the story in Mark Twain: A Biography.

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

For the whole War Prayer, hop over to george's place.

a southern belle enjoys the snow.

who knew our digital camera took movies?

Jenna Waves

okay, it's a first try. gimme time.

proving once again, it's not the quantity, it's the quality

halleys world

I've been on the fence about Halley's alpha male writing of late. The writing is great, don't get me wrong, but the alpha male categorizing seemed somehow hollow to me. I know if a male blogger came out with lessons on how to win a girly-girl, he'd be publicly spanked (and probably like it).

But Halley's post today put it all in perspective for me. It's beautiful writing with an undeniable ring of truth. It's sensitive and insightful. You go, girl.

nothing to say

Swamped with work, jenna sick, me sick, nothing to do but plod along. And I don't seem to have anything to say.

Stay warm Atlanta bloggers. It's Rochester cold down here. Jenna's school's been closed for two days, and one day last week for MLK day, and the Friday before that for non-existent snow. I told her how we used to have to go to school in the deep snow when I was a kid in Rochester, and sometimes the snow was so high we kids would have to form a human chain to walk to school, holding hands as we made our way down Somershire Drive, walking in a rut between banks of snow twice our size so that no one got lost in a drift along the way.

She said, "Well, our snow's not that high here, so I don't have to wear a hat, right?"

I guess she got the point.

Blogging from the hip, err, the bed

There's something about the freedom the href="http://www.danger.com">hiptop gives me that is very special.
Yeah, the camera ia fun, and talking into a handheld turned telephone
gives you a kind of james bondesque look, but the keyboard is what makes
this thing a blogomatic.

I'm here in bed with the covers pulled tight against a particularly cold
Atlanta night, and I'm blogging myself to sleep. That is to say, I'm
writing myself to sleep. Lights off, these keys glow with a light I can
only describe as moon against snow.

I watch my words wirelessly fill up this tiny screen, and I'm lulled
into slumber by the magic of this world we've built and are building.

And I'm free. Free from cords and bulk and wires and my couch-office.
Free to bring you with me.

For a good read tonight on voice, stop over at href="http://weblog.burningbird.net">Shelley's place.

Night.

categorize me, please?

like a dog with a bone?

sit ooboo, sit?

fashion accessories and a whole lot more?

This blog needs a tagline. I was reminded of this in looking at the Bloggies, noticing a whole category was devoted to such. NO I'm not interested in one so I can weasle my way in to an award next year. Insted, I've been observing that, as blogs have multiplied, so too have creative names and taglines. Just check out the finalists. Cool fricking names. Cool fricking mastheads. Cool fricking taglines.

I got nada.

When I started this ole place, I didn't think much about the name at all. I had no rhyme or reason to choose it, except that I had already started Gonzo Engaged and had some cronies over there I felt kindred to. I also thought an "A" name might be good for getting listed near the top in blogrolls that alphabetize. Okay? I admit that.

The problem for me in saying what this blog is about is that it's still pretty fluid. In progress. Moving target. Me jumping through life's strings. So I never have been able to think up a good descriptor for this blog.

That's where you come in. Need your help. It's open forum, folks.... who's gonna give this blog a tagline? Who can tell me what the heck this place is all about?

new blogroll material

Go here for a list of also rans for the 2003 Bloggies. Only a few in each category made it to the final round voting now taking place.

Okay, I was in on the first round voting. A whopping NONE of my nominees, many of whom live in my blogroll over there on the left, made it to the finals, or are even listed in the bigger list. So there. I'm sorry all of you whom I read. I tried.

On the upswing, I do think the full list of choices Brian posted gives us some great blogs to check out--I haven't heard of many of them. I plan to investigate in the next couple days.

I did happily trip upon little yellow different. Don't vote for LYD in the GLBT category, because, says Ernie, he's just not gay enough. (Fortunately Ernie is American enough, Humorous enough, and Best-of-the-Year enough to be listed in three other categories too.)

Off to explore these cool new-to-me blogs now. If nothing else (since the prizes are pretty lame), maybe the Bloggies will enlarge and speed the intersection of the thousands of circles of bloggers out there simply by lending us a window into blogs we might not otherwise have come across.

Right Ernie?

just tired and in a bad mood

that happens sometimes, right? when you question everything because everything gives you reason to question. That, and, I'm facing a week-long spree of hell getting a big proposal done. Really hell and really big.

And you know what happens next, right? Well, mothers know. You do, right? I went to pick Jenna up from pre-K this afternoon, and what did the teacher tell me? Sure, mothers know. She's been complaining of a sore throat and ear ache all day, a headache, she's coughing. Oh, and of course, "One's already been diagnosed with strep this week."

Already defeated. Making the best of it. Will blog as time and energy allow.

get down, get incensed in imaginary pastures

All work freely licensed, except for my words - my scent is jasmine.

raaaaaaaw raaaaaaaaw raaaaaaaaw!

This is the sound of Jenna chasing Hunter the kitten through the house.

"IT'S HARD TO TAKE CARE OF THREE PETS!"

That's what our five-year-old Jenna cries as she carries the kitty in one arm to no particular location, while using the other to strong arm the big young dog Bando, feeds the old dog Diva a treat, topping it all off by now crying on the couch after chasing the cat upstairs to his bathroom offering to put "some sauce" on his food--what kind of sauce? we still don't know.

"STOP!" We yell in unison. Don't put anything on the cat's food.

This results in a meltdown. We've hurt her feelings. She had an idea. To put sauce from the fridge on the cat's food. The cat eats Iams (dry), not sauce. We know this. She doesn't know or care.

Cut to scene two, right now as I blog in the living room--or try to--while the cat is grabbing my DSL cord and Jenna stops the household short with this phrase: "OH NO! DIVA HAS A FLEA ON HER--AN ORANGE FLEA! IT'S HUGE!"

Against my better judgment I investigate. An orange flea has me worried.

Where? I ask.

"RIGHT THERE!" she points.

And the orange crayola crayon wrapper falls to the carpet.

Not a flea, a crayon wrapper.

And now as Jenna drops to her knees to follow the cat and the old dog around the house on her knees, she tells me, "Your whole family's coming mama!"

Just another day at the zoo.

Atlantic Avenue

If not for the trees
thick pines and
The sturdy willow
Whose branches
Held the frayed rope
Knotted
At either end
To hold my hand-cut
Swing seat

If not for the red barn and
Two towering haylofts
Doors underneath
Leading to musty rooms
Of tools and pitchforks
Arranged and waiting
To startle
Trespassing children
With clangs and rattles

If not for the braided rope
Draped from the rafters
Welcoming knees and
Sunbrown arms
Wrapped tightly
Digging fingers in
Drawing a final breath
As a helping hand
Sent us swinging
Higher than children
Should

If not for the cushion
Made of straw and
Barn swallow feathers
On the planks below
Catching us
When we let go at
the just right time

If not for your glossy
White bedroom and the
Tall antique bed where
You did your dying
in paisley pajamas
Dark circles where
Your eyes used to be
An oak tray table
Holding food you
Couldn't eat

If not for that farm
That barn that bed
Your eyes,
I wouldn't remember
A thing.

the mouth sent me

blu sent me to the swapingtons, a site where we online nuts will be swapping books, CDs, DVDs, and who knows what eventually (RageBoy and Paynter, send ideas to them, not me).

If you sign up, please show blu your love by using her as a referrer on the signup page. Her referrer name is themouth.

or, you can use me as your referrer: allied.

Then get others to sign up using you as a referrer. By doing this, you earn points, which you can eventually use to swap cool stuff with other cool people.

I'm wondering about postage. Haven't got that far. I dunno. I'll try anything twice.

sea dream interpretation

I managed to live the first 38 years of my life without ever having a recurring dream. Not so anymore. Over the last year or two there's one dream I have again and again.

First, some history.

We've visited Jamaica twice over the last three years. Jamaica represents the sea to me. I know this. More than the daunting poverty, the imbalance of riches in the country, more than jerk chicken or reggae, I associate Runaway Bay with the sea. For me, nothing compares to standing at the edge of the sea, fixing my eyes on the the fine line of the horizon, a seam zipping the world closed.

More about me and water. Water and I go way back.

I grew up never more than a few miles from Lake Ontario. Not the sea, by any means, but an expansive Great Lake and a force nonetheless. I had a love hate relationship with the lake. I did my dreaming there. I rode my horse across Lakeshore Boulevard in the summer and swam him in the lake. Nothing in my life--still--compares to the feeling of that lake, of swimming my horse. Muscle meets water, floating, snorting. Riding across the sand on this soily beach. Looking for driftwood. The stench of seaweed and dead fish. The summer air lit with beating waves, hot sun, shade trees. These are memories of the lake I treasure. I can snap them front and center in my mind with one mental click.

Then there was my stepfather's sailboat. Our family recreation in the summer consisted of my step-sister and I being dragged for weekends out on the lake in my step-father's 28-foot sailboat. We'd sail to Sodus Bay or spend the weekend in Fairhaven.

You might think I'd remember these times fondly, but for a twelve-year-old held captive in a dysfunctional family, 48 solid hours sharing a 28x10 with space our parents, no sight of land--just an expanse of water--was not joyous. It's hard to escape family wounding when you're sharing the small confines of a sailboat for hours or days on end. Mostly, it brought out the worst in us all, if you don't count the bonus that my step-sister and I got nicely tanned, and that somehow the ancient waters empathized with us.

Ripe with reason, I have always loved, have never blamed, the water. When I couldn't get to the lake, I sought out swimming pools as a kid--never deterred by cold water or 60-degree evenings. I cleansed in rivers and dug clay with my hands from the bottoms of streams.

That is some history of me and water.

Back to my recurring dream. We are on vacation in Jamaica (George, Jenna, and me). Sometimes it looks like the resort we visit, sometimes it doesn't. The crux of the dream is this: I never make it into the sea before we leave. There is always something keeping me from the sea. We're having drinks, I'm getting food for Jenna, we're talking with our friends who meet us there, we're taking island tours that we've never taken. And all of a sudden the bus is coming to take us to the airport when I, in a panic, realize I forgot to get into the sea. I never made it--it's further away and less obvious in my dream, and I forget to make my way to the water.

Did some digging on Google for dream interpretations. Found this about water:

Water symbols i.e. sea, rivers, lakes, canals, etc. reflect the spiritual or cultural life of the dreamer. How water appears or is organized indicates the dreamer's philosophy of life. A river indicates the dreamer needs a more free spiritual flow. A canal or swimming pool, both man made structures, indicates man-made or conventional ideals are restricting the dreamer's Spiritual flow. A lake or pool indicates that the dreamer does not have a spiritual outlet. The sea or ocean indicates the dreamer's spirituality / life is the subject matter. Diving into the any body of water is a request for the dreamer to get into life. The state of the water can also indicate the condition of the dreamer's blood. Polluted water indicates a need to cleanse the blood by a change of diet and/or improved elimination. - avcweb

A ring of truth to that--needing to redefine, to find, to unwrap and nurture my spiritual self. She isn't sure what's out there, which way to go, and at the same time sees the expanse of what's out there. Finding my place. Remembering to find my self. I think that's the reminder within this water dream of mine.

six degrees of separation

We are pleased to report the initial results of some detailed research conducted by bloggers across the globe:

A porn site is never more than six links away from any non-porn site.

that is all.

danger wish list

Some of these things may already be possible--on day three of using this freaky Hiptop, I'm still a novice. But I wish...

It would let me into secure sites--unfortunately you reach a dead end when the "Accept this Site?" screen comes up asking if you want to accept the digital certificate. On the forums I've checked out, it seems to be a bug. Or something that's cropped up recently.

The camera incorporated a flash.

The camera output larger pics at a better resolution.

I could zoom smaller and larger when bringing up sites on the browser... near as I can figure, it's one size and you do a lot of paging through.

I could figure out the calendar and reminders.

I could attach my notes from the note pad in email.

There was a meaningful, customizable portal page from T-Mobil that could be my homepage--a gateway to my fav stuff and gadgets w/out going to "Go To"

I'll come back and add to this list as I figure out more stuff. And when it gets really long, and I'm sure this stuff isn't just user error, I'll forward onto Danger. Because, as you know, I'm a bit obsessed.

snow down reggae

settle in
long dark nights
of winter are
here to wrap
around you
like
the blue crochet
shawl
with knotted fringe,
but never
enough.

something in
the layers
in the burrowing for
warmth
sealing your body
from the wind, snow,
although
it gets hot
under down,
down under

Her bed
shifts and sways
with sun and sweet breezes
errupting into
lush tropics.

there's a party
under her covers
there's marguritas
down under

reggae bass
like kind thunder
rhythm guitar
rocks her sea
the ceiling
watches her
groove

Lift the quilt
lay your guilt down
lay down with her
reggae man.

i don't know where i live anymore

desktop? sidekick? confused. My writing brain SIM is in my hand, and I'm looking for a place to put it.

paynter, no jokes.

still noodling on this. it's transformational technology, almost. apparently bug fixes scheduled for Q2 (aren't we there yet?). they are much needed. I can't get to any secure site because it hangs on the "accept this site" screen. That means no internet banking. No corporate email.

ah well, all things in time.

WHo's sick of me talking about this thing?

I am.

hip me

My hiptop email is jeneane@tmail.com, if'n you wanna catch me on the go.

AOL IM screen name: jeneanedsessum

May replace the phone number on the right over there with this phone number, as soon as I figure out how you stand this thing as a phone--it is kinda boxy to be a phone, but I'll probably get used to it.

All systems hipped.

more later.

Until morning

I noticed that two test posts hit my blog just as I was going up to bed.
The line wraps looked a little suspect, but at least I was able to
post!

The posts seem to be working via the email option in my templates
settings. It took about a half hor from the time they left my hiptop
until they lanses in my blog.

When I wake up tomorrow I'll know if this post worked. See, I'm already
in bed, groggy, getting ready to let go, and I have my trusty hiptop
here with me.

I would have never believed I'd end up caring so much about blogging,
and I certainly wouldn't have imagined publishing to the web from bed,
from this little computer smaller than a pop tart.

What next?

To my dreams.

--jeneane

Testy

Another lousy try?
--jeneane

Hiplogging

If this works, George better
go get a towel.

Stay tuned.
--jeneane

flailing.

Alright. I've been obsessed with my new Sidekick/HipTop, whatever you wanna call it. Blogpalm, as I said when I only dreamed such a thing existed. There are many cool things about this device. There are also frustrating things. Like, I've tried two different approaches for emailng posts--the one offered in the blogger settings and the blogrouter, mentioned in my last post. So far nothing, nada, zip.

Sotobeep, as my nephew used to say after watching his father work on a stubborn car. He was imitating a certain son-of-a phrase.

So, browsing, good. convenient. Email, good, convenient. Camera--took two pics of our refrigerators. SO far they look like postage stamps--still trying to figure that one out. No one wants postage stamps of our fridge. Except that Hunter crawled inside, and that might make a nice collectible. Obviously he never heard the PSAs when we were kids warning us of the dangers of open refrigerators. PLEASE, participants, check your refrigerators before closing them. That's all we need is a web fridge tragedy...

NOW, on to my head. Last night I was tired. I wanted to look up some info on itchy skin since Jenna's skin has been dry lately. It was so nice to take this little HipTop into bed and search around on Google. You have to do lots of page jumping and scrolling, but once you get the page you're looking for, the text parts of the page wrap nicely and stuff's really easy to read.

Keyboard made for bloggers--the @ key is a main key. No shift, no alt, right down by the space bar. Open and close carrot, as well as slash key, are also located convenient to the thumb, except you have to [alt] to use them, but I'm getting good at that.

If I could only STINKING POST!!!

sotobeep.

Liz was kind enough to send me this resource that offers a way for me to blog on blogger from the hiptop. I'll be trying later today. When I got to www.blogger.com yesterday, there was a nice little note from Ev saying this wireless browser isn't supported, or something daunting like that.

I remain undaunted, however.

I will blog with this mother.

So far I love the browser, love email, really dig the ringtones and lights, haven't tried the camera, haven't tried IM, can't figure out which end is up (out?) on the phone, and am getting speedy on the cool keyboard.

I should have a lot more to say, but I decided to stay up all night and work on a project for work that needed working on. workaworkawork. So now I'm very exhausted, having just driven jenna to school. It's off for a rest.

Monica's Got a Love Fest Goin' On

Monica says some of the nicest things about me anyone's ever written on her Traces blog at sweetnsour.org. WOW! I'm truly loved.

If you haven't checked Monica out, do. And I'm not saying that just because she likes my stuff. (Although I'm still smiling about that.) I enjoy reading Monica because she writes from a place so familiar to me--from the land of depression and joy and place of living that goes on in between.

Allow me to indulge that one narcisistic bone I have in my body (cough) and list some of the reasons why Monica declared her love for me:

She writes:

1. She lived in a blue little house.

2. She and Jenna knows what 'Toink' means.

3. She finds treasures in her dreams. Anything is possible.

4. She finds new year's eve as much depressing as I do. Glass half empty? Half full?

5. She hand-made her 'blogroll'. That's right, added one by one. And boy, that is long!

6. She can make my cry talking about a 'blogpalm'.

7. She wrote this: "And I'm realizing that these oak speakers, yep, these right here on the floor, are resurrecting, if only briefly, her great grandfather and her grandfather. Here we are, four generations, gathered in my living room joined by music recorded in 1967. And I hear myself laughing on the CD, and I sound just like her. It's like an echo of an echo of something so familiar. I sound so happy. I was so happy."

8. And this: "So far from there now. Now I live in here with you all, and my physical office space is my laptop. I feel now about my Dell laptop and DSL connection the way I once felt about my physical office. A convenient, always-open window into Blogaria now means so much more to me than a window onto Peachtree Street."

9. And this: "For two years we lived in a war zone, dancing between Uncle Daddy's drunken back yard rages and the kids' torment. For two years I did battle with them whenever I had to. It didn't change them. It didn't change anything in that house or neighborhood. It changed me."

10. I don't have to explain to her how I feel when things get... ugly. She knows. And I know she knows. And she knows I know that.

Monica, that love goes right back atcha, babe.

Manatee Break

One of the exciting things about getting my Danger HipTop is that it came with a cord that I can connect to my existing digital camera to upload images to my laptop. Since I LOST my original cord on vacation, I haven't been able to get the last of the pics off my digital camera, until now.

Now I can set the manatees free from their cold, stainless steel camera world. Here's the baby manatee that took a liking to us playing with our anchor line:



And blowing some air as he swims toward George:



Do you see why I love this river? Look at the water. Look at the sparkle. They don't call it Crystal River for nuthin'.

And here's another keeper:



More later.

I am here

I'm here reading tips and tricks on how to make this "hiplogging" fantasy into reality. Still not blogging from the device. Will let you know when/if I succeed and where I end up.

I feel like a pioneer. Or a prisoner. I'm not sure yet.

woooo, I see I have some homework to do.

oh jeeeez--hiptop is here!

it's here!

I think it's amazing. VERY easy to navigate. scrolly-bar and nice full-keyboard keypad. Initial thought: I need to cut my nails.

Have not evaluated the cell phone or camera angles bec/ it's charging. Did use the web browser. One thought: in retrospect, a template with posts on the left and blogroll on the right would work best for reading, since it seems I have to scroll all the way down to the end of the left half of the page before bumping over to the right. Reading posts is nice, clear, and easy other than that.

One problem--When I went to blogger.com there's a nice little message from Ev saying blogger doesn't support this wireless browser--AKA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

Now what?

More later.

No HipTop (Sidekick) Yet.

Keep looking for the fed ex truck. getting excited. check out this team blog of HipTop/Sidekick users. More proof that the blogomatic is all that.

Starting the take down process for my old website yesterday was a moment, so to speak. It was a moment when I decided I am making my online home here, on allied, or at least in Blogaria. It was a moment when I accepted blogging as a critical part of my life, for real, for good.

It felt kind of like a commitment ceremony of sorts. In other words, I finally took my vows:

Do you, Jeneane, take blogging as your sole platform for authentic voice, to post and to update, at least every few days, as long as you both shall live, or at least as long as you have an active network connection?

I do.

Do you, Allied, take Jeneane as your life source, to love and grow you, with words and images, through uptime and downtime, as long as you both shall live, or at least as long as you can afford to be hosted?

Yeper.

I now pronounce your blogger and weblog.

You may now post and publish.

CLiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiCK!

Dum dum da dum dum dum dum dum da da da da dum.....

Rice, flowers, waiting for Gary to make me a Just Weblogged sign (or something) for the bridal limo.....

$49 after rebates

Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it * Let's do it.

I DID IT! It's on the way.

Presenting, the blogomatic. Review to follow, once I get it and figure out how it works.

Blog, browse, get/send mail, talk wirelessly, take digital pictures. yeeeaaaa, babe!



thanks to LLL for her bargain hunting eagle eyes.

Have I got a Family for THEM!

I think I qualify as casting director. I have just the right family for their "hick hunt."

Thanks Franky P. for pointing it out.

Me? I don't see how the proposed show's any different than the oh-so-successful Cops, except that the new hillbillies will get to live in a nice, clean mansion.

website versus blog - blog wins

Some housekeeping done around here today.

I'm in the process of taking down the website I've had for close to five years - WriteResources.com. Sitting on an Earthlink server costing me $17.95 a month, I hadn't updated the site in about as long as I've had it. It's all pretty old PR writing advice, written during the boom when advice about how strategic writing could make a difference to a business mattered. It borders on laughable now. But then, I was five years younger; clients had gobs of money to spend; the site seemed like a good idea, so I spent a weekend fiddling around and putting it online.

Then came the really fun business climate of survive-and-sustain, and WriteResources.com sat around. For a long time. Didn't seem so relevant anymore, but I liked my domain name and was too lazy to think about other ways to host it for free or cheap. At the same time, the site was a pain to update, so I didn't. I hated FTPing files up to the server. I didn't like working in HTML. To sum it up = websites? ick.

Next came blogging. The few hundred hits I'd gotten on my website over its lifetime didn't much compare to the couple hundred hits a day I was getting on allied (before my recent week-long break, that is. grrr.).

My not-until-page-two cameo on Google's "write resources" search results hardly compares to the nearly 6,000 Google results generated now just based on my name.

The $50 I pay blogger every year is a heck of a lot cheaper than $180 I was paying Earthlink annually for site.

At the same time, I couldn't bring myself to trash my Write Resources content completely. It's old, but here and there you'll find some good writing advice, once you sift through the horse pucky. I still use some of the sites' MS Word templates from time to time, too. Plus, well, the old thing has sentimental value to me. That's why I couldn't just toss it all.

So now the files live on George's Earthlink server, where his GES Productions site is, which I update rarely, but do occasionally fiddle with. With his business, there's enough reason to keep the GES Productions site active--it is his business name, although he now gets more activity on his blog now than his site.

Meanwhile, that old Write Resources site is now linked off the right sidebar here on allied.

My blog is now officially the entry way to my website.

Funny how things change.

By the way, the domain name WriteResources.com is now for sale, in case you're interested. ;-)

When Technology Doesn't Care

All the time I was growing up I anticipated the deaths of those around me.

When I'd get a new 3x5 address book and put all my relatives' names and numbers in it, I'd wonder whose name I'd have to scratch out first, I'd weigh the pain ahead of time, figure whose death would hurt the most, start calculating years--I'm 13 now; there's no way Grandma D could still be in my address book when I'm 45--she'd be over 100. So, when will she fall off my pages?

This is how I thought. Still do, although not as obsessively, thanks to some therapy. Still, it doesn't take much for me to leapfrog into the future, into who will be around when... who won't be around by the time... how it will feel when... well, then again, I might die before any of them...

That's what happens when you're six and you enjoy getting the mail from the mailbox, it's something you like to do every day, and then the day after your dad dies, his mail still comes, and the year after he dies, and two years after, and then you're living in a new house and you're 11 years old and mail addressed to him still finds its way into your mailbox, into your hands.

That's what happens when your school records never quite get updated to note that little detail--the dad's name in her records has been dead for five years--and report cards and permission forms still come home with his name on it.

You look at these things you hold and wonder, for crying out loud, when will everyone know that he's gone? And when will I have to stop doing simple tasks without being reminded? How long will this take?

It takes time. Sometimes it takes a long time.

That's why Gary's sensitive technology post hit close to home for me. Intense. Very intense.

I hear you, Gary.

cube move day

I'm in the office today, relocating my physical cube space because we're subletting extra office space, which has become more and more extra over the past two years. Funny being here. Seeing realworld people. I haven't been in since the last time I blogged about being in. I think it was a couple of months ago.

I remember once being so attached to my office space. Whatever cube or window office I had was a big deal to me, since I basically lived there. At one company--as with many--having a window office with a door gave you instant pundit credibility. That was when I was a manager, had people working for me, cared about that stuff.

So far from there now. Now I live in here with you all, and my physical office space is my laptop. I feel now about my Dell laptop and DSL connection the way I once felt about my physical office. A convenient, always-open window into Blogaria now means so much more to me than a window onto Peachtree Street.

I don't work on Peachtree Street anymore. I don't work on the 22nd floor anymore. I work in my head. I work through my fingers. I weave a web with my synapses, talk with my fingers; my laptop and network connection are where I spend my time. Thanks to blogging, I have more colleagues around the globe than I do in Atlanta. Blog co-workers are not in the next cube or down the hall. They're right here, just above my left eyebrow.

So, while I'm enjoying the company today, people in the flesh, seeing friends and other writers I haven't seen in months, I'm pretty disoriented in this new cube. Which is why I needed to post something.

I've finished carting all the books and reference materials and pictures of Jenna from my old cube to my new one, but I don't think I'm going to unpack much.

Uncle Daddy and the Cousin Jumpers--A Vignette of Our Years in South Atlanta

I told him I'd write about it one day. I've avoided it. It's too wide and high to capture into a post--the smells, the stuff under my finger nails, the feelings of awaking in that house.

But that's never stopped me from trying.

ENDING UP IN SKEEZERVILLE

When we moved to Atlanta it was the year before the 1996 Summer Olympics, hosted by this fair city. Atlanta was a boom town then. Which meant there weren't many places to live that were within our modest, newly-relocated means. Houses were renting out for $2,000 a month in the okay areas. Yikes.

My company put us up in the Raddison Inn in Buckhead for four months. That was living. Us and our two dogs in a two-story suite, complete with a maid, a kitchen, free coffee, fresh towels. I never wanted to leave. Who would? Aside from having to walk the dogs three times a day, we were living the high life.

What a rude awakening when those good time days (and my company's money) ran out.

Time to find a place to live, and nothing affordable. Now what? Where could we go?

Fortunately, and I use this term pretty loosely, we had friends--Rochester musician transplants--renting a house in Hapeville, and after what seemed like seven years of looking for a place, we rented the house across the street from them. Anyone from Atlanta knows where Hapeville is (think airport), and if I tell you we were just south of Stewart Avenue, you should probably say, Oh. wow. Why?

There are many fine people who live in Hapeville. There are also lots of nice homes in Hapeville.

We lived near neither the nice people nor the nice homes.

We lived in the skeezy part. Man, it was nasty. Loads of hookers and drugs. Thieves and crime. And rednecks too.



And we lived there for two years. It felt like doing time, though I haven't done time as of yet. It's how I imagine feeling. Yeh, we could go outside. But usually we had to think twice about whether or not it was worth it.

THE LITTLE BLUE HOUSE AND ITS NEIGHBORS

We lived in a little blue house. And believe it or not, I'm still nostalgic about the house. And believe it or not, I don't know why.

Maybe the adversity we faced there bonded us as a couple in a special way. Maybe it was living without expectations of things ever getting any better. Not sure, but there's something I miss about it.

I remember telling my friend Marge in Rochester about the floors of our house. "They're planks, and underneath is dirt. I mean, you can see the dirt through the cracks. No cement. Just a block foundation over dirt." Marge inferred from this, she would later tell me, that we lived in a house with dirt floors. She wasn't far off.

We had a bug man, but we never did win our war against the roaches. We kept the place clean, no crumbs. There wasn't much of a place to clean--it wasn't that hard to keep up. Still, the bugs were undaunted. They enjoyed the dirt beneath the house, and their easy access to the warmth above through the cracks in the floor.

Transplanted northerners have a hard time with the bugs of the south. At least this one did. Especially when waking at night to take a drink from the glass of water next to my clock radio, on more than one occasion, brought me face to face with a roach who beat me to my refreshment. Son of a bitch!

Then there was our microwave. One day I called George into the kitchen. Look. I was pointing.

We stared for a while wondering how that big motherfucking roach found its way inside the front of our microwave, lodging himself just so in front of the LED that was the clock. Huh? If I wanted to cook in that thing, I wouldn't have been able to see the timer for the roach.

"Get this thing out of the house." That was all I could say.



Out it went to the side of the road, roach and all. Made some treasure hunter very happy.

"Nuthin wron with a bitty water bug in the casin." Fine. Take it then.

We rented our little resort from a police officer and his wife. Kief (that's how they say Keith in Hapeville) was the first black Harley rider I'd ever met. He never made eye contact, stood with head to one side and an unending downward glance. He and his wife were nice people. Good landlords all things considered.

It wasn't until after we moved in, though, that Kief's wife told me she wouldn't have rented to us if we had kids. (Jenna wasn't even in the plans back then.) "Why not?" I asked her. "Because the old man next door molested our daughter. That's why we moved. We have a court case against him. We had to move before my husband killed him."

"oh."

That particular perpetrator would be Uncle Daddy.



At least, that's what we named him. Uncle Daddy and Aunt Grandma lived next door to our little blue dirt-floor house. We gave them these names for obvious incestuous reasons, evident in the generations of offspring who lived with Uncle Daddy and his sister/wife.

Did I say generations? I meant urchins.

We came to know Uncle Daddy and the Cousin Jumpers far too well.

I'MA KILL YER DAWG

Uncle Daddy was 170 years old. At least he looked that old. With wrinkles for his wrinkles, and 1/4 inch of flesh on his skeleton frame, he left quite an impression on me upon my first sighting of him. He, the redneck molester. Scary and ugly.

Aunt Grandma (we never could tell if she was his sister or wife) was toothless, 150 years old, housecoat clad and foulmouthed.

In their house, the rumor was, lived a slew of grandchildren from kids in jail, and several rifles.

Out back was a shed that Uncle Daddy only seemed to visit during one of his several drunken rages. Under the influence, he would often take broken furniture out to the shed and toss it in. I guess it was important for him to save these items for his progeny. Or the next time he burned his trash.

I think that's where the boys got their beatins too.

The young boys who grew up under Uncle Daddy's thumb were not adorable or well behaved. They were the devil's spawn, quite literally. They welcomed us to the neighborhood by swinging from their clothesline and hurling rocks at our dogs over the fence that separated the two yards. They lived to drive us and our dogs insane.

And that was nothing compared to what they did to their own animals. One Saturday they decided to have fun by trying to drown the beagle that some relative or another left at their house. They put him in a "bath" inside a garbage can, turned on the water, filled the can, put the dog in, and used the hose to pour water in the dogs' ears.

Get the picture?

That was one of many times I called the cops. Something I'd never before done in my life before moving to Atlanta. I'm not sure if we ever made an episode of Cops the show, but we could have.

The cops bought the kids' story about their beagle: "We was just tryin to give the dawg a bath."

And me saying, "Officer, the dog was screaming."

The cop saying, "Ma'm, if no one at the house says the boys were hurting the dog, then there's nothing we can do." The dog ended up going deaf. Nice.

The Hapeville Police became regulars at our house. Unfortunately, they were also lifelong friends of Uncle Daddy and his spawn.

Kevin, the eldest urchin, probably about 9 then, had the nastiest mouth I've yet to hear on a kid. A Manson like smile with intent to boot, he'd stand by the back fence, look me in the eye.

"I'ma Kill Yer Dawg," he'd say.

"You're gonna do what?"

"Ima kill yer dawg, bitch."

"Not before they kill you."

What I meant to say was, "Not before I kill you, you little shit."

It wasn't long before I went to war with them at every opportunity. I'd lie in wait beneath the window of the back porch. The ruckus would begin, their kids against our dogs, and I'd be out on the deck lickety split asking them if they wanted to go to jail. Eventually, our shouting matches turned into throwing matches. I hurled shit back at them. They'd go running to Uncle Daddy--"She throwed a stick at us, Daddy!" And the real fun would begin.

"Jew throw a stick at my boyz?"

"That's half of what I'd like to do to them. No, I didn't throw anything at those kids."

I lied. It felt good. I hated them. If we'd had a gun, I might be in jail right now.

"You leave dem boyz alone."

"Tell your boyz to leave our dogs alone, to leave US alone."

"They ain't doin no harm to yer dawgs."

"Yeh, right. I'll call the cops--we'll see what they say."

It wasn't just the dawgs those evildoers attacked. They egged our house, they messed with our cars. They had plenty of time, since they rarely went to school. Their life was an audition for the juvie system.

The one person they were afraid of was George. For obvious reasons. But they'd watch for him to leave. And when he did, it was time to throw down. Them against me.

At first, I did what I always thought you were supposed to do when criminals come on your property and fuck with you. I'd call the cops. They'd come. They'd ask me what the problem was. I'd tell them what particular law the kids had broken this time. They'd go next door. They'd talk with Uncle Daddy or Aunt Grandma. I'd see the casual conversation from my window. Then I'd see laughing, chumming around, talking about mutual friends. These people had grown up together. They were lifers.

We were the outsiders.

The cops would come back to our door, tell me they talked to them, we shouldn't have any more problems. No harm done. Kids will be kids. I'd stare at them in disbelief. Can't you do something about them?

Just a blank stare. Nothing to be done.


THE EXODUS

For two years we lived in a war zone, dancing between Uncle Daddy's drunken back yard rages and the kids' torment. For two years I did battle with them whenever I had to. It didn't change them. It didn't change anything in that house or neighborhood.

It changed me.

It unearthed my Sicilian roots, and that's never a good thing. Before the end, I was scheming different ways to get rid of them all. None of those ways were pretty.

I imagined house fires. I imagined semi-automatic weapons. I imagined hitting the accelerator as I drove down the street aiming for the urchins.

When those fantasies began to take up most of my weekends, something snapped. This just wasn't good.

I remember the day, I remember being in the bedroom, looking out the bedroom window at the kids scheming, our dogs, mean by now, lunging at the fence. My nose burned from butane odor courtesy of the planes taking off and landing from the airport down the road. I'd just come back from being harrased at the gas station, "hey baby hey baby hey baby, can i git a ride?"

I was completely, utterly sick of living there. Sick from living there. I didn't belong next door to Uncle Daddy.

"George, we're getting out of here." That's all I said on "snap" day.

He could see I meant it. I know he wondered where, why now, how. Those were minor details to me.

And I burned with a mission to get us free from that place, to get us a house away from the riff raff, or at least that riff raff.

Within three months of the day I snapped we moved into our new house, 35 miles and a lifetime away from Hapeville.

From what we hear, Uncle Daddy is still alive. By the time we left he was carrying an oxygen tank around, still smoking like a maniac, with throat and who knows what other kind of cancer. He'd apparently had it forever. Bad stuff doesn't kill people like Uncle Daddy. Bad stuff is in their genes. It only makes them stronger.

The kids would be about 16 by now. I imagine them in some juvenile detention center, having the shit kicked out of them. I swear I'm smiling right now.

But life doesn't usually work that way. I'm sure they're still right where we left them.

Roaches are hard to get rid of.

letters

Just damn good writing in this chronicle of a visit "home."

That's all. And that's a whole lot.

dream games

Confession time: My kid doesn't go to sleep by herself. Most nights I lie with her until she drifts off. I know, she should at five hop up the steps off to her bed on her own with a kiss over her shoulder and a hug goodnight. Doesn't work that way. Yet.

It's been a tough year with her father away a good part of it. I guess she and I have needed some extra cuddling time. And I guess I don't feel guilty about it. It can be a pain. It can also be amazing.

With this unwelcome habit, sleep time has turned into a welcome time for mom and daughter to stare at each other, talk to God, wonder about everything under the sun, then be quiet, wind down. Some nights the process takes longer than others.

We have a new thing we do--my attempt to focus her on getting to sleep, something she's never been very good at, not since birth.

In our new dream game, we tell each other one thing we're going find for one another in our dreams that night. We don't describe it though--not til the next morning, sometimes not until the next night. "What did you get me in your dream last night?" And we trade stories.

She's found me lots of treasures--a pink unicorn with a yellow horn and gold feet, a pretty purple blouse, a brown pony. All things I'd like very much. In my dreams at least. I've found her a shimering purple and pink dress with white lace on the hem, a brown pony (are we getting the pony theme yet?), and tonight I went off to find her a necklace.

As soon as I close my eyes and set off on my dream mission, the vision forms almost instantly. Tonight's necklace was so beautiful--I wonder if one exists. It looks like this: On a silver chain hangs a bright round stone sunshine pendant, and in the middle of the sunshine, a single tear drop, made of dark purple/blue shiny stone, outlined in silver. I'll tell her about it tomorrow.

How tears give way to sun, how night turns to day, how tomorrows get better.

She had a tough day. Overtired from our trip, she was a bear, the child you don't like to recognize as your own, yourself in your worst mood. Tough to watch.

Now she's sleeping, and I wonder what she'll find for me in her dream. Tomorrow morning we'll trade stories about our dream game. I'll get to hear about my treasure.

And tomorrow night I'll lie down with her again.

the band that's like a five-way boxing match

These guys are talking again. You just don't know. You just don't know my history as a band wife in this group. A history that goes back 20 years. George's history in the band pre-dates mine by years. One day we'll do a book. Because band dynamics, like family dynamics (actually just like family dynamics), are complex, firey, intense, joyous, torturous, and infinite. They are special. There is nothing just like it, because of the music.

Beyond the life of a band, the band dynamics persist. The wounds persist. The energy persists.

It's kind of frightening.

A Cabo Frio reunion may be in the works, something I'm sure George will talk about when and if it's time.

What I'm talking about is what their talking again--the phone ringing and hearing those familiar voices that wind back half my lifetime--means to me.

What exactly?

It takes me back. I'm 20 and dancing like a fiend in a smokey Rochester club, I'm 22 driving to Geneseo with George, wondering what kind of night they'll have. The inside jokes, the falling off my chair laughing, the dreams, hopes, dashed every single time.

I'm watching the man I love get angrier and angrier, watching the business end eat him up inside, looking on as the dynamics eventually wreck the music, or at least the music men.

How this era tortured my husband for two decades, his in-the-group, out-of-the-group dance. The fights, the bad business, the dirt, the record company rip offs. The endless work, the endless battles, the successes, the losses, and the music.

The music.

That's the part that puts a twinkle in my eye, makes me feel 20 again. They were something else live.

So the phone rings today, and I hear their voices, and all at once I'm cute and 20 and dancing again. I know the bass lines by heart. I know the drum fills. I'm childless, single, in my own apartment. I'm going out tonight with my best friend. Gotta see that bass player again. He makes my heart stop. The future isn't written yet. Everything is possible.

Ding Ding, Round 9 begins.

gary has thrown himself into his blogging.

...and this is the latest result. Or should I say, and this is the result?

Only Gary.

I'm still too afraid to show my fridge. Humbled by all the neat and tidy bloggers around the world, I still think they fluffed.

(you're not allowed to fluff.)

life without a net

So how was it not to blog for a week?

Wierd. Really strange.

The wierd part wasn't so much the not blogging, but not blogging physically.

I had no dial up access numbers, except for the Atlanta number, which would have been long distance, and with a 35-percent telephone surcharge at the hotel, no thanks.

At the beginning of our vacation, I thought about blogging all the time. The wanting to blog was overwhelming. I was forever blogging in my head. Wondering if I could simply telepath my posts to RageBoy, give him something for his blog for crying out loud. I actually tried a couple of times, but I think my wires got crossed and I ended up giving Marek a wedgie.

Sorry MJ.

So instead I did the natural next-best thing. Inner blogging.

That's when you go through all the steps of actual blogging, except you do it inside of your head.

In retrospect, I find this inner blogging quite magnificent. I'm not sure what to make of it. This posting and publishing in my head. Editing even. Linking too.

How did it work exactly? For example, there was this sign for Stavros Pizza in Leesburg. I immediately popped up the blogger window in my mind, I cropped and uploaded the sign from Stavros Pizza, plugged the img src code into my post, centered it, wrote the headline ("half with pepperoni, half with wonderchicken"). Then I wrote about blogging and pizza, a little ditty about all of us ordering pizza at the same time (is this possible with our varying time zones--heck I like pizza for breakfast) and blogging our virtual pizza party as we munch... Read the comments too. Shelley's in for veggie, Halley wants extra meat. Heh. You know. Stuff like that.

I even laughed out loud as I constructed imaginary email replies.

All without ever dropping a line of it onto paper or a keystroke into the laptop. The process ran start-to-finish all in my head.

Is this at all sane?

Inner Blogging.

Maybe not sane, but it's easier, and cheaper, and sure will do in a pinch.

the best thing about being home

is being home.

words from the road

"If I would have known that one day you'd be able to bend a note with the keyboard, I would have never quit piano."
- The bass man, George

"Are we there yet?"
-Jenna

Brother-in-law Nate to Jeneane: If you guys hang on ten more minutes, I'm sure mom will be back.
Jeneane to Nate: Bye then!

hello to those who remained

I'm coming to consciousness today. A glance at my referrer's page shows me that I lost 3/4 of my readers while I was away. Interesting. Usually by this time of day I'm in the mid to high hundreds. Today, 68 visitors. Yeh, I took vacation. I had no way to blog from there. So, how do you let other bloggers know that you're back? I guess you come out with some newsy post--I'm back and had a sex change operation while I was gone. Or, I'm back, fresh from rehab--wanna hear about it? Maybe, I was gone a while--had to do 30 days for a DUI. But here I am.

Well, I have no juicy tidbits. I wasn't in rehab, didn't give birth to a lovechild, am still female, and have avoided both prison and rehab so far. Nothing interesting to report. No daypop-busting inventions. Only snapshots of our life away from the computer screens. For those still interested.

I thought of my blog and my blog friends several times a day. I thought of my family here in Atlanta 4 times. What does that say? I don't know. I think it means we had fun. With moments of family stress intermingled.

Nothing new there. Not really.

outside.

You watch children in the country, and you know this is how it's supposed to be. Family insanity and dysfunction can't penetrate the thick borders of nature.

Inside the house, there isn't much sunlight, not much growth, stagnant. Destruction courtesy of adults.

But outside is the children's domain.

Run as far as you can, roll as fast as you can, climb as high as you can.



Dig holes that take you to new lands. Nothing but hands and knees and bare feet. Unearth treasures. Fly airplaines, chase soccer balls.



Moo back at the cows. Caw to the birds. Wind yoursef up, spin and jump, walk on your hands, and wear yourself out

When the sun sets and you go back inside, nothing can touch you. They can't break what nature built that day. Darkness can't get through. At least for this night. One night at a time.

jenna lands one

the view from Grandma's back yard. I miss it today.

home, tired, was going to write, not, remembering

I didn't write anything while we were gone. No pen to paper. No laptop. Took lots of digital pics, to come soon. Found some on the net, better than mine even, links included.

Rented a boat. Caught fish off a pier. Fort Island Trail Park. Beautiful.

Nuclear plant visible in the distance. Steam from cement towers. huh? Who's bright idea was this nuclear plant on Florida's nature coast? Stunned. Sad. Ugly horizon spoiler.

Then overjoyed to see a baby dolphin jump and play while we fish. I think he's laughing.

Jenna caught 3 fish by herself. Me many fish. George some. He caught a crab too. Big. Odd. Mad. Left in a bucket on Grandma Sessum's step. Shrimp to feed to him. Grow big. Eat him. Something.

The cows, the hundreds of acres behind her land. Nothingness. Quiet. Buzzards landing. Cows calling. Grazing.

Five kids running: 10, 10, 7, 5, and 2 years old. Soccer, fields, rolling, digging for treasures, climbing oak trees, skinned knees, jenna with a shovel to her head, bandaid badge of courage, keeping up with the country kids.

Hard sleep.

Cold. So cold. Night fishing. So cold at dinner. Me in the ladies room four times to turn the hand dryer on my face, neck, hands. Please warm me. Still. Hot inside. From the quiet. The water. I miss the water. God, I miss the water.

Crystal River. Where salt water meets fresh water.

Nature. Birds. Fish. Creatures. Note to self: win lotto and buy winter home on Crystal River. Who are these people with these amazing houses on the water? Do they drop to their knees every day? Do they sit and stare out their bay windows every morning? Do they know?

Our pontoon boat. Idling on Crystal River. Clear blue green, look down, shells, silver fish, and the manatees. A dozen manatees resting in 72-degree water, safe, munching, playing with our boat anchor. Baby manatee nursing on mama. Coming up, fuzzy snout blowing air-water mist. swim closer. he does. tickle my hand in the water lying flat on the boat bottom. c'mere baby manatee. he does. coming closer. I reach down, George reaches down, CONTACT.

Special, warm, hard, sweet, trusting, innocent, scars show our betrayal. And they trust again. What is that? Being Pure.

Above the surface rises the sunken boat, which residents hate, but the birds don't. I didn't. Half out of the water. Crystal River Pelicans make their home there, and buzzards, and egrets. SO many birds. Part of the river now.

Our first night, a drive through the nature preserve, what's that? OH SWERVE! Ugh. Killed an oppossum. Thank goodness it wasn't a wild hog. Still. First night. First bit of nature. Nailing wildlife on the road. Sorry little creature. You know. What do you do?

Family. Georges. So tired. Thought we were done. No sleep for 30 hours and drive back. Slept for 3 hrs. George's mom decided to drive up behind us (by a few hours) because his brother forgot a box. She's here. Got up. Went to dinner. George, his mother, his brother, me, jenna. Yum. Wierd. So tired.

Thankfully, we are home safely.

Drugs, sleep, tomorrow more.

Actual pics of our trip, and more stories, coming when we're conscious.

night.

hello from the Wildwood, Florida Public Library

We're alive, well, having a nice time, and off to see the manatees this evening. Blogging from the Sumter County library. Man, I forgot how cool libraries are. They have books for free in here--you can borrow them and bring them back. What a concept. I thought all books lived on Amazon.com. Who knew? And they even have computers with Internet access here, which is how I'm blogging, for free.

Will blog more when we return to Atlanta, probably Weds. evening. Miss you all.

okay, one more to amuse you while I'm gone.

manatee cam... click for live updates every 30 seconds.

shutting down...

packing for florida. good day ya'll. see you soon!

i just love this book so much

Hmmm. Cushion Buckwheat.

I've been clicking through Wild Flowers from Castle Country for a couple of days now. I'm captivated by it.

I'm also deathly allergic to Buckwheat. Which is why I'm stuck on this page. I'm not sure if this is the same species of buckwheat they use in food, but it's interesting to see what buckwheat looks like.

Most people think buckwheat is a flour--because of the wheat part of the word--but I've always known it is, in fact, a flower, the hulls of which are used often in cooking. I've known it because ingesting it sends me straight to the ER where I end up on IV Benedryl, sometimes adrenelin, and nebulizer treatments to keep me breathing.

It's the only anaphalactic allergy I have, and I've had it since I was born. My brother too. Sleep overs at our friends' houses, with pancakes greeting us in the morning, usually resulted in my mom meeting us at the Emergency room, or calls from our friends' parents saying, "I'm not sure what's wrong with Jeneane, but..." or "Frank seems to be having trouble breathing, I don't understand..."

It's an odd allergy to have. In upstate New York, where they know how to make pizza, buckwheat is sometimes used on the bottom of the dough to keep it from sticking to the pizza pans. Only someone allergic to buckwheat would know this. Whenever we'd call for a pizza, I would have to ask, "do you use buckwheat on the bottom of your pizzas?" More than once I was greeted with a dial tone, the pizza tosser sure it was a prank call. Like, "Do you have prince albert in a can?"

Usually I'd lie when asked by my mom, "Well do they?" I'd say, "Yep," rather than admit I'd been hung up on.

sigh.

Today buckwheat is big on the health food circuit. It's is what Japanese soba noodles are made from; it's in those little pillows that go round your neck for driving; It's in some breads. It's everywhere.

And I'm still watching out for it. My brother too.

So if we have a blogger lunch sometime, no tricks. 'Kay?

Off to pack...

heading to Florida late tomorrow night.

We're preparing to head out to Florida in the middle of the night tomorrow for about a week's vacation in Florida at Homossasa and Crystal River, after a jaunt to visit George's family near Orlando. Watch for us on the manatee cam. Well, watch for something. It sure is dark in that water at night.

I didn't snag the HipTop yet--not enough dough for that and the vacation--so I'll be blogging the old fashioned way. With a pad of paper and a pen. I don't remember how they work exactly, but I hear it's like falling off--I mean riding--a bike.

I figured I'd give you 24 hours notice so you'd have time to get your alternative blog channels tuned in.

I will post anything worthwhile when I get back. In the mean time, take care of one another, and please take care of Gary and his loved ones.

.

!

humbled by nature and this relationship

He has a passion. Wildflowers.

Stanton Finley writes of his father and mother who share a love of wildflowers. His dad is 81.

This alone would be interesting. As are these words, which Stan shares about his parents: "Mom and Dad can tell you the genus, species and colloquial name of every wild flower that grows here in Utah. They are delightful people who continue to inspire me as examples of how life should be lived, enjoyed, and savored."

Wow. What makes it fabulous is this wonderful book celebrating wildflowers, which Stan has helped his parents publish online. It is beautiful. A legacy of family and nature. And a great piece of online publishing by Stan.



As I read through it, I'm humbled by what they've shared here. I think you will be too.

Tom blogs Sawyer out of Wendy's belly and into Existence

A beautiful chronicle of images and words that show how Sawyer James came to meet his parents. Don't miss it.

network marketing for the economy, courtesy of halley

Goodness knows, the economy is something I know nothing about. I know how to spend money, not how to save it, and I have no idea how supply and demand works. That's my big problem. The debt thing. I want it, I buy it. bounce. oooops.

I think I'll adopt Halley's concept of the economy, if she'll share. Halley, will you doll out a piece of the economy to me? Maybe I could learn not to be a bad-credit spendthrift. Maybe if I thought it belonged to me, and not them, I could really make it cool, like a blog. Maybe we can blog a good economy into existence.

I also like Halley's idea about helping five people find work. It's the network marketing concept put to good use, finally. Economy amway. I like it. Beats girlism by a mile.

(Click the girlism link to see no fewer than 550 google references to the brand Halley built). ;-)

the damn ball finally dropped...

Wshew!

1:00 a.m. and jenna's finally asleep. I've never seen her so excited. No lie. All day long, every half hour, is it time for New Year's Rockin' Eve yet? Is the ball going to drop soon?

Me telling her it's only 10 in the morning, and no, we've got lots of hours to go.

How many Chuckie episodes, she wants to know. (We somehow got in the habit of marking time by Rug Rats episodes when she was 3. My bad.) I tell her about 28 Chuckie episodes. She asks me, 28 minutes!? No, Jenna, 28 Chuckie episodes. Lots of stares of disbelief. How could it possibly take that long to get to midnight?

I honestly don't know.

Then the questions about 2003 begin. She shouts, in 2003 I'll be six years old! I say, yep. She says, TOMORROW?? No not until September. NINE MORE DAYS? No, nine more months. But how many more days. I tell her 200 and something. She wants to know how many Chuckie episodes til she turns six. I say like 20 thousand or something. She seems satisfied.

SOON I'LL BE SIX!! Yes, soon. nine more months.

Well, mom, then how many more minutes til the ball drops?

That was all by 11:30 this morning. It went on and on like that. All day. All night.

Last year she was so excited about New Year's Eve that we taped the three hours of programming before, during, and after the ball dropped. She loved that tape. And understand that I'm not complaining. To have a bright, energetic, inquisitive, healthy, happy child. That's enough for me. That's all I need in 2003 to keep me going. That and some speed and some Vitamin B12 shots and maybe six or seven dozen boxes of No-Dose to keep up with her.

In between question and answer sessions with Jenna, I talked to good friends this evening, and to George on break. Every one heard Jenna bopping around in the background, barely able to contain herself. I said, yep, she'll stay up til midnight. I wish I could get her to bed sooner. My friend Marge has the wisdom of a mother with two children. "Can't you find the tape from last year? Put it in and make believe."

I never THOUGHT of it--I wish I had. Believe me, I'm putting this year's tape somewhere safe once I can pry it out of her tiny little hands.

Cut to Midnight.

The ball drops. Jenna and I are so excited we roll around the bed and hug and scream. I tell her Daddy's playing that same song in North Carolina where he's working tonight. She's amazed--RIGHT NOW?! He's playing that RIGHT NOW? I tell her yep, every New Year's Eve. Right at the same time. Just like on TV. RIGHT NOW?! she says it with such glee.

She can't believe the synchronicity of it all.

And I think of the New Years Eves past--13 years of them before Jenna was born--that I knew George, married him, followed him to New Year's Eve gigs, sitting at the table of band wives, watching the crowd get drunker and drunker. Waiting for my kiss until every other party animal in the joint got theirs and the band went on break. Some of them were fun. Party until 5 a.m., hang out, get breakfast, party some more, go to sleep half-way through the day. That, actually, is my kind of living. Or should I say was.

Then comes baby. Those days are over.

Now I'm used to spending New Years with our little girl. It's the night sharp shooter musicians scatter to grab the highest paying gigs. It's payback night that on rare occasion makes up for a suckass rest of the year.

And from now on, at least for the next decade, it's a night I'll be happy to spend jumping around on the bed hugging and screaming with my sweet crazy girl, singing Auld Lang Syne in time with Daddy.

Happy 2003.

good ridance 2002

??????????????????

I hate new year's eve. I find it an incredibly depressing holiday--at least I always have. Growing up I think I cried every new years eve--even as a kid I knew the feeling of regret. Why have I always used New Years Eve to represent regret instead of hopefulness?

Glass half empty.

I can't count all the things I regret, the things I wish had happened differently, in 2002. Too many. Too deep. Old ties broken. Separation of family. More loss. A year of irrepairable damage. And of opportunity? I hope.

In short, I'm glad to see this year end. And I am equally pissed at myself for saying these same words for as many New Years as I can remember. I tell myself shut the hell up. Be grateful that you all skated through the year with your health and the health of your loved ones mostly in tact. What else can anyone ask for?

So let me refocus my energies, through the posting of these words, on things I'm grateful for in 2002. Of course, my daughter, husband, house. Somehow my house always makes my list. Having somewhere to live, a house you like, is an amazing thing, one I never take for granted.

Beyond the obvious, I think about this place we're building online. And I think 2002 was a year of a different kind of love. A different kind of family. A kind of rebuilding, re-creation. Somewhere I said that blogging is a do-over of our childhoods. Getting the family thing right. Getting love right. Even getting anger and arguments and resolution right. I think this past year has proven those words true for me. Something is healthier in here.

There's dysfunction here, sure. Wars of words between bloggers. Hurt feelings. And sometimes a way to see the repair process. The recovery process at work. Since everything's sped up in the blogworld, maybe we're getting glimpses of what healing looks like from start to finish. Snippets of birth, life, death, rebirth all networked together through not-so-neatly-packaged links. Here there's always movement foward. Always forward. Something I just haven't been able to sustain--that propulsion--in the offline world.

So I guess 2002 is the year I'm glad I blogged.

Thanks for letting me say these things--things that don't even make sense to me but were somehow waiting to leap out of my fingers.

Happy New Year's. Be safe everyone.

for example

Some of Jenna's art from the last couple weeks...

eyeglasses


self portrait


sunflower and house


abstract one


enjoy...

painting loss

Jenna's been spending the day painting. I'm posting this to remind myself to snap some pics of her latest artwork. Gotta do that. Soon.

She said to me after finishing a drawing with colored pencils today, "Mom, when I draw something, I wish I could make it come alive. I want it to come alive."

I said, "It does--in my eyes. It does come alive."

That was one of the nicer things I said today.

I've been an absolute crab. A bear to self, to husband and child. It has something to do with being sick. And some wierd Greek coffee that was all we had in the house in the way of caffine today. I told George, I get goofy when I drink this stuff. So I did. Drink it. And get goofy. And grumpy.

When I'm sick (have an ear infection), I'm not easy to console. I want to be under the covers by myself, but being a mother, it's hard to get the child to understand that. Even when dad is occupying her, it's not long before she sneaks upstairs onto the bed with words that go something like this: "I'm not bothering you mom. I'm just checking on you." Then you get rolled on and laughed at and sat on and asked a million questions, the last one being, "So, I'm not bothering you, right?"

"Right."

You want to say, PLEASE go away. Just pretend to be invisible for an hour or two. I'm so sorry I'm such a terrible mother, but I don't want to be a mother today. I don't want to be a mother when I'm sick.

I want to be mothered.

And therein lies the problem.

My mother once told me that no matter how brave, how strong, how tough a person is--even if he's a grown man--when that person is dying, they want their mother. When a man is in pain, he cries for his mother.

I realized she had seen this first hand. More than once. I remember the moment she imparated this knowledge to me to be quite profound. And quite terrifying. And it never fails to cross my mind when I'm sick. It's not consoling to me. It's frightening.

She didn't mean it to be. She meant it to be comforting, I think. To show me that everyone--not just the me who used to be so much more insecure--wants their mother in times of ultimate chaos and pain and torture.

But there's something else to it.

Something primal.

Something terrifying.

Something ....

some thing to do with loss. I don't know.

developing....

when logic sets in

I stumbled across this great post from Joker on the Run that pegs pretty well how I feel. Our families are the same size, three humans (one little), and three furry pains in the butt. I often think the same things that Tracy says here. WHAT IF number two were to come along. How different would it be--and how much more difficult. You ask parents of broods and they say, after one it's all the same. Or they say everything changes. Or they say it's easier. More opinions than kids on this topic.

But the reminder that any women or man can end up raising the kids alone is sobering. It's the logic that sneaks in and gives us just enough pause for our biological clocks to run out. The same logic that makes people put off having kids until they're "ready," (big news flash: you never are).

Having done solo parenting for many months over the last year, I won't soon forget the exhasution. I thought what Tracy thinks. How the hell do single parents do it? How the hell did my mother, widowed at 34 with three kids to raise, do it? How do people do it every day?

My own short-lived experience showed me just how tiring it is. Freeing in some ways--it's your way or the highway--but equally tiring, and hard. At least it was to me. I felt like I had to be so many people at once--mom, dad, teacher, entertainer--just to get through the day. The sweet reward was laying down with her at night knowing we'd made it through another one--that we'd even had fun along the way.

But more than one? I don't know. Just don't know. I can't imagine how the dynamics change.

And while I'm on the subject, props to all of you doing it by yourself. Like Tracy says, especially with more than one. I'll buy you lunch since she's buying you dinner.

family goings on...

Last week we went to Chuck E. Cheese, where a good time was had by all. Some pictures of Jenna enjoying the rides.





An update on the Kitten front--Hunter went for his shots, got prodded, probed, poked, tested for all those nasty kitty diseases, de-wormed, the whole nine yards. Except for de-nutting, which will take place at 5-6 months. The vet estimates him at 3 months, which makes the bloggers who guessed he was four weeks old when he stowed away under my van right on target.

All is well--a healthy kitty. The vet, who has cats of his own, remarked that Hunter has the makings of a good cat. "You've got a good cat," I think were his words. Something profound like that. "I spent time with him in the back, he's a good one. I can tell."

No going outside until after the third series of shots, says the vet. So he's still king of the roost, torturing us with nails and teeth, immune to the squirt bottle already. We're glad to have him around. He is a special creature. Thanks to all of you who encouraged us to make a go of it with the little bugger.

Movie night

We went to the video store to rent some movies last night, but they had a deal where they were selling pre-enjoyed movies 4 for $20. Given that I've never yet returned a video on time (the $15 in late fees waiting for us are testimony to that), this seemed like a better deal than renting. So we got four movies and watched one last night. The Caveman's Valentine. How to describe it? It was intense. Very. If you can get it for $5.00 or rent it, it's worth it.



Some
sound
snippets.

And the trailer.

Farrago, do you need a new home?

Seems FARRAGO has been having trouble with her hosting provider or something I'm still not sure I understand. For now, go here to read FARRAGO, and while you're there, it looks like there's two drinks left from the big blog party last night. I'll race you there!