Two quotes from Google's quote of the day:

"You've got to take the bitter with the sour."
- Samuel Goldwyn

"There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have."
- Don Herold

Eye yam sofa king tie red

Traffic on I94 going west was completely psycho this afternoon, of course. Any idiot could tell you it's a holiday weekend and it's going to be crowded, but I'm not just any idiot. I thought getting going at 2 pm would be early enough. It was worth sweltering in the car a little as I sat idling in traffic: Good class last night, good drinks and conversation and music afterwards, lunch and talking with Rhonda today. (And browsing the Smitten Kitten. LOL! I never knew how many varieties of "C & B separators" there really are.) Now I'm going to hang out in the sweet sweet air conditioning and have a beer. Then a nap. Yes, I'm lazy and I don't care who knows it.

Very exciting shopping expedition

Today I was in one of those moods where I feel great and have lots of energy but I shouldn't have credit cards with me; I was reading a home decorating magazine; and I was a little bored. A deadly combination. Fortunately I exercised my brilliance at Goodwill instead of the mall. When I start buying furniture and art because it makes me laugh, it could turn out beautiful or well, laughable. I'm betting on the middle ground.

I picked up a few shelves and frames. Then I saw the green office chair and the side table with the mucked up finish - 99 cents a piece. Inspiration and cheapness combined. Then, then, then, guess what?! A huuuge painting, a seascape. It's as long as the couch, and above the couch it shall go. I was quite thrilled to see it, and it was a mere $3.99. That's like... a penny a square inch or maybe less, and of course it is also very beautiful art.

Twenty dollars and nine cents later, I crammed all this junk into my car. Then I hauled it up to my apartment. Now I am wondering how best to arrange my new loot. The green chair is nice and comfy.

Awesome.

There was just a blast of thunder so loud it set off a car alarm in my building's parking lot. That is cool. But that asshole better shut off that alarm right quick.

Why do I blog again? Plus: Do me a favor

I like the comments, but that's not why I got started in this business, dammit! Lately, I've been like, ok, if there's no response, why post? To say there is no response is not entirely fair, I guess. But really, the reason I blog is not to attract readers so much, as to skim off a few of the many thoughts in my head. Instead of getting all excited about a book or newsitem or magazine article and e-mailing about it to my exquisitely disinterested friends and acquaintance, I just post up. Or if something's distracting or annoying me, just write about how dumb it is and be done with it.

Another blogger compared blogging to that thing in Harry Potter, the bowl Dumbledore uses to literally collect his thoughts.Ooh, I remember now: it's called the Pensieve. He would stir them up to juxtapose some things, look at them from another angle, or when too many thoughts are racing through his brain. This is the closest I'll get to a magical thought collecting bowl.

Here's the favor request mentioned in the headline: Post a quick comment if you read this. Especially if you haven't commented in a long time. I'd like to see who's out there. If you want to put why you read this, or why you don't read it very often, that would be swell too. "Hi" or "you suck" would be acceptable comments, I really don't care.

Writing from prompts

Here's something I came up with from the first week of class. We had four objects for inspiration: a Darth Vader mask, empty pack of cigarettes, toy soldier in jeep, empty film canister. I started writing this after class, I think. It doesn't fit thematically with the class, so I thought I'd post it here. Normally I'd be embarrassed, but I realize that all seven people who read this blog from time to time really don't care what I post. I think the punctuation is pretty fucked up and I bet I made at least one mistake with the tense.

Ryan just got back from Iraq. He is downtown at 2 a.m., walking down St. Germain street. He's been partying and hanging out with his buddies all weekend. St. Germain at bar close is a zoo, just like he remembers. Cops walking around, girls screaming and giggling, everybody making their next plans. Ryan thinks about the film he packed in his suitcase. He wonders if the film was ruined when the luggage was x-rayed at the airport. He hopes it was.

Last night, the guys stayed up all night watching the original Star Wars trilogy. Actually Ryan was the only one who made it through the whole night awake, but it didn't matter. They trudged to Perkins for breakfast at 7 then crashed in Toby's living room for a couple of hours.

Ryan lists the bars they hit last night, goes through them chronologically. The Carpet, the Press, MC's, DB's, McRudy's, the Press again so Jake could check if that hot girl was still there. No dice.

Ryan sleeps with a gun under his bed now. He couldn't do that at Toby's, he had to settle for knowing that it was locked in his glove box, and he checked on it a couple of times during the night. He told the guys he was outside smoking, which he was, but he also needed to check on the gun. The first few days after coming home he kept it under his pillow, but his wife talked him out of it. First he moved it to the bedside table then under the bed in a small box. Compromise is the key to a successful marriage, he thinks, as he walks with his friends.

Buddy turns his head, looks at Ryan with a raised eyebrow. Ryan realized he had muttered the words out loud and he laughed his new laugh -- the harsh mirthless laugh his mom hated.

"Any more beer at your house?" Ryan asks Toby.
"Yeah, I think so. Dunno. I guess the liquor store is closed, huh?"

Toby was a dumb drunk. Some of Ryan's friends get mean, angry, sad, hilarious or extra horny when they drank. Toby tends to get stupid. Lock his keys in the trunk of the car, call ex-girlfriends, wander away so Jake or Buddy or somebody who gives a shit has to track him down.

Four girls - no, five, there's always a plain one in the back, hiding -- giggling as one, eyeball the guys. They are walking across the street from the men, at the same pace, as though it was on purpose. The second prettiest yells an invitation to an after-bar party eight blocks away.

Steve says "Fuck that," in a voice that only his buddies could hear, and "Sorry, ladies, maybe next time," in his loud clear voice.

Steve pulls out his keys and jingles them in Buddy's face. Buddy bats his hand away. Steve volunteered to be sober cab, and he did pretty good, only drinking three beers and two shots. They are a block from the car now. They pass Mexican Village. Toby starts belting out the old ad jingle for another Mexican restaurant he knows from his hometown. "Chips are free, dinner extra. Chips are free, dinner extra!" The guys laugh. Ryan sees one of the girls across the street wrinkle up her nose.

They reach the car. The guys climb in. Ryan knows Shelly thought he would be home tonight. She is going to shit a brick when I get home tomorrow, red eyed and sullen, he thinks. He laughs again and lights his last Marlboro. The boys climb into the car and are silent.

Here's how Friday looks at sunrise

I don't have a picture or anything, but I can describe it for ya. It looks pretty good. Lots of pretty colors and that sunrise feeling in the air. The sunrise started at like 4:40 or some crazy shit like that. I love this time of year, but it goes by so quick. The days are getting shorter. Soon it will be nasty old buggy August.

For the past few days, I haven't been able to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch. This can be inconvenient, but I have been trying to use my extra time to get things done. Sadly, I'm even more addled than usual, which fact makes each item on my to-do list take an unreasonable amount of time; the same can be said for everyday tasks. I don't like it. I am so glad that Heidi was taking such excellent notes at class last night, because between the wine and the sleep deprivation, I don't know how I could remember all the awesome shit we talked about. Don't worry, I drove safely; time and caffeine are my friends.

Spiffing up the old apartment

Because I signed a new lease, my apartment management has been so kind as to install some lovely new stuff. A new microhood (microwave/exhaust hood combination, if you weren't familiar with the term), and new light fixtures. I had a list of improvements to choose from, including being allowed to paint an accent wall in the living- or bedroom and new kitchen countertops and sink. I went with the microhood because my current microwave has to be about twenty years old and is probably leaking microwaves that are poisoning my brain. Undoubtedly it is so. The light fixtures are no big deal to me, but the examples they showed me were pretty.

Actually, the installation hasn't been completed yet. I came home yesterday afternoon to find an electrician wiring a new outlet and drilling a series of alarmingly perfect circles in the ceiling. The microwave should be installed sometime today, hopefully not too early in the day so I can get the hell out while they do the work. Don't know when the light fixtures will be done, maybe today as well.

The new stuff will surely class up the joint, making my hodgepodge of furniture, bare walls, and cluttered tables look even more unsightly in comparison. I can live with that, or I can take this opportunity to improve the conditions even more. Eh, I can live with it the way it is now. But a friend of mine recently did some fairly significant redecorating and of course I thought, hey, I could do that. Then again, why spend the money when I have enough stuff already? I'm of two minds about the whole thing. I'm of two minds about most things.

Instead of considering what color scheme I have and whether I would like a different one, I'd rather expound on How Our Chosen Settings/Environments Affect Us. This has been a matter of some tension between my mom and me in the past. She contends I would be much happier with tidiness and rational ordering of my possesions. I have disagreed vehemently since I was four (when I was four, I knew my own mind; what happened to that certainty?). I don't want a total mess, but my idea of what constitutes a total mess is very different from other people's, I know. I have to be honest and say, if I didn't have people over every so often to inspire me to shift around or discard most of the clutter before they arrive, my home might be more of a miserable hovel than some people might already find it to be.

Colors also affect me. I never pick bold colors for things I will see everyday (unless it is a particularly good bargain) because I figure I will grow sick unto death from looking at it every day. Rose print in the kitchen? Bright purple flokati rug? Check and check, mistake and mistake. Not terrible mistakes though. I like to feel cozy and safe at home. My computer desk is sort of in a little triangle, between a nice squashy chair, an old gramophone cabinet and an unadorned wall. It's a little pod of space that is nice to sit in even when I'm not using the computer, even though there are more comfortable chairs (nice squashy chairs) very very near.

Does anybody out there watch Lost on ABC?

Anybody? Is it good? I'm trying to watch it now, but I can't get into it. Am I missing out? Should I try sudoko puzzles or something else to fill my time?

So. Eh. Yeah. Ya know.

So I'm writing this stuff, or trying to write it, and it's not been easy. I have a few paragraphs here and there, and I don't see how to stitch it all together. I think they say you should write what you know, but I am sick of what I know. I also can't write what I don't know. Some people can do that, but they must make it of pieces of what they do know to do it. Besides, sometimes you don't really know what you know, or you know but you don't want to know, you know? Ha ha, I repeated a word a lot.

Ok, freewriting, right? Who cares, whatever, I don't care. Just put some shit on the page. Do what works to get it on the page, because you decided you wanted to pick up this little hobby, remember? Silly goose. Right now I am sitting in front of the computer, with a notebook in my lap, alternating between typing and scribbling, then pacing my little circuit from desk to front door, through kitchen, past couch and back to desk.

**also, I can't get my pens to write on this fucking notebook paper. I have three new pens, different kinds, but all with the smooth black ink I like, and two of them are skipping and the other one keeps acting like it's going to go dry. I'm going to Target.

Do you have a pen preference? Gel ink, ball point, pink ink? Or are you more the pencil type?

Would you do it?

Eleven relatives had their stomachs removed when genetic testing revealed they all had a 70% chance of getting stomach cancer. I would do it, for such a nasty disease and such a high risk.And if ten of my cousins join me, we could have a family party before the surgery too. That would be so excellent.

Six family members who had the gene decided not to get the surgery.

I wish we would have had some of these things at my last job.

Are you a bad customer?

According to this article, some companies are identifying problem customers and shunting them to the back of the customer service phone queue.
"Fidelity Investments took this approach several years ago to customers who were tying up their phone representatives, including one client who called thousands of times a year. Fidelity then focused on teaching these folks how to use the company’s Web site and automated phone systems."

Uh, can anybody think of a couple of damaged individuals who earned this treatment? Not sure how well it would have worked for us, but it's nice to dream.

Some companies are disallowing returns from customers who abuse their policies. Others track people who eat up staff time with crank complaints and other crap and remove them from mailing lists for sales and promotions.

. (Side note on my shopping habits: I return a lot of stuff, mostly to Target; basically I like to have the power to change my mind about a purchase. But I buy a lot more than I return, I always have a reciept, and I'm always polite. So they can't get too mad at me.)
I think it's a good idea for companies to start in this direction. It could always go wrong, invading privacy or causing embarassment, but I think this is one of those things where the market will correct itself if they overdo it. It's an interesting thing, when companies don't just say, let's get as many customers as we can, or let's target this certain segment, but let's figure out which of these customers are actually costing us money, or bring in so little, they just aren't worth it. Of course, if you are a total asshole but a big spender, you are still welcome. That part makes me sad. But that is what karma is for, yeah?

The article also gives tips to help consumers avoid the shitlists of their favorite companies.
My two favorites:
Don't be a jerk.
If you don’t like the return policy, shop somewhere else.

I know it's surprising,

but sometimes Dr Phil has good advice. I'm sure he didn't come up with this phrase, but here it is: If you do what you've always done, you're going to get what you always got.

project 1

uhhh.
casting, ejection, expulsion, fling, flinging, heave, heaving, hurl, hurling, launching, lob, lobbing, pitch, pitching, projection, propulsion, shooting, sling, slinging, thrust, thrusting, toss, tossing

container, bin, carton, case, casket, chest, coffer, crate, pack, package, portmanteau, receptacle, trunk

abandon, abdicate, abjure, adios, banish, cancel, cashier, cast aside, chuck, deep-six, desert, dispatch, dispense with, dispose of, dispossess, ditch, divorce, drop, dump, eject, eliminate, expel, forsake, free of, give up, jettison, junk, oust, part with, protest, put by, reject, relinquish, remove, renounce, repeal, repudiate, scrap, shake off, shed, sweep away, throw away, throw out, throw overboard, toss, toss aside, write off

Here's what this picture prompts me to ask: Why did I save half a pair of glasses? Why didn't I get that film developed? Do I even have a cassette player anymore? Do women wear hair ribbons? You only see them on little girls.

I've been thinking about what I want from a new job.

Let's see. I don't know. I guess I want decent pay and hours, work that is not soul-crushing, people and an environment that is pleasant.Inexpensive health insurance, good parking, a short commute. If I wanted to get all fancy, I'd say I wanted to do something something fulfilling; mentally, socially or creatively fulfilling.Lucas just made a big, brave career change, and it sounds awesome.

I feel crappy today.

Sunburn, fever, cough, sore throat. And I got spyware on my computer I guess. But other than that I feel ok, I guess. Things can always be worse. I don't know why that's reassuring, but it is.

I just took a phone survey

The guy said it would take ten to fifteen minutes, which sounded like a real pain in the ass. But he sounded nervous and a little sad. I had a survey job, for about two weeks during the summer after high school. It really really sucks to do. I know, these people choose to take that job, bothering people in their homes. But I don't need to be mean to them. So I said, ok, I'll do it. As it turns out, I didn't qualify for the survey because of some sort of age bracket thing. I hope he got some sort of credit for it anyway.

I had so many dreams last night.

There was another one about instant messaging. My friend said, "We met up at Benton Station and I decided I'm not going to accept food from people anymore. They can buy me drinks but that's it."

Early this morning, I had a dream with Steph Ash getting very upset and telling the writing class ladies, "You know, we have to pay rent on this place!"

That's how the dreams went, random as hell. Not the multi-chaptered, switching point-of-view dreams I usually recall on a big dream-remembering night. Just fragments, no closure or context.

hey, baby, whatever tickles your taco

So the first writing class was tonight. It was swell. It should be an interesting summer. Nice people, nice wine, nice art down the the street. Following the directions of the Little Girl Who Will Rule Us All. She will be a benevolent dictator and there will be much breakdancing!

The last time I took a writing class, it was part of the Honors program at SCSU and I dropped it. The only other class I ever took was playwriting at Trollwood. I didn't even keep a copy of the scenes I wrote, I'm not sure why.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the ease of the drive. Next time, I'm going to go a bit early and hang out at the Falafel King before class. I bet the bathroom down the hall from the office will have working lights by the next class. Once I determined that the building was probably haunted, the dark bathroom lost any charm. If the light still isn't working, I'll just use the bathroom upstairs. That might be creepy too. Ok. I don't know.

Hey, this is the 250th post.

That is kind of cool. I think this will be a random, melting pot, disorganized kind of post. My memory is such crap lately, I should do I quick search before I write anything new, in case I talked about it last September or something.

:When did all this stuff about inflation and the stock market start hitting the news everywhere? It's just been the past couple of days, right? Are we more doomed than usual? I am sure that we are.

:Here are some words of cheery optimism from the dour, but almost kind of hot, Fareed Zakaria.

:Wordsmith's theme this week is super awesome long words. Today's word used to be my most favoritest word, but I got over it. I don't think I ever knew what it actually meant. I thought it was something anti-government. Or pro-government. Or Constitutional maybe? And why isn't the word proestablishmentarianism instead of antidis- . The quote is good too. Creepy, but good.

antidisestablishmentarianism, noun
(an-tee-dis-eh-stab-lish-men-TAYR-ee-uh-niz-em)
Opposition to separation of the church and state.
[From Latin anti- (against) + dis- (apart, away) + English establish, from Latin stabilire, from stare (to stand) + -arian (one who supports) + Greek-ism (practice or state).]

At 28 letters, it's the best-known example of a long word. Here's how
you can parse the word: one of the meanings of the word establishment is making a church an institution of the state. In the late 19th century England, there was a movement for the separation of the church and state: disestablishment. Those opposed to the idea of separation were antidisestablishmentarians.You can see where it's going. Why not a contraantidisestablishmentarianism?

and the daily quote:

If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture - that is immortality enough for me. -Edward Abbey,naturalist and author(1927-1989)