Tuesday, February 27, 2001
livejournal recovered 9
1:56 pm - Crush
I have fallen in love with crush, by Dave Matthews Band.
have had the song for a while, but only yesterday listened to the words.
i've always been enamored of Crash - there is a man in my past that song will always be tied to, simple blissful single intoxicating company who always makes me smile, remembering. But our relationship is more like what is described in that song...separated.
Crush reminds me of Jeremy...
the unrestrained joyful love, the grove, the happiness...
the night drives...the night before valentines it was raining, female (light) rain, and we went driving in the city....i felt the same groove, holding onto a mood....
and last night, I downloaded the song, and sang it to him as we wrestled softly in bed...every day I feel like I fall more in love with him.
It's not always easy, it's work, it's about letting him in, and making the effort to do things for him...but it's so lovely.
current mood: high
current music: Dave Matthews Band - Crush
I have fallen in love with crush, by Dave Matthews Band.
have had the song for a while, but only yesterday listened to the words.
i've always been enamored of Crash - there is a man in my past that song will always be tied to, simple blissful single intoxicating company who always makes me smile, remembering. But our relationship is more like what is described in that song...separated.
Crush reminds me of Jeremy...
the unrestrained joyful love, the grove, the happiness...
the night drives...the night before valentines it was raining, female (light) rain, and we went driving in the city....i felt the same groove, holding onto a mood....
and last night, I downloaded the song, and sang it to him as we wrestled softly in bed...every day I feel like I fall more in love with him.
It's not always easy, it's work, it's about letting him in, and making the effort to do things for him...but it's so lovely.
current mood: high
current music: Dave Matthews Band - Crush
Monday, February 26, 2001
livejournal recovered 8
2:40 pm - Silent Song
Softly
she does sing her
sweetest solo so he
still will sigh, and say that she's his
sweetheart.
Softly
she does sing her
sweetest solo so he
still will sigh, and say that she's his
sweetheart.
Wednesday, February 21, 2001
livejournal recovered 7
12:34 pm
I lay entangled with my lover
this easy intertwining of limbs
bodies akimbo
He is asleep
His skin pulses against me
His hands push blankets
until heat and cool are balanced
properly
This is his gentle time
his sweetness time
his vulnerable time
when I, awoken by habit
or hour
stand watch against the night
I lay entangled with my lover
this easy intertwining of limbs
bodies akimbo
He is asleep
His skin pulses against me
His hands push blankets
until heat and cool are balanced
properly
This is his gentle time
his sweetness time
his vulnerable time
when I, awoken by habit
or hour
stand watch against the night
Tuesday, February 13, 2001
livejournal recovered 6
1:39 pm - I love good customers!
Have a marvy food delivery service here that just started, and as soon as I found out about them, I told my salesman ' you need to sell them a website!'
Well, he did, and as our FT designer is overloaded, i took that account for her.
Called the client today, terrified that I'd have to type in all the menus by hand and that they wouldn't have their logo anywhere but on a paper to scan in...guess what???
This marvelous, wonderful, awesome lady has all the menus typed in. In what? in WORD!
AND she has the image in vector format on a CD, and .bmp - at least one of them in color.
AND the woman even knows how to use her e-mail, and attatch files to e-mails, and she knows how to zip files up and attatch them to e-mails and get them to me within an hour of our phone conversation!!!
Unless something unforseen crops up, this'll be as easy as butter slidin off of pancakes.
I am sooo pleased.
current mood: ecstatic
11:25 am - fall down go boom
saturday I visited a new store- steinmart.
and, they had a display with product on the floor - i don't know if it was some bright college kids (yea, yea, i know) idea of a nifty display to small product on the floor near the walkway right near the jewelry case, or if someone knocked it off, if I hadn't seen it i wouldn't've slipped on it...but I slipped and fell and caught myself with my hand/arm - left of course (am a lefty)
so i stuck it out, but went to the er because people at work were bugging me about it...and of course it isn't broken, just has a 'contusion' in the words of the (bitchy, non informative) PA who handled me. Got a sling and a prescription for pain pills...by some wonderful chance, they happen to be the NSAID's I used to take for the CFIDS, so I KNOW they'll work and they won't make me bonkers.
But, i'm not typeing much.
either I do it one handed (odd ly frustratingly hard since i type so fast with two, i now have to look)(actually, one fingered) or i get so frusterated i crane my arm (which is supposed to be resting) around so my elbow is at ear level and type like the hunchback of notre dame.
what fun.
current mood: bitchy
Have a marvy food delivery service here that just started, and as soon as I found out about them, I told my salesman ' you need to sell them a website!'
Well, he did, and as our FT designer is overloaded, i took that account for her.
Called the client today, terrified that I'd have to type in all the menus by hand and that they wouldn't have their logo anywhere but on a paper to scan in...guess what???
This marvelous, wonderful, awesome lady has all the menus typed in. In what? in WORD!
AND she has the image in vector format on a CD, and .bmp - at least one of them in color.
AND the woman even knows how to use her e-mail, and attatch files to e-mails, and she knows how to zip files up and attatch them to e-mails and get them to me within an hour of our phone conversation!!!
Unless something unforseen crops up, this'll be as easy as butter slidin off of pancakes.
I am sooo pleased.
current mood: ecstatic
11:25 am - fall down go boom
saturday I visited a new store- steinmart.
and, they had a display with product on the floor - i don't know if it was some bright college kids (yea, yea, i know) idea of a nifty display to small product on the floor near the walkway right near the jewelry case, or if someone knocked it off, if I hadn't seen it i wouldn't've slipped on it...but I slipped and fell and caught myself with my hand/arm - left of course (am a lefty)
so i stuck it out, but went to the er because people at work were bugging me about it...and of course it isn't broken, just has a 'contusion' in the words of the (bitchy, non informative) PA who handled me. Got a sling and a prescription for pain pills...by some wonderful chance, they happen to be the NSAID's I used to take for the CFIDS, so I KNOW they'll work and they won't make me bonkers.
But, i'm not typeing much.
either I do it one handed (odd ly frustratingly hard since i type so fast with two, i now have to look)(actually, one fingered) or i get so frusterated i crane my arm (which is supposed to be resting) around so my elbow is at ear level and type like the hunchback of notre dame.
what fun.
current mood: bitchy
Friday, February 09, 2001
livejournal recovered 5
2:18 pm - Thank you for lunch
had a great lunch, got to talk and talk and talk to mom. It's great to have someone you can gives a five minuite compressed threehundredmilesanhour rant of what all has been frustrating the heck out of you lately, and then just be able to laugh and talk. 'cuz they know it's just that - just ranting, just getting it out of your system so that you can get back to work.
And use that energy to make everybody's dreams come true - or at least kick ass on your latest project.
current mood: energetic
current music: French Air Band - Sexy Boy
12:09 pm - Mommy's taking me to lunch
Which should be great, maybe I can unload on her, if she doesn't do it to me :)
That's the problem with having your mom so close to you, but not getting to see her too often...we spent our lives (my life, at least) talking to one another, and so when we don't see each other there's alot to talk about. Becasue we can tell each other almost anything. And I often have alot to tell (not that you'd notice).
But, it should be yummy. What to eat, what to eat...I am constantly mourning the lack of any sort of a decent sushi place around here, but oh well...maybe something healthy? do they sell that sort of stuff? I'm so tired of greasy mexican and other fat laden things...had a glass of OJ at the meeting this morning and it was SOO welcome (drank a jar of apple juice the other night, friends said ooh, you're craving, you're craving! gee, thanks. Perhaps my body is just demanding something healthy for once).
current mood: jubilant
current music: Incubus - 09 - Clean
12:04 pm - my brother isn't comming over Protected
He decided he'd rather spend time with his friends, which is fine. One of his friends got picked up with some extracurricular pariphinalia on him (and who knows what else), so i'm sure they'll have some of the stressed worried teenage drama stuff about him. Personally, part of me is (a bitch) hoping they'll send him to JV so he won't be able to influence my brother any more. That's probably terribly overprotective of me, I was involved in the culture at one point, though I never did the things he has. And I know he'd never pull a Traffic on us. But, what can I say, he's one of my closest friends, and I hate that he's involved with such unproductive stuff. That, and he's been running late getting to school so much that he's like (hopefully, unless he's got them two) one or two absenses away from having his course dropped. Which means I don't think he'd graduate on time. Which is so crazy...sometimes I just want to shake him, sometimes I wish he was living with me - not that I can take care of him any more than my mom and dad, but...sigh.
What FUN.
oh well, considering what a good night I had the other night...that, and I need to remember that so much of this isn't my responsibility, and I have enough on my plate.
Too many people I care about too much, though...probably overcompensating for my flighty nature, as well...oh well.
current mood: worried
11:54 am - This is a very Monday Friday!!
Things are so crazy here at work. Of course, this is what i'm supposed to be able to handle, but I just feel broadsided by so many things. Was in the meeting this morning, gave my presentation, and I think it went well..but am dealing with so many different levels of comprehension, some people haven't even ever been online, others want to make this a paperless process...ack.
And there are a million other things too...but probably most of it me just being bitch because I'm frustrated, and focusing on what other people are doing /or not doing/ instead of remembering that I shouldn't compare, should't bitch if it's not my responsibility to monitor them, and it only introduces negative into my life.
I have enough other stuff to do, thanks to the meeting, anyways. Which is not a bad thing. At least I know it'll be done right, n'est pas...?
current mood: stressed
current music: Poe - Wild
had a great lunch, got to talk and talk and talk to mom. It's great to have someone you can gives a five minuite compressed threehundredmilesanhour rant of what all has been frustrating the heck out of you lately, and then just be able to laugh and talk. 'cuz they know it's just that - just ranting, just getting it out of your system so that you can get back to work.
And use that energy to make everybody's dreams come true - or at least kick ass on your latest project.
current mood: energetic
current music: French Air Band - Sexy Boy
12:09 pm - Mommy's taking me to lunch
Which should be great, maybe I can unload on her, if she doesn't do it to me :)
That's the problem with having your mom so close to you, but not getting to see her too often...we spent our lives (my life, at least) talking to one another, and so when we don't see each other there's alot to talk about. Becasue we can tell each other almost anything. And I often have alot to tell (not that you'd notice).
But, it should be yummy. What to eat, what to eat...I am constantly mourning the lack of any sort of a decent sushi place around here, but oh well...maybe something healthy? do they sell that sort of stuff? I'm so tired of greasy mexican and other fat laden things...had a glass of OJ at the meeting this morning and it was SOO welcome (drank a jar of apple juice the other night, friends said ooh, you're craving, you're craving! gee, thanks. Perhaps my body is just demanding something healthy for once).
current mood: jubilant
current music: Incubus - 09 - Clean
12:04 pm - my brother isn't comming over Protected
He decided he'd rather spend time with his friends, which is fine. One of his friends got picked up with some extracurricular pariphinalia on him (and who knows what else), so i'm sure they'll have some of the stressed worried teenage drama stuff about him. Personally, part of me is (a bitch) hoping they'll send him to JV so he won't be able to influence my brother any more. That's probably terribly overprotective of me, I was involved in the culture at one point, though I never did the things he has. And I know he'd never pull a Traffic on us. But, what can I say, he's one of my closest friends, and I hate that he's involved with such unproductive stuff. That, and he's been running late getting to school so much that he's like (hopefully, unless he's got them two) one or two absenses away from having his course dropped. Which means I don't think he'd graduate on time. Which is so crazy...sometimes I just want to shake him, sometimes I wish he was living with me - not that I can take care of him any more than my mom and dad, but...sigh.
What FUN.
oh well, considering what a good night I had the other night...that, and I need to remember that so much of this isn't my responsibility, and I have enough on my plate.
Too many people I care about too much, though...probably overcompensating for my flighty nature, as well...oh well.
current mood: worried
11:54 am - This is a very Monday Friday!!
Things are so crazy here at work. Of course, this is what i'm supposed to be able to handle, but I just feel broadsided by so many things. Was in the meeting this morning, gave my presentation, and I think it went well..but am dealing with so many different levels of comprehension, some people haven't even ever been online, others want to make this a paperless process...ack.
And there are a million other things too...but probably most of it me just being bitch because I'm frustrated, and focusing on what other people are doing /or not doing/ instead of remembering that I shouldn't compare, should't bitch if it's not my responsibility to monitor them, and it only introduces negative into my life.
I have enough other stuff to do, thanks to the meeting, anyways. Which is not a bad thing. At least I know it'll be done right, n'est pas...?
current mood: stressed
current music: Poe - Wild
Thursday, February 08, 2001
livejournal recovered 4
8:47 pm - Solitude...
I love the time and in between/the calm inside me/in the space where I can breathe...
I believe/this is heaven to no one else but me/and I'll defend it as long as I can be/left here to linger in silence/if I choose to/would you try to understand...
current music: Elsewhere - Sarah McLachlan
8:43 pm - On the triangle of writing..pt 1
To me, there is a triangle of writing. When you're writing, you are somewhere inside this triangle, some sort of combination of the three points.
The first point is yourself - this is writing done primarily for your own benefit. Not that others can't take anything from it, or that the writing style is horid, but it isn't for them or for the writing style - it's for you.
The second point is others - this is writing done for others, either to touch them, to make them laugh, to make them think, to do something for them.
The third point is the writing style - this is about perfecting the craft of writing. Here, the goal is improvment in the style, not personal understanding or helping others.
All three are important, at different stages in writing, and you can't be a real artist of a writer without some combination of knowlege and experience in all three points. Otherwise, you aren't writing, you're just joting down words.
8:37 pm - On self-conciousness...
this thing is just far too tempting for the looking at belly button thing.
and then I think, in the middle of a post - oh, gee, people are going to be reading this. Well, or else they get a clue early on and learn to skip over me.
But I write selfishly here, to put my feelings into words so that they're de-emotionalised, and so I have some way to grasp them.
but it still seems funny.
I supposed I could turn everything private, but that would kinda ...je ne sais pas. I want to just be able to write.
Perhaps because I think that that adage about people who think everyone else is thinking about them are self-centered and self-important and missing the point.
and, if's boring, or utterly self-involved, people can skip it.
And, too, this isn't exactly meant as a community exercise. I do alot of those already. I need something to record me being me interacting with me.
So part of me is anxious looking at the little comment things, and part of me is almost relieved when there aren't any.
I debated telling people that I know that I'm on here, but so much of what you do with someone else is masked, even me, i'm honestly myself when I"m with others - but I do things to be nice, and kind; don't talk about my religious views because of all the kneejerk reactions, don't talk about my sexual orientation because people don't like that sort of thing, or their understanding of it is different than mine.
je ne sais pas. And I don't think everything I say is profound - it's just there are some things I need to allow myself to be able to think, especially if i'm going to get down into what I really want.
So, if you are reading this, forgive me if I sound overly self-involved, or vain. I'm not writing this for you, i'm writing it for me.
8:28 pm - On the subject of titles...
Sometimes I think a new one should be made up for what I do.
Online content editor is a bit of a misnomer, I don't actually edit the content - at least not anymore. I edit headlines occasionally, because the people in the newsroom screw up and forget ooh, I need to put a headline on this thing so the slug shows up as the headline - and newspaper people can have a very odd sense of humor when it comes to slugs.
And I don't do alot of the things most webmasters do - though that's kinda a fuzzy title. I don't manage the servers, I don't program, at least not in the normal sense. Programming just doesn't stick - probably because I don't need it. I just need access to someone who knows WTF they're doing on the rare occasion when I need deep programing help. Hopefully i'm getting Dreamweaver Ultradev, it may help, dreamweaver was great for me with learning html. But i'm just afraid it'll be like trying to go fishing in the ocean for the next bit of what comes next.
I really am more of a JOAT - jack of all trades. Possibly because I don't get scared of tasks, I just try to figure out how in the world to get them done - and i'm pretty persistant trying to figure something out if I have some reasonable chance of understanding it. And there are some things I can do very well, at least above what's needed here - graphics, html, the template coding, figuring out what's needed for a workflow to work. And i'm willing to work.
...............
The reason for all this thought was probably because I was sitting instructing some people in the commercial side of the business when my old boss saw me - and while she normally has a dirty look on her face, it made me wonder what she was thinking - she and my current boss don't get along, and she's the one who hired me as the online content editor, and I don't seem to be doing much of that, because the system we have now is automated and it requires her people to take about five seconds on the story so that it goes straight to the website. And their track record isn't perfect, and i'm the one who gets to play IA and check up on them, and so she's made a nasty comment before about why do we have an online content editor in the first place.
I know I shouldn't focus on what she thinks of me - but there is the fact that a) she was a good boss, hitlerlike but a good boss, though I think she overdid somethings, b) she still scares the stuffing out of me, has dragon eyes, and c) at the moment I think that she's like that mom/parent voice - the one that pushes you to do better, and makes you humble at the same time.
.....................
The truth of the matter is - my role has just evolved, because I do get good at what I do. And that means I'm spread thin, because we aren't making enough money right now to hire anyone else, and even the new people we have hired don't know a tenth of what I do (bad thing - should always have an if I die scenario). That, and perhaps it goes back to what glitter said about competence.
See! it's all her fault! she made me think!!
phht!
current mood: mischievous
8:07 pm - Brother is comming to stay with us
Poor J, he's been up here waiting for my computer to finish exporting the PST - personal folders from outlook. He's tired, had a good/frustrating day, his partner was sick (the result of a four day fast and a pickle - odd child) and so he had to have me pick him up at lunch because we only have one working car. ;(
And so, we get a call from my mother on his cell phone (sounds like the parents on Charlie Brown) and she asks if my brother can come over to stay with us for the next few days.
My youngest brother is about to (hopefully) graduate high school, and is the one that I'm closest too. That sounds horid. I love both my brothers, and I enjoy my middle brother - just seems like he's been in a fog lately. He just got out of a nasty relationship.
But my youngest is cool, artistic/PSplayer/poet/anime watcher who looks like a cross between me and the lead singer of the doors. It's the hair.
What I'm wonding is, why is he comming over on thursday night? is tomorow a holiday I don't know about??
I hate holidays I don't know about.
not that I would get one anyways - early morning meeting presentation tomorow, and I had another "oh we need to get this contest up and get the graphics and form on the web and to the other media outlets by - oh, tomorow" thing thrown on me today at 4:30. lovely. but fun, I know I can do it. That's what a JOAT is for, non?
This job is like a war - long periods of WAITING with short active must get this done yesterday periods. But at least I'm not bored ;)
8:00 pm - Thoughts on the purpose of marriage. pt 1
The purpose of marriage - to learn to love God, and to learn how he loves us.
Not to be happy. Though that is normally the natural state which follows from doing what you are meant to do, but it's a side effect.
It's to be faced with another imperfect being, and love them in spite/because of that imperfection, to hold to them like gravity. And to watch them love you, inspite of how very very human you are.
To learn to open yourself up to them, and to care for them, and to feel guilty when you know your selfishness causes them hurt, even if you are still selfish.
To where your love is gravity between you, that being apart is not a possible part of reality any more.
This is what I commited myself too, one hundred percent, though because I am who I am I always am able to take care of myself - that's another misnomer.
Marriage isn't about being taken care of, or taking care of someone else. Not in the fullest sense. Not in the sense where one is taking care of the other, and it doesn't go both ways. each gives. each has too, othewise the one taking care of the other will become drained.
Of course you give each other support - that's part of what it's about, you and the other against the world, so to speak...the one person the other can rely on even if they're mad at them, the one who will be constant thru their whole life. Someone who, if you have a good family, will be worthy of becomming a part of that, and will be able to become a part of that, even if they question where you came from at times.
Someone who will question you, and push you to grow, and expect you to be better, even if that gets so tiring sometimes. Someone who will hold your hand when you get scared, someone you can yell at without them giving up on you, someone who loves you.
je ne sais pas. just thoughts.
current mood: thoughtful
7:48 pm - Quotes 2 - CS Lewis
2. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enimies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the suprime terror: the thing we most need and the things we most want to hide from. He is our only possibl ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion.
- Mere Christianity, bk 1, ch 5
.......................................
Interesting thought. I like Lewis, not neccesarily because I always agree with him, but because he makes me think. He doesn't play nice, he tries to get to the heart of the matter, that which is parablised in Narnia. I like it also because he is a good foil for Thea, she comes to the table with a slightly different slant.
........................................
3. We want, in fact, no so much as a Father in Heaven as a grandfathe rin heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young peole enjoying themselves' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'...
It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemplatible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemmed us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable complement of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.
--The Problem of Pain, ch 3
7:39 pm - office is a pain, pain, pain...
well, really outlook. Although office is acting funky as well. Glitter says I should update to Win 2k, so I asked my boss about it today, but ..nothing definate.
Outlook has been freezing everything all day. I decided to open it and see if it would just finish doing whatever it was doing, and finally after a few minuites it unfroze and I was able to go in. Am exporting my personal mail right now. Which is taking forever, I have way toooo many messages on this thing that go back far too long.
Windows has been acting like s*** today too. Giving me illegal errors out the wazoo...at first I thought it was the virus from snow white, but I dl Norton, did the liveupdate - and 'your computer is squeaky clean!'. Even though it found two happy99's using it's online virus checker...grumble.
And just last night I was thinking about how much I liked this computer, even with it's quirks. It must have heard me, and decided to get PMS. Little bugger.
current mood: grumpy
11:59 am - Moving at the speed of...slugs. Protected
Ok, this is a bitch thing.
Why is it, if the computer silicon valley thing is supposed to be so hyper lightyears ahead, is it that it takes forever for our vendor to get something done? I feel like i'm playing grapevine here, and that I'm lucky to actually get something back that resembles what i'm supposed to have recieved.
This company has a great product - but sucky sucky support. and I don't even think they still have the original programers. it's like they bought this nifty machiene but aren't sure what it does what it does. My first traning session (which I was supposed to have before launch) was held a year after I had been working with the product, and was the trainers first session. Add that to the fact that the two people that worked there that I DID like are not there. My account rep who would work her ass off to make sure things got done had her baby, and I learned yesterday that our launch manager had moved on to bigger and better things - probably because he was compatent.
So, last week I had a support call. We host our clients websites on them, but we also have a directory listing, and clients can just have ads in that. If they have a website, they have an ad and a website. The status reports only tell you if they have an ad. We just changed cobrands, and have about 5X clients (about half expired) still listed on the old cobrand, with about X listed on the one we've had for over a year, with some overlap. Me, I'm trying to figure out how many websites we have on their servers. So that's what the call to suport was about - can you tell me how many websites we have on your servers under each cobrand. He said he'd get back to me the next day.
Well, did he? no. this was last wedensday, and my inhouse contact with them (kinda a funnel thing, if we want to talk to the vendor we go thru him - though we're breaking out of that hopefully, that much hand holding is counterproductive..but will get to that in a sec) told me he called support yesterday and they said that we could do it two ways - either download the reports and compare the exp dates, or send a custom report and pay for it.
Excuse me? First off, the reports don't tell you which ones have websites, just the ones who have ads (some of them have websites). Second off, am I just absolutely out of my head to think that I should be able to figure out which clients have websites?
The problem is tangled by a couple of other things:
First off - we just changed website builders. The ones we did have were basically a team we hired (husband and wife) to do the websites that did crappy work, worked out of their home, and went off on jaunts to new mexico to get their kids back from stealing exes on a regular basis. It's when they stopped returning phone calls for a week at a time and started lying to us about things that we finally decided to stop being a nice guy. So, we hired a new web designer, and we don't have the old designers records of which clients they completed, or a copy of the websites. Which might not be such a bad thing, if it weren't for the second wrinkle.
Second - this stupid vendor has a fucked up way of managing their websites. Do you just ftp to the main directory, find your clients, and upload the file you changed? No. Each and every single time you have to upload a flat file (no directory structure, everything crammed in there together) to an ftp site, which is then processed and sent to their other server, and you have to go into the directory and assign that folder to the website. Each and every single time you have to upload the whole site, and if you don't have the whole site, you either figure out a way to download it from their current site or your SOL. and there is no cleaning up old stuff.
I'm soooo Sooo wishing we had our own servers here.
Add that to the fact that I had a very very simple request about Icon replacement that I sent to our inhouse person yesterday because we have a meeting tomorow morning that I'd like to be able to present something about it at, and I found out they hadn't even opened their mail from me in the past two days. Which, as he pointed out, does mean that he won't just overlook it, but !!!!!!! it's a simple icon replacement, I just need to find out the estimate and send them the damn graphic so we can start using it. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, and he is good. the problem is a) he came from the editorial side (prejudiced of me, isn't it? but it seems to have something to do with a certain mindset) and b) this is the biggest problem - he's amazlingly overworked. totally overloaded. like needs two assistants and maybe they could take care of everything. But it's like what glitter said - competence seems to lead to it's own demise...
Did you ever play that game when you were a kid where you tied everybody up with one rope, and then tried to get somewhere, and everyone was going in other directions?
I think that was excellent training for real life.
oh well...hope springs eternal.
current mood: annoyed
9:37 am - ugh...good morning.
i hate mornings where you wake up early, then it's too early to get up so you go back to sleep and wake up late enough you don't have time for anything but the bare essentials before getting on the road. Especially when you also wake up with that mini body doesn't want to get up headache, that kinda lingers...yech.
Coffee is sounding like an awesome invention right about now.
I love the time and in between/the calm inside me/in the space where I can breathe...
I believe/this is heaven to no one else but me/and I'll defend it as long as I can be/left here to linger in silence/if I choose to/would you try to understand...
current music: Elsewhere - Sarah McLachlan
8:43 pm - On the triangle of writing..pt 1
To me, there is a triangle of writing. When you're writing, you are somewhere inside this triangle, some sort of combination of the three points.
The first point is yourself - this is writing done primarily for your own benefit. Not that others can't take anything from it, or that the writing style is horid, but it isn't for them or for the writing style - it's for you.
The second point is others - this is writing done for others, either to touch them, to make them laugh, to make them think, to do something for them.
The third point is the writing style - this is about perfecting the craft of writing. Here, the goal is improvment in the style, not personal understanding or helping others.
All three are important, at different stages in writing, and you can't be a real artist of a writer without some combination of knowlege and experience in all three points. Otherwise, you aren't writing, you're just joting down words.
8:37 pm - On self-conciousness...
this thing is just far too tempting for the looking at belly button thing.
and then I think, in the middle of a post - oh, gee, people are going to be reading this. Well, or else they get a clue early on and learn to skip over me.
But I write selfishly here, to put my feelings into words so that they're de-emotionalised, and so I have some way to grasp them.
but it still seems funny.
I supposed I could turn everything private, but that would kinda ...je ne sais pas. I want to just be able to write.
Perhaps because I think that that adage about people who think everyone else is thinking about them are self-centered and self-important and missing the point.
and, if's boring, or utterly self-involved, people can skip it.
And, too, this isn't exactly meant as a community exercise. I do alot of those already. I need something to record me being me interacting with me.
So part of me is anxious looking at the little comment things, and part of me is almost relieved when there aren't any.
I debated telling people that I know that I'm on here, but so much of what you do with someone else is masked, even me, i'm honestly myself when I"m with others - but I do things to be nice, and kind; don't talk about my religious views because of all the kneejerk reactions, don't talk about my sexual orientation because people don't like that sort of thing, or their understanding of it is different than mine.
je ne sais pas. And I don't think everything I say is profound - it's just there are some things I need to allow myself to be able to think, especially if i'm going to get down into what I really want.
So, if you are reading this, forgive me if I sound overly self-involved, or vain. I'm not writing this for you, i'm writing it for me.
8:28 pm - On the subject of titles...
Sometimes I think a new one should be made up for what I do.
Online content editor is a bit of a misnomer, I don't actually edit the content - at least not anymore. I edit headlines occasionally, because the people in the newsroom screw up and forget ooh, I need to put a headline on this thing so the slug shows up as the headline - and newspaper people can have a very odd sense of humor when it comes to slugs.
And I don't do alot of the things most webmasters do - though that's kinda a fuzzy title. I don't manage the servers, I don't program, at least not in the normal sense. Programming just doesn't stick - probably because I don't need it. I just need access to someone who knows WTF they're doing on the rare occasion when I need deep programing help. Hopefully i'm getting Dreamweaver Ultradev, it may help, dreamweaver was great for me with learning html. But i'm just afraid it'll be like trying to go fishing in the ocean for the next bit of what comes next.
I really am more of a JOAT - jack of all trades. Possibly because I don't get scared of tasks, I just try to figure out how in the world to get them done - and i'm pretty persistant trying to figure something out if I have some reasonable chance of understanding it. And there are some things I can do very well, at least above what's needed here - graphics, html, the template coding, figuring out what's needed for a workflow to work. And i'm willing to work.
...............
The reason for all this thought was probably because I was sitting instructing some people in the commercial side of the business when my old boss saw me - and while she normally has a dirty look on her face, it made me wonder what she was thinking - she and my current boss don't get along, and she's the one who hired me as the online content editor, and I don't seem to be doing much of that, because the system we have now is automated and it requires her people to take about five seconds on the story so that it goes straight to the website. And their track record isn't perfect, and i'm the one who gets to play IA and check up on them, and so she's made a nasty comment before about why do we have an online content editor in the first place.
I know I shouldn't focus on what she thinks of me - but there is the fact that a) she was a good boss, hitlerlike but a good boss, though I think she overdid somethings, b) she still scares the stuffing out of me, has dragon eyes, and c) at the moment I think that she's like that mom/parent voice - the one that pushes you to do better, and makes you humble at the same time.
.....................
The truth of the matter is - my role has just evolved, because I do get good at what I do. And that means I'm spread thin, because we aren't making enough money right now to hire anyone else, and even the new people we have hired don't know a tenth of what I do (bad thing - should always have an if I die scenario). That, and perhaps it goes back to what glitter said about competence.
See! it's all her fault! she made me think!!
phht!
current mood: mischievous
8:07 pm - Brother is comming to stay with us
Poor J, he's been up here waiting for my computer to finish exporting the PST - personal folders from outlook. He's tired, had a good/frustrating day, his partner was sick (the result of a four day fast and a pickle - odd child) and so he had to have me pick him up at lunch because we only have one working car. ;(
And so, we get a call from my mother on his cell phone (sounds like the parents on Charlie Brown) and she asks if my brother can come over to stay with us for the next few days.
My youngest brother is about to (hopefully) graduate high school, and is the one that I'm closest too. That sounds horid. I love both my brothers, and I enjoy my middle brother - just seems like he's been in a fog lately. He just got out of a nasty relationship.
But my youngest is cool, artistic/PSplayer/poet/anime watcher who looks like a cross between me and the lead singer of the doors. It's the hair.
What I'm wonding is, why is he comming over on thursday night? is tomorow a holiday I don't know about??
I hate holidays I don't know about.
not that I would get one anyways - early morning meeting presentation tomorow, and I had another "oh we need to get this contest up and get the graphics and form on the web and to the other media outlets by - oh, tomorow" thing thrown on me today at 4:30. lovely. but fun, I know I can do it. That's what a JOAT is for, non?
This job is like a war - long periods of WAITING with short active must get this done yesterday periods. But at least I'm not bored ;)
8:00 pm - Thoughts on the purpose of marriage. pt 1
The purpose of marriage - to learn to love God, and to learn how he loves us.
Not to be happy. Though that is normally the natural state which follows from doing what you are meant to do, but it's a side effect.
It's to be faced with another imperfect being, and love them in spite/because of that imperfection, to hold to them like gravity. And to watch them love you, inspite of how very very human you are.
To learn to open yourself up to them, and to care for them, and to feel guilty when you know your selfishness causes them hurt, even if you are still selfish.
To where your love is gravity between you, that being apart is not a possible part of reality any more.
This is what I commited myself too, one hundred percent, though because I am who I am I always am able to take care of myself - that's another misnomer.
Marriage isn't about being taken care of, or taking care of someone else. Not in the fullest sense. Not in the sense where one is taking care of the other, and it doesn't go both ways. each gives. each has too, othewise the one taking care of the other will become drained.
Of course you give each other support - that's part of what it's about, you and the other against the world, so to speak...the one person the other can rely on even if they're mad at them, the one who will be constant thru their whole life. Someone who, if you have a good family, will be worthy of becomming a part of that, and will be able to become a part of that, even if they question where you came from at times.
Someone who will question you, and push you to grow, and expect you to be better, even if that gets so tiring sometimes. Someone who will hold your hand when you get scared, someone you can yell at without them giving up on you, someone who loves you.
je ne sais pas. just thoughts.
current mood: thoughtful
7:48 pm - Quotes 2 - CS Lewis
2. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enimies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the suprime terror: the thing we most need and the things we most want to hide from. He is our only possibl ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion.
- Mere Christianity, bk 1, ch 5
.......................................
Interesting thought. I like Lewis, not neccesarily because I always agree with him, but because he makes me think. He doesn't play nice, he tries to get to the heart of the matter, that which is parablised in Narnia. I like it also because he is a good foil for Thea, she comes to the table with a slightly different slant.
........................................
3. We want, in fact, no so much as a Father in Heaven as a grandfathe rin heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young peole enjoying themselves' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'...
It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemplatible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemmed us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable complement of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.
--The Problem of Pain, ch 3
7:39 pm - office is a pain, pain, pain...
well, really outlook. Although office is acting funky as well. Glitter says I should update to Win 2k, so I asked my boss about it today, but ..nothing definate.
Outlook has been freezing everything all day. I decided to open it and see if it would just finish doing whatever it was doing, and finally after a few minuites it unfroze and I was able to go in. Am exporting my personal mail right now. Which is taking forever, I have way toooo many messages on this thing that go back far too long.
Windows has been acting like s*** today too. Giving me illegal errors out the wazoo...at first I thought it was the virus from snow white, but I dl Norton, did the liveupdate - and 'your computer is squeaky clean!'. Even though it found two happy99's using it's online virus checker...grumble.
And just last night I was thinking about how much I liked this computer, even with it's quirks. It must have heard me, and decided to get PMS. Little bugger.
current mood: grumpy
11:59 am - Moving at the speed of...slugs. Protected
Ok, this is a bitch thing.
Why is it, if the computer silicon valley thing is supposed to be so hyper lightyears ahead, is it that it takes forever for our vendor to get something done? I feel like i'm playing grapevine here, and that I'm lucky to actually get something back that resembles what i'm supposed to have recieved.
This company has a great product - but sucky sucky support. and I don't even think they still have the original programers. it's like they bought this nifty machiene but aren't sure what it does what it does. My first traning session (which I was supposed to have before launch) was held a year after I had been working with the product, and was the trainers first session. Add that to the fact that the two people that worked there that I DID like are not there. My account rep who would work her ass off to make sure things got done had her baby, and I learned yesterday that our launch manager had moved on to bigger and better things - probably because he was compatent.
So, last week I had a support call. We host our clients websites on them, but we also have a directory listing, and clients can just have ads in that. If they have a website, they have an ad and a website. The status reports only tell you if they have an ad. We just changed cobrands, and have about 5X clients (about half expired) still listed on the old cobrand, with about X listed on the one we've had for over a year, with some overlap. Me, I'm trying to figure out how many websites we have on their servers. So that's what the call to suport was about - can you tell me how many websites we have on your servers under each cobrand. He said he'd get back to me the next day.
Well, did he? no. this was last wedensday, and my inhouse contact with them (kinda a funnel thing, if we want to talk to the vendor we go thru him - though we're breaking out of that hopefully, that much hand holding is counterproductive..but will get to that in a sec) told me he called support yesterday and they said that we could do it two ways - either download the reports and compare the exp dates, or send a custom report and pay for it.
Excuse me? First off, the reports don't tell you which ones have websites, just the ones who have ads (some of them have websites). Second off, am I just absolutely out of my head to think that I should be able to figure out which clients have websites?
The problem is tangled by a couple of other things:
First off - we just changed website builders. The ones we did have were basically a team we hired (husband and wife) to do the websites that did crappy work, worked out of their home, and went off on jaunts to new mexico to get their kids back from stealing exes on a regular basis. It's when they stopped returning phone calls for a week at a time and started lying to us about things that we finally decided to stop being a nice guy. So, we hired a new web designer, and we don't have the old designers records of which clients they completed, or a copy of the websites. Which might not be such a bad thing, if it weren't for the second wrinkle.
Second - this stupid vendor has a fucked up way of managing their websites. Do you just ftp to the main directory, find your clients, and upload the file you changed? No. Each and every single time you have to upload a flat file (no directory structure, everything crammed in there together) to an ftp site, which is then processed and sent to their other server, and you have to go into the directory and assign that folder to the website. Each and every single time you have to upload the whole site, and if you don't have the whole site, you either figure out a way to download it from their current site or your SOL. and there is no cleaning up old stuff.
I'm soooo Sooo wishing we had our own servers here.
Add that to the fact that I had a very very simple request about Icon replacement that I sent to our inhouse person yesterday because we have a meeting tomorow morning that I'd like to be able to present something about it at, and I found out they hadn't even opened their mail from me in the past two days. Which, as he pointed out, does mean that he won't just overlook it, but !!!!!!! it's a simple icon replacement, I just need to find out the estimate and send them the damn graphic so we can start using it. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, and he is good. the problem is a) he came from the editorial side (prejudiced of me, isn't it? but it seems to have something to do with a certain mindset) and b) this is the biggest problem - he's amazlingly overworked. totally overloaded. like needs two assistants and maybe they could take care of everything. But it's like what glitter said - competence seems to lead to it's own demise...
Did you ever play that game when you were a kid where you tied everybody up with one rope, and then tried to get somewhere, and everyone was going in other directions?
I think that was excellent training for real life.
oh well...hope springs eternal.
current mood: annoyed
9:37 am - ugh...good morning.
i hate mornings where you wake up early, then it's too early to get up so you go back to sleep and wake up late enough you don't have time for anything but the bare essentials before getting on the road. Especially when you also wake up with that mini body doesn't want to get up headache, that kinda lingers...yech.
Coffee is sounding like an awesome invention right about now.
Wednesday, February 07, 2001
livejournal recovered 3
5:03 pm - Plumber/Water Woes fixed
I've had a leaky faucet for a while now. Asked my landlady about it on January 3rd, reminded her last time we paid her, and finally the plumbers stopped by today!
The problem was an old hot water knob - with the type where the plastic thing grabs the turning thing that turns the water on - well, the plastic had broken. And so, I got it replaced - actually, I got all three knobs replaced, yippee! Now I can take a real bath without having to find a screwdriver. And I can take a shower without having to go user the mini-one upstairs - always a plus!
5:01 pm - Good meeting!
There are some days that are just great. When you feel your effrot is appreciated, and people are glad for what you've done. You don't get that just working with machienes.
I did some training today, in how to do some image things in photoshop and how to do some html things and how to use the website. The two people involved were kinda intimidating because they do print things, and use these programs for print all the time (although we just upgraded a couple of versions)...and I know as well as anyone that being asked to do more work don't exactly make people happy, and that's what they were being asked to do. Maybe not more work, but a different type. But I was very happy with how the meeting went. Felt like we discussed the workflow issues to everyone's satisfaction, got them comfortable with some aspects and eager to learn more about HTML, which is the oddest strangest part of what they're going to have to do.
And the smile and the thanks I got (and the assurance that my number would be memorised for questions) felt very real.
I love my job every day, but it's not everyday I deal with people on that level, and can feel that appreciation.
current mood: happy
9:59 am - Good Morning
Ok, so I took an ept test last night, and am negative. Not pregnant.
This is a good thing, because I'd like to have more time with J (husband) before we have kids. That, and I'm the one with the steady financial thing, he's doing the strike-out-on your own and hopefully get rich or at least established type of thing...so me being indisposed, so to speak, would have been difficult.
This is a disapointing thing, too. I've waited for this all my life...and I know it's just more waiting, but it's still a bit sad. And it's almost like falling in love, you feel it, but is it real? is it true? and when you find out it's not, you start to doubt if you'd know it if it was. Thankfully, they have tests for this sort of thing. Too bad they haven't developed one for the other - oh wait, that's parents... j/k.
current mood: relieved
I've had a leaky faucet for a while now. Asked my landlady about it on January 3rd, reminded her last time we paid her, and finally the plumbers stopped by today!
The problem was an old hot water knob - with the type where the plastic thing grabs the turning thing that turns the water on - well, the plastic had broken. And so, I got it replaced - actually, I got all three knobs replaced, yippee! Now I can take a real bath without having to find a screwdriver. And I can take a shower without having to go user the mini-one upstairs - always a plus!
5:01 pm - Good meeting!
There are some days that are just great. When you feel your effrot is appreciated, and people are glad for what you've done. You don't get that just working with machienes.
I did some training today, in how to do some image things in photoshop and how to do some html things and how to use the website. The two people involved were kinda intimidating because they do print things, and use these programs for print all the time (although we just upgraded a couple of versions)...and I know as well as anyone that being asked to do more work don't exactly make people happy, and that's what they were being asked to do. Maybe not more work, but a different type. But I was very happy with how the meeting went. Felt like we discussed the workflow issues to everyone's satisfaction, got them comfortable with some aspects and eager to learn more about HTML, which is the oddest strangest part of what they're going to have to do.
And the smile and the thanks I got (and the assurance that my number would be memorised for questions) felt very real.
I love my job every day, but it's not everyday I deal with people on that level, and can feel that appreciation.
current mood: happy
9:59 am - Good Morning
Ok, so I took an ept test last night, and am negative. Not pregnant.
This is a good thing, because I'd like to have more time with J (husband) before we have kids. That, and I'm the one with the steady financial thing, he's doing the strike-out-on your own and hopefully get rich or at least established type of thing...so me being indisposed, so to speak, would have been difficult.
This is a disapointing thing, too. I've waited for this all my life...and I know it's just more waiting, but it's still a bit sad. And it's almost like falling in love, you feel it, but is it real? is it true? and when you find out it's not, you start to doubt if you'd know it if it was. Thankfully, they have tests for this sort of thing. Too bad they haven't developed one for the other - oh wait, that's parents... j/k.
current mood: relieved
Tuesday, February 06, 2001
livejournal recovered 2
9:31 pm - NEC's suck
or at least this one has a bug, and it's either because I have low memory (what, me run my computer to hard with too many aps? never!) or because there is a bug. Basically, whenever I try to create a new folder - actually, make that RENAME a new folder - in anything else but basic explorer - including the Windows Explorer with the nav of the folders in the left side - it shuts the ap down.
Pain in the ass, especially when I've defined a site in dreamweaver and started on a homepage, and try to put an image on the page, having to move it into the root folder for reference, and try to make an images folder named images without thinking.
~grumble grumble grumble~
current mood: aggravated
9:20 pm - Daily Must-See Sites
Daily commics -
http://www.sluggy.com
- probably the best around, old archive, if you have nothing to do for a weekend or an hour or you've just been hired and no one has bought you software yet, it's a good place to go. And after that investment, it only takes a few minuites a day (more on mondays if you don't read it on the weekend. But i'm not a weekend web surfer if I can help it).
http://www.sinfest.net
- totally un-pc, but also absolutely hilarious. It start out kinda rough - I was offended the first time I went there - but the characters develop, and they're great short story lines, some worthy of being printed out and hung in your cube.
Astropic - http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
- For great pictures. I've used them as the basis for my art before, as well
Crossword - http://www2.uclick.com/client/any/cx/
I play this one beause I love the times union, it is what I think all newspaper sites should aspire to be like in many many areas.
this isn't exactly a daily must-see site, but more if you're bored and have nothing to do and want to expand your brain. Needless to say, I don't get to see it that often. Crosswords take about 15-20 mins to complete, for me, but I cheat.
or at least this one has a bug, and it's either because I have low memory (what, me run my computer to hard with too many aps? never!) or because there is a bug. Basically, whenever I try to create a new folder - actually, make that RENAME a new folder - in anything else but basic explorer - including the Windows Explorer with the nav of the folders in the left side - it shuts the ap down.
Pain in the ass, especially when I've defined a site in dreamweaver and started on a homepage, and try to put an image on the page, having to move it into the root folder for reference, and try to make an images folder named images without thinking.
~grumble grumble grumble~
current mood: aggravated
9:20 pm - Daily Must-See Sites
Daily commics -
http://www.sluggy.com
- probably the best around, old archive, if you have nothing to do for a weekend or an hour or you've just been hired and no one has bought you software yet, it's a good place to go. And after that investment, it only takes a few minuites a day (more on mondays if you don't read it on the weekend. But i'm not a weekend web surfer if I can help it).
http://www.sinfest.net
- totally un-pc, but also absolutely hilarious. It start out kinda rough - I was offended the first time I went there - but the characters develop, and they're great short story lines, some worthy of being printed out and hung in your cube.
Astropic - http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
- For great pictures. I've used them as the basis for my art before, as well
Crossword - http://www2.uclick.com/client/any/cx/
I play this one beause I love the times union, it is what I think all newspaper sites should aspire to be like in many many areas.
this isn't exactly a daily must-see site, but more if you're bored and have nothing to do and want to expand your brain. Needless to say, I don't get to see it that often. Crosswords take about 15-20 mins to complete, for me, but I cheat.
recovered live journal 1
9:07 pm - Snatch & Dreams
Just thought I'd mention - the snatch in my interests is the movie. A rockin good one too, never before has Brad Pitt entered my personal fantasies. Probably has to do with the fact that he plays a gypsy, but he seems to be stuck in my head.
Woke up this morning to him in my dreams...so I suppose woke up is a misword, but hey ok I woke up to be concious of the fact. The dream was odd...as normal, i mean, it's a dream what do you expect you should hear the one I had about being pulled behind a byplane for fun or having sex in a bathtub and not feeling it and being sprinkled with bisty blood-red rubies at the same time, but I digress.
So, the dream was about going into this house, and parts of it were gated off, like in titanic near the end. And so I and the BP character were going in to open the gates to the first level - ack, it was like there was one layer that was just gated off, and one layer had two entrances, one in a closet filled with junk and the other thru a funky portal. The main room had gates to the first level on the left and right..?
So, I opened a gate, and everyone rushed out past me, and I went around that level and made sure everyone was out. We got to the gate on the other side and made sure everyone was out, and discussed entereing the second layer with the people in the main room thru the gates. Remembered the entrance of the closet, but we're talking like a closet full of junk here, so they had to clean it out. So I, and the BP guy, go back to find the other entrance, which was in another room on that level.
And we're walking back, and he is behind me with his hand on my belly, which is so amazingly erotic. I wonder, is it only women who find belly's erotic? you certainly don't see to much, except belly buttons, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that I might possibly be pregnant, I don't know. But it's like a hand on your belly is almost a claiming, protective, very familiar gesture, and very subtle...not nearly as crass as grabbing the ass, and of course not anything like having other parts of your anatomy groped. But being behind a woman, with your hand on her belly, drawing you closer to her...acceptable, subtle, dancing.
And so we go into the other room, which has a wall full of pipes...and we get into a little more action, nuzzling neck, and all, and get to lying down, and he's feeling me..and I lookat him and he isn't looking at me. looking at something, and I'm puzzled.. but it's a quiet, pensive look... and he says he's Feeling me. And he looks at me, and enters..
my mind.
.......
odd bits of thought in the morning...such a quiet, subtle, one cool remove shade of blue.
8:26 pm - Novel - about - Scarlett Blade
The story is called Scarlett Blade. There's a sequel also, called The Diary of a Swan, and I'm thinking of heading them under "To Play a Dark Violin" but i'm not sure. The below contains some spoilers of the plot. Will post the anything else with spoiler warnings.
Basically, we have a main heroine, Thea (Amalthea), who is a writer. She deals mainly with theology from an anthropological standpoint, is how I'd describe it...her books have titles like "The gods' pygmalion" and "Echoes of God"...she also writes short stories that interweave older myths into newer settings. Some of her books are just for academia, but a couple have been written or a wider audience and she's drawn some fire from the RelRt for her 'feminist' portrayls and the fact that she makes people think. She's single, the studio appartment career woman type, and 27, adopted.
For her research, she has a dealer who is able to get her artifacts/texts for research purposes... mainly small things, sometimes on loan. This dealer is Tristan ...he only comes out at night, and is into mystic type things. They have a mild flirting relationship, but it's never gone beyond that.
Thea has a well developed social life, though she's kinda the introverted type. The hangout is a place called Monterelli's - a jazz/blues club that serves itallian. She's waitressed there before, and the owner's a good friend, has known her since she came into town Her best friend is Mirami, her mirror, extroverted, bubbling with life. Mirami is married to Justin. Justin's best friend from High School is Patrick, the RC character possibly. Patrick has just got into town.
Justin's brother is Duncan, the lead singer of a popular local band. He plays at Monterelli's on a regular basis. Mir tried to set Thea and Justin up at one point, but they're kinda like oil and water - he's younger than her, and still into the band party every night scene. Thea and Mir were pretty wild together in college, but both have settled down.
When we get into the story, Tristan has just given Thea a short sword, the Scarlett Blade of the title. Well, there was a trade involved, but not cash...
Mir is trying to set Patrick up with Thea. Though there is some resistance from Thea, Patrick is a great down to earth type of guy, and he starts to win her. She hasn't really dated in a while, out of choice, so things are interesting..especially when she finds out he's living behind his sister and her husband, and her first sight of the sister is in her kitchen, cooking barefoot and pregnant, with two kids running through the house. The sister, Sara, is cooking dinner, and barefoot because her feet are swollen, and is a
successful social worker. Then she meets Sara's husband, Harry , who is a preacher. But he likes her books.
That's just kind of the background.
The plot revolves around Thea discovering what she is, a string of murders with supernatural connections, and Thea and Patricks relationship.
Supernatural creatures involved - Nephilm, basically children of angels and women, and thus half conditioned/half unconditioned, because angels are unconditioned creatures. Makes them a bitch to kill. They feed off of emotions, either those given off by human regularly, or those they take from humans..and they encourage those emotions, like a anti-coagulant type of
thing. They don't neccesarily know what they are, though they will develop at some point, and the undeveloped tend to attract predators because of their ..richness, indestructability, and long life span. Because they are unconditioned, and the closeset we come to the unconditioned is in dreams (and trances, prayers, etc) they can come into dreams, and sometimes affect
the real world if they're powerful enough. Their wings come out as they self-realize, but their wings are always unconditioned, and rarely have any permanant physical manifestation.
Thea is a neph.
Then we have other beings, some of which we may not find out exactly what they are. I'm not sure what Tristan is, he's not a neph, but he's not human either - having figured out if he's vamp, deamon, or some variation therof. And in the second book you get into concept manifestations (well, they're actions are felt in the first, but you don't see them).
Scarlett Blade is part of a pair, with Ebony..there's another name for that too somewhere...it takes from it's owner, but also gives them a particular power. Ebony can do something nothing else can. We run into their maker in the second book.
This is a change for me, I normally write in a very logic based universe, this one has more supernatural elements and that's exactly what they are, not just what people percieve them to be.
8:13 pm - Poem 2 - Someday
Someday
Someday
I want to be famous
and successful/normal/happy
so
that
girls lying (crying) in their room
thinking of
razors to cut their wrists
to match their cut out hearts
with music turned up to loud
to mask the angry screams
can hold
to me
fiercely
and
know
I CAN.
7:48 pm - ok, about my day, normal diary stuff.
I had a good day. Ate chicken salad sandwich with cheetos and grapefruit juice - not totally exactly diet food, but it tastes good. busy at work, creating/editing graphics.
talked to my sister for the first time in the longest time. think about her often, but was kinda shoved into doing it because I needed her advice. Am worried I might be pregnant. Which is kinda scary, kinda oh, ok, kinda it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't going to be ok. Alot ok sis yes I will go get a couple of dipsticks to check it out, and will call you asap with the results.
This is a really weired 'oh shit' type thing going together with 'this is what i've always wanted' going together with '$$???' going together with wondering how much of my reaction is based on me, and how much of it is based on what my mother has said (she's the one who started me worrying : 'hi mom' - 'how are you today?' - 'feeling kinda hormonal' - 'you're not pregnant are you?' : gee, thanks for that idea. lovely.
I guess we'll find out.
7:39 pm - Oh by the way...
In case you were wondering, I'm Christian. Among other things, but that's pretty much at the root of who I am...more philosophically than culturally, at least considering some of the christian culture around here. I do love to listen to KLOVE, but to me so much of what society sees as christian aren't based on the faith, but based on how people express that..ack, that parts kinda to be expected, though it's kinda a pain when considering some of the examples of christianity, and what christian behavior is, and what christian values are...but more on that later.
7:30 pm - ack
note: this should teach me not to hit 'post' just because I'm learning to use the software and am trying to find out how this will appear. Of course, I did find out I can use italics without having to do all the break tags as well, but still....phht.
current mood: aggravated
7:27 pm - Quotes 1 - CS Lewis
1. Looking for God - or Heaven - by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in ever play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth. Nor is he diffused through the play like a gas.
If there was an idiot who thought plays existed on their own, without an auhor ... our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them...
To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. (Hang it all, we're in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.) But send a saint up in a spaceship and he'll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.
- From 'The Seeing Eye', Christian Reflections
7:23 pm - Poem - nameless so far
I have built myself a cage
not for me
but for my madness
so she does not dash us
against the rocks
Built with
waiting, duty, tradition
as the thick unfeelnig bars
that stand unheeding
as she screams
leaveing her no outlet
but the dream stigmata on her palms
......................
I hate not comming up with names for poems. The poem is done, I know that, but the name. I don't know, bars? cage? simple...perhaps. I'm not certain though. cage of ? ack...it will come when it is time. I doubt I'll be putting this one into a manuscript anytime soon anyhow, though I like it much.
7:19 pm - Heros
I have two heros.
First off, define - these people are people I want to be like when I grow up, only me. They remind me of me, of very important parts of me, and I draw inspiration from things they've said. That said - they're not the only people who inspire me, of that there are many. But these are different..it's like they present more than just touchstones to me, or things to hold to...they help give me a map not just of the world, but of my world.
Hero #1 - Neil Gaiman: Author of Sandman, coauthor of Good Omens, creator of Neverwhere (a british miniseries). Because he's british, some of his things may be hard to get ahold of...but I love his sense of humor, and his sense of the sublime. He deals with things often called horror, but they are more than that...they echo in the unconditioned reaches of our subconcious. He's a writer, too, and that's kinda what I want to do...scary thought that, it's much less trustworthy than what I normally do, but I want to be a writer, what I do now is just my (wonderful) job. Or maybe I should strike that, writer is somewhat limiting...I want to be a storyteller. His interview at the end of Neverwhere was very inspirational. He's one of those people I would love to meet, and learn from, and possibly even impress, and definately pick his brain.
Hero #2 - David Mamet: Screenwriter/essayist/director/more. He reaches in and asks why we do things the way we do...he gets to the bare bones of a story before attempting to tell it..and often, all the audience gets are bare bones, but they mean something. He speaks to the intelectual side of me, makes me wonder when I see a mistake if it was intended, and teaches me the value of white space in a story - the sparseness needed. Not that that is neccesarily reflected in my prose, or in my essays or posts definately, but it's a influence. I would love to take a class if he taught, or learn from him more about the craft of writing.
Almost-Heros:
CS Lewis - brilliant, spiritually and as a writer, provides many a-ha moments. You'll see quotes from him, especially in the future, as I am doing some theological research for the the book.
Clive Barker - again, reaches deep into the sublime, the edges, the beauty and blood.
Angelina Jolie - reminds me much of me, or of what I wish to be. She has that edge...the ability to contain the perfect idol-ness in herself, the purity of a type of being...
do you wonder if the wild thing would be as lost in domesticity as the domestic would be lost in the wild?
current mood: thoughtful
6:48 pm - In the beginning...
I created a journal.
Why?
Because I need to write more. I guess. Though I already write alot in e-mails, often long drawn out things...and I write other things too. But I feel the need to write something for myself, and not just to communicate with individual people, but to say other things.
That, and I need a place to put writings when I have them.
So, my first journal entry...what do you write here? I suppose, whatever you want. Although other people will see it, and may, perhaps, actually read it, possibly without laughing, and possibly coming back (even if they aren't your friends). It's different from critiquing, that's what epinions is for (at least in my book)...different from discussing issues with someone. I suppose I could espouse all my views, and I very well may, just because I've been thinking about them. Hopefully, I won't upset anyone...I've been watching the reaction of a group of friends to a very right-wing movie review site (CAP) and have been taken aback by the things people say about what someone else writes when they don't agree with it. Not that I won't do anything like that either...i'm human too, and constantly find myself falling short of the person I want myself to be. But, I guess that's what learning is for.
So here, you might find poetry when I write it, or perhaps if it's just singing to me...or my favorite song...or thoughts on what happened to me that day, or the day before, if I've worked through them...often incomplete thoughts, that's what a diary is for, perhaps? I don't know.
And thoughts on the book i'm working on, perhaps bits and pieces of it...thoughts on theology, possibly quotes I've found that are especially keep-worthy, things I'd tear out and stick in a journal if I could ever keep one (they tend to end up with a few pages written, then the rest beautiful but blank). But, I always have written best online. Maybe I'm not very good at being private. Or perhaps I'm too used to hiding things in plain site.
Je ne sais pas.
.........
Note: Je ne sais pas will be found often, it's a catchphrase. It means I don't know in french...je: I; ne - pas: don't, sais: know. No, I don't speak french well (wish I did) but I took three years of it in high school and as such a few phrases have found their way into my memory, like a few spanish phrases: manana (so much more efficient than tomorrow, and a higher cousin of banana as far as word makeup and sound goes) being one that might find itself into here. Ya never know.
Expect nothing, that way whatever you get you'll be surprised.
Just thought I'd mention - the snatch in my interests is the movie. A rockin good one too, never before has Brad Pitt entered my personal fantasies. Probably has to do with the fact that he plays a gypsy, but he seems to be stuck in my head.
Woke up this morning to him in my dreams...so I suppose woke up is a misword, but hey ok I woke up to be concious of the fact. The dream was odd...as normal, i mean, it's a dream what do you expect you should hear the one I had about being pulled behind a byplane for fun or having sex in a bathtub and not feeling it and being sprinkled with bisty blood-red rubies at the same time, but I digress.
So, the dream was about going into this house, and parts of it were gated off, like in titanic near the end. And so I and the BP character were going in to open the gates to the first level - ack, it was like there was one layer that was just gated off, and one layer had two entrances, one in a closet filled with junk and the other thru a funky portal. The main room had gates to the first level on the left and right..?
So, I opened a gate, and everyone rushed out past me, and I went around that level and made sure everyone was out. We got to the gate on the other side and made sure everyone was out, and discussed entereing the second layer with the people in the main room thru the gates. Remembered the entrance of the closet, but we're talking like a closet full of junk here, so they had to clean it out. So I, and the BP guy, go back to find the other entrance, which was in another room on that level.
And we're walking back, and he is behind me with his hand on my belly, which is so amazingly erotic. I wonder, is it only women who find belly's erotic? you certainly don't see to much, except belly buttons, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that I might possibly be pregnant, I don't know. But it's like a hand on your belly is almost a claiming, protective, very familiar gesture, and very subtle...not nearly as crass as grabbing the ass, and of course not anything like having other parts of your anatomy groped. But being behind a woman, with your hand on her belly, drawing you closer to her...acceptable, subtle, dancing.
And so we go into the other room, which has a wall full of pipes...and we get into a little more action, nuzzling neck, and all, and get to lying down, and he's feeling me..and I lookat him and he isn't looking at me. looking at something, and I'm puzzled.. but it's a quiet, pensive look... and he says he's Feeling me. And he looks at me, and enters..
my mind.
.......
odd bits of thought in the morning...such a quiet, subtle, one cool remove shade of blue.
8:26 pm - Novel - about - Scarlett Blade
The story is called Scarlett Blade. There's a sequel also, called The Diary of a Swan, and I'm thinking of heading them under "To Play a Dark Violin" but i'm not sure. The below contains some spoilers of the plot. Will post the anything else with spoiler warnings.
Basically, we have a main heroine, Thea (Amalthea), who is a writer. She deals mainly with theology from an anthropological standpoint, is how I'd describe it...her books have titles like "The gods' pygmalion" and "Echoes of God"...she also writes short stories that interweave older myths into newer settings. Some of her books are just for academia, but a couple have been written or a wider audience and she's drawn some fire from the RelRt for her 'feminist' portrayls and the fact that she makes people think. She's single, the studio appartment career woman type, and 27, adopted.
For her research, she has a dealer who is able to get her artifacts/texts for research purposes... mainly small things, sometimes on loan. This dealer is Tristan ...he only comes out at night, and is into mystic type things. They have a mild flirting relationship, but it's never gone beyond that.
Thea has a well developed social life, though she's kinda the introverted type. The hangout is a place called Monterelli's - a jazz/blues club that serves itallian. She's waitressed there before, and the owner's a good friend, has known her since she came into town Her best friend is Mirami, her mirror, extroverted, bubbling with life. Mirami is married to Justin. Justin's best friend from High School is Patrick, the RC character possibly. Patrick has just got into town.
Justin's brother is Duncan, the lead singer of a popular local band. He plays at Monterelli's on a regular basis. Mir tried to set Thea and Justin up at one point, but they're kinda like oil and water - he's younger than her, and still into the band party every night scene. Thea and Mir were pretty wild together in college, but both have settled down.
When we get into the story, Tristan has just given Thea a short sword, the Scarlett Blade of the title. Well, there was a trade involved, but not cash...
Mir is trying to set Patrick up with Thea. Though there is some resistance from Thea, Patrick is a great down to earth type of guy, and he starts to win her. She hasn't really dated in a while, out of choice, so things are interesting..especially when she finds out he's living behind his sister and her husband, and her first sight of the sister is in her kitchen, cooking barefoot and pregnant, with two kids running through the house. The sister, Sara, is cooking dinner, and barefoot because her feet are swollen, and is a
successful social worker. Then she meets Sara's husband, Harry , who is a preacher. But he likes her books.
That's just kind of the background.
The plot revolves around Thea discovering what she is, a string of murders with supernatural connections, and Thea and Patricks relationship.
Supernatural creatures involved - Nephilm, basically children of angels and women, and thus half conditioned/half unconditioned, because angels are unconditioned creatures. Makes them a bitch to kill. They feed off of emotions, either those given off by human regularly, or those they take from humans..and they encourage those emotions, like a anti-coagulant type of
thing. They don't neccesarily know what they are, though they will develop at some point, and the undeveloped tend to attract predators because of their ..richness, indestructability, and long life span. Because they are unconditioned, and the closeset we come to the unconditioned is in dreams (and trances, prayers, etc) they can come into dreams, and sometimes affect
the real world if they're powerful enough. Their wings come out as they self-realize, but their wings are always unconditioned, and rarely have any permanant physical manifestation.
Thea is a neph.
Then we have other beings, some of which we may not find out exactly what they are. I'm not sure what Tristan is, he's not a neph, but he's not human either - having figured out if he's vamp, deamon, or some variation therof. And in the second book you get into concept manifestations (well, they're actions are felt in the first, but you don't see them).
Scarlett Blade is part of a pair, with Ebony..there's another name for that too somewhere...it takes from it's owner, but also gives them a particular power. Ebony can do something nothing else can. We run into their maker in the second book.
This is a change for me, I normally write in a very logic based universe, this one has more supernatural elements and that's exactly what they are, not just what people percieve them to be.
8:13 pm - Poem 2 - Someday
Someday
Someday
I want to be famous
and successful/normal/happy
so
that
girls lying (crying) in their room
thinking of
razors to cut their wrists
to match their cut out hearts
with music turned up to loud
to mask the angry screams
can hold
to me
fiercely
and
know
I CAN.
7:48 pm - ok, about my day, normal diary stuff.
I had a good day. Ate chicken salad sandwich with cheetos and grapefruit juice - not totally exactly diet food, but it tastes good. busy at work, creating/editing graphics.
talked to my sister for the first time in the longest time. think about her often, but was kinda shoved into doing it because I needed her advice. Am worried I might be pregnant. Which is kinda scary, kinda oh, ok, kinda it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't going to be ok. Alot ok sis yes I will go get a couple of dipsticks to check it out, and will call you asap with the results.
This is a really weired 'oh shit' type thing going together with 'this is what i've always wanted' going together with '$$???' going together with wondering how much of my reaction is based on me, and how much of it is based on what my mother has said (she's the one who started me worrying : 'hi mom' - 'how are you today?' - 'feeling kinda hormonal' - 'you're not pregnant are you?' : gee, thanks for that idea. lovely.
I guess we'll find out.
7:39 pm - Oh by the way...
In case you were wondering, I'm Christian. Among other things, but that's pretty much at the root of who I am...more philosophically than culturally, at least considering some of the christian culture around here. I do love to listen to KLOVE, but to me so much of what society sees as christian aren't based on the faith, but based on how people express that..ack, that parts kinda to be expected, though it's kinda a pain when considering some of the examples of christianity, and what christian behavior is, and what christian values are...but more on that later.
7:30 pm - ack
note: this should teach me not to hit 'post' just because I'm learning to use the software and am trying to find out how this will appear. Of course, I did find out I can use italics without having to do all the break tags as well, but still....phht.
current mood: aggravated
7:27 pm - Quotes 1 - CS Lewis
1. Looking for God - or Heaven - by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in ever play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth. Nor is he diffused through the play like a gas.
If there was an idiot who thought plays existed on their own, without an auhor ... our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them...
To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. (Hang it all, we're in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.) But send a saint up in a spaceship and he'll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.
- From 'The Seeing Eye', Christian Reflections
7:23 pm - Poem - nameless so far
I have built myself a cage
not for me
but for my madness
so she does not dash us
against the rocks
Built with
waiting, duty, tradition
as the thick unfeelnig bars
that stand unheeding
as she screams
leaveing her no outlet
but the dream stigmata on her palms
......................
I hate not comming up with names for poems. The poem is done, I know that, but the name. I don't know, bars? cage? simple...perhaps. I'm not certain though. cage of ? ack...it will come when it is time. I doubt I'll be putting this one into a manuscript anytime soon anyhow, though I like it much.
7:19 pm - Heros
I have two heros.
First off, define - these people are people I want to be like when I grow up, only me. They remind me of me, of very important parts of me, and I draw inspiration from things they've said. That said - they're not the only people who inspire me, of that there are many. But these are different..it's like they present more than just touchstones to me, or things to hold to...they help give me a map not just of the world, but of my world.
Hero #1 - Neil Gaiman: Author of Sandman, coauthor of Good Omens, creator of Neverwhere (a british miniseries). Because he's british, some of his things may be hard to get ahold of...but I love his sense of humor, and his sense of the sublime. He deals with things often called horror, but they are more than that...they echo in the unconditioned reaches of our subconcious. He's a writer, too, and that's kinda what I want to do...scary thought that, it's much less trustworthy than what I normally do, but I want to be a writer, what I do now is just my (wonderful) job. Or maybe I should strike that, writer is somewhat limiting...I want to be a storyteller. His interview at the end of Neverwhere was very inspirational. He's one of those people I would love to meet, and learn from, and possibly even impress, and definately pick his brain.
Hero #2 - David Mamet: Screenwriter/essayist/director/more. He reaches in and asks why we do things the way we do...he gets to the bare bones of a story before attempting to tell it..and often, all the audience gets are bare bones, but they mean something. He speaks to the intelectual side of me, makes me wonder when I see a mistake if it was intended, and teaches me the value of white space in a story - the sparseness needed. Not that that is neccesarily reflected in my prose, or in my essays or posts definately, but it's a influence. I would love to take a class if he taught, or learn from him more about the craft of writing.
Almost-Heros:
CS Lewis - brilliant, spiritually and as a writer, provides many a-ha moments. You'll see quotes from him, especially in the future, as I am doing some theological research for the the book.
Clive Barker - again, reaches deep into the sublime, the edges, the beauty and blood.
Angelina Jolie - reminds me much of me, or of what I wish to be. She has that edge...the ability to contain the perfect idol-ness in herself, the purity of a type of being...
do you wonder if the wild thing would be as lost in domesticity as the domestic would be lost in the wild?
current mood: thoughtful
6:48 pm - In the beginning...
I created a journal.
Why?
Because I need to write more. I guess. Though I already write alot in e-mails, often long drawn out things...and I write other things too. But I feel the need to write something for myself, and not just to communicate with individual people, but to say other things.
That, and I need a place to put writings when I have them.
So, my first journal entry...what do you write here? I suppose, whatever you want. Although other people will see it, and may, perhaps, actually read it, possibly without laughing, and possibly coming back (even if they aren't your friends). It's different from critiquing, that's what epinions is for (at least in my book)...different from discussing issues with someone. I suppose I could espouse all my views, and I very well may, just because I've been thinking about them. Hopefully, I won't upset anyone...I've been watching the reaction of a group of friends to a very right-wing movie review site (CAP) and have been taken aback by the things people say about what someone else writes when they don't agree with it. Not that I won't do anything like that either...i'm human too, and constantly find myself falling short of the person I want myself to be. But, I guess that's what learning is for.
So here, you might find poetry when I write it, or perhaps if it's just singing to me...or my favorite song...or thoughts on what happened to me that day, or the day before, if I've worked through them...often incomplete thoughts, that's what a diary is for, perhaps? I don't know.
And thoughts on the book i'm working on, perhaps bits and pieces of it...thoughts on theology, possibly quotes I've found that are especially keep-worthy, things I'd tear out and stick in a journal if I could ever keep one (they tend to end up with a few pages written, then the rest beautiful but blank). But, I always have written best online. Maybe I'm not very good at being private. Or perhaps I'm too used to hiding things in plain site.
Je ne sais pas.
.........
Note: Je ne sais pas will be found often, it's a catchphrase. It means I don't know in french...je: I; ne - pas: don't, sais: know. No, I don't speak french well (wish I did) but I took three years of it in high school and as such a few phrases have found their way into my memory, like a few spanish phrases: manana (so much more efficient than tomorrow, and a higher cousin of banana as far as word makeup and sound goes) being one that might find itself into here. Ya never know.
Expect nothing, that way whatever you get you'll be surprised.
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