Archives: November 2005
« October 2005 |
Main
| December 2005 »
Today I bathed in my dorkiness, full force. I woke up late (almost noon... I can't believe it) and had some coffee before settling into my chair. I've often thought that if I had to reveal a drug of choice, I would most likely go with caffeine. I realize it's not exactly glamorous, but I love the 1-2 hour-long moment of intense, effortless concentration that accompanies a good cup of coffee in the morning.
This morning (erm, afternoon), I went from just checking emails and investigating a potential site overhaul (on my other site) to just jumping straight into the SQL-modifying-file-backupping-forum-searching frenzy that updating a web site entails. And the funny part? Totally rocked it. I know I have some bugs left, but I got further along than I had expected I would before my eyes just couldn't look at the screen anymore. The site looks better, and the geek in me is already fiendishly rubbing her hands together and cackling at the thought of the features yet to come.
Read more »Yesterday was wonderful. I've been needing to have a really good day; thank you Yesterday.
TheBoy and I took the 7.40 train to Bruxelles, heading out to Belgium to spend the day at The Little Guy's house for his NINTH birthday. I'm still getting over that whole almost-a-decade-old thing. When I met The Boy, The Little Guy was not yet three.
We took a commuter train to a smaller town - where the family lives - and upon arrival, TheBoy realized he had forgotten to bring their phone number. Ordinarily, they pick us up at the train station. Yesterday? We walked. But oh, yes... it had snowed the night before. Our ten minute walk turned into a 30-minute adventure, avoiding slush puddles and ice patches. Of course, I had worn light socks and flimsy shoes without traction. The beautiful thing was that on four hours of sleep, no food, and just a cup of coffee, The Boy and I giggled the entire way, making fun of one another when a foot slipped or we came to a particularly disastrous crossing. I just felt GOOD, even with the wind and the cold and the wet feet.
Once we got there, we spent the morning watching the baby - almost two - laugh at his mom's feet-stomping skills. He regularly made desperate attempts to imitate her, but would fall into a laughing fit and lose his concentration. The game never got old.
The older boys - The Little Guy and Strauss - are half-brothers. There are only two years between them, and they are best friends. Their extended family, in a move I still have issues with, refer to them as Chocalate and Vanilla. This plays off of the fact that The Little Guy is mixed, with a beautiful head of curly hair, and Strauss is white, with BRIGHT blond hair and green eyes.
The Boy likes to spoil The Little Guy when he can, probably because of some latent guilt or just natural parental pride. I can never tell. By extension, he spoils the crap out of Strauss, hoping to keep brotherly jealousy at bay. A lot of the way The Boy has handled the delicate situation with his son has made me proud of him. Even his son's mother - hitherto refered to as Angie - had to admit that he has not been a complete asshole over the years. That's almost a compliment, coming from her.
Read more »I am less graceful than I would like to think.
Today alone, I:
- dipped the belt of my sweater into the toilet. Before I had flushed.
- stepped on a fruit salad sitting on the staircase and made it fall all over the floor. In front of a customer.
- didn't see where my fat ass was going and knocked over an ashtray. In front of a customer.
- Sat down on the wet belt of my sweater
In an effort to save money this year, The Boy and I have agreed not to turn on the heat until January. This is ok by me, because I am going to be gone for awhile in December, so I'll at least have a week of warmy goodness to look forward to in the coming months. The Boy, however, is insane for agreeing to this. Then again, he doesn't have the Frozen Feet and Fingers disease that I was born with, so his capacity for cold is a little higher than mine.
Still. We have electric heating and it can get really expensive. And for now, doing my work in my jacket and scarf keeps me warm enough. The problem, however, is typing and using the mouse.
Obviously, when people created computers, they didn't think about those of us who would be working in cold rooms. Holy circulation issues. I can have 98% of my body be warm and happy, but my hands will still be ice cold.
I've got a lot to do and I enjoy most of the work I've got going on. I genuinely find the projects I'm working on to be fun and exciting, even a little addictive. I'm just having issues with the cold.
After coming back from the museum today, I climbed into bed (it was 19.00) because the boy had just woken up. We stayed in bed for two hours, just talking and giggling and going over project stuff. Neither of wanted to face the cold.
On the wall across the room from our bed, I put up a map of the world. We actually stayed in our bed and tried to name the countries of the world by squinting at the map from several feet away. Straining his eyes, The Boy would say, "Is that another country next to Tanzania or I'm I seeing things?" Miraculously, I made it through all of barely visible Africa and I only messed up twice (we later verified our guesses: I mixed up Sierra Leone and Liberia, and Zimbabwe and Botswana).
The great part is that this is how we "relax." We're big, big nerds.
In the end, I had a little daydream about a new type of computer, made for the hardworking person with little money and bad circulation. It would have a floating screen that could be suction-cupped to the wall, or suspended from the ceiling overhead. The keyboard could be propped across the body like a breakfast tray. And the mouse could be anywhere - just like it is today - but the signal would be able to communicate through the comforter and whatever other blankets one might be sleeping under. With this new computer, I could lie in bed and keep my hands under the covers, not exposing them to the terrible cold that has crept into our house in the last week. I would do all of my work either lying down or only slightly propped up, and there would be no need to get out of bed in the morning unless I wanted to fix myself some tea. Actually, I could just have a faucet next to the bed, my little water heater, and I'd be good to go. Why bathe, right?
A few days ago, my mom asked me what I would like for Christmas. I couldn't think of much of anything, mainly because our conversation was rather unusual and it didn't feel quite like the moment to be asking for gifts. I said something to the tune of: "I just want my family home - healthy and happy. I don't need anything special. Seeing everybody and being able to laugh together is the best gift I can think of..."
I meant it, too.
However, the day after our conversation, it occured that I DO have some tangible things I would like as well. Making out my mental list, it went a little something like this:
- a sewing machine
- a new set of pots and pans (especially pans, as mine are five years old. And Teflon? Doesn't age so well)
- a cutting board
Then I looked over my list.
Somehow, I skipped the rest of my 20's and just headed straight for my 40's. Because that list? Not hip.
Still. Hopefully there's some Teflon for me under the tree this year.
I might - maybe - have gotten a little weepy when Cameron Diaz's character in "In Her Shoes" realizes how much her big sister protected and loved her as they were growing up. I do believe there were some tears forming in the bottom right corner of my right eye (always the first side to go), and for that I can accurately be called "lame" until at least February, 2006. As embarassing as it is, the whole emotional reaction is pretty funny because three minutes later I couldn't even stand the cheese anymore and I made gagging sounds as e.e. cummings was recited by a supposedly dyselexic Cameron.
But still. That sister-bonding scene sort of got to me.
For that, I sort of recommend the movie. Plus, old people with a sense of humor are funny no matter what lame shit Cameron is doing. I chuckled a lot.
And a side note? Don't go to Arabic after only sleeping for three hours. I embarassed myself a whole lot today, which was... well... embarassing.
I'm over it. Ok, no I'm not. Good night.
The bad news? There's a lot of it, and I can't fill up this space with negativity. It's swallowing me up, and I swear I have tried to swim my way to shore repeatedly. I've taken lots of hits in last 72 hours.
The good news? The next generation of Cornellii has arrived. My cousin gave birth this morning to her daughter, Stella, making this the first child of my generation of our family tree. The fact that life continues, and new lives arrive, and people grow and develop and become people who have people and everything just moves along... well, it's comforting at a time when I feel like this. Happy 0th birthday, Stella!
I wouldn't say I'm depressed. I've seen that in others and, fortunately, have yet to experience it myself full-force. No, I guess I'd rather say I'm feeling a little "compressed."
It's as if I were a jar, or a pressure cooker, take your pick. There's only so much room in the jar. There's only so much oxygen in the jar. And yet lots of stuff just keeps on getting crammed in, and it is getting more and more difficult to breathe.
The weekend was a tough one. Sunday was dreadful. It occured to me that most of my friends are wrapped up in their own shit, and maybe they've gotten so used to having others be there for them, that they can't be there for me. Or at least that was the case this weekend.
My sister and I talked on the phone a lot - an entertaining conversation mixed with pain and crying. Odd, really. But I am so happy that we are there for each other.
The cute thing is that she sent me a care package after reading the last post I wrote while feeling down (worse than this time, mind you). Her package is full of gluten-free comfort foods, which means she is not only totally adorable, but also an absolute rock star. On Monday morning - as I set out to do some really awful administrative tasks for the day - I found a slip in my mailbox saying my post office was holding a package for me.
It instantly made the whole day better. I organized myself so that I would get back to my 'hood before the post office closed. Even while sitting in front of The Bitchiest Administrative Woman Alive yesterday, I didn't let the fact that she got up and walked away from me mid-sentence get to me as much as usual because the thought of GF cookies was dancing somewhere in the back of my brain. I still believe that woman should be fired, but oh yes, I forgot, they don't do that in France.
Anyway, hours later, when I got to the post office, the line went out the door. But I wanted my gluten-free brownies, and bad! So I waited.
When I got to the counter, I gave the guy the slip. He shuffled around in the back a bit, and came back with a flimsy envelope.
Wha?
My checks had arrived from the bank. I needed to sign showing I had received them.
How upsetting to think you're going to get brownies, and instead you get checks. Checks that you can't even write because you don't have any money?
I guess that was just a side anecdote to keep me from rambling on about the glumness. There's a guy who is digging up the sidewalk on my street, and he starts jackhammering at 7.30 every morning. I hate him. I need sleep so much right now, and the sleep I have been getting is fitful and restless for the first few hours. It just starts getting good around 6 am. And then gets interrupted again at 7.30.
I know I need to cultivate the good things. I made a nice dinner yesterday. The Boy and I worked side-by-side for several hours last night, and we giggled and were lovey and things were cute. I wanted to stay up and continue, but I've been so tired that I had to give in by one.
I skipped Spanish yesterday, and Arabic this morning. This will all have to turn around tomorrow, because I can't sit here with this kind of guilt sitting on my shoulders -- I always feel bad about skipping classes. But I maintain that my cause was just. I desperately needed to recuperate.
I received 135 spam comments from some poker site that deserves to rot in hell. The whole situation caused a sudden need to update to MT 3.2, and fast.
I was sort of dreading it, but the whole thing went smoothly, therefore proving my technical prowess. There was a small glitch, I checked some documentation and realized it was a javascript issue. Boom, boom, bada bing, bada boom, and here we have a functioning, thus far spam-free zone.
I might introduce those annoying Turing test fill-in-the-letter things to my comment forms, and thus do away with the authorizing. Because, for reals... I only get a few comments, max, per entry. It's not like I need to moniter this shit daily or anything.
Meanwhile, the admin side of MT 3.2 is sooo pretty. I wish you all could see it and ooh and aah over it like The Boy and I just did. Then again, maybe you're just THAT much less geeky than us, and you wouldn't be caught dead finding web publishing so entertaining.
Anyway. I am content. Let me know if you find a bug.
"The immigrants - mainly North African muslims - are upset that they are being shunned by French society. They feel alienated, scorned, looked down upon. Apparently they're unaware this is a common situation known as: being French."
- The Daily Show
I'm surprised to see that the riots outside of Paris are getting coverage in the American press. I listened to some NPR stuff on it, and I read about it in the NY Times. I am 90% sure the kid quoted in the NY Times (the brother of one of the boys killed) was a former student of mine, and that makes me sad.
The rioting began in the town I used to work in - a place that the students lovingly called "le ghetto" with that strange sort of pride that comes out of actually living in one. Although I understand they're frustrated and need to lash out, I'm not sure what drawing all of this attention is doing to the kids' reputations in the long run. I know setting cars on fire and attacking people on trains is another way of "screaming to be heard," but I'm worried they're just further alienating themselves from French society. Which, whether they like it or not, they are a part of. On the first day of school, most of these kids declared "I'm Moroccan" or "I'm Algerian" when asked to introduce themselves, completely neglecting the fact that they were born and raised in France. I understand their urge - France has not exactly been welcoming - but I bet in that majority of the cases, those kids are going to grow up and have families and continue to live in France despite themselves.
I was thinking the other day about how funny it is that I have gone from working in what most consider a shitty, ghetto, crime-ridden town (I liked it a lot, myself, though) to working in a ritzy, snobby bookstore where we talk about art. I think I'm more at home in the former situation than the latter, but I make it through both more or less intact. I have a hard time, though, when the snobs from the second world make comments about those from the first; my desire to defend the people I spent just under a year with is a little ridiculous. But it's there, and I don't think it's going to go away. It just will never stop disturbing me how Parisians think of those living outside the city as just that: outsiders.
But for as much as I hate the Parisian attitude, I know it's going to be the decisive one, the one that remains in control. These riots make me crinkle my forehead up and think of the kids at that school with a new streak of worry. Most of them were tough shells with softy little insides. I don't like to think of them falling asleep to police sirens, or being forced to stay inside every night of this past week. I especially don't like to think of them not getting job interviews or returned phone calls because of the home town marked on their CV.
Update: It was particularly trippy to see Clichy-Sous-Bois on CNN, in a report done by my journalism professor. That is a mega-case of worlds colliding.
Up early this morning to sneak in some studying time before going to Arabic. The classes are THAT intense, people. I'm on edge the whole damn time. So on edge that I decided to get up at 6.00 AM, as opposed to 7.00, to prep. Not only is that called "crazy", it is also called "extremely motivated."
Anyway - things are getting better and thanks to everybody for their thoughts, emails, calls, etc. There are some lovely people in the world.
Some of the uglier, nastier people might be responsible for this, however. Do you think it's for real? I'm so confused.
