five thousand shades of blue
Friday, March 30, 2001
Well, it's official: ear infection. I've got antibiotics to kick its butt, and that can't happen too soon. My ear canal is so swollen that when the doctor compared the two (swollen vs. not) to each other, he called ANOTHER DOCTOR to come and check it out. I feel like my left ear is hearing things through a layer of water. It sucks because it's hard enough to hear back here.
Yuppie convention just ambled on through the building, running me out of skim milk. Not that I'm complaining. :)
Thursday, March 29, 2001
Administrivial details: Added permalinks to my posts. It will make it that much easier to say, "But you
did say so-and-so, Sandra, here's the link to it." Me of the notoriously bad memory, you understand.
Not much else to say here today. I have a lot of crappy things to deal with this afternoon and I'd just as soon not go over them -- in public, no less. Wish me luck and pray to the deity of your choice for me, is all I ask.
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
It must be delirium. The radio surely
CAN'T be playing a lounge lizard version of "Hard Day's Night"...?
This is amusing, but wrong.
Some choice declarations:
First Name: "Status is important to you and your ability to achieve success and earn money. You have a need to be noticed and seek status."
Ha ha!Middle Name: "You have an aptitude for dealing with the public. You would do well in entertainment and politics. You feel secure in group endeavors. You have a need to be up front. You are relatively demonstrative in your affections."
Hee hee, ha ha! Oh, too rich!Hm... actually, on second look, the analysis of me based on my last name is pretty accurate...
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Think I'm getting sick. GREAT.
Read
this. It's ... incredible.
[Political rant mode ON]
(Hey, I warned you :) )
Oh, I'm fuming. If I hear one person, ONE PERSON, try to defend the President's attempting to undo all of the environmental gains made by the Clinton administration, I'm gonna go ballistic. It is indefensible, and demonstrates to me the lengths to which he'll kiss up to big business (i.e., big money).
Hm. Two months in office and he's already broken several campaign promises. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
[Political rant mode OFF]
Friday, March 23, 2001
Evil, evil. Not only is there a new Elizabeth Peters book coming out in May, but there's ALSO
a new Lynda Robinson book coming out in June.
(For the unenlightened: They are both murder mysteries involving ancient Egypt, which I have always been fascinated by. The former involves Egyptologists at the beginning of the 20th century. The latter is actually set during the reign of Tutankhamun. Both women are amazingly good writers.)
Oh, I sure do hope the library will have these...
It should not surprise anyone who knows me that the Cartoon Network is the channel that's on the most in our house. I was watching
The Powerpuff Girls and was saddened to learn that the
Hanna of Hanna Barbera had passed away. It can't be said that he didn't have an short or unfulfilling life; the man was ninety at the time of his death. Yet... every time a creative soul leaves us, especially one who shaped my young life through silly, fun cartoons, a small part of me feels diminished.
Well, the craving is satiated... for now. I tried That National Franchise's chicken wings. They were a bit scrawny, and the Hot was definitely wimpy, but they weren't the worst I've ever had. I guess I'm going to have to break down, buy some wings, and make them myself.
Hey, when you come from western New York state, and eaten more than once at
the restaurant that invented the concept, you tend to be a picky.
Thursday, March 22, 2001
I still want those chicken wings.
No one here knows how to make them right.I really do miss being able to order a 'pizza and wings'. Sure, one of the national franchises does wings now, and I haven't tried them, but I bet they serve RANCH with 'em.
As I was driving home yesterday, I saw a man standing on a corner with a brilliant white potted orchid in one arm, and another orchid peeking out from a paper bag hanging off of his other one. I wondered what his story was.
Some may have noticed the mood up there hasn't changed in a while. Things have been a bit tumultuous and stressful in a few ways, and I'm hangin' on, but would rather keep my journal a refuge from that.
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Chicken wings.
Big and doused liberally with a mix of
Frank's RedHot sauce and butter. On the side: carrot sticks and celery sticks, and bleu cheese sauce, not RANCH, dammit.
Comfort food. Totally. And I'm craving them madly.
Amidst the feeling of death last week, proof of the existence of the circle of life: a friend I've known since junior high school is pregnant. I don't want to post the story of the strange harbinger of that news, because I want to actually send it to her, and if she reads this, the surprise is blown! :)
Went to the doctor's yesterday for the first time in eons. I'm in good health, but discovered that I'm actually an inch shorter than I believed myself to be. Humpf. They also took blood for a routine screening; not a lot, but I have my suspicions that that vial being taken was mostly responsible for why I was so cold last night.
Martha spoke of
dreaming of blogging. I had a dream last night about a web board I read. Does that count?
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. What I wouldn't have given this morning to be able to switch off the alarm, pull the sheets over my head, and go back to sleep.
...
Monday, March 19, 2001
Tired. I hate waking up at 3am unable to fall back asleep. The cat licking my face certainly doesn't help matters.
Got my
Award of Arms this weekend at
March Coronet. Now I can be called "Lady", but I'll likely want to use some Mongolian apellation of respect ('cause "Lady Qulan" sounds kinda stupid).
Thursday, March 15, 2001
I'm pissed. Pissed off at a so-called professional who, more than 2 weeks later, still hasn't gotten his shit together on a job we're being charged excessively for. I'm talking about the plumber we hired to hook us up in the new space in the café. I'm not going to go into detail here but the latest bout of idiocy has me incensed. It involved rerouting the water to the Pepsi to avoid copper piping (as I may have mentioned, backflowed carbonated water + copper pipes = icky chemical reaction that can make one sick). So what does he use to connect the Pepsi to the backflow device? COPPER PIPING.
ARGH.
I think we're going to have no choice but to report this jackass. To whom is another question altogether. If he were a doctor, we could go to the medical board; a lawyer, the bar. Who do you go to for plumbers?
I suppose for a start we could try the Better Business Bureau...
Meanwhile, 2 weeks in our new space and we
still can't serve fountain Pepsi. What a flipping MORON. This should have been basic plumbing 101.
We should have had some hint when he hooked the hot and cold water up to the sink backwards...
sigh
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
This is a bit chilling. (Link found at
/usr/bin/girl)
Strange. I feel almost surrounded by death lately. First yesterday, then as I was doing some research on a singer named
Eva Cassidy, who reportedly recorded a version of Sting's "Fields of Gold" that made Sting himself cry, I learned that she died in 1996 of cancer... at the age of 33.
33. That's not much older than I am now. I'm really feeling my mortality these days.
And I have a doctor's appointment next week, finally. I've been working up my nerve to go to a new clinic in town called Volunteers in Medicine. It seems to exist to help those of us too poor to afford private health insurance, too rich to qualify for government benefits. I'm getting a general checkup, but am also going to see about having this cyst-y thing taken out of my arm. I've had it for a long time, (perhaps since early college or even high school) and I don't think it's dangerous, but all this death/dying stuff has me more nervous than I would ordinarily be. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Tuesday, March 13, 2001
Today's quote is dedicated to a woman I did not know nearly well enough, just through her writings, who passed from this earthly realm yesterday. Someone on the board we both read posted this in her honour, and I was so moved by it I thought I would reprint it here.
What is dying? A ship sails, and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, "She is gone." Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large as when I saw her... The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says "she is gone", there are others watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout, "There she comes!"... and that is dying.
-- Bishop Brent
It's weird. I like to think of myself as a pretty modern, liberated woman. I look at
Vogue and
Cosmopolitan and not only scoff at the ludicrous stuff they call "fashion", but I feel a sort of pity for the rail thin models, the extremely rare type chosen by The Powers That Be as the Modern Ideal Woman (*coughcoughUNREALISTICcoughcough*).
But ohhhhh, the fulfillment I get just from touching up my hair. I don't colour it radically different from my natural colour -- but when it's gone too long it starts to look like it's always dirty, even when it's not. I did this last night and looking at myself in the mirror this morning, I felt strangely satisfied and somehow whole again.
Really, it's not hypocritical. :)
Monday, March 12, 2001
It's the end of an era and I'm sad. The Trojan Room coffee pot webcam at Cambridge University is going to be taken down after 10 years of faithful service. See it
here (while you still can); read about it
here.
I've been slightly off-kilter today. Seems that I am actually a little more to the right in this physical plane than my motor functions believe me to be.
I need to find a new title for my journal. I went cruising the blogger directory (in the hopes of breaking the incestuous cycle of having the same blogs in my Journals sections that seem to be in the Journals section of the people I have links to (whew)) and noticed that practically every other listing is called Ramblings. How dull of me.
I did find some new and interesting blogs-of-people-I-don't-know. They're listed at the bottom of the page.
Not much of a weekend. Worked here at the café on Saturday, did paperwork and bills. Sunday was my weekend, really, and I spent it being utterly lazy -- nay, downright hedonistic. It felt great. I have not been able to just take a day off in a long time, and boy, did I need it. Helped me to relax from my week, and helped me to recharge for the week ahead, one I am not particularly looking forward to. Let's hope things turn out much better than I'm anticipating.
At least the iBook ethernet port is working, all without ext(p)ensive repairs. Halleluiah.
Friday, March 09, 2001
A quote for the moment....
"No. We have to stay here and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu and Einstein and Morobuto and Buddy Holly and Aristophenes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
-- Sinclair in "Infection" (Babylon 5, Season 1)
I had the most interesting conversation with a customer yesterday. Seems this man is leaving in May for a trip around the world -- one that does not employ air travel at all. It's going to take him twenty-three days just to cross the Pacific Ocean by freighter. Over land, he'll be going by train. A good portion of the trip isn't even planned, going wherever the spirit leads him.
I found myself strangely envious of the ability, means, and fortitude to undertake such a trip, which will bring him to every corner of the world (except, I think, most of Africa). Perhaps I've had my head stuck too long in fantastic tales of Victorian Egyptology. Perhaps I'm just direly in need of getting away from it all.
---
The café, in its new location, seems to be getting off to a great start. Every day brings more and more people in who never even knew we were here. I think it's a good sign that our daily total doubled between Monday and Wednesday (granted, Monday wasn't a stellar day to start with, but going up is a GOOD thing).
My wrist hurts. I think that's all I'll write for now.
Thursday, March 08, 2001
I was just reading
Zowie talking about her new tattoo and realized I never mentioned that I haven't gotten one yet. I'm still trying to find a symbol that I can live with til the end of my days. Probably it will end up being a Chinese character, representing some characteristic I would like to see in myself, like "Wisdom" or "Happiness". *shrug* If I can get over the pain thing. As in, my serious aversion to it.
When I haven't been working myself to the point of loopiness over the café move, I've been completely immersed in the books of
Elizabeth Peters. Specifically, the
Amelia Peabody mysteries. I'm on the fourth one in a row. I'm at a severe disadvantage in that I've read them WAY out of chronological order. The stories progress in real time, almost. The first book was Peabody and Emerson meeting; the last to come out saw their son , now a lad in his early 20s, preparing to wed. They're well written and highly recommended.
Boy, if this reading binge isn't a textbook example of escapism, I don't know what is. :)
Wednesday, March 07, 2001
We're back, and up. Returning to my shift is like going on vacation compared to last week's schedule. It was gruelling. But we're open, the door's propped back to let in the fresh outside air. It's great. My brain is MUSH though. I have SO much catching up to do, it isn't even funny.
is
this just not enough…?
