Weblarrrgh

We Like Placeholders, Yes We Do

2008-02-19T11:35:00.001-05:00

I've got a couple of post ideas written down to flesh out for later enjoyment. You know, when I'm not actually at work.

In the meantime, I have a question. Where can I find a big bag of money?

This animal just has it rough.

2008-02-14T09:07:00.001-05:00

This animal just has it rough.
Originally uploaded by Affilare

I really wish his "bed" was a little more... chic. Oh, well. When I took this, the Beast's feet and tail were twitching like crazy, so I'm assuming he was chasing (and finally catching?) the cat that lives under our outbuilding. I just want to snuggle him to death when he does this.

2008-02-13T08:55:00.003-05:00

I was just checking out my own flickr photo stream and realized I really haven't taken or posted any pictures in... like, a year or two. I know why that happened, but it's time to turn that sucker around, too.

Well the day is off to a fabulous start -- managed to get to work late and I'm working on a lovely rip in my stocking. Fortunately, my pasty skin is about the same color so it's not terribly noticeable yet. I started to sit down and compose an entry last night and realized that I just didn't have anything to say. And I thought, "Self, you need to just write something anyway and get the old creative juices flowing." But somehow, flipping back and forth between American Idol and The Biggest Loser, neither of which I watch regularly or actually enjoy, was much more satisfying. At one point, I think my brain was actually leaking out my ears.

On days when Wilbur is out of town, it's really difficult to actually accomplish anything at home. A fenced back yard would help somewhat, because right now, in order for the Beast to get any exercise and be outside to do his thing, one of us has to go with him. Now, I am in no way comparing caring for a 120-lb grown dog to caring for a child -- I know they are entirely different animals and I have the luxury of actually leaving him at home to his own devices during the day -- but in the sense that it is another being depending upon you to feed it and provide it with basic necessities (like a nice spot to stretch its legs and poo) it is the same sort of unavoidable task. And it's always surprising how much time out of the day it takes, especially considering that he is, unlike a child, more or less self-sufficient.

Moving on from how put-upon I am to care for the dog... the normal tasks of just putting the days clothes' away, getting something to eat, cleaning up after eating it, getting and vaguely sorting the mail, and caring for the dog take up an inordinate amount of time. If I add anything to that like laundry, the dishwasher, etc., there's about a half-hour window in there before it's time for bed where I have a really hard time switching gears to start and finish anything else. And if I have work to do in the evenings, there goes that window and most of the other things (well, except for the dog).

All of that whining is to say -- no wonder we can't make any progress on any of our house projects or, say, life projects! No wonder we never make dinner plans with friends (or, if we do, no wonder it derails a whole day)! Do you think if I scheduled my evenings like I do my days -- treating laundry like a conference call and playtime with the dog like a board meeting, I'd be able to be more efficient and fit more things in?

The first thing going on my to-do list is to win the lottery and pay someone to do all this stuff for me.

True Love

2008-02-05T08:56:00.000-05:00

Scene: Living room, after dinner. The TV is on (Comedy Central). Work is being done on laptops.

ME (looking up from laptop, placing hand on Wilbur's arm): Sweetie.

HIM: ??

ME: Please don't EVER go to Jared.

HIM: Anything for you.

Finis.

Experiments in Consumerism

2008-01-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

Oh, okay, here’s something to update, and you can all (All! Ha! Listen to me!) help keep me on track. February is going to be the Month of No Purchases. Actually, I started over the weekend, so it’s going to be a little over a month. But I’m beginning a strict curtailment of personal expenses. The catalogues are going straight in the recycling bin as soon as they hit the mailbox. The emails are being deleted as soon as they hit. I’m staying out of the stores, and I’m going to cut down on food and happy-hour expenditures. No new shoes, just because they’re such a good deal. No new music for a while, I’ve got so much on my iPod that I listen to so infrequently. No Starbucks – the firm provides passable coffee that I doctor up so much anyway. No quick runs to Chick-fil-A for lunch – I’m going to plan ahead instead. Leftover city, here I come.

It’s time that I recognized, officially, that I am a spendthrift. (“Hi, I’m Jenny M, and I like to shop.”) I can justify just about any purchase, and I need to stop it. I’ve actually been working on this for a while. I have nearly paid off my clothing store credit cards – I’m making the final payment to J. Crew this week. I’d already stopped going to Starbucks around Thanksgiving. But I took a look – a REAL look – at my bank account and was astonished at how much those “drink or two” evenings after work add up, and how quickly “a quick lunch” becomes money down the drain every day.

I’m not placing an absolute moratorium on spending. You’ve got to go to the grocery store, and you’ve got to buy birthday presents and I’m not going to kid myself and say that I’m not going to get a drink after work now and then. But it’s time to grow up and accept responsibility for my spending habits. A friend said this past weekend that she’d gone a month without buying anything for herself – anything “unnecessary,” that is. And it just struck me – that seems like it would be so easy, and I expect it’s really not. I’ve become accustomed to not having to think too hard about whether or not to buy a new shirt or a new pair of jeans or a new book, and I’ve lost touch with any sense of how quickly the money flows out: just as quickly as it flows in. That makes me feel vaguely panicky, although we are by no means struggling. When I look down the road, that’s not how I want to feel. So, I’m challenging myself to step back and get it under control.

This New Years’, I did something I’ve never done before: I opened a savings account. And it feels good.

2008-01-30T08:57:00.000-05:00

Call it a hiatus, I guess.

I was already thinking about restarting as of February 1, but then one of the blogs I regularly check out (the FABU Sundry at www.sundrymourning.com) mentioned that she'd be catching up on her commenters' blogs this week and I felt shamed into starting my comeback early.

Woo! (And, hi? Hi.)

I don't think there is a lot of catch-up to be done, because the reason behind my prolonged absence is: work. Work, work, work. There were a few holidays in there with the attendant travel, but the utterly boring, snooze-inducing truth is that we just got massively busy at work in November and December and I ended just about each day with a headache that felt like a tiny house-techno party was happening in my skull and the last thing I could contemplate was cracking open the laptop to stare at the screen some more. So I didn't.

(One thing I've been noticing lately with blogs, and not that I'm noticing this with my own blog, mind you, since I don't exactly have a "following" -- per se, but when someone with a fairly regular schedule stops updating for some reason, people get crazy mad. Why? I mean, go read something else, you know? It may be disappointing not to get your daily fix, but it's a freaking BLOG and life happens and stuff and why do people feel like the blogger owes them something, somehow? So weird. I know I've said it before, but I feel it bears repeating, often. The internet is weird, man.)

So, life rolls on. We had the extended family (both sides of the extended family) over for Thanksgiving and I wish, wish, WISH I had taken a picture of the decor before the masses arrived because I went all Martha Stewart on the house, if I do say so myself. We got out the nice crystal and the nice dishes (even though we were a couple of place settings short) and brought the kitchen table around into the front hall to extend the dining room and it looked awesome. I think it was about 20 people, but only about 16 at any one time. Sit-down dinner for that many people is a lot - or it is if you live in the boonies and people don't make it all the way out to your house much for this sort of thing. Fortunately, I have wised up in my old age and this time around I farmed out the side dishes and left the turkey and a couple of do-ahead desserts for myself.

Wilbur continues the life of the nomad. He was able to spend most of December at home, which was so much better than what I had feared -- that he would be on the road a lot more and not able to .... well, I was going to say spend quality time with his family, basking in the warm and fuzzy glow of the holidays, but who am I kidding? I wanted him to do stuff around the house. And the other thing, too.

But life has been fairly uneventful for us over the past couple of months. I will go back to writing my posts in the evening, which seemed to work pretty well the times I managed to do it -- and now that things are slowing down a bit I should be able to keep myself from weeping uncontrollably when I look at the laptop in the evening.

Cheers!

And Finally, Yesterday's Return of the Blogger...

2007-10-16T20:37:00.000-04:00

This is the entry that I wrote last night, and now I’m finally home to post it…

Hi! Remember me? No? Well, pretend like you do.

I think the problem was that I wanted to have someTHING to write about, and really, I just need to DO it, you know? (Of course you do. You probably have a pretty, shiny blog that you update a lot.)

So, I'm sitting here on the couch and I've just finished working on some agreements for work and in a few minutes the Beast and I will engage in some pack behavior and play tug of war with the icky rope toy and I'll reassert my dominance as, if not the alpha dog, at least the ahead-of-the-Beast dog in the pecking order, and we'll probably have some concentrated belly rub time. I have the Food Network on (which -- does this network even have actual cooking shows on anymore?) and "Unwrapped" is on right now, which seems to be a "how it's made" kind of show. This episode is about candy. You don't know me, but if you did, you would realize that this is terribly apropos. At any rate, the host of this shindig is Marc Summers. You know, Double Dare Marc Summers. Do you remember that? With the slime and the obstacle course and the questions and the flags and the goo? On Nickelodeon? With the goofy, boyish host? HE HAS GREY HAIR. And that is all I have to say about that.

We've been aggressively making plans in the past few days four our trip to Knoxville for the Tennessee/South Carolina game. (Burglars, abandon hope. We have housesitters.) The scheme at present is to take Wilbur's parents' RV up to Knoxville and host tailgatapalooza. We've never done this before (I mean, we've been to football games before, but we've never done the RV tailgating party thing) and I fully anticipate it being The Griswolds Go to the Game or something like. Not that it won't be hilarious fun, but before it's over, I'm sure my father will have punched the Marty Moose statue and Cousin Eddie will have set Neyland Stadium on fire. I'm sure someone will have fallen down and I'm sure the hops-based shenanigans will alienate at least one member of the party from all the others for the rest of the weekend. At last count, we have at least 12 people attending in our party alone. Anyone have any fail-proof tailgate party food ideas?

Well, I'm off to nurse my lingering head cold with the judicious application of Riesling (Wine! Apply Directly To The Gullet!) and rub the dog's stomach until he passes out. Carry on!

Martha I Ain't

2007-10-16T13:45:00.001-04:00

Yes, I'm at work, but I'm taking a late lunch. (Which I brought from home. ARE YOU IMPRESSED?) I've been doing a little on-line Christmas shopping (HOW IMPRESSED ARE YOU?) and thought I'd pop in here. I composed an entry last night but then Blogger was "temporarily unavailable" or something, so I'll have to post it later. I can't post it now because it lives on my laptop at home. So the "where have I been?" post will have to go up later tonight, because last night I was apparently too busy monitoring the backs of my eyelids to log back in.

So, anyway, between starting opening up Blogger and logging on, I've completely lost my train of thought and forgotten what it was I was going to write about. Instead, how about a decorating question?

Here's what our front door looks like in the summer. Kind of. Because I'm at work and I don't have a picture of our front door. (Okay, it's looked like this for three years straight, now. We had real plants there once upon a time, but I killed them, like I always do, so one spring, we sprung [ha ha] for some real-looking fake plants. But, FINE, they don't look so "real" in the winter.)

We're going to replace the plants at floor level with some more seasonally-appropriate evergreen-y looking things. But what on earth do I do with the hanging baskets? We've got these wrought-iron hooks attached on either side and we need to hang something there, right? Or do we just leave them empty? Wilbur suggested hanging skeletons there for Halloween and then leaving those up all year round and dressing them appropriately for different seasons and holidays. I love that man.

ETA: Um, Holy White Space, Batman. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll replace that with a real photo.

Success!!!

2007-09-10T12:06:00.001-04:00

In less ubiquitous news, I managed to get up and get my fine behind downtown for class this morning. Score one for me! I think moving the alarm clock further (farther?) from my flailing arms worked, since I had to actually wake up enough to acknowledge what was happening.

This still doesn't do anything about my morning bitterness, though. Why do morning people want to talk so much? I figured monosyllables and a ferocious scowl were a fair signal of STOP TALKING TO ME UNTIL AT LEAST 8:30 but sometimes people won't shut up and then I have to shoot the death ray laser beams from my eyeballs and it's just a mess.

Make it stop...

2007-09-10T09:39:00.001-04:00

Oh, dear.

I don’t suppose I really have anything new to add to what will undoubtedly be a minor uproar over a certain former pop princess’s “come-back” performance yesterday evening. Yes, we switched over to the (erstwhile) music channel last night at 9:00 to see what we’d find, and I’m not claiming any moral high ground here by saying we shouldn’t have watched it – we were intended to watch it and the decisions of too many individuals went into producing it for anyone to really claim she was excusably unprepared for the event (including, one assumes, the decision of Miss B, herself, though one also wonders whether she was in a state of mind last night to make decisions, period, whether her fog was due to chemicals, a hangover, nerves or just plain exhaustion).

It was a confusing, stumbling, embarrassing mess of a performance from a performer who – love her or hate her – was at one time one of the most drooled-over women in the country, with one of the most tightly toned bodies and high-energy performance styles out there. Anyone who saw the performance last night would acknowledge that she looked out of shape* and out of breath, disconnected and woefully unprepared – marking her movements lethargically and often lip-synching with the wrong part of the song, when she was lip-synching at all – and her styling was terribly, awfully off.

All of that is yet another indication of something deeply wrong on a personal level – and no wonder, as we have all been (for better or worse) witness to her highly publicized personal struggles with motherhood, divorce and alleged substance abuse. Lord knows, I can sympathize with a person’s individual emotional difficulties, and people deal with things differently. To me, she clearly needs a steadying, guiding influence, and not only for her personal wellbeing. Like it or not, a pop star’s image is her business, her brand. Her look and her sound, her style and her actions are all part of the production and privacy is rarely part of the deal. It must be tremendously difficult to keep your grasp on your sense of self, if you are ever truly allowed to understand what your own sense of self may be (as I suspect she never has been), and to hold on to it while the Public You is held out for consumption. I can’t imagine that a person could do that on his or her own, which is why a Pop Star has an entourage of publicists and trainers and stylists and assistants, not to mention hopefully at least one or two true friends, whether it’s a mom or a sister or a buddy, to keep it real and deal out the tough love when necessary.

So where is her entourage? Is everyone afraid of crossing her? Does she have enough money that she doesn’t care and doesn’t listen? How do you approach someone who is so massively out of touch and persuade them to accept help? At what point does everyone give up and let the star retreat to Neverland Ranch to emerge every now and then embroiled in some even crazier shenanigans? Leaving the personal out of it, since the Pop Star is a business, isn’t there anyone with the foresight to recognize that the long-term benefits of truly shaping up and kicking ass would be much more lucrative and satisfying than the immediate gratification of an elaborate meltdown? Is there, in fact, a rock bottom? Is this all our fault, for encouraging and continuing to support her place in the public eye?

I’m not going to try and offer trenchant commentary on what all this hoopla and the inevitable tearing-down says about the state of our culture and our morals – those points will be made by others more eloquent than I can be. But I just have to wonder what the ultimate point is supposed to be. It would certainly be less embarrassing for the rest of us if last night’s performer would get the help and support that she needs on a professional level, and I do hope that she somehow gets the help and support that she seems to need so desperately on a personal level, whether she realizes she needs it or not. While I assume she has plenty of money and advantages that the average person can’t dream of, it’s still saddening and depressing to see someone with so much potential flounder so badly. It makes me feel like we’ve all failed, somehow.

*Out of shape for her, though I think on real-world terms she great, especially for having had two children since we saw her last.

Great Googly Moogly -- Two Posts in One Week!

2007-09-07T09:39:00.000-04:00

Okay, so this exercise thing that I was doing? Apparently my subconscious has decided that we (I am refusing to acknowledge my subconscious as a part of myself right now because we are having a tiff) no longer need exercise.

For the second week in a row, I have missed my class because I overslept.

I don’t know if I’ve described the class, but it meets at 5:30 a.m. It meets downtown and because we live in the boonies I have to get up a little before 5:00 a.m. to make it in time – and this is with my workout clothes carefully laid out so that I practically fall into them as I roll out of bed and stumble blearily to the car. 5:00 a.m. is, I feel, an hour when most sensible, non-bloodsucking creatures should be tucked in bed with visions of sugar plums, etc. (Or, at least, that is what I always supposed – there is always what I consider a shocking amount of traffic on the road at that hour.) But I digress. At any rate, for the first 6-week session of this class, I think I missed one class because I overslept.

This time around, I have missed four. FOUR. And we're only two weeks in!

My alarm is set before I go to bed, and I obsessively check it to make sure it is (a) in fact, on, (b) set for “a.m.” instead of “p.m.” and (c) set at a suitably earsplitting volume. (You live and learn.) Anyway, alarm: check. So when Wilbur’s alarm goes off at 6:00 or 6:30 and he feels for me groggily and asks why I’m still there, it’s a bit disturbing. Because I’m not supposed to be there – I’m supposed to be downtown running up and down the stairs of a parking garage, carrying weights and trying to remember why I’m doing this instead of sleeping in and stopping by Krispy Kreme on the way to work, which is so much easier.

I am not sure what is happening. Are we both sleeping through an entire hour of incredibly annoying Hawk-and-Tom lame-o morning show shenanigans before my alarm gives up and shuts off? Am I reaching out reflexively to turn the alarm off, without even waking up? Am I, perish the thought, going to bed too early and reaching dead-to-the-world status only between the hours of 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning? Do I fall asleep with the TV on so frequently that the sound of voices and music no longer triggers a response?

We both can’t possibly be sleeping through an hour of that rot without noticing, and at this point I’ve got it turned up so loud that I simply can’t imagine that the first and third options are plausible. Next week, I’m moving the alarm clock outside of arm’s reach, and we’ll see if that makes a difference. Until then, my subconscious is on probation until it can get back in touch with my super-ego and regain a sense of freaking responsibility.

Blah, blah, blah...zzzzzz.

2007-09-05T14:26:00.000-04:00

AAIIIEEEEE!!!

What happened to the regular updating?! Well, you almost have to admit that for me, this counts as semi-regular updating. It is still 2007, after all.

No, a vacation (cheers!) coupled with loads of actual work (weeping!) have kept me from my blogging labors lately. True, there have been a couple of times in the past few weeks when I could have booted up the laptop instead of staring slack-jawed at a Dirty Jobs marathon or something, but sometimes you just need to stare slack-jawed at a Dirty Jobs marathon. Also, Wilbur was away from home on business for a couple of weeks in there and the Beast has little patience for things like “typing” and “staring slack-jawed.”

Tentative, tremulous baby steps have been made in the service of some long-overdue house projects, though, so it hasn’t all been fluffy slippers and bonbons when I haven’t been at work. Also, it's bizarrely fascinating how many dirty clothes two people with no actual human offspring can generate in the course of a week. This phenomenon merits scientific study. It may have something to do with the multiple showers each day, which I realize is horribly wasteful but HAVE YOU NOTICED HOW HOT IT HAS BEEN FOR THE PAST MONTH??? The sweat -- dear God, the sweat!

I have also signed up for the Kiawah half marathon again, which…. Sigh. It means I have to start training, and PRONTO, because I can’t do it again as woefully unprepared as I was last year. (Where “woefully unprepared” = barfing by mile 7 and practically crawling by the end.)

So, that’s about it for me.

My sister (who shall remain nicknameless until she picks something) and her boyfriend became engaged a couple of weeks ago, so that has been the main excitement in these parts. (Unless I’m forgetting something, which is entirely possible, since lately I have the attention span of a doughnut. Mmmmm… doughnuts….)

Bits

2007-07-30T21:43:00.000-04:00

Okay, so we’ll start out with some bits and pieces.

I pass a Lowe’s Home Improvement Supercenter (TM, or some such, I'm sure) on the way to and from work. On my way home today, I noticed that one of the storage sheds displayed in the parking lot for your shopping and storage pleasure was painted red and shaped like a tiny barn, with a tiny cupola and a tiny weather vane. I wonder if it comes with a tiny farmer, to complete your own little backyard bucolic paradise.

I’m doing this “fitness boot camp” thing, which meets several days a week at 5:30 in the morning. So, it’s good and all, and I think I’m actually beginning to see some results. One of the lifestyle changes we’re supposed to make is eating six small meals a day, high in protein and low in carbs, and nothing after about 6:30 PM. I’m down with six meals a day, but it’s currently 9:00 PM and I’m getting ready to eat a bowl of pasta (following the glass of wine and the cheese that I’ve been enjoying as I type this) and after the pasta I’ll probably have some ice cream. The leopard can’t completely change its spots, yo. Not in three weeks, anyway.

How about a roster of frequent players?

We’ll start with the two guys who’ll probably figure most prominently in our little narrative: Wilbur and the Beast.

WILBUR is my husband. I will never refer to him here as my “DH” because frankly that makes me want to poke something sharp, like perhaps this cheese knife, into my eyeball. Wilbur and I have known each other for over a decade, but we haven’t been a couple for that long (you have to sow those oats before you settle down, right?). He is a consultant. Yes, that means that people pay him to tell them what to do. He will tell you what to do, too, for a fee.

He is also a volunteer firefighter and an erstwhile Jeep mechanic. He and his Jeep buddies like to get all hot and bothered talking about rear differentials and transfer cases and Dana-44s and shackles and leaf springs and angles of approach and descent. If you like to talk about these things, you should go to www.cfsjc.com, the forum and club that he and aforesaid Jeep buddies have started to feed their obsession. I never have to worry if he’s going to be occupied by the Big Game all weekend – I have to worry if he’s going to be in the garage all day tightening a nut. (Oh, that was cheap, but I couldn’t resist.) Anyway, we have this unspoken agreement not to question one anothers’ purchasing habits. I buy shoes, he buys Jeep parts. But the cool thing is that he made a Jeep. See Exhibit A:

He made this from parts. It was nothing but separate parts, and now it is a real, live Jeep!

He gets to run the radio when we’re in the car because a lot of the music I like makes him want to writhe in agony. He watches Pixar movies with me, though, so we forgive him for that. Also, despite surreptitious enjoyment of Pixar movies, he’ll kick your ass, so don’t try anything funny. Also, he's pretty cute. And he makes me smile.

The BEAST is our Very Large Dog. He is a 115-pound redbone coonhound mix we adopted in early 2006 from Athens Canine Rescue in Athens, GA. Since Wilbur and I are childless and plan to remain so for the foreseeable future, the Beast is our de facto child. This may be unhealthy, but I figure we’re doing pretty well if that’s the most unhealthy thing we do. (Aside from the drugs.) For such a large and robust-looking creature, the Beast has a relatively delicate stomach and though he will try to convince you that whatever food item you are holding is, in fact, his very favorite, we try to be strict. He’s basically your garden variety cream puff, with a protective streak and a determination to rid the world of squirrels. He isn’t so much into “tricks” other than the expert manipulation of his hapless owners and adopting positions of complete and utter licentiousness. See, e.g., Exhibit B:

That’s the Boys. I’ll add more folks as they appear. Right now, I have a heavy date with my carbs and The History Channel. And the Beast would like to know if you’re going to eat all that.

For Really Real

2007-07-27T08:19:00.000-04:00

This is it, y'all. I think I may be ready to do it.

I've conquered the exercise demon by sticking to a plan. I'm going to treat the blog demon the same way (pesky little jerk): a scheduled time in the evening to sit down and write, even if I don't think I have anything to say. We'll see what comes out of my head.

In the meantime, how about a picture of a deer?

This is not my beautiful wife!

2007-02-16T08:40:00.000-05:00

Well, that is just pathetic.

"Hi, it's July, and I'm going to turn over a new leaf and get back to blogging and..."

"Hi, it's February, and, uh....."

I really enjoy reading blogs, and I enjoy commenting on blogs, I imagine that I enjoy writing a blog myself, but the reality, apparently, is that I enjoy the idea of writing a blog much more than actually doing it. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I have all these grand plans for my own website and my very own domain name and a spiffy, chic design and... for what, again? Talk about the cart before the horse. So, okay, I'm not going to make any predictions. It is what it is, etc.

Part of the problem is that the only time I'm really in front of my computer for any significant stretch is at work. And, frankly, I don't have time to do this while I'm at work (nor should I, says the Work Ethics Angel perched over my left shoulder). And, if I'm really honest with myself, I think I'm afraid. See, in my head (which is not, despite overwhelming evidence indicating otherwise, entirely made of wood), I am funny. Not just funny, I am witty and trenchant and amusingly sarcastic. I am erudite! What comes out of my head, I am afraid, is not so much. And I'm not worried about being bad. Being spectacularly bad at it would be almost as good as actually being all those things I think I am. No, Reader, I am afraid of being average. I am afraid of being boring.

I think a large part of this trepidation is due to the fabulous, funny, brilliant blogs I read every day. I marvel at and appreciate the structure and wit that seems to flow so effortlessly (though I realize many of these people know a whole hell of a lot more that I do about how to actually write -- they even have degrees in it, and whatnot). How can I hope to come up with anything as original and entertaining as these incredibly talented men and women? I'm just ol' Jenny, over here in a corner... And I don't even do anything that exciting! How on earth could I expect to contribute anything new to the teeming, cacophonous wilderness of what's already out there?
So, I realize that's probably looking at the whole blog thing the wrong way (or is it?). I don't have to make a difference. I don't have to be sparklingly fabulous; I don't have to generate a thronging readership of devoted admirers. I don't even have to put anything out there at all, except for me, when I feel like it. I have made my choice, and I choose me!

Besides, I turn 30 this year, y'all. Thirty. Three decades. It's just a number, really, and most of my friends are already beyond that point. My husband is beyond that point. And that number has never really freaked me out in the abstract sense. It doesn't seem old, taken in context. What it does, though, in truth, is make me bewildered. I'm going to be 30. I have had 30 whole years to do something with myself. And, I have, I guess. I'm a lawyer, I do good work (or so they tell me). I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends and a nice house, etc., etc. What baffles me is how I got here. And what did I think I was going to be doing with myself at this point? Is this it? I have no idea! Where's my Nobel Prize and where are my published scholarly works and honorary knighthood, and most importantly, where are my piles of gold bricks and my private Caribbean island paradise? What the hell have I been doing with myself?

Well, I haven't been blogging, that's for damn sure.

Who Ordered the Veal Cutlet?

2006-07-31T15:19:00.000-04:00

Greetings to the .2 people who see this. I haven't updated anything anywhere in a really long time -- mostly because I haven't felt like it. I think for about a year now I have felt a general internet malaise and haven't had much in the way of enthusiasm for updating my own corner of the many-cornered internet. A large portion of the malaise stemmed from the explosion of flickr and feeling that something fun and (relatively) quiet that I was fortunate enough to be a part of had spiraled out of control into something suddenly vast and a little bit psychologically frightening. I felt like Arthur Dent entering the factory floor of Magrathea and being instantly gobsmacked with the sheer bigness of the place; for the first time, I was confronted with the enormity of the internet community and wanted to just shut the door and hide.

Well, I *think* I am back. I plan on getting back into taking pictures of things and posting things and not feeling so generally disenfranchised. It's time for a fresh start.

I'm having to republish the blog here; I seem to have made modifications to the previous version that resulted in not being able to see any subsequent changes. And I'm not such a guru that I could tell what the hell I'd done to mess it up. So, since there wasn't all that much to it anyway, I've just moved everything over and updated. I'm not going to mess with the template too terribly much; and I chortle at my ambition (see below) to obtain my own domain name and get a "real" website set up. Ha! What was I thinking? Maybe someday, but not anytime soon. Anyway, I find this template visually pleasing for the time being and I'm going to focus more on there being... you know, actual content.

Clinical Trials Unsuccessful...

2006-07-31T15:18:00.000-04:00

Originally posted several months ago, reposted here due to structural failure of previous incarnation of blog.

The photo attribution thingies aren't showing up -- I guess I need to brush up on my html to figure that one out. In the file for the post they are there... and yet so invisible...

UPDATE: Okay, now they're back but the formatting is all weird.

UPDATE II: Okay, now the formatting is back, but my picture border is gone. I give up for now.

Me... or not.

2006-07-31T15:17:00.000-04:00

Originally posted several months ago, reposted here due to structural failure of previous incarnation of blog.

I haven't uploaded any pictures of the Beast yet. (Because apparently I haven't uploaded any pictures since, oh, November? How utterly boring am I? Have I taken pictures? I think so....)

Anyway, I'm setting things up here and since I don't have a picture of the Beast to post, you get a picture of me. Sort of. I mean, yes, it is actually me, but I'm in my Halloween costume, so it's kind of not me. It actually doesn't really look anything like me, to be honest. I'm an evil blogging deceiver!

Post the First

2006-07-31T15:16:00.000-04:00

Originally posted several months ago, reposted here due to structural failure of previous incarnation of blog.

Testing!

Yeah, this originally had more information in it, but, in a fit of revisionism, I've deleted it. It didn't seem to serve the whole purpose of "starting over."