for what it's worth...

Source: Staples eReader Department

and what is it worth, anyway?

I can’t decide if this is really

cool or really absurd.

 

still undecided~but, perhaps inexplicably, i think I want it!

we all have different priorities

My dad is under the mistaken impression that i could have bought a house with the money i have spent on earrings over the years. Every time he and my stepmother come to visit me i see them shaking their heads and issuing a silent "tut-tut" at the collection of earrings i have hanging on my wall.

First of all, this collection has been amassed over thirty-some-odd years, and it isn't like i spent inordinate amounts of money on the things (i couldn't afford to~both because i never have inordinate amounts of money available to me and also because i'm always loosing earrings.)

Losing earrings has somehow been one of the biggest, oft-occurring tragedies of my life. I buy earrings because i like something about whatever pair it is, its uniqueness, it's catitude, or whatever. Often the ones i own are irreplaceable (not because of their monetary worth, but because of their availability.) One lost earring is usually not that big of a tragedy because i seldom wear matching earrings (i figure different earrings in each available hole offers more display room and, along with my black toenails, is one of my signatures.) The main problem comes when i loose my only remaining earring or the pair happens to offer two different "perspectives" (the same image only mirrored, one earring has the western hemisphere and one the eastern, or, one of my favorite pairs "IN ONE EAR" and "OUT THE OTHER".) Occasionally i will catch an image of myself in the mirror and wonder how i ended up with matching earrings.

Because i have such a tendancy to loose these precious baubles i am always paranoid of vacuming my living room floor or sweeping my bedroom floor for fear of loosing them eternally. If i do either of these dreaded activities (not that i'm dying to anyway) i search through the debris for any strays and have admonished my mother to do the same...

Bite me, please, somebody just Bite me...

vampire wars is just a pyramid game without even the action of those first text based adventure games (Madness and the Minotaur for instance, and how much am i dating myself~or is the reference completely lost?) Also, the only payoff that may come to you is the reward of extra blood. What kind of pyramid scheme is that???

so why am i so addicted?

I simply MUST enter the fray multiple times per day so that i can fight other vampires for dominance. I have to go trolling for strangers on Facebook to "friend" so that i can have a large enough clan to win these fights. I then promptly "defriend" them, because, in general i only like to have my "real" friends on Facebook. The fights don't even have any kind of animated action to watch the battle in progress they only give you the results afterwards. And then there are the missions so that you become all that more blood enriched and powerful

I'm sure it is somehow related to my whole Facebook obsession (just like the rest of the kids~whatever happened to my rebellious, non-conformist ways?

Do i really have this much time to waste???

ditch that man and read a book instead

works for me...

Picking the perfect companion

Back in the dark ages when I was dating, I had a friend tell me I had no standards when it came to men – that I'd date anyone. Now, that certainly wasn't true. I wouldn't, for example, date someone with poor hygiene or who professed to be an axe-murderer. I did have to admit, though, that my friend had a point, that I would date, well, pretty much anyone who'd ask me out. On further analysis I decided that this was not, as implied by this so-called "friend," an indication of loose morality, but was in fact an indication of strong character. It meant I didn't judge people too quickly; I got to know them a bit before deciding whether or not a relationship had any chance of working out. A valuable gem might lie just beneath a rough exterior. I was willing to take the chance of finding out.

I'm no longer free to date (I have a feeling my husband would disapprove), so I've had to find something else to feed this need I have to try new things. That "something else" is, of course, the world of books. (Who knows? Perhaps it was my love of constantly exploring different kinds of books that led to my willingness to sample different kinds of men.)

Think about it – there are a lot of similarities between picking a mate and picking a book. Your eye may land on a handsome volume at random, or you may hear about a promising one through a friend whose taste you respect. You pick it up and take it home with you to evaluate further. The relationship might be fast and furious, or it may end up being something you savor, or - even better - a love that you return to again and again over the years. Or it may end up being a complete waste of time. You just never know until you investigate what's between the covers.

Relationships with books actually have some pretty compelling advantages over relationships with men. With books, it's always your choice if the liaison ends prematurely. You don't have to worry about the awkwardness of trying to avoid your discarded book should you bump into it in the grocery store. You can tell it, "It's not you, it's me" or even "You know, it actually IS you" without hurting its feelings. It will also never insist on an exclusive relationship, and no one will think ill of you if you love more than one. You can take one to bed with you the very first night you bring it home without your mother blinking an eye.

I seem to have a misplaced sense of loyalty toward the books I start. I know a number of readers who will stick with a book for fifty or a hundred pages, and if they're not impressed by that time, will unceremoniously discard it, never giving it another thought. I, however, end up feeling that even if I have my reservations, I need to give it a chance; it may improve on further acquaintance. I feel guilty if I don't struggle through to the end. Like most of the men I've dated, though, my initial impressions were correct, and the additional time spent struggling to enjoy the experience was time lost. Perhaps now that I'm older I should start developing higher standards... at least where books are concerned.

BookBrowse reviewer Kim Kovacs is an avid reader in the Pacific Northwest. All those rainy days give her the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of books that span many genres.

(and i'll try to keep it in mind the next time i find myself hungering after some man...)

because i am so prone to bandwagon jumping

(even if i'd like to hope i'm not, proud non-conformist that i am)and i seem to have developed a facebook addiction I’ll post my 25 random things about me list here (and yes, Tim, i know that they are not really random but that is what they are calling it and this is a band wagon thing…:) I'm sure i've mentioned at least a few of these before...

1. I’m a raging insomniac (technically, delayed sleep phase syndrome) and often times, after midnight, very ill-advised ideas seem like very good ideas.
2. Although i have never felt a desire for children, if it weren’t for my nephews and niece i might have felt compelled to have them.


3. Even though my sister is twelve years younger than I, from her early childhood i always knew she would get married and have children before i did.
4. My cats ARE my children and i am as committed to them as i would be to my actual offspring.

5. Although three cats are definitely enough, lately i have felt an irresistible urge to add a dog to the mix.

6. Although i have made many a stupid mistake in my lifetime i don’t regret a single one (they have made me who i am today and i am pretty okay with that person.)

7. Although i would give almost anything to be without these damn migraines i am
   very grateful for all they have taught me about myself.

8. I am addicted to popcorn (and cheese—meat is not such a big sacrifice but i could never give up cheese.)

9. When i was small and went grocery shopping with my father i somehow got the idea that the beer he bought smelled like rice pudding and was so disappointed to discover it tasted absolutely nothing like rice pudding.

10. My favorite kind of beer is Pyramid Apricot Weizen even though i am not that found of apricots (too many memories of being forced to pick up the mushy rotten ones from our back lawn as a child.)

11. I always wanted to be an academic librarian and the thought of being a public librarian was at the very bottom of my list (never was a big fan of the public.) Now that i am a public librarian i can’t really imagine being anything else.

12. I love reading and even though i own probably more books than i could ever read i somehow keep acquiring more (a bitch to move across country—and my list of books to read is even larger than that.)

13. I remain friends with almost all my exes.

14. I could not survive without sarcasm.

15. I am NOT shy, people that know me are more than aware of this; people that don’t rarely believe me when i tell them so.

16. I see a neurologist at least once a month and she is constantly switching up my meds (I also see a second neurologist every three months for my sleep disorder.)

17. I am a mass of contradictions.

18. I am very rational and logical but my passion seems to rule my life (and that little voice in my head is not so much one of morality but rather constantly telling my how irrational my actions are.)

19. It took me forever to like sci-fi because when i was little my dad used to come home from work, drag me downstairs, switch on star trek, and not allow me to talk to him except during commercials (he wanted to spend time with me~and such quality time it was…)

20. Now i love Star Trek (original and TNG~Gina, you got me hooked on this...)

21. I can’t stand squash (any kind—even zucchini). Never have, never will (again, childhood memories which i shan’t get into here.)

22. I love New Year’s Eve but haven’t celebrated it for years.

23. When i was younger i used to think most people thought like me, the older i get the more i realize that i am so much more liberal than most of the population.

24. People who think they know everything are rather annoying to those of us who actually do (see number 14, and i actually think agnosticism is the only way to go.)

25. When i was a child in Alaska i believed you plugged in you cars overnight to make them go the next day (instead of to keep the engine from freezing—don’t know why i never noticed my parents didn’t plug them in during the summer—perhaps because summers were so short?

does it mean anything

that i am constantly typing my email address as ME@homail.com rather than ME@hotmail.com?

how can i dream about the soles of my feet if you're sitting on top of my head???

Was in the middle of figuring out where my dream was heading (or just beginning to enjoy the bizareness of it when Dixie Louanne bothered and awoke me both by sitting on my head and rattling the blind. Now i'll never know!

do you ever get the feeling people just call the local reference librarian because they're lonley and need to chat (or because they are obnoxious and bitchy and need someone to yell at and have already lost any friends they might have had?

Do you ever get the feeling i am just a lonely old -spinster-cat lady?

how long would this one take to tap out?

for me?
I'm not sure i even want to contemplate...
It takes me forever to type text messages and appointments into my cell phone~even with t9 capabilities (maybe it's just a matter of age~much as i hate to admit it):

The New York Times, January 20, 2008
Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

TOKYO — Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.
Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels.
What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere. “Will cellphone novels kill ‘the author’?” a famous literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked on the cover of its January issue. Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books. Critics said the dominance of cellphone novels, with their poor literary quality, would hasten the decline of Japanese literature.
Whatever their literary talents, cellphone novelists are racking up the kind of sales that most more experienced, traditional novelists can only dream of.
One such star, a 21-year-old woman named Rin, wrote “If You” over a six-month stretch during her senior year in high school. While commuting to her part-time job or whenever she found a free moment, she tapped out passages on her cellphone and uploaded them on a popular Web site for would-be authors.
After cellphone readers voted her novel No. 1 in one ranking, her story of the tragic love between two childhood friends was turned into a 142-page hardcover book last year. It sold 400,000 copies and became the No. 5 best-selling novel of 2007, according to a closely watched list by Tohan, a major book distributor.
“My mother didn’t even know that I was writing a novel,” said Rin, who, like many cellphone novelists, goes by only one name. “So at first when I told her, well, I’m coming out with a novel, she was like, what?
She didn’t believe it until it came out and appeared in bookstores.” The cellphone novel was born in 2000 after a home-page-making Web site, Maho no i-rando, realized that many users were writing novels on their blogs; it tinkered with its software to allow users to upload works in progress and readers to comment, creating the serialized cellphone novel. But the number of users uploading novels began booming only two to three years ago, and the number of novels listed on the site reached one million last month, according to Maho no i-rando.

* * * * *

The affordability of cellphones coincided with the coming of age of a generation of Japanese for whom cellphones, more than personal computers, had been an integral part of their lives since junior high school. So they read the novels on their cellphones, even though the same Web sites were also accessible by computer. They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25.
“It’s not that they had a desire to write and that the cellphone happened to be there,” said Chiaki Ishihara, an expert in Japanese literature at Waseda University who has studied cellphone novels. “Instead, in the course of exchanging e-mail, this tool called the cellphone instilled in them a desire to write.”
Indeed, many cellphone novelists had never written fiction before, and many of their readers had never read novels before, according to publishers.

* * * * *

Written in the first person, many cellphone novels read like diaries. Almost all the authors are young women delving into affairs of the heart, spiritual descendants, perhaps, of Shikibu Murasaki, the 11th-century royal lady-in-waiting who wrote “The Tale of Genji.” “Love Sky,” a debut novel by a young woman named Mika, was read by 20 million people on cellphones or on computers, according to Maho no i-rando, where it was first uploaded. A tear-jerker featuring adolescent sex, rape, pregnancy and a fatal disease — the genre’s sine qua non — the novel nevertheless captured the young generation’s attitude, its verbal tics and the cellphone’s omnipresence. Republished in book form, it became the No. 1 selling novel last year and was made into a movie.
Given the cellphone novels’ domination of the mainstream, critics no longer dismiss them, though some say they should be classified with comic books or popular music. Rin said ordinary novels left members of her generation cold.
“They don’t read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them,” she said. “On other hand, I understand how older Japanese don’t want to recognize these as novels. The paragraphs and the sentences are too simple, the stories are too predictable. But I’d like cellphone novels to be recognized as a genre.”
As the genre’s popularity leads more people to write cellphone novels, though, an existential question has arisen: can a work be called a cellphone novel if it is not composed on a cellphone, but on a computer or, inconceivably, in longhand?
“When a work is written on a computer, the nuance of the number of lines is different, and the rhythm is different from writing on a cellphone,” said Keiko Kanematsu, an editor at Goma Books, a
publisher of cellphone novels. “Some hard-core fans wouldn’t consider that a cellphone novel.”
Still, others say the genre is not defined by the writing tool.
Ms. Naito, the novelist, says she writes on a computer and sends the text to her phone, with which she rearranges her work. Unlike the first-time cellphone novelists in their teens or early 20s, she says she is more comfortable writing on a computer.
But at least one member of the cellphone generation has made the switch to computers. A year ago, one of Starts Publishing’s young stars, Chaco, gave up her phone even though she could compose much faster with it by tapping with her thumb. “Because of writing on the cellphone, her nail had cut into the flesh and became bloodied,” said Mr. Matsushima of Starts. “Since she’s switched to a computer,” he added, “her vocabulary’s gotten richer and her sentences have also grown longer.”

Now, i have always harboured dreams of being a novelist (though the dreams grow dimmer with each passing year)~but if it ever happens it certainly won't be happening thisaway (i don't know that i can imagine a bigger nightmare.)

Though i do recall seeing some kind of news piece about the younger set adapting/evolving a different set of thumb dexterity to us oldsters to deal with things like cell phones, video games, and the like (and apparently there is something to that, as it says Chaco could compose much faster with her cellphone "by tapping with her thumb"~can't imagine that, myself~though evolution doesn't generally function in that manner OR that quickly, but what do i know~not a hell of a lot, really...)

where have all the redshirts gone?

It used to be you could tell who was going to die on any one episode (or continuing episode, or crossover, or whatever) if indeed anyone were to die by their guest-starring status (or, as observed by oh-so-many in the original Star Trek, by the wearing of the red shirt.)
It seems things are no longer so predictable.

It seems to me that Joss Whedon was one of the pioneers of this phenomena (tho, admittedly, i wasn't exactly tracking it), ultimately with the death of Buffy (tho he had started it much earlier~notably with the first episode and Jesse). Now it seems no show is immune.

I kinda like it.

It definitely makes things more interesting.

how long must a blog go unwritten

before it is considered abandoned?

how long must a life go unlived

does it seem odd that when the thoughts race, flow so freely,

they are so very difficult to capture on the page...

(...the screen...

...the whatever*o*sphere ~out there way beyond your own mind or consciousness )?

or does that just naturally

follow?

Almost Complete Randomness; or Navigating the Narrow Straights; or Things that make you Say Fuck, take dos...

(probably not the best of ideas) to blog while in a state of slight inebriation

Thoughts come so quickly its almost impossible to tell if they are actually thoughts

shall i just start rambling on?

Okay, i will:

1. I’m either losing my hair (thinning AND more importantly STRAIGHTENING out) due to

2. I don’t remember how it used to be, once again, due to

3. Advancing age (i hate the idea of straight, thin hair~though everyone else tells me that my hair does not look that way…)

4. How many cocktails do you think were created because all the liquor stores were closed or you were too drunk or lazy to go out (or who makes all the wacky liquor laws anyway {teetotalers?})

   1. grapefruit and rum (because you have no vodka except for the red pepper kind) is really, really vile and must be dumped down the sink even if that is a form of alcohol abuse

   2. mix the remaining amount of grapefruit juice with the Herding Cats Chenin Blanc/Chardonnay South African vineyard you’ve been saving because the name of the winery is so very cool but now you’re entirely desperate

   3. and then it is on to ginger ale mixed with the white wine because the point is to get drunk and expel the headache; not vomit up the alcohol, thus rendering the whole thing mute (and further alcohol abuse)

   4. admitting to whoever is out there on the anonymous internet what your at-home habits actually are

   5. you put the lime in the coconut…

      1. you don’t want to waste all of the wine so:

      2. Captain Morgan’s Parrot Bay Coconut Rum

      3. a dash of lime

      4. and Baskin Robbins Daiquiri Ice (a flavor you fell in love with way back in the childhood days before you developed the seduction of “real rum” but just because you hated sweets, and still do…

         1. which brings us to:

         2. the fact that you are so wide now you are not fitting into clothes you used to and when you were in the hospital recently you didn’t know how much you weighed because it really isn’t healthy to constantly weigh yourself but shouldn’t you go to the gym once in a while

         3. even though you haven’t paid the gym bill

         4. and they do have a scale there...

         5. and the problem isn’t your diet but your exercise

      5. (and by the by) the Daiquiri Ice/Rum/Lime with tiny ice cubes IS the perfect drink

      6. And isn’t it interesting that alcohol seems to act as a stimulant in your system instead of a depressant like it does in everyone else’s? (So that you can have all that excess energy to make a fool of yourself????)

5. Shall we give you an update on the library customers/patrons/users because we haven’t discussed them for a while and my/your (what person are we talking here anyway?) attention span is only so long?

1. That older crazy woman (i know it’s kind of difficult to know exactly who i’m referring to when i say “crazy”, as they all seem to be crazy and Paranoid, but what else can i do?) is back (well she has been in but i haven’t seen her and she’s calling [veterinarians-or-someone] to tell them that now it Has Been Proven That putting “those Microchips into dogs’ ears (they don't put them in the ears anyway) causes cancer (actually the jury still out on that one but somehow her business seems to be calling people and telling them what to do [and she would really like all of her phone calls to be private~even though she IS using our public phone~she always cups the phone and turns her back if i happen to move my chair anywhere near her~even though i can hear her perfectly well from my usual position] i couldn’t figure out if she was hanging up on them or they were hanging up on her)

2. speaking of paranoid, Mr. OldGuitarist has been in but he's not speaking to me and mainly seems to be venting his hateful fear on my manager

3. the mother with the autistic/ behavioral disordered kid continues to bring him in and i continue to experience anxiety (i have nothing to comment on here, i just wanted to get it out…)

4. the other night many, many children were running wild down the aisles and i was picking up books and i wanted to bop them on the heads with the books in my hands, and, if their parents showed any response whatsoever, say

   1. “Oh, i didn’t think they belonged to anyone. (since no one seemed to show any responsibility for their behavior)

5. I don’t think the parents of the demon spawn have jobs, because they are seen at all hours of the day in our library. The speculation is they live on public assistance and/or they travel around on the bus all day visiting different libraries…

6. MotherWhoHasNoSenseOfDiscipline has not been seen for a while (nor have her children)

7. Oddly enough i have Seen Mr. NeedsRap but he has not asked me for anything (could his ipod be full~and he doesn't know about smart playlists?)

8. i'm actually growing rather found of the MotherOfTheTwoUnrulyBoys (though i need to come up with a new name for her because she apparently only has one son~she hasn't brought in the other one since i kicked them all out and she is in a wheel chair and has some kind of disability~she does try and i grew kind of attached to and protective of her when some man thought she had abducted her son and was questioning her about his birth date and everything and she was feeling frightened and accused and i had to step in to defend her) and her son always stays with her now

6. Prego chunky garden style tomato, garlic and onion kicks ass!

7. If you have any problems with self-discipline, never live alone!!!

8. How many contortions do you think a sleeping body can be twisted into to accomadate three cats who do not like to be next to each other but somehow want to be next to the sleeping body?

9. How is it not as late as it feels?

late, lost, ailing, & pissed off

I know i've mentioned that i'm ill (very, very ill, thank you so much for asking~like wishing-i-were-not-alive ill) this week, but have i mentioned that i'm on vacation? Not that i had much planned other than trying to catch up on much needed housework (which, perhaps needless to say i haven't been able to do...) but still...

Anyway, it was so very convenient of me to schedule my vacation just in time for me to be sick (and more than one person has mentioned to me that i could actually take sick time instead of vacation time, which i could, but i with my little rampaging migrainey head, unlike most, have much more vacation time than sick time so it is all for nought...)

And, vacation or no, i was scheduled for a Readers' Advisory training this early morning, teaching one of my Chronic Conditions classes later this morning, and for the government employee sexual harassment/ethical training in the afternoon; there was just no other time to do it. So, this non-morning person drags herself out of her sick/death bed early in the morning to get into her borrowed truck (oh, i didn't mention that my car is in the shop getting its air conditioning, of all things, fixed, now did i? Well it is. The air broke sometime back in July or so and when i heard it was going to cost about $1000 (because the coils had crashed and melted or some such thing) of which i didn't have i decided not to fix it but then last week it started making this horrible whining noise and apparently the car no go without air conditioning so just in time for the cooler weather i get to get it fixed...) As i have mentioned before, i am no fan of driving, and this morning i was turning east right into the sunrise, at a height and an angle where i was unable to see a damn thing. I was rolling down the window in an attempt to see the oncoming traffic when the person behind me honks.

Honking horns are one of my biggest pet peeves in life. I once had a friend who was ticketed because he honked his horn at someone because they did not move quickly enough at a red light. The police officer told him that horns were only to be used in cases of extreme emergency. This is how i feel about horns, and if you honk at me often my biggest priority in life becomes preventing you from getting where you need to be, so think before you honk at that redhead in front of you. But this morning i was frustrated and couldn't see. For some reason i put some faith in the person behinds me and decided that if they were honking at me the way must be clear and i went barreling out into traffic. The way was not clear and i hear screeching tires and more honking horns as i bring traffic to a halt in both directions. I somehow avoided collision (though i realized that if there had been an accident that car behind me would be late to where ever they were going because they would need to fill out witness forms and the like so there would be some good done there.)

Anyhow, as i continue to drive east into the blinding sun, my migraine continues to build and i end up taking the wrong exit to library headquarters which i have, of course, been to many a time. I get lost and wandering some circuitous course through rambling neighboring streets getting ever later to my training. I finally pull into what i hope is an entrance to a parking lot (still being unable to see) go crashing over a few islands, am now twenty minutes late and with a raging headache and finally decide that it is time to call it a wash, turn around and go back home.

I make it to my class without incident.

But then when i try to go to my ethics training there is some kind of Health Fair going on at the government center (i would comment on the irony, but i am in no mood). I drive around and around and around the parking lot looking for parking but to no avail. When i finally find i spot and run to class i have been locked out. Of course when i walk back out to my car there is parking everywhere.

It is back to bed for me...

dream a little dream of me

I have a cold (i get many, many colds, in case you haven't noticed~compromised-immune-systems-are-us.) So i haven't been doing much reading, i've been watching movies, mostly. I discovered a wonderful new television series (well i shouldn't call it new since it was canceled before a full season, but thank god for the whole DVD trend...), so if you get a chance you really should check out WonderFalls. Of course i'm keeping up with Weeds (though it's gotten a bit dark and frightening this season it is still such a wonderful show...) I've also watched Ossessione (i'm trying to work my way through 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die ~though i wasn’t entirely impressed by this one~a 1943 Italian flick which was alright, i.e., not a waste of my viewing time, it felt a touch predictable and derivative~but i suppose i’m looking at it through 20^th/21^st century eyes…), Henry & June (not as great as the build-up i had given it), Accepted (yeah, a silly, stupid little comedy but it WAS entertaining right up to the obligatory motivational speech at the end~and we can all use a little entertainment now and then, right?), Guinevere (a movie i just stumbled upon and really liked), The Opposite of Sex (loved it!), and Pan’s Labyrinth (brilliant, beautiful, y muy triste~i can't recommend it highly enough.)

I’ve also been doing a great deal of sleeping (guess it goes along with the whole cold thing) so i thought i might share a few tidbits of my non-waking life. Yesterday afternoon i dreamt i was in my childhood home again with my mother and sister and my sister was much younger than she is now (as she often is in my dreams). She started out about nine or ten or so and was in our backyard with a few of her little friends. More and more of her friends started joining the group as my sister slowly morphed into a teenager (isn’t it interesting how these types of changes can happen in dreams and they seem completely normal?). As my mom and i were viewing the civilities through the window i was eventually instructed to go break up the party and send everyone home (something i did not feel inclined to do.) So my mother reluctantly goes marching out there but as i continue to observe through the window things develop into a full-fledged bacchanalia which is completely out of control. I go out to try and restore order only to find my mother chopping wood for a bonfire… I’m shouting for everyone to go home and threatening to call the police which is having absolutely no effect. I finally give up and decide to go back into my house (which has actually morphed into My current house in that endearing dreamlike way) and as i’m rounding the corner i see a paddy wagon pull up with some big dude bursting out the back (the personification of the bulldog in those old Looney Tunes cartoons) looking for the party (because apparently in this particular universe paddy wagons drop people off at the nearest party immediately upon their release from prison, which reminds me of the time I was at some theatre AfterShow party in college and a paddy wagon pulled up and one of the party goers {an extremely well-dressed young man with a champagne glass in his hand and an extremely well-coiffed companion on his arm~don’t know where they had come from} asked, ever so politely, of the approaching officer, “Oh, is this the shuttle to the next party?” It is an image i will always hold dear, right next to the one of the high school dance exodus i was at when everyone descended upon the Seven-Eleven and one guy shouted to his pal {as said pal was being led away in handcuffs}, “So I guess this means you won’t be giving us a ride home…” No, indeed.)

Sorry for the digression, back to the dream: the large, threatening ex-con who seems to communicate in grunts and roars sees me round the house and walk up onto the porch and starts to follow, looking for the bash of the century. I dash in the door, triple lock it, call weakly for the cats but leave them to fend for themselves as i feebly search for the little poor-man’s panic cubby hole which is newly-installed (as of this dreaming in fact) in my bedroom closet. And then i wake up. Meaning in this? I have no idea. But to truly appreciate the absurdity of this dream you would have to really know my family~just suffice it to say that i am the black sheep of the family and my sister and mother have fleece as white as snow (to coin a phrase).

So my second dream involved me moving back on to my grad school campus (i never did live exactly on campus~and why i would move back is unclear) with my college (now-married) friend, and on the first day there i was making as many enemies as possible without being able to stop myself. Whilst demonstrating to some of my new-found enemies what i call my patented bouncing-off-the-walls dance technique which actually involves climbing and bouncing off the walls in true dream-like fashion, knocking about as much newly arranged furniture in said enemies rooms as possible, bounced down the hall collecting more and more enemies as i went until i was finally bouncing for my very life.

I finally escaped into some noxious-chemical-dispensing room where i sprayed noxious-chemicals at my approaching enemies and it was at this point where one of my ex-boyfriends (or actually not an ex-boyfriend, shall we call him an ex-unrequited-crush who i haven't thought of in years), who in some dream-within-a-dream or shall we call it awake-within-awake was somehow standing by (standing by with other actual ex-boyfriends, i might add) to change the dream if things started to go awry (?) by some prearranged signal (??) so by whatever this prearranged signal is he signals me that he has a surprise waiting for me in the next room... So i venture into the next room where some kind of dinner party is taking place with all sorts of famous people in attendance (being no name-dropper all i won't mention any names~just no they are big names...) Unfortunately the noxious fumes people were hot on my tail so i had to run on through the dinner party and quickly awaken.

If that's not convoluted enough for you, can you please tell me what it means?

Ready, Set, Cringe... (or, is this any way to drown one's sorrows?)

Late last night (or early this morning~depending on your point of view), while i was Not Sleeping, i decided to lie in bed and listen to some old This American Life episodes (this is something i often do to try to lull myself to sleep.) I happened upon this gem about those stories that make us cringe~and what exactly is it about those type of stories that are universally cringeworthy? The podcast was incredibly funny, so relateable (though they did make the observation that women often have cringe-related stories concerning love, that they absolutely revel in retelling again and again while men do not), and not all that sleep inducing (fortunately the drugs finally kicked in about 4:30 a.m.~although i didn't feel terribly fortunate when i was stumbling around the library this morning like a drunken fool~without the added benefit of incoherence).

On a completely unrelated, although now that i think about it this would probably create a few cringes in many of you (and many of the cringe-worthy stories are stories i am actually unable to repeat). As i was walking through my house i found that one of my cats had developed yet another case of feline ill that i am unable to diagnose nor trace to a specific cat to take to the veterinarian (and i cannot afford to take them all) and i was considering covering my entire house with sand so as to much more easily clean up these frequent accidents. I have long been considering what to do with the small area in my small entry hall area which, due to the long presence of cats before mine, had acquired a certain smell which caused Dixie to begin to eliminate there and caused me to unwilling place a litter box in my front hall closed helping but not entirely doing away with the problem.

I had decided on replacing the carpet with granite, supposed the most non-porous stone there is which i can also dye to match (or buy to match) the new dark blue carpet i plan to replace my current living room carpet with (the living room, by the by, is the only room in the house which is carpeted but i really want to keep the carpeting because i always sit on the floor.) When i had, most frustratingly decided to resort to the "beach theme" of sand i then came up with the more brilliant idea of putting an indoor pond in the front hall (the entire front hall) which would {hopefully~cats not being huge lovers of all things aquatic} serve the triple purpose of keeping them out of the front closet, the entry hall, AND keep keep Katushka and Demetra from racing out the front door whenever it opens which often has me standing outside the front door in a foot ball huddle waiting to catch a flying cat as well as kicking the door and shouting repeatedly, "Step away the door" which i'm sure has my neighbors wondering what sort of police action occurs at my house nearly every night.

Now, this whole idea of putting a water feature in my hall , or more accurately, my house, has appealed to me ever since i saw one featured in the mansion in the absolutely wonderful movie The Party with Peter Sellers (if you've never seen it, rush out and do so now!) Anyway, in a semi-serious quest i checked out Designing Water Gardens: A Unique Approach by Anthony Archer-Willis and Indoor Water Garden Design: 20 Eye-Catching Designs to Bring the Outdoors into your Home by Yvonne Rees. Designing Water Gardens didn't give me so many ideas although it does have pics of the whole stepping stone idea i've always wanted (a la The Party) ~tho that might defeat the whole preventing kitties idea as kitties can go tripping across the stepping stones almost as easily as i can~might have to construct some kind of drawbridge... not so very pretty that... Designing Water Gardens also introduced me to the very unique swimming pool at the Adelphi Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, part of which juts out over Flinders Lane~i'm not sure how i'd feel about swimming above metropolitan traffic, or having them look up at me~interesting nonetheless.

Indoor Water Garden Design did offer one design which was ALMOST doable, though the whole idea is far from practical~a girl can dream can't she. There are also a few ideas i found online~one with a cat pictured although i would have to figure out a way to sink the whole thing into the floor (again not a big practical idea) and one on a much larger scale than i had in mind~i guess it's all a great big OH WELL...

up in the night

I remember way back in the dark ages (like 1993 or thereabouts) of the internet i would sometimes get caught up, wrapped up, taken away, whatever, by the many possibilities~the many linkages, for lack of better words (here and above)~but it was oh-so-different then. My computer was a monochromatic laptop (well, i did have a colour monitor i could hook it up to but it would have just been a blue screen full of text then...)

Anyway, back then linking was a much different thing than it is today~you could click on links, but they were all text based (not that there was much visual stuff going on yet anyway~except for some early experimentation with Mosaic) and once you clicked it was rather difficult (at least for me) to find your way back. I often found myself heading down "alleys" and winding up lost on some "dead end"~it wasn't the best distraction for insomnia/migraines (though the migraines didn't need quite as much distraction back then).

I didn't seem to waste as much time on the internet in the middle of the night then as i do now (or at least not following links). In some ways the ease of internet research and hyperlinking is a librarian's nightmare come true. All that research at the literal tip of your fingers. And it truly is endless.

When i was a kid (even further back in the prehistoric past) i used to love looking things up in the encyclopedia set we kept in the living room, one reference would send me to the next reference (or two, or three,) and so on, and so on... At some point i would tire of pulling books and flipping pages, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Things are so much, ahem, easier, in the computer age.

And it just plays right into the hands and heads (or is it the other way around?) of we insomniacs who can't quench the knowledge thirst. Tonight i was doing just a quick survey of "What's New?" over at Snopes and somehow here i am, about four hours later, with multiple tabs open, full of knowledge about the history of the AIDS epidemic (as well as a number of other pandemics~and when something is determined to be a pandemic) the difference in meaning between zoophillia, bestiality, and zoosexuality; what methemoglobinemia is; as well as many other incredibly useful tidbits (and who knew that there was such a thing as a cuddly little Ebola toy you could have for your very own? I certainly didn't, until now that is.) Now, you may ask, what the relationship is between these things. Perhaps there isn't a visibly direct link, but somehow or else each one of them led to the next (or quite a few others i've left out for the sake of some brevity.)

Sometimes i long for those dead ends.

i've been hiding myself from myself

i think because i have somehow become someone i don’t want to be (or don't want to know about, or hear about, or something...)

my plants are longing for the sunshine i've been blocking out due to migraines...

this has been going on for some time.

i have somehow been growing older (and how could that possibly happen to Me?) and i'm not dealing so well with age.

(i know i am not alone in this particular phenomena, but somehow i thought i would not reach this particular stage in my life and the particular symptoms that come along with it)

mostly though i'm experiencing issues with not enough money catching up with me (and the creditor calls that come along with that, so i just don't answer the phone), the undone housework catching up with me (i'm not sure what the problem is here, i sit there and wish it done, and wish it done and still nothing happens...and nothing keeps happening...), dishes pile up in the sink, papers pile up unsorted, junk mail mixes with bills and other "important items", i've pretty much stopped eating to avoid the hassle of the grocery store and reduce spending (well not entirely, don't worry), if the cats didn't make noise (and lots of it) to be feed i'm sure they'd be starving too.

And i'm just living in denial. I find it's much less stressful this way. Just reading, watching movies, you know, hanging out, enjoying life. What could be wrong with that, i ask you?

to do list item #1: find a different life to live

My life has lost all semblance of control.

or so it seems... i am drowning in mediocrity, lack of motivation, and piles of undone things.

(and apparently the desperate, wannabe, poetry of a weepy teen aged girl~but i guess that's mediocrity for you...)

My debt has amassed to a point beyond paying (so much for live now pay later, but i don't feel like i've done much living~well i'm living through a hell of a lot of pain...i know, i know, whine, whine, whine, but it's really oh so damn hot and my head just won't let up, and there is some kind of feline digestive flu epidemic running through the house that causes the cats to have icky substance spew forth from all of their orifices and i am forced, in my weakened, martyred state to clean up after them and i really begin to wonder what is the point after a while, you know what i mean???)

All my plans to knock over a bank seem somehow unworkable (not to mention difficult to work into my schedule of work, pain, wallowing, malingering, and not sleeping). Any quick cash ideas are not quick enough, are too much work, or are entirely too fictional to consider. If i could somehow make money from the piles of stuff that still refuses to clean itself up and continues to build on all the surface areas of my house.

Alright, allow me to wallow in this self-pity for a nonce and then i'll get back to my own patented form of Denial, Depression, and Endurance...

let's hear it for fact checking

so, i've noticed that almost all of my tales lately have been mainly retold tales from books~i'm not sure what that means. Do i have nothing going on in my life or just nothing to say? Well mostly i have much pain, eratic sleep and watching the idiot box (mostly movies which give me strange dreams and that new Showtime series Meadowlands {strange dreams there as well} as well as, dare i admit it, Hell's Kitchen and Age of Love~an entirely other story on that insulting and bizarre show {is it just me or does Mark Philippoussis seem completely boring and lame~yeah, WHAT a catch}but maybe another time . . .)Anyway here's a library story i've been contemplating for quite some time if you have any interest whatsoever:

Gilbert library to be first to drop Dewey Decimal

Yvonne Wingett The Arizona Republic May. 30, 2007 12:00 AM

When the new Gilbert library opens next month, it will be the first public library in the nation whose entire collection will be categorized without the Dewey Decimal Classification System, Maricopa County librarians say.

Instead, tens of thousands of books in the Perry Branch library will be shelved by topic, similar to the way bookstores arrange books. The demise of the century-old Dewey Decimal system is overdue, county librarians say: It's just too confusing for people to hunt down books using those long strings of numbers and letters. Dewey essentially arranges books by topic and assigns call numbers for each book.

"A lot of times, patrons feel like they're going to a library and admitting defeat because they don't understand Dewey Decimal and can't find the book they're looking for," said Marshall Shore, adult service coordinator for the Maricopa County Library District and driving force behind the idea. "People think of books by subject. Very few people say, 'Oh, I know Dewey by heart.' "

Libraries are trying to adapt to changing times, experts said, and their success lies in a generation of young people who are more comfy at Borders than libraries. Across the U.S., some libraries are trying to lure readers by adding lounge chairs and coffee shops.

Some are incorporating the "bookstore" shelving system into sections of libraries but still use Dewey, or other classification systems, to arrange the bulk of collections, said Leslie Burger, president of the American Library Association.

The books in Gilbert's new library will be organized in about 50 sections, then subsections, from sports to cooking, gardening to mysteries. For example, a book on the Civil War would be in the history neighborhood and in the U.S. section.

"Nowadays, people are used to going to a bookstore to browse, so we're just trying to create that same atmosphere," Shore said.

"I know Dewey fans are out there. But we haven't changed a lot in so long, and I think we're in a fight for our own survival."

Okay, here are a few of my thoughts on this: first of all, this is hardly "the first public library in the nation whose entire collection will be categorized without the Dewey Decimal Classification System" some public libraries (about 20%) use Library of Congress, some use Bliss, some use Dickinson, and some use their own creations. I also take issue with the fact that people find things so much easier to find in bookstores, perhaps in those areas that you are familiar with and usually browse; but, having been a bookslave in a large bookstore i can tell you that a) customers often had to ask where books were and b) the bookstore where i worked had its own numerical classification system (which we didn't share with the customers because it would mean nothing to them) that we would use to know where to shelve~rather than just sticking in a general subject area where it seemed to belong (we needed those computers to tell us the area often~just like we librarians look up Dewey numbers.) When we tried to add directional, subject-related, signs to help customers find their own way that just confused them further. I don't think we have ever required customers to know their Dewey numbers~if they do that's a bonus~but everyone could use a little help from someone who knows their way around occasionally~and every system needs some kind of classification system just to be organized whether that system be opaque or transparent. We'll see how it goes...

I don't have a problem with this library's plan, just their assumptions. And helping the customer find something is just a matter of customer service~something we librarians are often weak on. Better customer service often results in higher circs and greater public relations, and who can argue with that? (perhaps we should make books more difficult to locate but easier to browse?...maybe not)

On another subject, or perhaps the same subject, my library is contemplating a huge makeover, something a little like this. However WE will still be using Dewey. I'm excited about the possibility, does that make me hypocritical? All is still dependent on the Administration and the budget. We'll see how that goes...

does this really surprise Anyone?

You Would Be a Pet Cat

Independent and aloof, you don't like to be dependent on anyone. And as for other people, you can take them or leave them. You often don't care. You live your life by your own rules. And you have deep motivations that no one truly understands. Why you would make a great pet: You're not needy or greedy... unlike other four legged friends. Why you would make a bad pet: You're not exactly running down to greet people at the door What you would love about being a cat: Agility and freedom What you would hate about being a cat: Being treated like a dog by clueless humans

What Kind of Pet Would You Be?

Your Ideal Pet is a Cat

You're both aloof, introverted, and moody. And your friends secretly wish that you were declawed!

What's Your Ideal Pet?