My brain has been tied up with writing for the past two days. I have this essay which I intend to submit to a contest. The deadline is Dec 31st and the essay is not ready yet. I’ve known about the contest since last spring, but it was only in November that I found the right stories and concepts for the essay. I wrote a draft in early December, but yesterday I had one of those moments where I could see how the ideas were right but the presentation was all wrong. The insight was due to some good feedback from an alpha reader. Many thanks are due there.

My original draft told the story. My new draft is wrapping the concepts around scenes of the story. I am attempting to show rather than tell. This proves difficult because the scenes have to be from my own relevant experiences. There is only a limited amount of rearranging I am allowed to do for narrative convenience. The line between creative nonfiction and complete fabrication is narrow. I keep re-writing and re-adjusting as I go; trying to find the right arrangements of words to communicate the ideas. Even as I forge forward toward a complete draft, I am aware that there are errors I am missing. I’m going to have to go back through the whole thing to check for tense drift. I simply can’t focus properly on tense matching while I’m working on structure.

Writing this essay has been hard. I haven’t had a writing experience this intensive since I wrote the story to submit for a DAW anthology in 2007. Part of it is writing to a deadline and really wanting the work to be my best. Another part of the intensity is the subject matter. I really care about what I am trying to say. This effort is forcing me to push deeper and write longer than I usually do. I am learning a lot from the experience. Naturally I hope that the essay is accepted and published as the DAW story was. However, even if it is not I will still have succeeded.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

One week to go. (The kids make sure I am appraised of the count down daily. As if I might forget.) I ran out today to buy the last Christmas gift. (The remainder are things I must bake.) I have already had my bout with Christmas over-whelmedness. (Yes I made that word up.) I did the fretting over how much we are spending. I worried that we were getting too much for the kids. Then I worried that there might not be enough. Hopefully I can now move on toward the blissful feeling that all will be well. There are still things to do. People continue to order and I must ship the packages. I have an essay that consumed most of my attention for today, and it is still not finished. But this evening I am putting down all my Things to Do and visiting with a friend. There will also be food. It is good.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

I dreamed of my Grandpa today. He died eleven years ago this month. It was the normal sort of mish-mosh dream that I have when I take a long nap in the middle of the day. Then Grandpa was there. He was awake and alert. He spoke with a clarity that he lost some time in my early teens. I don’t remember most of what he said despite the fact that I tried to hold onto it as the dream dissolved into consciousness. All I retained was a sense of his presence and love.

I’d like to believe that my Grandpa came to visit me, that he was really there. This is not the first time I’ve felt visited by people who are gone. But whether it was a visit, or the scattered dreams of someone who has been thinking of her Grandparents lately, it was still a good dream. It was nice to see him again.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

I was reading an artical from the Daily Mail (UK) about a swift in an Israeli animal hospital being rehabilitated to fly. It was a heart warming story amidst all the unhappiness that's usually reported. As I had nothing better to do (typical for most of my days) I read through the comments. To be expected there were some negative comments regarding Israel and Palestine. But there was a bigger controversy regarding English vs. American spelling because the journalist used the American spelling of a word in a English based publication. One person posted to the spelling correction "... we here in America write... alot of other words slightly differently, it doesn't mean we're making spelling mistakes... " And a fellow responded "... you ARE making spelling mistakes. You're trying to write in English, but you are not succeeding. Bastardising English is not writing in English." I believe in good spelling and grammar but honestly it made me laugh.

English is such a mishmash  of languages. I looked up the "history of England" in Wikipedia. This is my boil down from the main summary. We start with the Celtic Britons who are invaded by the Romans. The Romans leave and income the Anglo-Saxons (a Germanic people) who introduce Old English. The Vikings come raiding and eventually conquer/settle large portions of the island. Then the Normans (who also were of Viking decent) invaded from France. They also borrowed words from areas they conquered. That would certainly make for one messed up language. And that's just in the "Motherland". American English is just as mixed up with some Native American, African and Asian influences. I'm guessing the spelling differences came because we separated our selves from England before a large part of the working populace had a need to read and write.

English speakers love to beg, borrow, steal words from other languages and even make words up. Ours is a robust, growing language that is ever changing. I feel sorry for people trying to learn English as a second language because I get confused sometimes and it's my first language. How do we get "went" as a past tense form of "go"? Why is "venison" the meat form of "deer" (I think it's a Norman thing)? And "get" seems to have a multitude of uses as a verb. While the French are trying to keep their language "pure" we are adding words by the day. We as people evolve why shouldn't our language?

Just as I finished this post I found a website on the History of the English Language. "In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is." made me say "Wow."

Christmas–still needs some organizing and shopping and wrapping and shipping.

The Kids– The level of drama around here is lower than it was, but there is still plenty for me to figure out and manage. I’ve figured out the family structures to meet the needs, but I have to keep it all in place.

One Cobble– My brain is almost constantly collecting stuff for blog entries, or composing experiences into stories. Sometimes I can write as soon as I think of it. Other times I have to scribble notes to try to save it for later.

House cleaning — always. This project I often try to ignore out of existence, but it never works.

Family Photo book– This was shoved to the back burner when I realized I couldn’t get it done in time for Christmas. Instead I planned to have it done by my Grandmother’s birthday. Which is at the end of January. And I’ve done nothing on the project for nigh three weeks now.

Resident Mad Scientist book layout– The deadline on this has been pushed back, but that does not mean I can ignore it. We need to know where margin art is necessary.

My essay book– I’ve collected and revised about a third of the essays I estimate I’ll need. I have notes for a bunch more. I really want to get to the point where I can be sending out queries.

Cooking– I’ve recently discovered an interest in occasionally cooking things where I don’t start with a box or a can.

Birthday story– By the end of January I either need to write or revise a short story for posting on my birthday. I like the tradition and I want to keep it.

Short stories– My back brain has decided that writing Christmas stories would be really cool. This comes despite the fact that it is notoriously difficult to write a Christmas story without doing a re-write of The Grinch, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Fill-in-the-blank saves Santa Claus, or It’s a Wonderful Life. I don’t even have characters or plots in mind. I’m waiting patiently on this one and hoping that the mood subsides, because I honestly don’t have time at the moment.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Every time the kids turn on Ratatouille, Howard wanders into the kitchen and cooks something. All of the cooking scenes in the film remind him how much he loves to combine ingredients. I watched this with puzzlement. The movie didn’t inspire me to cook. It didn’t even make me hungry. In fact contemplating cooking takes up the same piece of my brain that I use to contemplate chores. Cooking is a necessary step in the “feed the children” task which comes up with annoying regularity. Julie and Julia, which I watched last week, is another movie focused around cooking. I really enjoyed the movie, but (as I smugly told Kiki and Howard) it didn’t make me want to cook. I just wanted to eat what the folks in the movie cooked. I was to be proven wrong.

The first shift in my thinking arrived at the Women’s Relief Society (church organization) dinner. It was a marvelous meal featuring two kinds of shredded meat and an array of sauces. The Bearnaise sauce was to die for. I snarfled up a plate full and went back for seconds. I was certain that the sauce had been catered by a local restaurant. It hadn’t. It was made by my friend’s husband. That marvelous sauce had been made in a home kitchen. Not only that, but the recipe was set out for anyone to take. I looked at it and realized that the primary ingredient was “Bearnaise sauce packet.” In theory I could cook this sauce in my very own kitchen and eat a lot more of it.

Next I was browsing in a grocery store and I noticed that they were once again stocking rosemary bread. I love rosemary bread. It is for savoring. I love the way the aroma mingles with food while I’m eating. I brought the bread home and toasted it. The flavor reminded me of the plan I had several months ago. It was a plan for healthy eating which involved eating small amounts of things that I truly desire to eat, rather than discovering I am hungry and filling up on whatever is handy. It was a good plan, but somehow I’d lost track of it.

Then Kiki needed at treat for school and she wanted fudge. So I found myself standing over a stove on Sunday afternoon, stirring. As I stirred, I explained how the heat helps the sugar crystallize and how all cooking is really chemistry. It was a good little speech. By the time I was done, I’d convinced both Kiki and myself that cooking is a fascinating scientific process.

So there I was stirring, spoon swooshing through sugar bubbles, and I realized I was enjoying myself. I thought about Julie from the movie and how her cooking challenge (524 recipes in 365 days) saved her from a dark time in her life. Scenes from the film played back in my mind’s eye and I saw the joy of creation. It helps that Julie is also a writer and so the movie is as much about writing and living as it is about cooking.

The fudge was done and poured into a pan and I stood back satisfied. It struck me that I wanted to do more cooking. Somehow I’d gone from thinking about the film, to picturing myself stirring sauces. I wanted to have a piece of the amazing experience that Julie had in the film. I wanted to understand cooking better, to find ways to enjoy it, to make some dinners that do not start with a can of cream of mushroom soup. I found that I wanted it despite the fact that I know some of the things I attempt will go disastrously wrong. I even wanted the associated emotional melt downs, because at least it would mean that I tried something new instead of staying where I am comfortable.

The last thing I need in my life is another big project. I have no space for a big project. This means I can not undertake so grand an effort as Julie did. I can not add stress to our family in pursuit of cooking. But there are times when my brain is tired of writing and I loathe the thought of being in my basement office. There are times when I have time and space to think about a short term creative project like cooking a single meal. So I am going to try this. I am going to attempt to educate myself about foods and how to prepare them. In between preparing new foods I will be feeding us all the ordinary stuff. I like the idea of introducing new foods, but not at the expense of the family budget.

First up: Bearnaise sauce. We shall see how this goes.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Wheedle-DEET. "Hello," said the program I wrote, "It is 10:17pm. The iPhone server is dead."

I write programs. Making servers go is not my problem. But that doesn't mean I can't write programs to watch servers and let me know when they stop going.

I stared at the message burning on my phone in the darkness. It was 10:17pm and I had been, miraculously, sound asleep. I decided it was probably a fluke. It happens from time to time. I thumbed "Dismiss". Darkness swept back into the bedroom. I dropped the phone and fell instantly back asleep.

Wheedle-DEET. "Hello, it is 10:18pm. The iPhone server is dead."

Crap. This time after tapping "Dismiss" I opened our application. It hung on startup. Sure enough, no server to talk to.

I went into problem-solving mode, which is to say I stared at the ceiling, thinking. We had just launched the app that day; about a thousand users had downloaded it and were now without service. From watching the server logs I knew that there were probably 5 people trying to use it right then.

The server had been up for a couple weeks, but now that real people were using it new behavior could surface causing problems. My program on the server could run into all kinds of new and interesting trouble that I hadn't thought of. It looked like I would have to get up and actually do some work.

But wait... Justin said he was going to upgrade something on the server. He'd have to reboot it, is all. This would stop my program, and the little monitor program I wrote wouldn't be able to talk to it anymore, and it would get lonely and call me. Justin was probably upgrading the server right then in order to stay ahead of the "real" traffic coming in the days ahead.

Crap, I realized, there's no startup program for my program on that server. He'll reboot the machine, and it will come up, but my program won't start. iPhones across the world will continue to not work, and more importantly, my little monitor program will continue to be lonely--and it will continue to call me. Every sixty seconds. Justin would not know how to start my program, so I would probably be getting a phone call from him any minute.

"All right," I thought. "I think I have everything on my laptop to start my program. I just have to go downstairs and log in, and..."

The display on my phone, painfully bright in the darkness, was showing 10:19pm. It was 10:19pm, and my little monitor program had not called me.

I thumbed the button for our app again. It came right up and started working. "Bless you, Justin, you clever little monkey," I said. I could ask him how he figured out how to start my program in the morning. I dropped my phone and fell asleep.

The next day Justin stopped by. "Great work with the server!" I told him. "I was worried you wouldn't be able to start the program because I never left instructions--"

"I didn't do anything," Justin said. "It just started working."

I stared at him. I glanced over at my computer, at the screen monitoring my program, to make sure it really was running.

Then it hit me: there's a program that starts automatically when the server starts, and I told that program about my program. That program started my program for me when Justin restarted the server.

I raised both fists in triumph. "I AM A TINY SYSADMIN GOD," I cried. "A tiny one, mind you. But still."

I write programs. Making the servers go is not my job. But when the servers don't go, my programs don't go, and that is my problem. So I write programs that talk to programs, and programs that watch other programs talk to programs, and still other programs that tell other programs to start my programs. And a little program that calls me on the phone when it gets lonely.

And that's what I do at my job.

Yesterday was the US postal service’s busiest shipping day of the year. We here at Chez Tayler have been doing our part to add to the load. I’ve been shipping out 5-15 packages per day for the last week or so. This is not a surprise to us. In fact we’ve kind of been counting on it this year to help us make the ends meet until we can release the next Schlock book. In another week I’ll be able to do the math and see how much gap is left. I’ll also do the math to see how Christmas spending added to the gap.

I enjoy the Holiday shipping. It has a cheerful urgency to it. I love looking at the invoices and seeing when the billing address is different from the shipping address. Then I know what I’m sending is a gift. It is a gift to us as well. Every package we send is a gift to us from the Schlock readers out there who enjoy the comic enough to spend money. I sometimes wish I could thank them all. I put a Thank You post card into each order, but it hardly seems like enough.

Things do not always go smoothly. People email me with questions. This year I’ve had multiple inquiries about merchandise for which we’ve run out of stock. That makes me sad because I know the other person is disappointed. I am much happier when the problem is one I can solve by sending out a replacement or filling a special request. I know that the time will come when we are too busy to manage special requests, but that day has not yet arrived. The more I interact with customers, the more impressed I am with Schlock readers. They are courteous, patient, and understanding of our human errors. I even had one guy who replied with startlement that I was the one to answer his email personally. This amused me because I realized he did not know how small our operation really is.

Today I had to assemble more boxed sets to fill out the orders. Six year old Patch sat with me as I slid books into boxes. He’d wanted to help slide books into sleeves, but sometimes the books require coaxing to slide into place. Instead I handed him the note cards which are included in each set. As I finished each box, he would slide card into place. Then he lined the sets up very carefully. Eight year old Gleek was the one who helped with the shrink wrapping. She likes to run the heat gun which makes the plastic fit tightly over the sets. Then we cleared all of it off the kitchen table so that dinner and homework could take place.

As I restocked the shipping table in the unfinished storage room, I pondered once again the cottage industry we are running. In some ways what we have is the re-invention of the family farm. We have busy seasons and slow seasons. My kids measure their lives by these business seasons as much as they do by the seasonal weather outside. They remember the times that Mom and Dad are distracted and pushing to send a book off to print. They like book shipping because it provides work they get paid to do. Shipping season is also celebrated for the treat foods we eat because Mom and Dad are too busy to cook. Convention season is frequently hectic and often involves over night stays with friends and relatives. In our lives, business and family are all tied up together. I like it that way even if it is chaotic at times.

I sometimes wonder how my kids will look back on our family life. Will they consider it as an ideal to live up to, or will they take from it things that they do not want to replicate? I hope they’ll do both. For now we have orders to ship.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Link came trudging toward the car after school, shoulders slumped, eyebrows fixed into a scowl. He met my eyes and for just a moment I saw the corner of his mouth quirk up. That was the only clue that all might not be as it appeared.

“Mom. I had a terrible day.” Link flopped himself into the seat next to me.

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. What happened.”

Link hunched over a little bit more. “I lost six teeth.”

This was nowhere on the list of probable causes for a bad day. Also, had I heard right? “What?”

“I lost six teeth.”

I looked over at my son. There was no sign of the slight smirk. He was looking at me, deadpan serious. Part of my brain was still convinced that I’d heard wrong. I knew he had a wiggly tooth. Losing a tooth would not be surprising, but six? Really? Then Link grinned at me. There were four teeth across the front surrounded on either side by huge gaps. Link also held up a little ziploc bag containing the teeth in question. Six teeth in one day.

A closer inspection showed that the new teeth are already showing through. Link won’t have the big gaps for very long. This is good, since he’s discovered that chewing is a bit of a challenge at the moment. Also he is very pleased with himself. Not only did he lose more teeth in one day than anyone else we’ve ever known, but he fooled his mom with the “I’m having a bad day” schtick.

Edited to add: The lost tooth count is up to seven. Link just pulled out one on the bottom. This one was not quite as ready to let go as the top teeth. Link was just enthusiastic. None of the rest are even remotely wiggly and I have commanded him to leave them alone. I guess he was just overdue on losing a bunch of teeth.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

14:20 Blood drawn this morning. Testing cholesterol, TSH & Vitamin D. I shall post results when I get them! In the meantime - Hooray Anemia! #fb

18:22 @scottsimpson Everything looks like someone is taking a poo to you. I would look into that.

20:53 About time. 14 sunspots. Sun awakening like a lazy teenager. Latest sunspot forecast :: bit.ly/87NUAa
#fb

The thought process goes like this:

Hmmm. I think I want some fudge.

I shall make fudge.

*cook stir pour wait*

Yay! I have fudge!

*Nom nom nom*

I have to stop eating this fudge.

Quick! Give away all the fudge.

Whew. Now my pants will continue to fit.

Hmmm. I think I want fudge.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

10:48 Still haven't learned how to post pics without a data plan.

11:36 @heathr Kick-kiester song & homemade vid - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1QI1rFwHus - Let u comment on theme. Not my area of expertise.

16:30 @hotdogsladies Stop bothering me... I have Tiger Woods jokes to retweet.

17:39 @johncmayer Re: Accenture - Outside of outsourcing all their jobs to India, don't really know what they do either.

“I hate myself! I’m stupid!” Gleek shouted from her curled-into-a-ball spot on the corner of the couch. She was wet from the knees down and cold. I’d had to drag her indoors from the slushy snow because she refused to come in when I called. She had directly defied me and now was berating herself for it, but that did not change the fact that consequences still needed to be applied.

Among the things that parents don’t want to hear, an impassioned “I hate myself” ranks right under “I hate you.” My mind spins so many unpleasant futures from theses statements. People who truly hate themselves develop all sorts of self-destructive patterns. Most actions motivated by hatred are destructive. I want to argue with Gleek, but I’ve had that conversation before. It goes like this:
Me: “You don’t hate yourself. You’re just mad right now.”
Gleek: “Yes I do!”
Repetition only makes Gleek more upset and more firm in her determination that she hates herself. My attempts to pull her out of the mood drive her further into it instead. I don’t want to waste effort on that dead end tonight.

So sit on the stairs and look at my little girl. She sniffles and curls tightly around her pillowcase filled with blankets and stuffed animals. I can’t remember when she started using the pillowcase as a bag for her comfort objects. It was a while ago. She hides her face from me. She knows she was wrong and she feels terrible.

Howard suggested that her consequence for defiant disobedience could be being sent to bed and missing all the evening activities. It is a stricter consequence than we usually apply, but then this defiance was more direct as well. Perhaps they match. Perhaps the strict consequence will help her remember and avoid making the same choice again.

Upon hearing the suggestion, Gleek cries out “Just do it! I deserve it!”

I rub my face in my hands. If we send her to her room, she will curl into a ball in her bed. She will feel miserable, lonely, disassociated from the family, left out, and ostracized. These are all feelings I have been working to reduce in her mind and heart. She wants to feel these things because they give her reasons to hate herself and that is the mood of the moment.

I look over to Howard and I see that he realizes that his suggested consequence is not going to provide the resolution we hope for. I just wish I had an alternative to offer. So I sit on the stairs and throw a little prayer heavenward.

“Please help me see a way to apply consequences which makes her a stronger happier person instead of a more miserable one.”

There is no rush of inspiration, no answer becomes clear. But I can tell that I am waiting for something. I am like a person walking through the fog. I can see the lamp post ahead of me, but nothing beyond that. I just have to keep walking and trust that the next lamp post will be visible once I’ve passed this one.

Howard suggests that perhaps a chore would be a better consequence. That way Gleek could do something hard, but feel a sense of accomplishment about her work when she is done. It is a good suggestion, but I don’t see how to make it fit yet. So I keep sitting.

“I hate myself.” Gleek mumbles again.

I am tired, and I don’t have a better answer, so I say “Okay. So you hate yourself.”

Gleek’s head raises a little at my atypical response.

“So what are you going to do about it?” The words are spawned by the memory of a conversation I had with Gleek a week ago. We talked about how the only person you can change is yourself. “If you don’t like yourself, then it is your job to change yourself into a person you can like.”

As soon as the words are spoken, I can see the next lamp post. I know what the consequence should be.
“Gleek, you need to choose a consequence for yourself. Mom and Dad have to approve it, but you have to pick it. I’m pretty sure the consequence needs to be a chore of some kind. And you have to stay right here on the couch until you pick it.”

Gleek does not like this. She would much rather be exiled to her room. But the more she complains, the more I know the direction is right. We have given her power over her own destiny. We have put the responsibility into her hands. Now it is not Mom and Dad forcing her to stay on the couch. She can get up as soon as she chooses to take action rather than cuddle her misery. Suddenly she is no longer a victim and she does not like that.

The fog has cleared and I see the path. I get up off the stairs and go about my business. I have to give time for Gleek to think things through. She makes a cry of dismay as I leave the room. She does not want me to go. But alone with her thoughts and with the path we’ve set, she quickly chooses a chore.

The chore is done slowly and with much complaining, but the shape of the conflict has changed. Gleek tries to reclaim victimhood a time or two, but I just reiterate that she can be done as soon as she chooses to work. She finishes the job and the rest of the evening goes pleasantly.

I must remember this consequence structure. I’m sure it will be useful again.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

14:16 Non-political fun thing from Stewart/Colbert - bit.ly/8KliF9 - Brilliant. I have a thesaurus habit... makes me feel more smartly.#fb

15:00 Easter Egg :: Google.com > click "I'm Feeling Lucky" with an empty search box > 2009 countdown is displayed. #fb

17:02 bit.ly/4E2IYf

18:13 Where is my fitbit? - fitbit.com - I pre-ordered back in September. Don't they realize that I am a very prominent internet user! #fb

23:00 Back from workout. One screen had "It's a Wonderful Life", the other, "War of the Worlds". Not a good mashup.#fb

00:07 Found it! The best remix of Headhunter - www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7IfTKI7M1w

00:21 Home dentistry tip :: Brush your teeth with Lanacane before performing your own root canal.

From For One More Day by Mitch Albom. The narrator had a 10 year career in minor league baseball:

“I hate my job,” I said.
“Well…” Miss Thelma shrugged. “Sometimes that happens. Cain’t be much worse than scrubbin’ your bathtub, can it?” She grinned. “You do what you gotta do to hold your family together. Ain’t that right, Posey?”
I watched them finish their routine. I thought about how many years Miss Thelma must have run vaccums or scrubbed tubs to feed her kids; how many shampoos or dye jobs my mother must have done to feed us. And me? I got to play a game for ten years–and I wanted twenty. I felt suddenly ashamed.
“What’s wrong with that job you got anyhow?” Miss Thelma said.
I pictured the sales office, the steel desks, the dim, fluorescent lights.
“I didn’t want to be ordinary.” I mumbled.

The “didn’t want to be ordinary” really hit home. Most of my life circles ordinary things, and I sometimes complain about that. I often feel the desire to be extraordinary, special. I write my blog and give presentations. Sometimes I feel that doing these things is the adult equivalent of the four year old child who shouts “Watch me!” while slipping down the slide.

I don’t want to be ordinary because ordinary feel like a synonym for boring. Only that isn’t true. The world is full of ordinary things that are amazing. Snow is everywhere. We stomp through it, slide on it, shovel it, and curse it. It blankets my yard right now. But if I get down close, I discover that this ordinary thing is not a single thing at all. It arrives as beautiful crystalline shapes. It transforms when it lands. It can be packed into snowballs, made into sculptures, or tracked into the house. It is completely ordinary and also amazing.

I am in favor of savoring the ordinary. Not because it lowers expectations and makes life easier, but because so much of what we consider ordinary is actually special. Terry Pratchett brilliantly pointed out that the most amazing capability that humanity possesses is the ability to be bored. Without it we would all sit around being perpetually stunned by the world we live in.

This is what Mitch Albom’s quote does for me. It reminds me that a life spent in the ordinary pursuit of a worthwhile goal will not be wasted. My efforts at house cleaning, or clothes washing, or package shipping, are not wasted. They each contribute to the benefit of our family. Being notable may or may not happen to anyone in life. What really matters is usually ordinary.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

10:45 Watching HGTV. Brilliant! I'm carpeting the ceiling. #fb

12:36 Just uploaded close to 500 images to my flickr account. Enjoy! www.flickr.com/photos/25537037@N07/

12:42 Nitzer Ebb reunion album about to come out - bit.ly/54a0Xu - something old from them - bit.ly/7huvYx #fb

18:50 Insert coin. Long live GORF!

19:03 Project 2 of the day complete. Put Mame computer inside of an actual computer case. #fb

19:05 Watched/listened to this while doing the computer assembly - bit.ly/5YIbYd - good background entertainment. #fb

19:49 Activated new cell phone. Oh look, 3 voice mails I never received. One over a week old. I hate cell phones. #fb

22:45 Posting from fone. ClevAr is I. #fb post.ly/EqB5

The actual words were a bit different, but this was the gist of the conversation.

Howard: I’m going to need a list from you of things you want for Christmas.

Me: I’ll put together a list of suggestions for you to work from.

Howard: I don’t want ’suggestions’ I want ISBN numbers and specific instructions.

Me: But then it feels like I’m just handing you a shopping list, sending you to fetch the things that I have already picked out. I don’t care if things are not perfect. Opening things that are unexpected is part of the fun.

Howard: (sigh) okay.

I’m so glad that he puts up with me.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

06:27 RT @sween: "Shoveling would be much more satisfying if the snow could feel it." #fb

07:02 RT @Chuckumentary: "Infamous climate-denier" Lord Monckton w/ 350 & I ♥ Climate Change stickers on his back! tr.im/lord350 #fb

07:34 Today is National Lager Day. As if you needed an excuse. #fb

08:22 The only way to get a video game player to take a shower - bit.ly/5FQxBm

12:29 @drkiki Are we jumping sharks today?

15:48 Imeem has been absorbed by MySpace Music. Dead to me - especially since I can't log into my Imeem account. #fb

20:59 Scanning old pictures. Debating on whether to post them to Flickr. Fearing extortion. #fb

00:31 I'm not the only one - farm3.static.flickr.com/2684/4174740834_fd009493dc.jpg #fb

It started with the telephone. I was going back to bed after getting the kids off to school. The head cold and the interrupted night’s sleep had rendered bed necessary. But if the phone rang, I did not want to have to get up, so I picked up the handset and carried it with me into the bedroom.

I also collected the portable DVD player. It had a half-watched movie in it and that would be a good follow-up activity to sleeping. Then I remembered that the first half of the movie had triggered some writing thoughts. If I was going to have writing thoughts, I needed my notebook. I retrieved that. Then I also retrieved a brand new notebook from downstairs because I’m almost out of pages in the first one. If I used the last page I didn’t want to have to get up for another notebook.

I carried these things to my room. Where I saw my laptop plugged in across the room from the bed. I might want to write straight to the laptop rather than just scribbling notes, but I didn’t want to have to get out of bed to retrieve it from the other side of the room. So I picked it up to carry it to the bedside table. Next to the laptop was the book I read yesterday. There were some quotations in the book that I wanted to blog about. In the same stack were my paper journal, and my scriptures, and the next book to read. I might as well carry them all to the bed.

At about this time I realized that some deep place in my brain had no intention of getting out of bed again. It planned to stay there all day and was nesting appropriately. The deep place of my brain was right. Other than getting kids from school and supervising some homework, I’ve been in bed. Often sleeping.

Howard laughed at my nesting, but he has taken good care of me. He fixed me both breakfast and lunch. He brought me extra blankets and he kept me company when I was awake.

The nesting was not futile. For some reason my half-asleep brain kept composing essays and blog entries. I kept trying to soothe it; petting it like a mother pets the head of a fretful child. I tried to convince my brain that we could let go of the thoughts, that they would be waiting for us on the other side of sleep. My brain was not convinced and could only be appeased by the copious scribbling of notes while laying down with one eye cracked open. Precious thoughts preserved, I was able to sleep. Viewed with a little more objectivity, some of those precious thoughts were…not so precious. But I find it encouraging that writer thoughts are so pervasive even when I am sick.

On a meta level it was amusing to watch myself this morning. I was aware that my thought processes were askew. My time sense certainly was. I am still a bit unfocused, but three hours of sleep made things somewhat better. More sleep is in my future. I also intend to summon pizza via the internet in order to supply dinner. Pizza sounds good. I still have that movie to watch. Today I am really glad that my kids are old enough to take care of themselves while I sleep.

(Yes this entire entry was written on the laptop while laying in bed.)

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

05:20 I'm Alive! #fb

09:48 95 days until switch to DST. 1st winter milestone passes today. Sunsets start getting later after today. Sorry, no Tiger Woods joke here.#fb

10:05 Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down - bit.ly/4QKHjN - She's from MN, dontcha know.

10:09 @RandyTayler Start by reading about the analemma - bit.ly/83tRIQ - Sunrise/Sunset will both be getting later from now til Jan 1st.

11:04 @youngamerican BoooooF! Why would someone change their name to something synonymous with anal intercourse... Oh, maybe that's it.

11:21 @Zenkitty714 @RandyTayler - Dec 9 is the date for my house. Varies for different latitudes. Check here - bit.ly/6KHe5x

15:04 Just ran DNS benchmark - bit.ly/5PFz8u - OpenDNS wins! (for me). Google public DNS came in a close 2nd.#fb