I've had a migraine waxing and waning since yesterday morning. Just when I think it's going away, it pops back into the foreground (forehead?). Just when I think it's going to completely flatten me, it backs off enough that I can function. Somewhat.

For cases such as these, the trifecta of (at turns) taking to my bed, taking medicine, and taking a dose of laughter help alleviate the torture.

Here are a few things I've found recently that help with the laughter portion of that prescription:

Women's Porn. Totally safe for work. But you're on your own with explaining why you're laughing.

The Tale of Snow White and the Very Angry Dwarf. No pictures, just a funny and well-told story by rachelmanija about an experience with theatre. She tells a couple of additional theatre stories after this one that are also terrific if you want to dig further into her LJ. (I've recommended her memoir All the Fishes Come Home to Roost before, but no harm in mentioning it again, right?)

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage. I believe it's time that a word is invented in English that describes the sensation of being equal parts amused and appalled. I've experienced that sensation more and more as I've coasted around the internet; people really are amazing. Anyway, whatever that word will be, all I can ask is that it's better than "blog" (such a terrible word, "blog". Bleh.) This Shamu story is the embodiment of that to-be-invented word. (Appused? <--no, that's too similar to "accused". Amalled? <-- no, that's got to be for something like getting sucked into spending time at a mall for several hours more than your worst nightmares would ever envision. Hmmm....more thinking is required here. Just not today.)

And finally, a YouTube link that is safe for work, sorta': Minnie Mouse Sex Scandal. How unsurprised am I that this took place in France? Which is not to say I couldn't see it happening elsewhere, it's just that it's so *perfect* that it took place in France, somehow.

Tags: laughter the best medicine, medicine

Some time ago I was added in error to an international mailing list at work because I had a client with the exact same name as this other company based (I think) in England. At some point, someone did a search somewhere to see who all the people were internationally who worked on Company ABC, my name popped up, and voila! Mail ensued.

Broadcast messages that encompass the whole group are rare, but I always enjoy seeing them. Today's was a message, in Italian, from someone in the Padua office to the client. I totally nerded out and read it, noticing things like the differences in punctuation for writing in Italian vs. writing in English, and of course realizing that one can actually get a vague understanding of the topic at hand based on words that have a similar meaning in English or (really reaching back) Latin.

Hello, my name is fiveandfour and I'm a big ol' nerd.

During my lunch/errand break (why do decent moisturizers that don't make me break out with allergic hives or acne spots cost so much? ::woe::) I grabbed a Portland Mercury to read while eating. I turned to the Savage Love column (I see his point about the gay marriage vs. polygamy issue), but had a few bites left to eat so started reading the adjacent page. This turned out to be the personal ads. I was quite enjoying wondering to myself things like "did the girl who expressed an interest in philosophy say 'Descrates' on purpose, did she misspell it, or did the Mercury?" when I ran across my second favorite personal ad of all time (here's the first):

Hip to be Square
In sum: I am a lot like Emily Dickinson, if she'd had Internet access and a penis.
Brewne*, 25, #123714

I nearly choked to death laughing. If it didn't cost $4.99, I'd likely be tempted to leave a message saying how full of awesome genius I find that ad. Or maybe ask him to help me think up something for my tombstone. Because it seems to me the kind of mind that could come up with that would be the kind of mind I could use to help me come up with one of those pithy tombstone sayings that people take pictures of and talk about for hundreds of years.

Ladies**, if money is no object you might want to respond. If you do, you simply must come back and tell me all about it.


*I'm not completely sure I got the name right. I also don't know if that 25 is supposed to represent his age or something else. There goes my chances of being an ace reporter.
**The ad was in the "Boys 4 Girls" section, so I'm thinking he's straight.

I was watching a lecture from iTunes U the other day, this one on the topic of the intellectual landscape during ancient “classical” times. One thing the lecturer talked about was how it’s kind of a myth that the great break in the storehouse of ancient knowledge was the burning of the library at Alexandria. In fact, it was the development of new technology that caused a lot of old information to be lost. The new technology was the development of the codex, which was a superior system for storing written documents in comparison to scrolls of papyri. As use of the codex format took off, people had to choose what was important enough to warrant the expense and hassle of transferring from papyri to codices. Many things were lost because people at the time made judgment calls about what was worthy of keeping and what didn’t need to be kept for future generations.

I first became familiar with this very concept as the music industry embraced compact discs over LPs and cassettes. CDs have a superior sound quality, but replacing an entire library of cassettes and LPs with CDs is a large expense, so the process takes time, consideration and prioritization. The essential music was replaced nearly immediately. Thereafter it was a matter of whether the music company put the item out on CD, and if they did, which ones should be purchased next. This process of replacing cassettes with CDs is still an ongoing one for me.

( A side issue for the musicians and manufacturers )

For many years, when I’ve perused the shelves where we store our CDs, I’ve had this feeling that there is an important CD missing. It was always like a hole in my heart that I couldn’t find. I also couldn’t figure out how, if it was so important that I knew it was missing by the feeling I had in my gut if not the knowledge in my mind, I couldn’t remember which one was missing. Last night I figured it out.

You see, the reason it took this many years is that it’s an album by INXS. It’s been over ten damned years since Michael Hutchence committed suicide and I’m still not over it. Listening to INXS now is always just about equal parts pain and joy: there’s that happiness and love of hearing a music that hits you just right mixed with overwhelming sadness. I loved that band like crazy from the very first night I heard them as the opening band for the Stray Cats. To my mind, INXS was far and away the better act that night; I went out and bought Shabooh Shoobah immediately thereafter (on cassette). Since 1997, every time I’ve wanted to hear their music, I’ve ventured over for a look at our music shelves and thought “there’s something missing”. But I shied away from thinking too much about it because I almost couldn’t stand to listen to their early albums – the ones I had listened to the most over the years, the ones that meant the most to me – and thus almost always picked out something from later in their career. It was like a protective instinct to immediately reach for the later ones which had little to do with what I think of those albums as artistic efforts.

But last night I had a craving to hear a particular song and I realized I don’t have the CD the song originally came on. Once I figured that out, I found myself somewhat amazed I hadn’t ever bought The Swing on CD before Michael Hutchence’s death, but not surprised at all that I hadn’t bought it since. The Swing came in between Shabooh Shoobah and Listen Like Thieves and back in the day, those three albums were like Boy, October and War to me. In fact, as much as I listened to those three U2 albums around the time of their releases, it is very possible I listened to Shabooh Shoobah, The Swing and Listen Like Thieves more. It was kind of weird, actually, how U2 hit the public consciousness with The Joshua Tree in nearly the same way and around the same time as INXS did with Kick. They both went from being these bands it seemed like only I and a few others knew about to being huge sensations. But for whatever reason, when U2 went on to “chop down the Joshua Tree” and create Achtung Baby (arguably going from a height to an even greater height), INXS didn’t hit the sweet spot with their next album (X) in quite the same way. Thereafter, public consciousness of the two bands went on different trajectories, and a few years later Michael was dead.

Given that it’s been ten years I obviously need to accept that thinking of INXS is always going to be like poking at a particularly tender bruise. I’m determined to get The Swing on CD, and I will listen to it even though I know the whole experience will have a shadow over it. Somehow I need to get to a place where it’s not so painful; I want more of the joy back. I’m not sure if the path to that place is via listening to more of their music more often, but I suppose it’s worth a try. It may be a path paved in tears, but I think it’ll be worthwhile to take it and see where it leads.

::Deep breath::

Wish me luck.

Tags: inxs, music, u2

It's well past bed time, but I'm still freezing from my daughter's softball game tonight. With the exception of last Saturday afternoon's game, every one of the games this spring has been played in temperatures of no higher than the low-40s. There have been rain and hail storms aplenty and a good number of re-scheduled games when the fields have been too wet to navigate. Tonight the weather report said it was in the high 40s, but I don't believe it; it felt like the coldest night yet.

I've been dressing for these games like Michael Stipe at a music awards show. (Read: in many layers.) Tonight I had - actually, still have - on 2 tank tops, a long sleeved shirt, 2 short sleeved shirts, 2 pairs of pants* and 2 pairs of socks. This is inside the house. At the game I added 2 sweatshirts, a fleece vest, a hooded jacket (there was a shower of rain during the game, natch), and a blanket. Even still, I forgot the gloves so my hands were miserably frozen stiff, plus my allergies to cold cropped up so that by the end of the game I itched from head to toe.

It has just been brutal this year. Usually by now there are rain and clouds to contend with, but at least it's in the 60s and a sunny day can be counted on more than once or twice in a month's time. So yeah, brutal.

But now I'm quite sleepy and cold feet or not, it's time for me to turn in. Now I'm off to contemplate how many layers to remove and how many to keep before slipping under the covers...




*This is a pair of leggings straight out of the early 1990s (which my daughter forbids me to wear outside the house...not that I would anyway, but it's fun to get her thinking I might) plus this pair of jeans I've been dithering on getting rid of because they're too big, but they're jeans. I have a hard time getting rid of relatively new clothing that cost as much as jeans do even if the item doesn't fit quite like it should. Now that I found that they have some use after all, I imagine they'll be hanging a lonely vigil in my closet for some time to come, waiting for the next day cold enough for me to need to put on 2 pairs of pants on which I'll actually be venturing outside and not curling up on the couch with a book and a blanket. Oh, who am I kidding? There's another game Friday night, so I'm sure they'll be making another appearance in tandem with the leggings then - with me shivering the whole darned time.

( Starting with a brief 'Giving Credit Where Credit is Due' which is off topic for the rest of this post )

I have to say how disconcerting it was when I realized this morning that my dreams last night were scenarios out of famous children's stories. I'm not real certain of the inspiration, but I think odds are good that they were inspired by this discussion about world building over at Smart Bitches along with me realizing once again that I don't get drawn into alternate worlds in the same way I did when I was a child. I remember a discussion on that very topic was hosted by Michael Dirda some years ago. It seems it's a common part of the growth of a reader to go through the stages of real immersion into a book's world as a child to a place where one reads little fiction at all. I'm not yet at the stage of giving up fiction, by any means, but I certainly interact with it in a different way than I did as a child.

As a kid, I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder, LM Montgomery (still do), Madeleine L'Engle, CS Lewis, Carolyn Keene, then later AC Doyle, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, F Scott Fitzgerald, and all of the other usual suspects. My love was due in part to that feeling that I could step into an alternate reality just by opening a book. It was a visceral thing I could feel down to my gut. I was there. I was truly "world's away". In my adult years, I think the only book that has drawn me in in that way is Outlander. But unlike before (like with re-reading Anne of Green Gables as a kid), when I re-read Outlander now, the pull is not the same. I see it with a more critical eye; while I might be in that world when I'm reading, I'm not 100% there. It's more like I'm 50% there, at best.

It turns out that 50% difference is a very large difference for me. That Maximum of 50% Rule applies to everything fictional nowadays. Actually, it's far more accurate to say the 50% Rule applies for what I find to be the best of the fiction I read nowadays. Anything less than what I find to be the best falls pretty sharply under that 50% mark.

There's a part of me that mourns this change. However, the greater part of me accepts that this change is just a part of growth. It's a waste of time to do anything less than accept that this is just how it is for me now. One thing that really helps with losing a sense of wonder is the increase in understanding I've found. As a child, there was definitely less of an understanding of all of the ways that fictional worlds work through and examine truths of the real world. That increased interaction with fiction in a cerebral way is likely the thing that doesn't allow the sense of immersion to come over me. But I think like nearly every other situation where one goes from innocence to experience, it's impossible to go back to innocence once experience is gained, and it's close to impossible to truly wish you were still (or again) that innocent. One can look back, but one can't go back.

( Finally, a P.S. on the dreams... )

Tags: books, dreams

Item the First

Dear Earth:

I didn't want to say anything earlier this week, since it was supposed to be your day and all, but now a little time has passed so I hope you won't mind me asking: what is going on with the weather? Our daily temperature is averaging approximately 20 degrees less than what we usually experience at this time of year and you're killing us here. I mean, hail in April? Snow in April? And not just a couple of times in the month, but a couple of times per week all month long? Tell us what to do and we'll do it. We're freezing and ready for this endless winter to be over. So please, make things 'normal' again.

Respectfully,

Me


Item the Second

It's kind of surprising to me that, worldwide, piracy on the high seas has been increasing in both frequency and severity for approximately a decade and yet this hasn't been reported in the press and it hasn't shown up in popular culture. (Aren't piracy scenarios tailor-made for a summer blockbuster movie?) Perhaps it's the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing where we've romanticized piracy to the point that it's hard for us to think of pirates in a negative sense. Yet still, color me surprised.

Item the Third

My husband and I watched The Shawshank Redemption the other day, and like always, I thought about a former colleague. You see, a few years after it came out, she mentioned to a group of us that she'd never seen the end of the movie. She had made it about 2/3rds of the way through and couldn't take any more, so turned it off and never finished it. A chorus of "But you have to see the end of the movie. It's the redemption part! It's the part that makes all the rest of it worthwhile!" arose, but I was never sure if we really convinced her. I haven't seen this person for some years and I don't know that I ever will again. But I'm certain that if I do, one of the questions I'll be asking is if she's ever seen the end to this movie.

Item the Fourth
I think in many situations that can be seen as bad there can emerge something good. (This is the inverse of those situations where your intentions were honestly for the best and yet nothing good ensued.) It's the law of unintended consequences in action. From my point of view, the good side of the infamous Boobgate situation (if this is new to you, look for a post by theferrett; the one with the gazillion comments is the one I mean) is that it has sparked discussion far and wide on various aspects of male and female sexuality. I think it's a good thing for men and women to discuss their assumptions and beliefs and the anonymity the internet provides allows a more honest kind of discussion. Because people are less concerned about politeness, there's more raw honesty in what they say. Of course, the balancer for that is that oftentimes the lack of body language, eye contact and facial expression means that what one person intends to communicate isn't actually communicated. But in the end, I find discussing the fact that breasts have a meaning to women that is quite different from their meaning to men to be not only fascinating, but also useful and helpful. There are several things I've seen people say that have me pondering, and further, have me re-configuring some of my assumptions. There are some things I don't think it's possible for people to agree on - such as what it means when a person dresses in a manner that some take to convey "I'm open for business"* when in fact that's not what the person in the clothing meant at all. How we dress is obviously a huge issue and a topic far too large for any group of people to ever completely agree on. However, I think a person realizing that they may not mean it that way, but it's being taken that way is important.** Anyway, I've found it fascinating watching the various discussions and reactions unfold.

( Asterisks Ahoy )

There are a couple of topics doing the whirligig through my mind that I keep thinking of posting about, but I have a feeling both of them will be time consuming to work through. So instead (at least for now), I bring you this.

I've mentioned many a time that one thing I enjoy about my particular industry is that it touches every other industry. As a consequence, topics in our publications and news gathering services can be wonderfully varied. I imagine I wouldn't know about many things if not for this.

Recently, news of a satellite on its way back to earth grabbed the headlines. The will it or won't it cause lots of destruction question was both dramatic and relevant, so it was no wonder it grabbed the headlines for a few days. What I found particularly interesting at the time was how it was then reported (as is always the case ~ one disastrous thing always results in the reporting of all of the other like-disastrous things) how many times satellites do fall out of orbit. Yesterday I saw an article about a satellite loss. Seeing that article reminded me of one I saw on the same subject about a year ago.

My point is, I suppose, that we've come to think so little about all of the satellites hovering around the earth that it seems a simple, routine, non-noteworthy thing. But really, if you think about it, it's a remarkably noteworthy thing. It's a very difficult process getting the satellites into orbit, keeping them there, and managing the risk should they come back to earth unexpectedly. [All of these failures would, I hope, be a part of any potential space tourist's examination of the risk involved in taking a jaunt into space.] The other side to all of the satellites, for me, is that - like so many times before - humans have rushed in and created a situation with no real knowledge of the potential outcomes. Can it be a purely good thing to have so many satellites circling round the earth? We're dependent on them for many things, of course, so it's not as though we're going to stop using them and stop sending them up there. But it seems something akin to a sacrilege, I think, to litter space with our junk and widen the scope of the pollution that's been so thoroughly undertaken here on earth.

Going in an entirely different direction, I had lost touch with the status of the JK Rowling suit that's been going on here in the U.S. over copyright infringement issues related to a compendium about the Harry Potter universe. (The information related to the income earned by the average writer that appears in that linked article was certainly eye opening.) Anyway, I find the whole topic of fair use, sampling, fan fiction and other uses of created material fascinating as well as how many people's opinions seemed to be so tied to which side of the income stream they fall on.

And last but not least, from a Wil Wheaton blog entry wherein he talks about a trip to New York city, this sentence caught my eye:

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting really sick and tired of seeing the same twenty stores wherever I go.

I was struck by this some years ago when we were driving from Lake Tahoe westward towards San Francisco, then northward towards home. Time after time after time, we passed through cities and suburbs where the same stores and restaurants could be found. It was extremely depressing. There are obviously positive sides to certain uniformities of culture, but I find this particular brand of imperialism especially insidious. It's like a slow conquering where the natives invite the invaders in. As the virus of branded commercialism spreads, places that once had unique identities, sub-cultures and personalities lose the characteristics that set them apart from all other places. As we drove, I noticed that it was quite difficult to even tell one city from another. And I decided we're going to have to change the lyrics in America the Beautiful from "And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea" to include something in there about how we're now a nation of strip malls from sea to shining sea.

And another day where the time cycle is all out of whack...

Yesterday I was at a series of classes all day. [One thing I learned that I never would've thought of: in Oregon, county courthouses and hospitals are good places to go if you want a list of translaters and interpreters (oh, and this website is also admired as being useful and accurate). It makes sense when you think about it, but really, how often does one think about it?] At lunch I made the big, fat error of drinking something with caffeine. In the wee smas it finally occurred to me that I really should be getting tired and only then realized why I was still buzzing around in my head as if it were just past noon instead of well past midnight. Durh! It's been awhile since I've had mid-day caffeine intake affect me like that. But it was nearly 3:30 in the morning, after doing all those things "the experts" tell you to do to help get sleepy plus a couple of things I made up on my own*, when I finally knew I had a shot at falling asleep. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I slept right through my alarm and only woke up when my daughter came into my room to ask if I was ok.

So I got to work late then got to spend the next few hours going through all the e-mails that had built up over the course of yesterday. Some days I really don't know if e-mail is a blessing or a curse for the business world. It's so easy for people to reply and go off on tangents that then need their own reply and then copy a gajillion people who all have to make their own replies so that in the end you spend a half an hour reading e-mails that could have been handled in a 5-7 phone conversation. Even taking into consideration the time spent writing notes after the phone conversation, one comes out behind on time. Multiply this time drain by all of the issues you're dealing with for all of your clients, and it comes to feel like a wonder that a person can take any time off at all from dealing with everyone's issues.

Anyway, all that means that the math of my day has been something like: late start + time on e-mails + my company's regular Thursday running of utilities which makes the whole system snail-paced slow = one loooong morning where not much was accomplished.

I'll certainly not make the mid-day caffeine error again today, so with luck I'll be snoozing soon after my daughter's softball game ends tonight. I hope this, in turn, will get me back tomorrow to feeling in my usual rhythms again. It's nice to break out of habits once in awhile, but it's also nice to get back to some of them, isn't it?


*Describing it that way brings to mind that scene from Rocket Man where the Harland Williams character amuses himself for innumerable days alone while traveling to Mars. There may have been a monkey involved in that part of the story, but I can't really remember. Um, you've all seen that movie, right? Don't leave me hanging now. You know you like those kind of movies that are bad in every way and yet you watch them anyway....sometimes more than once. ETA: Oh, check it out! I was just reading some of the IMDB page on the movie and see it was referenced in a Buffy episode. So HA! I wasn't the only one who saw it :-).

Well, it's amazing how quickly the days can fly by with things happening and events that could be recorded, but lack of time and energy has you giving that idea the miss-in-balk. I don't want to talk about work, because as soon as I say how good it's been the last couple of weeks that'll all turn south. So. None of that. And I don't want to talk about my daughter playing softball because I want this to be a short post and I think that may take some time and space. So. We'll skip that for now. Where does this leave me? How about I start small and just talk about today? Or more specifically, just this morning...

I found the cycle of my entire day was thrown off thanks to one small thing that happened this morning. Here's the scenario: I got myself to the park-n-ride in good time, I'm gathering my things to catch the bus that will get me to my desk just when I want to get there, and I suddenly realize I left my purse at home. I started the car back up and went to leave the parking lot, then got stuck with two other cars at a light that would not turn green. It continued to stay red for us for five minutes (no exaggeration - I timed it) and finally the car ahead of me gave up on turning left and headed off to the right. I waited for a break in the traffic and went for it, turning left. Of course, by then the volume of traffic had increased, so the smooth and easy trip to the park-n-ride was not smooth nor easy going back home. But I got home, grabbed the purse, checked the bus schedule, and left again. Naturally, I *just* missed the bus, so drove to work.

On the way I enjoyed some Walter Mitty-esque scenarios of what it would be like to not have a commute of at least 30 minutes into the big city. One scenario was the at home worker where I could shuffle to the computer in sweats and comfy socks (perhaps slippers on the really cold days) with a mug of tea at one elbow and a tall glass of ice water at the other. But I've discovered something about myself over the years while bringing the odd project home to work on: I can do the work at home, and once in awhile it's preferable to do it there instead of at the office, but for the most part I like that energy of the office. There's something uplifting to me in the phones ringing and the people talking and the copy machine doing its thing. Just lately all that noise in combination has been too much on several occasions, but I blame that mostly on the fact that I sit in the vortex of one of the largest group of loud-talkers I've ever seen assembled. Nevertheless, there is something to being surrounded by lots of people that helps me tap into a kind of energy I don't always have on my own. Thus, the at home scene got a short run.

Next was the scenario that took me most of the way to work: that girl-on-the-bicycle fantasy where work is a moderately short distance away and the route consists of an allee of ancient trees where the sun is always sparkling in a deep blue sky and the birds are always singing. I filled in this scene with the requisite clothing: flower-print dress with a cute cardigan, sandals, or loafers with socks that turn down around the ankles, or perhaps Keds with no socks. Plus the appropriate accoutrement for the bicycle: the basket that holds the loaf of bread, hunk of cheese and bottle of wine. Oh! And the little bell for the bike which is whimsical, not childish. The bike would be red and the tires would be fat with white walls. Now the job in this scenario was also important. It would have to be something dealing with young children or elderly people. The heroine (c'est moi) would be sweet and kind, yet not too naive.

It's really too bad that none of that is really in the least like me. Perhaps it could be some alternate universe version of me who speaks a few languages fluently and can whip up a meal out of simple ingredients that are always kept on hand in the larder. ::Sigh:: Yeah, still not me.

Realizing that I'm not suited to work solely at home or in a job that requires taking care of other people I wondered if I'm suited to be anything but what I am: an office worker. I've done some of those quizzes that match my interests to a job and it occurred to me today that while the jobs and the offices might be different from mine, they are still more or less jobs in offices. It's both a limiting and a liberating feeling to realize I'm kinda' suited to the job I do. It's certainly not what I love love love, but it doesn't drive me crazy - which is more than a lot of people can say.

All in all, I guess this added up to making this a glass-half-full kind of day. The kind that don't set the world on fire, but instead keeps it turning day in and day out.