Dilemma

No matter what I do
All I think about is you
Even when I’m with my Boo
Boy, you know I’m crazy over you

If you listen to this song and still can't figure out where I was mishearing something in the chorus, let me know and I'll spell it out for you.

But I thought most of the fun was licking your fingers! [link via Brian, who's in love]

Today's Word of the Day:

tenebrous \TEN-uh-bruhs\, adjective: Dark; gloomy.

I have been at work for all of 2 seconds and already the costumes I've seen have made my chin drop to the floor.

Happy Halloween!!

Horoscope

AQUARIUS: Frankly, Aquarius, you are God. I don't mean to imply that you alone possess the throbbing mojo of the Source; just that you have an eminently useful portion of it right now. Likewise, when I assure you that you have unimaginable power to actualize the life you want, I'm not suggesting you can instantly activate all of that power; once you get started, it'll take a while. Finally, my dear, in advising you to act as if your creativity were essentially the same force that shaped the solar system out of a cloud of dust and gas, I hope it won't make you nervous about wielding such primal energy. Halloween costume suggestions: Zeus, Isis, Jehovah, Shakti, Siva, or Kwan Yin.

Isis. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe next year, I'll dress up as Isis.

Talk Dirty to Me: Things overheard at the STD clinic [via Edmond]

Am I the only one not doing anything tomorrow night? I think, perhaps, that I am. And that's ok.

Yoo hoo! Galaxy Girl pics from the other night can be found here.

And the evidence of mine and Jessa's fabulous jack-o-lantern skills can be found here. Oh, and here as well.

Learning once again that when it comes to business matters, when someone says "I'll call you", it usually translates into "Call me a few hours after you expect me to call you and I'll have maybe half the information you were expecting."

Gah.

Gah.* My car won't start this morning. And I'm pretty sure that when the AAA mechanic gets here to look at it, it will start for him,** no problemo.

*My word for the day
**Oh, come on, the chances it's going to be a woman are slimmer than my chances for getting to work on time.

It's a bloggin' day!! (I've been "on duty," which means that I can't do anything but sit here and watch Eudora and/or the phone ... both of which have been very, very quiet today).

My question: has anyone else been extremely put out by the time change? I took advantage of the extra hour yesterday. I even got an extra hour this morning. And I did like seeing the sun this morning. But I am headachy, stressed, and irritable. Grrr. My internal clock is broken, I think.

Since I know you're jonesing for this information, I'll let you know where you can find the three bloggers I wouldn't mind hanging out on a desert island with (please ignore that I just ended that sentence with a preposition).

So I'm thinking of moving. The commute is leaving me tired and irritable and I think it's having the same effect on my car.

There was a time not so long ago when I was all hot to move to San Francisco, somewhere out in the Richmond district (for those of you not familiar with SF, that's out in the western reaches, suburban, and certainly not the "cool" area of town to be in). After all, it's cheaper and most of the bus lines run straight downtown to BART. But with time, my enthusiasm has waned. I like SF and all, but ...

Lemme 'splain. I pay just over $1000 for a 750 sq. ft. apartment in Mountain View, with parking and storage. There was a time when I thought that was too much space, and I was all ready to move somewhere smaller. But with time, my feelings about that changed as well. I have managed not to expand my possessions to fill the space, but I have learned to make use of the space to make it seem more of a home for me than I previously thought it could be.

So anyway, I looked at this apartment in Daly City on Saturday. It's 746 sq. ft., top floor with no one underneath (it's over the lobby), close to BART, close to 280, 380, 101, 1, 35, and a grocery store. It has an enclosed garage, with storage, and it's almost $100 less than where I am now. BUT, the bedroom is small and the closet space is lacking, and it's on a busy street. And the view is nothing to get even remotely excited about.

My issue here is that I want the next place I move to to be somewhere I can stay for longer than 8 months. I want it to be somewhere I will feel happy about. I want to look forward to going home, not always wondering when I can leave. I'm wondering if I can make the inside a home and not worry about what the outside looks like.

*sigh* I need to talk about this to someone who can at least pretend to care. This has been good for getting the issues out, but conversation would be more valuable at the moment. And I am without resources.

UPDATE: thanks to cell phone technology, I was not entirely without resources. I have decided to take it, since the lease is for 3-6 months and if it's really that bad, I can just leave. Again.

The gosh-darned best 404 page I have ever seen. I want one. [via Bryan]

.sig file on an email I received today:

Humor is too important a matter to be left in the hands of a bunch of clowns.

Y'all (except for Bill, Wendy and Apollo) missed a great show last night. Ernie, especially, since Angelique did a great rendition of his favorite song.

Pictures will be posted soon. Oh, and last month's pictures are here.

Swedish radio - fun and not to be missed.

I know from my experience with German and Swedish co-workers that English is a colorful language, requiring lots of explanation when it comes to our expressions and sayings. Apparently, the same is true of French.

Got the bluegrass, 80's punk, disco, and random 70's stuff on shuffle at the moment. It's a great mix.

Folks, my brother-in-law.

Warning: it's a big file.

I was going to say something, and then I forgot what it was. *sigh*

It's unfortunate when a movie you once thought was great turns out to be not so great. Ah, maturity has its drawbacks.

Ever have one of those days where you feel like everyone's looking at you?? I have checked my shoelaces, my zipper, my makeup, and my hair and I can't figure out why this is happening today.

Maybe it's pheromones. Which could be because of this.

Email moment:

**
Subject: my younger brother moving far, far away from us to live with my sister
Her: Maybe he'll get off his butt and get online?
**

Only in Silicon Valley is it considered getting off your ass if you get online.

Events

Flugtag is this Saturday. Anyone want to go with me??

Galaxy Girls on Sunday. I'm willing to enter into a carpool from anywhere in the Peninsula area (Mountain View on up).

Ha! Edmond points out a common misconception.

Extraordinary

It amazes me whenever I think about it that I've fallen into a job that I don't mind getting up at 5 a.m. for, and that during the day I enjoy being here.

The commuting between 6-8 a.m. and 5-7 p.m. suck, but the rest of it is pretty good. In the midst of the disillusionment I am experiencing in most other parts of my life, this is pretty extraordinary (as Sade sings, "this is no ordinary love, it's an extraordinary love"... I finally brought my headphones into work).

Mountain View

How to figure out where you are from.

You will need: a pencil and a piece of paper.

First write down the name of every city you have ever lived in.

Then, next to each name, write down the number of times you had your heart broken there.

You are from the city that broke your heart the most.

The other sign is when you go to the restroom about half an hour after you get into work (after spending an hour on BART and half an hour on the bus), and find out that your sweater is buttoned wrong. You know, the light-colored cardigan that you're wearing over the dark red shirt and dark blue jeans. Yeah, the one that's really hard to miss.

A sign of the times

You can guess what sort of week it's going to be when you get in on Monday morning and proceed to keep turning the screen on and off several times, waiting for your desktop to appear, before you realize that the computer is turned off, which is why nothing is happening.

I had some friends over to watch Logan's Run last night, which was a good thing on a few levels:

1) My apartment is cleaner than it has been since I moved in. I figured out in my last apartment the true reason for housewarming parties: it's not just to break the new house in, it's to make the new residents do things - like unpack, clean, and decorate so that their guests don't have to navigate boxes - within a short time, rather than the months they would otherwise take to do the same tasks. I never had a housewarming party here, so it took a "movie night" (even though only one person showed up) to make me to get the place together finally.

2) I have so much soda in my refridgerator now that I'll never have to buy stuff for future parties. Not that I'm a big party-giver (I've lived here since February and this is the first "gathering" I've had), but ... I also don't have to buy stuff to take to other parties either, like the bbq I'm going to later today. I am also well-stocked in the cashews, Double-Stuff Oreos, and Cadbury chocolates that were brought over last night.

3) Did I mention that my apartment is clean? I've been working so much lately that I haven't been around enough to do much more than eat and sleep here. I feel so much better about the space I live in now, which I think will make other things less stressful.

4) I finally got to talk about some of the stuff that's been getting me down lately, and my friend had good life-experience advice to give on the matter. She told me stuff I already knew, but it was good to hear it from someone else, and also validates how I've been feeling and reinforces the need to do what I've been avoiding for three months now. Whew!

5) In the course of cleaning yesterday, I found out the reason why the unemployment office has neglected to reimburse me for my last week of unemployment: because I neglected to send in the damn form! It's been sent now.

6) The movie itself was a hoot and a holler. From the ditzy Farrah Fawcett-Majors, to the orgy room that has given a whole new meaning to the word "wow", and the use of blue screens to make the Philip Johnson's Water Park in Fort Worth, Texas appear to be by the ocean. We also had a good time making fun of the Peter Pan costumes and the cue-card reading that passed as acting ... Very different from the last time I saw this movie 15? 20? years ago.

And I didn't shave all my hair off. But it is a lot shorter. By the way, "a lot" is a relative term. For me, that means an inch and a half is gone, and I have bangs now. Whoppee!

Tentative hoping:

I'm having some of my hair cut off today. I don't want to cry afterward.

Today has started out well. I hope it continues.

You only get five.

Someone at work is selling World Series Tickets for $500 a piece. Now that's some expensive entertainment.

[via 3Bruces]

Yeah, that's about how I feel these days.

True geeks take mirror shots on their wedding day. Congratulations to James and Brooke, a lovely couple.

Speaking of spam, the first thing I see when I get in to work this morning?

$1 Coke Whores Here

I wasn't aware that this was a viable market. My mistake.

Maybe he's allergic to dairy. Maybe he has a problem processing protein. Maybe, just maybe, he simply doesn't like the taste of meat.

But it was darn funny to watch the vegan going on and on about his dietary choices, while swaddled in his leather coat and shoes.

You know, spam is spam is spam. It's not really a big deal until it completely takes over your email address and you start deleting the good messages along with the unsolicited ones. You know, kind of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes. Until that point, though, I know where the delete key is, and I don't have a problem using it.

But.

But I get annoyed at the spammers who can't be bothered to format their mail properly, or fucking use the spellchecker before they push their (to them) oh-so-important message at the unsuspecting masses. I just got an email that consisted of one loooong table, with one word per line all the way down.

I mean, if you want me to buy your product, fine, I can respect that. But at least make it look as though you put more than 2 seconds and the spelling/formatting ability of an uneducated monkey into the effort. I can't imagine that a person who can't read a piece of spam would be willing to buy the product promoted by the message, so time and effort are wasted all over the place, from the person who composed and sent it out to the person who has to delete it and then empty their trashcan.

And that's my rant of the day.

Every community needs a Turkey Testicle Festival. No, really. Where else can you have a Run for the Nuts race? [via Brian]

Ha! Jesus just sent me an email telling me to watch cable tv! How did he know I didn't have it?

Silly Catholic. I guess I should know the answer to that one.

I was warned last week when I informed the group that I had made my first EBay bid that it would become addictive. That I could be as nonchalant as I liked, right up until the last day of bidding, and then I'd be checking every 15 minutes to make sure that some interloper had not gone in and outbid me on the item that was mine because I bid on it first. I was sceptical.

Turns out they were right.

(Item in question - it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine. Unless the bidding goes over $100. I don't need it that much.)

Oh, and by the way, today is much better. Even with all the italics.

Continuing the trend from yesterday ... I missed the memo that stated that I should not get out of bed today, darnit.

My BART train got delayed in the TransBay Tube this morning for 10+ minutes, which made me 30 minutes late for work. Can't tell you how much fun that was. I know it doesn't sound like much, but when you get to thinking that you're stuck in a box under a large body of water ...

TMI portion, skip if you're queasy ...
Now I am being assailed by my womanhood. Yes, that's right, I have cramps. Bad ones. And I live so far from where I work that I had to call my friend and ask him to leave work to come and pick me up. After I threw up, naturally.

Can we go back to yesterday Sunday Saturday Friday? Better yet, can we just skip to tomorrow? I know everything will be better tomorrow.

I promise, it'll all be better tomorrow.

Alone, left out, left behind, unneeded, unwanted, bipolar - all sorts of happy feelings swirling around in my head, and the tendency to cry doesn't help. The floodgates have been open all weekend and there's no sign of a letup in the flow.

But my papers are sorted out and my checkbook is balanced and the porch is swept and the plants have been watered and almost all my clothes have been put away, and this makes me feel a bit more prepared for the week ahead, which promises to be stressful, short as it is.

Oh, and I decided to boycott events that I have not been invited to. Being assured that they neglected to invite me specifically because they intended that someone else would bring me just isn't enough anymore. We're not dating anymore, folks. I sent out invites tonight and made sure to include *everyone* I wanted to attend.

So there. Like I said, all sorts of happy feelings tonight. Maybe some food will help balance things out. Time for dinner.

And it's true what they say. Country music is not good for heartache. "There's a tear in my beer" and all that. *sigh*

I love the feel of new socks. Especially on a three-day weekend.

Happy Columbus/Indigenous People's Day!

And happy Canadian Thanksgiving Day to all my Canadian friends!!

I don't have to work tomorrow. Ha!

Via Bill:

Joke of the day:

The Five Secrets to a Great Relationship
1. It is important to find a man who works around the house, occasionally cooks and cleans and who has a job.
2. It is important to find a man who makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man who is dependable and doesn't lie.
4. It is important to find a man who's good in bed and who loves to have sex with you.
5. It is important that these four men never meet.

Ah, it's the way things go these days I guess. Not that it's a bad thing. Actually, I haven't figured out how I feel about it yet. In any case, the first joint venture between a library and a private developer has finally happened.

Portland, Oregon--city of bike trails, official sustainability principles, and the urban-growth boundary--now boasts an energy-efficient mixed-use library complex. The Hollywood Library, Bookmark Apartments, and Caffe Uno, which all opened in May, create what is possibly the country's first joint venture between a public library and a private developer....

"People really like the idea of living above a library," .... "They like the convenience of being able to walk downstairs to borrow a book or a movie, or walk to the store to buy milk."

[via Spinning-Jennie]

Another mirror shot. I remember it was hot that day... hell, it was hot every day ... and we'd walked a lot. But the oratory was beeeeeuuuuutiful and worth the sore feet.

Happy Friday!

Random shit:

Library weblogs, for the interested

A site we all thought as dead as she who supposedly wrote it (a friend got a hit from there, weird)

Pretty pictures, from that same friend's recent vacation.

They told me when I started here that they didn't really mind if I didn't get it all the first time. Or the second time. Or even the third time. They trusted that it would eventually stick and then I could stop pestering them with questions. They also assured me that I would be surprised at what I remembered, even when all I remembered was the cement-like quality of my brain when it came to new information. Well, for the past few days, I have indeed been surprised that I could remember anything that they've told me over the past few weeks.

But today I sprouted a major brain leak. Suddenly, I couldn't remember how to spell my name, much less assign priorities to calls. Or even assign them to me. The crisis has passed. I am slowly recovering. Stress the third word in that last sentence.

I am going to go look at something other than a computer screen right now.

Jish and I went to see Bloody Sunday (yes, that Sunday Bloody Sunday) last night.

After going to Chevy's and eating a lot of dinner.

I thought the movie was great, and did a good job getting its point across, but the filming was a bit too realistic for me. Not the subject matter, but the handheld camera. By the end of the movie, I was clenching my teeth and breathing deeply to keep from losing my shrimp fajitas. Halfway through, I was advised to close my eyes. Imagine that, being told to close your eyes in order to make it through a movie!!

Oy. If you see this movie, either sit at the end of the row, or bring a bag with you. Either way, don't eat before seeing it.

Haha, heehee, hoohoo! Davezilla has some great questions regarding new anti-aging treatments.

The next movie I'm getting from Netflix is Logan's Run.

Movie party at my place? I think so.

Did you know that chthonic comes from khthón, the Greek word for earth? Neither did I. Now you do too. [via Dictionary.com]

What is the Peace Pumpkin Project?

The Peace Pumpkin Project is a simple way to demonstrate your opposition to a war in Iraq. The idea is this: this year, carve the words "No War" into your jack-o-lantern. That's it. Do it to as many pumpkins as you want, and put them wherever you want as long as you don't break the law or hurt anyone. If you're carving-knife impaired, You can download a stencil in .pdf form (revised stencil added Sept. 29th; the original was kind of useless). You could carve other words into the pumpkin, if you feel that "No War" doesn't express your opinion well enough, but I think it would increase the overall impact if people keep seeing the same simple message over and over: NO WAR.

Oh my. The Gallery of Unfortunate Cards is frickin' hilarious. And kinda scary. [via LYD]

Oh boy, those Canadians are at it again.

A blog about blogging:

I've taken to not turning my computer on in the evening lately and the reasons are these:

- I'm on the computer all day. You're right, this didn't stop me before, but now I do real work and it's exhausting.
- I commute quite a bit every day, and by the time I get home, all I want to do is turn my brain off for a while. The computer is generally good for this, but in my case, it's a bit too interactive. Movies and books are better.

This is not a "life is getting in the way" or "life is more interesting without the computer" excuse. I don't really have much of a life right now, but turning to computers just isn't an attractive option (unless it's to look for a new apartment closer to work). Happy Tuesday!

I learned last night that although people who drive are as mean as you imagine (myself included), many others are not, and if given the opportunity to say something in their defense, they come off as very decent people who didn't mean what they said the other day in way that you took it. UPS, on the other hand, still pisses me off.

Happy Monday.

There is always time to play with the dog.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Cool. I come up first on a search for Triskaidekaphobia, morbid fear of the number 13. Waahaaahaaa. I'm scary, ain't I?

Hahahaha! A teacher with a sense of humor. Or she's completely crazy. It is in Manitoba, after all. You know how those Canadians can get, and there's not much out there except rolling rolling rolling plains. Or so I hear.

Pimps and Gangs Subtracted From Math Test [link via Leila]

That which makes our department go is "having issues" (direct quote from the sysadmin).

There's kind of a party atmosphere, as no one can really do any work. It has settled in to "do what you can with what you have" (for me, that means read more documentation), but still ... good feelings about the day and what it promises for the weekend.

Thank God It's Friday.

If you didn't already know it, it's a frickin' obstacle course out there, folks. Narrowly missed the zippy little BMW who thought she had enough room to jump out of her driveway in front of me. And then the chick who was so wrapped up in getting her cell phone out of her bag that she thought nothing of walking right out in front of me as I came down the road. I'm pretty sure she understood what I mouthed at her, but I still don't think her expression was startled or contrite enough.

Someone asked me recently why I don't drive to work. You can probably figure it out here. While I don't get pedestrians stepping into oncoming traffic while on the freeway, sometimes the same effect is achieved with an overeager asshole who's late for somethingorother.

I commute from Mountain View to Emeryville every day (1.5 hours there, 2 hours back), and the only part of that commute that brings me an iota of stress is the drive from Fremont BART to home (little traffic in the a.m.). If there was a bus that could do it in a timely fashion, I'd take it.

There's no point to this, really, except to blow off some steam. I felt like I was being graded on my ability to avoid objects coming at me from all sides. I passed, but just barely.

Oh, and I'd also like to point out that I'm tired of only seeing my apartment when it's dark outside. I really need to move.

On Monday, I'm going to start a "Today On Mass Transit" practice. Only this way can people truly understand how exciting it can be.

Wow, one of those tests that seem eerily accurate:

The Love Test

1. You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

2. In the process of courtship, the approach that would make you feel irresistable is straight-forward, just tell you he/she loves you.

3. The impression you would like to give to your lover is stylish.

4. What you hate most in your partner is that the person is ruthless, cold-blooded, and/or ironic.

5. The kind of relationship you would like to build with your partner is that both of you can talk about everything and anything, no secret is kept.

6. You care about the society and morality, you won't do anything wrong after marriage.

7. You think of marriage as a precious thing. Once you get married, you'll treasure it and your partner very much.

8. At this moment, you are quite self-centered; you think of love as something you can get and trash anytime you want.

[via PartyGirl]

about addiction
about standing up for what you believe

[via Leila]

JessaJune found a few extra photos of us at this year's Renaissance Faire:

1) RJ looks smug, as he should be, surrounded by all those women.
2) We look great, as usual :)

I'm going to see Peter Gabriel in December. Yay me!!

Philo, on blogging:

You know you've been online too long when your final thoughts on this planet would be, "but who is gonna post about it on my website?"

For those of you who are interested, I finally got a trash can for my workstation yesterday. I got the liner for it today.

Yay!!

Not many things can make you feel good like overhearing someone compliment you to someone else.

A nice story.

"When we label people, we close our eyes, we close our heart," Kari said. "If we take a minute, we find out that everyone belongs to someone.

Upgrade

My disability insurance company, Unum Provident, used to think I lived on Gross Street.

I corrected them. I said "It's not great, but it's not that bad."

Now they say I live on Groove Street.

I'll take this as a reflection of the ways in which my whole life keeps getting better.

Rabbit, rabbit.

It's October. I love fall.