In Other Good News. . .

I'm hoping to get some posting done this weekend. Maybe I'll even catch up on e-mail.

It's almost March, always one of my favorite months. (In like a lion, out like a lamb.)

My wonderful boss has cleared my schedule for the next couple of weeks, so instead of working on promotional e-mails, I'll be writing up new features for the Help system. This is good news, because (A) the deadline is approaching fast, and (B) I really want to do something different for a while. Also, because it was a rough week, she gave several of us little thank-you gifts with heartfelt notes of encouragement. A lovely mug, Ghirardelli hot chocolate packets, and a Toblerone bar — because chocolate is a pharmaceutical. I give thanks every day that I have a good boss.

Also, my new PageMaker 7.0 arrived at work. I am thrilled beyond words. (Yes, I am a geek.) It will make my work life so much easier. Though I only have a few large documents to lay out every year, they are complex enough in design that I need PageMaker (or Quark or Frame) to do them. (My opinion of Word's formatting would burn a hole right through your monitor and possibly into your brain, were I to express it here.) I literally spent two weeks laying out the bloody things last spring, and they still were not right. Now I can do it properly. I've been using PageMaker since version 4.0, and I think and dream in it.

I went to SF Tuesday, a trip I'll write up later this weekend. But the trip was a good thing. So was finding some books and some beautiful cobalt and silver salt shakers at the Goodwill store in the Mission District. So was dinner with my old friend Jay, where we discussed the perils of dating after ending a long relationship, and I made him laugh so hard I thought he might asphyxiate.

On the SF trip, I missed getting into SF Herb by about sixty seconds. Not good news. But I ordered from them online, and the box arrived today. Definitely good news. I spent some time sniffing ecstatically at the fresh cinnamon, jasmine tea, vanilla powder, dried orange and lemon peel, and black peppercorns as I poured it all into jars and labeled them. That's a good thing to do after a week of too many pixels.

I've also been getting more walking in, which is a wonderful thing. I need the exercise, and I love walking.

My new laptop may be here soon, courtesy of my friend Rob.

So let us all be thankful for whatever good things have come our way this week.

NaNoEdMo Starts at Midnight

March is National Novel Editing Month, and the website is up, too. Witty mouseovers, gleaming new forums just crying out to be scribbled with posts, and many of our old friends from NaNoWriMo.

I have signed up for NaNoEdMo, though I'm still plodding away at writing the novel. Well, no. That's not accurate. I'm still plodding away, *not* writing the novel. This weekend maybe I'll hole up and finish the first wretched draft.

Not Everyone in Silicon Valley Is a Rocket Scientist

One night last week, Sonja and I were standing on the porch when the screaming started. The wordless bellowing was coming from across the street. We ran over — me barefoot, as usual — to find one of our frat-boy neighbors pinned under the right rear wheel of his old Cadillac. The wheel was hung up on his thighs. The engine was still running, the door was closed and locked, the keys inside.

By now one of the guy’s housemates had come out. Sonja ran to get the other one, while the housemate and I tried to lift the car off the trapped boy.

Michele came out onto our porch. I yelled across to her, “Call 911! And get Paul!” Who is not only strong, but used to be an Army medic.

As Paul crossed the street to the scene of the accident, I went across to give Michele details for the emergency services. Sonja and the other housemate came out, and the four people lifted the car off. Naturally, since the car was still in gear, as soon as it was lifted free of him, the car started moving. It turned in a flawless half-circle and smashed into the van in their driveway, then stalled. Sonja had been dragged a little way; her jeans were ripped at the knee, and she was bruised and bleeding.

Paul checked the kid over, while we fetched pillows and a blanket. He told us what had happened: the emergency brake wouldn’t let go, so he decided to disengage it at the wheel. He left the door swinging open, but he must have automatically hit the Lock button as he got out. Unfortunately, he forgot to take the car out of reverse or to turn it off, so the second the brake was off, it started up, running over him. The door swung shut too.

The ambulance came and took the kid away, and we all went inside. About half an hour later, the other roommates came over with a bottle of champagne and an unopened box of Valentine candy, along with a little note scribbled on lined paper, thanking us.

But They Do Teach You How to Read, Which Can Teach You All the Rest

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.

—Neil Gaiman, Sandman

Friday Five

1. What is your most prized material possession?

My writings. I have everything from Zip disks backing up yesterday’s work to old 5.25 Apple IIe floppies holding 1985’s journals and stories, plus dozens of paper journals, typed and handwritten.


2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?

Probably Lullaby. I don’t know who gave her to me, but I have had her since I was born. Lullaby was toy designed to look like a baby in a hood -- basically a little plastic face peeking out of this soft-bodied yellow cloth doll. Originally she had a key on her back. You could wind her up, and she played Brahms’ Lullaby.

Unfortunately, when I was 3 or 4, she fell victim to Lisa’s passion for dissecting toys that made interesting sounds. She cut open the doll and removed the music box. The formerly plump doll grew emaciated as she lost her heart/voice and then most of her stuffing. She still has a slit up her back. My mother always promised to sew her up, but she never did.

I say “probably,” because I don’t know if I have her. I am still unpacking from the epic move to the west coast. Between the damage in storage, the things my husband kept, and the stuff I sold, I literally don’t know what I have and what I don’t.


3. Are you a packrat?

Yes. There’s a phrase from Pratchett, I think, about poor women hoarding: “powerless to replace, they could only save.”


4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?

I like to have a house that’s clean, warm, welcoming, and comfortable. Not too formal. Books stacked on the coffee table are fine. I feel like a house that’s too rigidly clean can be hostile, but so can a house where people are leaving dirty dishes around.


5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?

The theme is: “Four people from three households, plus three cats, plus we’re all too busy to get the pictures hung properly.”

The Two Towers

Brilliantly revisioned.

And the LOTR as done by the young Elijah Wood. He was an adorable child.

Yes, I Owe You E-Mail

I admit it. I am evil. I haven't written a California Report (e-mail home to my family) in weeks. Plus, I have stacks of unanswered e-mail, which I promise I will get to when I have some spare time and energy. I also have several posts I need to write.

I've been dealing with too much Real Life lately, including:

• tight deadlines for fiction that I hope may eventually get me some cash


• heavy workload, short deadlines, and emergency copywriting at work


• weirdness with Gabriel (she's OK, but still miffed)


• the physical and emotional fallout from two allergic reactions in the space of three days


• plus all the usual time demands

I'm actually doing well. I'm happy, too. I just don't have much of anything to spare. And it's always the thoughtful replies that end up getting skipped.

I'm sorry. I will improve. I will become virtuous. Honest.

Somebody Finally Explains Junior High

Wow. Impressive essay on Why Nerds Are Unpopular. Paul Graham mentions several ssues I've always considered particularly important, such as lack of purpose, the bland horror of suburbia, and the difference between farm families (for example), where the kids understand what the adults do (and see them doing it up close) and families where the parents are just figures in an office somewhere else.

You don't even need to ask if I was a nerd.

And in a Similar Vein . . .

A selection of slogans from signs at the SF peace demonstrations. The full list is here. The media estimated 200,000 demonstrators just in SF.

a$$es of evil - bush, cheney, blair
how many lives per gallon?
sometimes the french are right
bush: let us prey
orphans make great terrorists
empty war heads found in white house
cockroaches for armageddon
who would jesus bomb?
go solar not ballistic
mend your fuelish ways
code green - go for peace
be a patriot - ride a bike.
duct tape is not the answer
balm iraq
war = terrorism with a big budget
roll joints, not tanks
suck dick cheney
what's this "homeland" scheisse?
if war is inevitable - start drafting SUV drivers
war makes the victor stupid and the vanquished vengeful [nietzsche]
there are alternatives to war AND oil
don't let a rogue president make us a rogue nation
no dubya dubya III
our country has been hijacked by lunatics
killing for peace = fucking for virginity
quick, let's bomb more iraqi children before they starve to death
when the rich wage war it's the poor who die [sartre]
democracy RIP - 1776-2000... ah well, we had a good run.
preemptive war = terrorism
bush + ashcroft + rumsfield = terrorist network
our tax dollars should educate american children, not kill iraqi children
we want our constitution back
defend iraq against US imperialist attack
we have nothing to fear but bush himself
collateral damage has a face
now boys, don't hit ... use your words!
no ruler has the right to ignore the will of the world
i went to the gulf war and all i got was this lousy syndrome
SUV = WAR
abort the bush die-nasty
let iraqi children have a future, mr. bush
bush lost
war, greed, hypocrisy - we demand a change in policy
george bush = son of satan
draft the bush twins
hey - red neck, go back to texas
bush - endangering america, enraging the world
yep, let's kill the desperately poor on behalf of the obscenely rich
21st century bush doctrine - accept US imperialism or die
impeach the son of a bush
stop mad cowboy disease
first casualty of war: the truth
shut down the war machine
got terror?
i didn't bring my children into the world to kill for the rich
listen to old europe
buck fush
bush = white kkknight for oil industry
engineers against drafting
bush hates america
murdering innocent children is in the highest moral tradition of our country
save the humans
preemptive peace
smush bush
the only bush i trust is the one on me
the last time someone listened to a bush they ended up wandering through the desert for 40 years
dissent - the essence of democracy
stop the blair bush project
support our troops. bring them home
bush, enron, cheney, halliburton
bad plan, dude
jews for burning bush

There is a truth about wars you do not know

This is from the Best of Craigslist. Go there to read the whole thing. (Ellipses in original.)

In a piney woods at Fort Gordon, Georgia in July, 1965, 300 or so close friends and I, Viet Nam vets to be, were lectured on the care and feeding of the M-30 machine gun by two Mutt and Jeff sergeants. The bus back to the base was late, a small group of us clustered around asking questions. We learned that they had been buddies all through Korea, gunner and assistant gunner. We were all pretty sure of our destination, we wanted to know. . . what is war really like?
"Sarg. . . what about Korea, what was it about?"
"It was fucked."

I remember thinking. . . well, why didn’t you tell somebody. . . why didn’t you tell us?

Okay. I’m telling.

I knew plenty soldiers who wanted to be John Wayne. [snip] You still hear from those types now and then. The warriors. Most are gone, names on that black granite wall with so many of my friends.

I remember the ones who were overwhelmed by the random brutal shredding of human bodies, friends and foe. The hard ass curled up and crying in the bed of a truck cause he knew he couldn’t go back out again and didn’t know what to do. I remember a guy I’d known since Basic, ROTC type, who shot two Vietnamese farmers dead because he knew it would get him assigned to the rear. It worked.

In spite of all the books and movies, war has always been the same. Insanity, pure and simple. When the talking stops, when the diplomats give up and go home, people are maimed, burned, killed in the most ugly ways imaginable. There are no heroes, there is no glory, there is only destruction and death.

[snip]

The time has come to give peace a chance. I'd love to be proud to be an American.