Category: verbal

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telephone!

1. the telephone is a most excellent device! and weekends! I love free talk minutes weekends! I’ve had some absolutely delightful catchup sessions with a couple of friends yesterday and today, and this makes me feel that indeed there may be some speck of hope for happiness in my glum existence.

2. my friends with serious phone phobia, and you well know who you are, had better get right over it. because, A., some of you are in the process of making babies, and once kids are in the picture, that shit’s no longer gonna fly, and, B., I give great phone, yo.

3. when you’re traveling? and trying to connect up with people, you know? awesome.

4. the old free-with-2yr-contract samsung flipphone has been a real trooper– we’re well past that initial 2yr contract period at this stage, and now, finally, I come to retiring it– even though it has stood up to repeated cat abuse from charlie tuna upon its ring of my morning alarm, even though it has been the trustiest of devices, because now the battery is failing to keep its charge– and I jump on this as an excuse, at long last, to procure a qwerty keyboard. oh sms joy coming my way! no, not an iphone– dodgy reviews from a few owners conspired with that big ole pricetag ultimately to make me swerve on over to a crazy deal on a cute orange lg env through amazon. new phone number going out soon in email to friends and family.

5. scheduling friend catchup sessions can be difficult when you’re just not sure how you’re gonna feel on any given day (listen, phone phobes, I get it, I do)– the prospect of giving a thumbnail rundown on Things can be a little daunting when all that springs to mind is I hate my life and everything sucks— though you may well know it to be the farthest thing from the truth, sometimes it feels like it, yknow?

6. it is good not to feel so alone in the world.

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flix

in honor of the woo woo big night in hollywood– a random selection of sarah’s recent rental faves.

#1: michael clayton. damn, damn, damn good.

and then, because I am a chick and confess it, yes, I do like chick flix: feast of love. morgan freeman really has that sage narrator thing down pat.

and finally, because all things even remotely dealing with jane austen must be observed (with one hideous exception): the jane austen book club and becoming jane. oh, that dreamy james mcavoy.

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gadget fatigue & the view from here

there’s been a lot of talk around my neighborhood in recent weeks about people’s dissatisfaction with recent vox interface design releases, culminating lately in some notable member defections– by no means the first or last of their kind, simply the latest, though sizable, wave– which can feel to those of us who remain behind like vital rents in the communal fabric we’re engaged in weaving. I’m not altogether certain how I feel about the current sea-change– I mean, the departures do affect me, I feel, like others, the ozone remaindered in their wake, but I’m undecided entirely how worked up I care to get about it all.

because I’ve so been here before. and before and before and before. in web years, I am one thousand years old.

the persistent problem with new media is that “new” modifier. after awhile the hot new thing cools off, and geek exodus ensues– bright and engaging minds inevitably depart in pursuit of the next compelling venue. the avant garde ebbs and then… well, after that only time will tell what happens next– if the business plan is sufficiently well-grounded, the userbase broad and stable enough, the gadget perseveres and becomes the norm, customary tool of the masses. to some extent the tenor of the conversations may change, a general and perhaps subtle proletarianization of the media. inevitably this affects our relationship with the medium, because what we do here is integrally connected to the company we keep. but better or worse I for one cannot say. the writing we do here may be organically interwoven with the words of the community in which it dwells, but we also write for ourselves, as individuals, down through the small hours of the night or in the quiet bright of afternoon. while it’s true that much momentum is made by reference back and forth and the subdural conversations threaded through comments, it is still, as it has ever been, just another skin on that thing we have been doing online for so many years now: writing our thoughts into the ether.

for me this remains a good place and way to do it. for me, whispering into the dark and half-light continues to have its appeal. this skin, this vox incarnation of the micromegaphone for thought, continues to feel elegant, easy, and right– for me, for now.

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microbeasties begone!

and, lo, I am well again. worked a full day, if not entirely at full throttle, at least upright and largely functional. thank you for all your kind well-wishes– they indeed helped me to feel less alone and self-pitying in the midst of viral misery. and thank you for bearing with these posts from the depths of kvetchdom– it also helped immensely to have an outlet for rampant spleen during hours in a close room. and now– onward into brighter and disease-free tomorrows! may all your immune systems persevere, nasty contagions pass right by, and spring bring in its warmth and bright resurgence swiftly to us all. xo.

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I am fetid

after the day of airline shenanigans and then two-now-going-on-three days in bed with the sweats/chills/coughs/bodyaches/fever dreams of flu, I am one rank typhoid mary. this virus is having its way with me, and I seem able to do little more than let it. occasionally summon my energy reserves to take the dog down the block, and then back to the sickroom. thus far have ingested one bottle nyquil, assorted packets theraflu and advil tablets, approximately one gallon juice, about half a gallon soup, and numerous cups of hot water with lemon and honey. I have hopes of actually making it in to work tomorrow. for the time being standing unclothed and letting water of any temperature fall on my unprotected skin sounds about like the least appealing activity I can imagine. so I stink. cough and stink. at present I totally get why flu is life-threatening for the elderly– being no walk in the park for those of us in the prime of life. I realize how entirely normal and prosaic all this is, but experientially it feels a whole lot more significant– like one day soon I shall look back on this as the week of some great purgative event.

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trapped in airport land

part I: I Should Have Called Ahead.
showed up in proper time for my afternoon flight out yesterday, gave heather a big hug and thanks for ever-incomparable hospitality, waved so long and watched her toodle off in the adorable blue mini. dragged the typical crap inside to check in– only to find that all flights into and out of chicago were canceled due to weather until the morning. oops. poor heather, having reached home, received my distress message, turned right around and came back, swooped me up and whisked me away to most delectable goodberry’s frozen custard confection, followed by an evening of further delightful conversation, wild mushroom risotto, and an early night to bed once more in the mmmmmmarshmallow guest bed.

part II: Yaawwwwwwnnn– And For What?
arose basically at Insomnia Hour, 4:30 (3:30 cst) to make my 6:30 a.m. flight– cabbed it to the airport in the pitch black, wound my way through the longlong snaky lines through security and down to the gate, only to discover no evidence of my fabled flight, only the previously scheduled and long-since filled 7:03 one. I should have suspected something was afoot on the basis of the agents’ shifty eyes yesterday and this morning as they scrambled through terminal screens and printouts in search of my “flight” and then were all, oh– oh yes of course– flight 9578– they’re just building that one. um, building it? never a good sign. basically? it never existed, I now realize. I am but a pawn in their game. how exactly it benefited the airline personnel to invent this crack of dawn flight when no one ever had a hope of flying us out before 11 (if then…), I’ll never know. now they have hoards of hopping mad chicagoans mobbing the podiums, their own little circle of transit hell, and everyone’s day is wrecked. oh, air travel, thou harsh hearted mistress. it’s never fun being lied to– even when it’s as impersonal as an airline doing it.

part III: Remaining Zen About It All
so here I sit in Cyber Cafe, sipping not actually terrible coffee and eating greasy airport egg “panini”, counting my blessings– most wonderful visit just enjoyed, respite from chicago’s snow and ice for a weekend of raleigh’s blooms and victorians, a coupla bars of wireless access. the only real loser, ultimately, is my employer, cheated irredeemably out of half a day’s labor, possibly more as time will tell. but what can I do? I sit at the whim of the aviation gods. at least I can get online (don’t get me started on the airports and hotels that charge for access in this day and age), vent my spleen in rather pointless bloggery, and attend somewhat to emails and digital biz. que sera, que sera, que sera. nothing in the end is really all that doggone critical– only annoying, and annoyance is fleeting. just like those beautiful waves of clouds out the window before me, rolling across the horizon in untroubled flightpaths.

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3 a.m. carolina time

the insomnia knows no time zones.

beginning to suspect I may be operating on navarone time, which could substantially foul up my calculations for a certain device I’m contractually prohibited from discussing. likely as not, documented inconsistency of staircases in my “chicago” apartment building denotes a glitch in the matrix.

meddling with the time-space continuum is no job for sissies.

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to do list, 3 a.m.

  • wash 5-6 loads at pirate laundromat (braving 100 yds of treacherous snow & ice) done! yeargh!
  • vacuum house, so that pet-sitting friend is not horrified by squalor and fur tumbleweeds sort-of done— that is, did not employ a vacuum per se
  • check flight information for north carolina done
  • pack for trip done, slap-dashedly
  • think up something clever to contribute to blog of navarone story jam regrettably, not done
  • pick up bottle of herbsaint for most delightful nc friends attempted, I swear, but half dozen places called not carrying
  • get cash done
  • figure out ground transportation to and from airports done, thanks to most excellent friends
  • pick up coworker at 8:15 corner of lawrence and california done– well, more like 8:45…
  • solve certain new product line wallpaper emergencies done and never done
  • give animals pets and love prior to desertion done
  • consider bank balance and other matters of irresolvable dilemma not done, probably just as well
  • refuse to look too hard at ongoing Life Questions done!
  • do dishes and clean up spilled cat food done!
  • remake bed with clean sheets (once washed) not done– rather, freshly washed sheets dumped higgeldy piggeldy for pet-sitting friend to make bed herself
  • walk dog done!
  • fill up car’s gas tank at the cheaper station near work done!
  • clean out disastrously untidy car not done– rather, rendered further disastrously untidy with basket of last-minute dried laundry– why indeed interfere with a good run of grunge?
  • lay out clean towels for pet-sitting friend done!
  • write note/instructions re: pet care not done– good thing pet-sitting friend is so ace
  • um, sleep? not done
  • acquire time machine I am contractually bound to silence on this matter.

(the upside– weather in raleigh:

Detailed Local Forecast

 

  • Today: Abundant sunshine. High 54F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
  • Tonight: Mainly clear. Low around 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
  • Tomorrow: Partly cloudy skies. High near 65F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.)