[
mental
]
2002-07-31
Okay, about a year late: But at least I finally wrote
about my mental episode last year. There's a lot more to the story, of course, but that's the main gist of it, or at least my perspective at the moment.
[
mental
]
2002-07-31
Feeling a bit better: I feel a bit better today. Not super great, but definitely better. I have to leave in a bit to go get Elena, and I hope we'll have a nice visit.
I have a headache. Dunno what that's about. Suppose I'll take some Advil.
Um. That's it for now.
[
mental
]
2002-07-31
Feeling blue: Sometimes it just hits me all of a sudden, and the wind is sucked from my sails. That's how it happened this time.
There I am, going along thinking I'm doing so well, when suddenly I'm dead in the water, wondering what the hell happened.
I'm okay, I'm not suicidal or anything. Just blue.
I'll muddle through. A few tears, some journal writing, seeking out a friend or two to lend a kind ear, and I'll be doing better soon, I imagine.
Being bipolar sucks. :(
[
sick and wrong
]
2002-07-29
They can have my glowsticks and my bottled water: ...when they pry them from my cold, dead hands!
In the latest ludicrosity from the War on Some Drugs, they're trying to make the anti-crackhouse laws apply to raves as well, and call bottled water and glowsticks drug paraphernalia. Lovely. Freegin idiots, I say.
The drug war has been a massive failure: a waste of money, of lives and of time. It's also been accompanied by extensive inroads on traditional American freedoms: property forfeitures, "no-knock" searches, expanded wiretap authority, and the destruction of financial privacy, to name just a few.
These are inroads that have served the agendas of bureaucrats but that haven't done anything to solve the problem that was claimed as their justification. And the drug war's combination of intrusiveness, corruption and ineptitude calls into question the government's ability to carry out the war on terrorism.
...
Not being a bureaucrat, I think the drug war is a terrible model. In fact, I think it's an argument against creating a Homeland Security bureaucracy at all. If we can't trust the government to tell a glow stick from a hypodermic needle, then I don't think we can trust it to tell the difference between an American and a terrorist.
Exactly. I'm starting to get... real, *real* creeped out by some of the latest government tricks.
[
sick and wrong
]
2002-07-29
The truth about corporate "solutions": I like
this biting piece in Salon about how tech companies have been selling broken products for awhile. While CEOs pat themselves on the back about how well they're drumming up sales, they're oblivious to the fact that their products just plain don't work.
McNealy's attitude is the culmination of the last decade's ascendant ethos for U.S. business: near worship and lavish compensation for people who "make things happen" coupled with near contempt and minimal rewards for people who "make things work."
...
Many a CEO, or even a CIO, would be shocked to discover, were they to inquire (or encourage their subordinates to discover), that some of their employees are manually entering data (from two quarters back) into one system from printouts produced by another. Or that some 20 people buried in the customer service department do nothing, all day, but correct errors created when salespeople (after a half day's training) enter orders into a system so complicated and cumbersome that it takes weeks to train the people in customer service and accounts receivable delegated to picking up the pieces to use it properly. Or that out in the warehouse the complicated wireless system (which took years, not months, to really get working and cost four times what was budgeted) is randomly on the fritz, and stock must be picked manually several hours a day.
Yow. The truth hurts.
[
rants
the net
weblogs
]
2002-07-25
I seem to have caused a bit of a stir: Goodness, gracious me.
There's a metatalk thread about the policies of allowing or not allowing new users to register at metafilter.
I posted that I thought that whatever the site's policy is, it should be explicit. Apparently some people disagree. Maybe. I dunno. I don't speak for them. I speak for me. :)
[
random thoughts
]
2002-07-21
Lay Catholic group signs a petition urging pope to reform church: A Boston group "called for drastic changes in the way the church is governed".
Cool. Power to the people! When I was going to the Catholic church in Round Rock with Anthony last year, I found it to be a great community of people truly dedicated to trying to live with peace and love and goodness, and to helping such things spread through the world.
It must be horrible having the stigma of predatory priests and corrupt church leadership hanging over the heads of the many Catholics who work to make the church a truly good thing.
Catholics must also ''stop enabling through financial support the power structures'' responsible for the ''horrific consequences'' of the scandal and cover-ups, Doyle said.
Those are some serious words. I hope that they can get the pope to listen and get a clue, real quick. Otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if they split off from the mainline Catholic church. I wouldn't blame them...
Who would want to remain part of a church whose name has become a byword for child molestation and corrupt cover-ups? I sure wouldn't. Especially when earnest attempts by the people of the church to call for reform are ignored or rebuffed.
Make no mistake: a church is its people, not its leaders. The leaders have nothing without the flock. Nothing.
And this flock is *pissed*. Rightly so.
[
animals
consume
design
mammalog
projects
]
2002-07-21
In other news... First item: Buster is doing better! Yea, Buster! He had been feeling under the weather and we were really worried about him, but he's back to his impish playful self again. We are much relieved.
Second item: Had a good visit with Elena, though she's getting really *really* good at fraying my nerves. She does the whole immediate-tantrum-if-she-doesn't-get-precisely-what-she-wants thing, and I do everything I can to demonstrate to her that I'm being reasonable. I try not to get all pissed off (I really hate being pissed off), but sometimes it happens anyway. Sometimes I let her stomp off into her room to pout. Sigh.
We're reading together more and more, and she's getting really amazingly good at remembering her Mother Goose rhymes word-for-word. Since she's already on her way to becoming a great actress (and a drama queen, at that), I figure this memorization skill will definitely be an asset to her.
We went to a nifty playground in Leander today that I've been meaning to take her to for awhile. I took some pictures that I will post at some point. While I pushed Elena on the swings, she managed to slip off (I think she may have let go, even) and went "thunk" onto the ground. Damn, I hate it when she hurts herself. I feel so terribly guilty. Anyway, she was okay after a couple minutes, but she did get a significant head bonk. It's a good thing that kids are pretty durable creaturess.
Third item: Junior (our black & white kitty) has been letting loose some horribly stinky farts with great regularity lately. I dunno what the deal is, but it's really really nasty. David is worried, because apparently this was a symptom of the intestinal disease that slowly but surely killed off several of his previous cats. Hmm, doesn't bode well.
Fourth item: We have opened the bedroom door most of the time, and the kittens are coming out to play in the living room more. It's very cute.
Fifth item: The cats keep bringing in crickets and grasshoppers and slowly killing them, occasionally eating them as well. Ew. I'm sick of stepping on the dead ones, and I try to take the live ones outside as often as I can, though usually they're missing a back leg. Cats are so damn cruel. I suppose it's better than lizards and frogs, which we had earlier in the season. Some of these were wise enough to play dead so that the kitties lost interest in them, and we sent them back out into the wild with our good wishes.
Sixth item: Strange forces are at work. At Hobby Lobby the other day, I saw so many beautiful little patches and things, especially with a five-petaled flower motif, that I'm wondering whether Fate and Destiny and Things That Are Just Meant To Be are having a little fun with me. :) That is, a five-petaled flower is exactly what's involved with the logo for my nascent company, Plumeria Media, which will be the media empire tine of my Fork O World Domination. Anyway, the patches were so irresistable that I had to buy them. I will scan them in later...
Seventh item: My jaw doesn't hurt anymore! Thank goodness. It was making me quite miserable, on top of all my other stresses. I guess now I'll have to be wary of the TMJ issues coming back again. I guess it's part of getting old - your list of recurrent medical issues just keeps getting longer and longer. Speaking of which, I'll be thirty in just under two weeks. Holy cow!
[
books
movies
my site
projects
]
2002-07-21
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea magnifica culpa: Okay, so I *didn't* get around to writing posts the other day. Please forgive me. Life got in the way (as it has a tendency to do) and I got quite busy.
Plus, Friday night & Saturday morning are my prime visiting times with Elena, so I was on Mommy duty much of the time. Yesterday, after we dropped Elena off, we went to the movies (Men in Black 2, highly recommended), shopping, and when we got home I was so tired I just conked out in bed after finally finishing off the latest Pratchett book I've been reading, Moving Pictures (also highly recommended).
This was around six pm, mind you.
So by around two or three, I was quite ready to get up. It's now 4:13am by my computer clock, and I'm going to see how many posts I can manage here before five, at which point I'll go read and take notes in the other room.
My schedule's really odd lately, and I know that's something I'm supposed to watch for because of my condition. I just want to reassure everyone that I'm feeling *fine* these days, taking my medication, et cetera. I was feeling quite horribly stressed before David got his new job last week, but things have improved drastically since he started work.
So, I've decided to write a book. A big book. I hope to have it in hand by Christmas. If it turns out there are only five copies which I have made at Kinko's and hand out just to close friends and family, and not even they really even bother to read the thing, that's okay. Because I need to write this book for *me*, to say what I need to say.
Though I figure at least one person besides me, somewhere, someday, will think that my book is worthwhile, and be glad that I wrote it. So I'm doing it for them, too.
But, I hear you in the peanut gallery crying, we've heard dramatic pronouncements from you before, Beth, yet you're the laziest person we know and we keep seeing all talk and no action from you. And I would say that you have a point.
But keep this in mind, dear peanut gallery: the last time I felt the need to write something big and important, a need so strong that it sort of took me over for a little while, I churned out 40,000 words in three days of frantic writing. That was a bit excessive and I didn't get enough sleep and so on when that happened, but what I'm trying to show is that I've got, or at least had in the past, a nice little pipeline into my noggin from whichever Muse controls these things. He / she / it / they know where to find me, in other words.
And so I have begun. I take lots of notes on 4 x 6 cards as I go through reading the book We've Got Blog. It's slow going, since I keep getting more and more ideas about the book I'm going to write, and I have to pause and write out notes about that before I can go back to writing notes about WGB and underline stuff and write in the margins.
And here's another thing about the book-to-come: I'm going to do it all myself. Why? Because I feel a compelling need to, that's why. More than just a want to, even. I have to show what I can do all on my own. If it's the kind of thing that merits a revision later, then I will accept some input from other people on the revision, but that will come later on.
For now, I need to get my ideas out as quickly and as well as I can, and frankly it would slow me down considerably to have to listen to someone else's opinions about what I'm writing, especially since I imagine most of the discussions would go something like this:
"Hey Beth, you should say something about ."
"I have a whole chapter about ."
"Hmmm, but you left out ."
"That's because I'm focusing on other things. Leave me alone, write your own darn book! Argh!"
And then subsequently I'd be going round in circles in my head, losing my original vision, as I wonder to myself "What if they're right and I really should go into huge detail about and all that?" and the dang book would *never get finished*.
Bah! Just deride me as another fool who thinks she's a mad, lone genius or something. Snicker away while I write, and then we'll chat after you've read my book, okay? I just don't have the time to deal with criticism about a work that isn't complete yet.
[
my site
]
2002-07-18
More posts tomorrow: I promise.
[
random thoughts
]
2002-07-16
Busy in meatspace: I'm still alive, just busy with other stuff. Mostly organizing all my crapola.
Today I caught up on reading on the computer, but I haven't gotten any filing done. I need to get on that right now, though.
Then, I gotta organize my clothes (and do laundry) and organize all my computer files and make backups and such.
Things are looking up, financially. David will be starting to work tomorrow on a six-week assignment. We hope that it will stretch out to be longer. We'll have to see. He'll know more once he's got his first day of work done with.
[
animals
sick and wrong
]
2002-07-10
Killer bees: A woman in Texas
died recently from the stings of Africanized honey bees. Yikes. They say she was stung more than 250 times.
One hive could not be measured because it extended well into the walls of the home, he said, but the other measured about 18 inches by 10 feet.
Holy cow.
[
books
my site
random thoughts
]
2002-07-10
One of these days: I will return to writing more interesting weblog entries. Really.
You know, when I have like, leisure time. True leisure time, meaning that it's earned. Meaning that I have a job that can pay the rent and feed me and pay for my medical insurance.
These are things I cannot pay for right now. I can't afford squat. We're broke. Like, busted broke.
I went to a temp agency yesterday, and signed on with them. Not sure if they'll be able to get me anything, though. Sigh. This economy sure sucks.
Yesterday I went to the library, and got four books. One was "Interface Culture", which looked interesting in the library but seemed too hype-filled when I got home. The author seemed totally keen on showing off how well-read and smart he was, and he didn't seem to be making any real points. Bah. I flipped through it and I won't waste time reading it.
Another one was "Pragmatic Programming", which I thought would be good, but seemed to be common sense for managers of programmers, and it made me want to gag after flipping through it. Also goes to the "not gonna read it" pile.
The other two were on Greek mythology, and I made myself dizzy reading a *ton* and filling my head until it was so full that myths were spilling out my ears. I even *took notes* on 4 x 6 notecards. If that's not a sign that I'm crazy, I dunno what is. :)
Then I researched some mythy stuff on the web, until I felt really dizzy (and noticed how often people just plagiarize other sites). Also I learned that there are 23432433 versions of most of these myths, and that there is not "one true version" of most of them.
That is, there's only a fog of possibilities - these things changed so much over time, because different people had different points to make when they told the story, so they skewed it for their purposes, leaving parts out, embellishing other parts, and making stuff up because it suited them.
Kinda like modern times, only less trackable. :)
Anyway, that's what I learned yesterday. I feel I have a decent basic grounding in Greek myths, at least some of the most commonly known ones. Which is something I didn't have before. So I made progress.
[I notice myself using sentence fragments more these days. Part of me rebels, but the part of me that scans the text insists that the fragments make sense and are more readable than the otherwise achingly long and convoluted sentences that I tend to write. So that part is starting to win more. Good god, I'm starting to write more like David Foster Wallace. When I start using constructions like "line's end's end" instead of "end of the end of the line", please throw tomatoes at me until I come to my senses. End of digression.]
[
animals
body
]
2002-07-10
Buster busted me up: Little Buster has been feeling under the weather lately. (He's a kitten, and lives in our bedroom with his sister Lucy and his brothers Bobby and McGee).
We're worried about him. In the past few days, he's been sleeping more and more, and seems rather listless and inactive. And a little extra warm.
We don't have the money to take him to the vet, so we've just been keeping an eye on him, wishing him well, and making sure he is getting to nurse from his mom, Apache. (Yes, all the kittens are still nursing a bit - they're 2.5 months old now, and in the process of being weaned slowly by their mom).
Today, David got out some liquid kitten vitamins, to see if that will help the little guy. I volunteered to hold him while David worked the syringe and pried open his unwilling mouth. This was my first mistake.
My second mistake was not using the scruff-of-the-neck approach when holding him. Big mistake.
I got slashed rather viciously by one of his claws, right on my right index finger. We're talking a wound about an inch long. He opened a wicked flap of skin which bled immediately.
That said, it's really not that bad. I washed it off and put a bandaid on, and it doesn't hurt. I'll survive. But I feel stupid. Argh.
[
animals
]
2002-07-08
Scorpiotiose: Recently, the property adjoining ours, or more precisely, the graveyard, has been dug up, thus disturbing our scorpionoid friends. They have sought out new territory, namely, our house.
This is, imho, not cool.
I found a scorpion on the futon in the living room the other day, and alerted David. Luckily, he swatted it and smooshed it and sent it to Scorpion Heaven or wherever they go.
Anyway, now he's out there spraying.
Heh, Texas.
Now me, I'm from Colorado...
[
sick and wrong
]
2002-07-08
As if. Daniel showed me
this site devoted to notepad.
Yes, I created the "sick and wrong" category just so I could put this item in it. (And hey, it'll come in handy later, I'm sure.)
[
body
rants
]
2002-07-08
Ow. Ow. Ow. It seems I have spontaneously developed a nasty case of TMD. This stands for Temporo-Mandibular Dysfunction. (or something. I feel cruddy this morning, don't feel like looking it up).
What this means is that the left side of my jaw hurts. A lot. It's been steadily getting worse for a couple weeks now.
Most of the time, I can only open my mouth widely enough for about one finger to fit between my teeth, to give you an idea. A little beyond that, and a sudden eruption of pain rushes forth.
To put it mildly, this really sucks. Occasionally, I can open wider, especially if I do it very gently and very slowly. Sometimes, I'll almost feel normal. But then I'll wake up, or eat something, and it'll be all wacked out again.
Argh!
At any rate, I'm losing some weight (which is a good thing - I could stand to lose about fifty pounds, imho). Something about severe pain when eating tends to dim one's appetite.
I hope this goes away. Really. Anyway, they say such things are often stress-related. Since we're about to declare bankruptcy, I think it could clearly be said that financial stress is certainly something that's on my mind a lot lately.
The pain, bad as it is, is only part of the problem. The other part is that my teeth on the left side don't feel like they match up properly (this is called malocclusion). Most of the time, anyway. And if I try to test it out, to chomp down gently to see how they fit, I get that searing pain at the left upper terminus of my jawbone. Damn.
Sigh. :(
[
good
]
2002-07-03
I want! Okay, so I looked thru the classifieds and found a job that I just applied for.
It's like... *so* perfect for me. I want it so badly, that I am worried if I think about it too much, that I'll jinx it or something. But it's silly to think that way, right?
Instead, I should share the news with people so they can send their good wishing-karma my way, right?
Well, I hope that's the right course. The job is with a textbook publishing company, and it's for a "Text Processor", which involves what looks like some light editing, probably lots of typing (ok with me), and desktop publishing and so forth.
So I filled out their web form and updated my resume and wrote a cover letter and all that. And looking at their website - sigh, well, let's just say it looks like a really good company to work for, and I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, but it's happening anyway, so I might as well roll with it.
Well, if you've got a wish to spend (or even a partial wish), please send it my way - I'd use it to get the people at hrw.com to hire me, cuz I think I'd be great for this job, and I would *not* take it for granted! Please, please, I'll be good! :)
[
design
random thoughts
]
2002-07-03
Lots of interesting views on software licenses: Well, there's a lot more to it, but that's the most reasonable title I could come up with in a few seconds.
In the discussion following an article at Oreillynet, there are some really interesting ideas bandied about regarding free vs. not-really-free vs. proprietary software.
I found the thread very eye-opening. Lots of food for thought.
I mean, I have talked to Stallman, and he seemed a really nice, friendly guy, and I believe at least somewhat in his stated goals (what I know of them). But I am starting to get the sense that those who worry about the GPL's effects have some good arguments, too.
I think the point is: what is the goal? What kind of software culture do we want? I think we need, and should aim for, a very rich and varied software ecosystem, with many multifarious levels between Totally Secret and Totally Free. That way, the users and programmers can find solutions that best meet their needs.
A monoculture of one or the other is not going to give us the best chance at the future we dreamed of as kids...
Y'know, the one with flying cars and cool stuff like that. :)
[
good
mammalog
]
2002-07-02
A friend had her baby! Megan, Luba's daughter, had her baby Leila on June 27th (or thereabouts). I am told they are doing well now, but that it was rather rough.
Luba told me the labor went on for 28 hours, and the last 13 hours were *really* bad (oy!), that the baby was posterior (facing up instead of facing down), and had her arm up by her chin like Rodin's Thinker.
Goodness gracious me. :(
Leila had some problems - meconium and a collapsed lung, then fluid in a lung. But she's been doing better and started breastfeeding, which is going quite well. Luba said that the more mama's milk she gets, the better she seems to do. :)
I feel so badly for Megan that her labor was so difficult, and of course I am happy for her that her baby Leila is going to be okay. I'll continue to hang out on the fringes and offer whatever support seems appropriate.
Luba tells me that there's lots of family in town and she's surrounded by people and so on, so I haven't tried to visit or anything. I remember how hectic it was when I was in the hospital (and impossible to sleep!).
I haven't seen any pictures, but I'm betting that this little girl is just *gorgeous*. :)
I wish them all well...
[
body
rants
]
2002-07-01
Feet *huuuuuuuurt*: Owie owie owie. Much walking today at work. Ugh. Long story.
Agency said: "We'll call you at 5am to confirm.", so I said "okie dokie". 5am comes. 5am goes. No call. I get in shower, come out of shower. I call them. The lady goes "uhhhhhh... can I call you back in a minute?"
Lady calls back. Says she "forgot" to call me. :/
They don't need me at the previously-agreed-upon assignment. This is fine with me, I just wish they had called at 5am, not after I'd gotten out of bed, showered, dressed, etc.
They tell me to call the office around ten, they might be able to line up another assignment for me, or I might get what's called a "late call" assignment which means you work the same day on short notice and get two free hours. That is, they pay you for two hours more than you work. Yippee.
I go back to bed. They call at 8, saying they need me. I leave the house around 8:40, and I sign in for the job at 9:50.
Many hours of hard work follow. I learned how to do "Accuchecks". This means poking people with a little spring-loaded jabby thingie, then squeezing out a drop of blood onto a strip that a little machine uses to tell what their blood sugar is. Yippee.
The guy showing me the Accucheck machine doesn't want to get poked for our training session. I don't care, so I wince and do it to myself. Not too bad. My blood sugar is 83, which is nice. Yippee.
I washed my hands a zillion times today, and put on and took off gloves a zillion times too. I also got to put on isolation gowns and a mask. Weeha.
I also got to deal with many of other people's bodily odors that I would just as soon not recall.
I think I did okay, but I am sure I let slip a few things. There is simply too much to do. And then there are complications...
I was supposed to weigh two people, but there's only one weighing chair in the whole hospital (!), and my mentor-guy and I wasted many minutes trying in vain to chase it down. We finally got it, and then we were sidetracked with more important things...
Finally, I'm about to weigh one of my patients, right after he gets out of the shower. I left the weighing chair right outside his door. I go to get it, and it's gone. I have no idea where. Other pressing matters come up...
One of my patients got moved out of isolation to another hallway, but I still had to take care of him. I didn't really mind, but this added lots of time walking back and forth. Sigh.
All the really chaotic paperwork is just insane. It's a wonder anyone makes it out of a hospital alive. Really. I was particularly struck at how in the two-person rooms, the clipboards for the patients were often switched around with regard to the chart books. I hope no mistakes were made. Yikes.
All in all, it's not quite as bad as the nursing home. But I'd still rather flip burgers for a living.
I think I'll try to find some lazy paper-pushing job that pays as much. My feet can't handle this (nor my back. Ugh!)
Too tired. Time to eat and then collapse for the night.
