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Sunday, December 29, 2002 ( 12/29/2002 09:27:00 PM ) DN We're all watching a show about the making of the films of Lord of the Rings - except me, as it turns out. I'm thinking about funny words. Like blurt & hooey. Everybody's allowed a secret life of the mind. It's what you do with it that matters. # ( 12/29/2002 12:50:00 PM ) DN A couple of new pictures # Friday, December 27, 2002 ( 12/27/2002 10:53:00 AM ) DN Last night Ros., my mom, and I spent an hour dissecting a list of the 100 best 20th century books by women. See it on feminista.com. We decided that besides the heavy slant towards "important" feminist, pre-feminist, proto-feminist stuff (it's all fiction, & English language), the list creators did some digging to find lesser known books by popular writers. We hadn't read many of the books listed, even when we were quite familiar with the authors. Some left behind fiction: Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible Wharton, House of Mirth Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn One of my personal favorites made it to the list: Anagrams. I don't know about one of the 100 greatest, but what the hell, I like it. My list is much larger than this, but I'll have to get my notes at home to work on it again. # ( 12/27/2002 10:53:00 AM ) DN I've wasted the morning reading other blogs. Check out the Summer of 1976 at www.blogcritics.org. It brought back Frampton in all his skinny blond glory. I'll be posting new holiday pics soon, I hope. # Thursday, December 26, 2002 ( 12/26/2002 10:01:00 AM ) DN Raising Weird Ones Strange but true, it is possible to suffer from, or possibly to enjoy, ennui at five and a half. My daughter, with an IQ of maybe 175, said to me the other day, "Mom, sometimes when you feel a certain way, you just like to look at something like a blank book.” She was flipping through an empty photo album, and I’ve seen her seek out this book since. I don’t know how you measure IQ in a toddler, anyway, but that’s what was reported in a day care study in which they “randomly” chose her. You think she boosted their claims of better school readiness in day care kids? And her kindergarten teacher obviously doesn’t know it, but the plat map Katie drew to show a word that started with “P” is just what plat maps look like in Fairy Land. She may be unusually gifted, even freakish in undiscovered ways, but we won’t put her on display (except for the family). She’s not from a family that goes on talk shows. We’re just not that kind of people. We’re the kind of people who clean up the house for kids’ play dates, but let the family see us with it all hanging out. If we don’t leave a tip in a restaurant, we omit it without comment. We try to buy our liquor when the righteous are in church and won’t see us. We would never, ever, yell at people in public who don’t have the same last name as us. We don’t sue. We can’t send Christmas cards because it’s too grueling to write all those “nice” notes to the relatives. We should be called the Middles. Middles don’t go into acting careers. (Actually I remember that I have an uncle who appeared on the $64,000 Question. He was and still is, I expect, a Bible expert, but I forget how much money he won.) My son can’t perform on cue and my daughter won’t. My son has a thing about idiom. He can’t do it. He understands it, but it won’t come out of his mouth. He once slept like a hog, or so he reported. When he’s It in Hide and Seek, he yells, “Ready or not, here I go!” He and his sister used to have an in-joke where they said to each other, “Liar liar, purse on fire.” But he’s a thinker, too. His teacher had them do an exercise called, “I Wonder,” after reading a story in class. They were supposed to write down something interesting about the book. Evan’s paper said, “I wonder how you build a bridge?” He’s the boy who spent a year watching real-life emergency room programs on TLC, and now watches something called the Speed Channel–the remote control just gets stuck there. Well, it falls from his hands, unnoticed. Watching hardly describes the rapt attention he pays. He is very wise in many ways. Harley motorcycles, snakes & other surprising animals, r/c vehicles, extreme stunts–performed by others, thankfully–these are a few of his favorite things. Oh, and sentimental songs. They are an eternal mystery, down to their very souls. # Friday, December 20, 2002 ( 12/20/2002 01:06:00 PM ) DN Stupid Drivers (aka excessive niceness for no good reason; it’s enough to cause road rage!) Around here, we have this Southern or small town thing going on out on the streets, and it’s making me crazy. If you meet at a four way stop, the driver to your right will wave you on. If he wants to turn onto the side street where you’re waiting to cross, he will wave you on–while stopped in the middle of the main road! If he’s merging, he’ll come to a complete stop until the road is empty. If you’re facing each other across a two way stop, he’ll wave you on, even if he’s heading straight and you’re not. Aaarrgh. I have a theory about why this happens. Drivers around here are so unsure of the rules (now, do I go first if I’m farther out in the intersection or not?) that they try to make up for what they fear may be their own bad driving habits with extreme politeness. After you. No, after you. I insist. Later, public weirdos. # Wednesday, December 18, 2002 ( 12/18/2002 08:39:00 AM ) DN Mayor, Council Members Come to Blows Deciding Whether City Government is a “Circus” aka Criminal Stupidity (well, it should be) Chapter 1: After 2 years, he’d had enough. Or had he? He thought the mayor gave him grief, but it was nothing compared to his constituents. Over the past two weeks, at-large Councilperson X had a long battle with himself as he resigned, reneged, and resigned again. Records of his tedious vacillation were printed in the local newspaper. Chapter 2: Fifteen citizens had applied to replace him, including his own son, when X announced in the newspaper that he had asked Council to rescind his resignation. He said he hadn’t had any sleep for days, because his phone had been ringing constantly with people asking him to stay on Council. Chapter 3: At their next regular meeting, City Council took him back. Chapter 4: Situation normal .... Chapter 5: The son sues? # Thursday, December 12, 2002 ( 12/12/2002 08:41:00 AM ) DN The Rug The rug is following me. It’s ragged and made up of equal parts wool and household dust, pressed into a kind of felt. What was once an ivory ground is pale caramel color, with flowers of pink and green. It is huge, and it’s on my front porch. It likes porches, apparently, having spent some time on a back porch in a nearby city recently, and perhaps on another porch before that. When we bought our ninety-year-old house in 1992, the rug was in a bedroom. There were two, in fact, perfect mates to the peeling pink wallpaper. Somehow, I have forgotten exactly how it occurred, an acquaintance expressed interest in the rugs. I promptly offered them and they were hauled away. She had them cleaned, stitched into one giant rug, and laid in her antique-filled apartment. I heard it looked fabulous. When she offered to pay for them, I named a price and took the check with a mere twinge. Then, tragically, six or eight years later, the acquaintance moved to Abu Dhabi and the rug began to sneak back to me, traveling by car, sleeping out of doors on porches. It’s a Karastan. It gives shabby chic (or chick, as we say it in my town) a new meaning. I think, I could sell it on Ebay. I could spend a few dollars to clean and rebind the edges. I could make my own home genteel with it. I could make my daughter use it in her room, even though it has no Barbie style. I could warm the homeless (lots of them) with it. Meanwhile, it’s waiting on my porch. # Wednesday, December 11, 2002 ( 12/11/2002 08:22:00 AM ) DN Stupidity by any other name is still, well, you know. Court-approved Stupidity: Special Metals, a major local company here in Hungtington, files bankruptcy (reorganization!) in our dispirited, beyond-anemic town. The bankruptcy judge approves the continuation of a plan called KERP, or key employee retention program, whereby several of the company's top executives, president included, receive very large bonuses - 25 to 75% of their annual pay. The execs have received these bonuses for at least the past two or three years, and will qualify for them this year! Bonuses approved under this plan total $5.5 million, $1.9 million for the president alone. There are 65 other executives sharing $3.6 million, in a lopsided fashion. A few months later, the union reports that the company will be asking for concessions from the rank and file. Does the union go for it? What do you think? Remember, these are the same key employees who led the company into bankruptcy. More to come here. Turns out there's lots of stupid things going on around here! # ( 12/11/2002 06:19:00 AM ) DN Okay, I'm over the hill, wherever it was. # Saturday, December 07, 2002 ( 12/07/2002 04:25:00 PM ) DN The question is, of course, why aren't I hot now? # ( 12/07/2002 04:20:00 PM ) DN "She must have been hot when she was young--" What the hell? I am obsessing over this statement by a young man in my classroom. It doesn't help that I turned 40 three weeks ago. Am I old? Really? I know this boy is only 21 or so, but jesus, when did I go over to the other side? I was so, so sure I didn't care about the aging thing. No problem with it at all. That's when I was about 32... How does starting your fifth decade sound? # ( 12/07/2002 08:34:00 AM ) DN It snowed 3 inches or so Wednesday night and I took lots of pictures of snow and the kids and Tom and of the streets as I drove in to work at 11 in the morning. Beautiful to ugly in a few short hours. And gone today except for the crud on the cars. # Thursday, December 05, 2002 ( 12/05/2002 07:41:00 PM ) DN woohoo. posted a pic and some writing. This is very cool- # ( 12/05/2002 12:44:00 PM ) DN well, i've tidied up a few things. Now to figure out how to get my stuff here! # ( 12/05/2002 07:53:00 AM ) DN had to restart with new template. I'm more interested in the look than posting right now. is predesigned stuff going to work?? # Wednesday, December 04, 2002 ( 12/04/2002 08:53:00 PM ) DN fast minor tweaking to the template! # ( 12/04/2002 08:41:00 PM ) DN Okay, this site's random colors are cool. But what's with the my funny motto stuff? # ( 12/04/2002 07:36:00 PM ) DN hello. just trying it all out. Took the free server, ready-made template, etc. If I just had somebody's blog to post.... # |
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