Archive for September, 2009
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Snail Mail
I just got my first piece of real mail at my new address. By real mail I mean not recycling and not bills but a hand addressed envelope from someone that I actually know. This is so rare these days that my heart starting beating faster when I saw that the cursive was not computer generated. I was so excited! It was from my mother. She had sent me a picture of my little brother. That’s right, a photograph taken with a camera was sent to me by way of the US Postal Service. What century is this and what am I supposed to do with this relic?
I tried to put it on the fridge, but mine is stainless steel and not magnetic. If I ever have kids, I guess they will be out of luck. It’s a really nice picture of little Scorpio in his new prep school blazer. He is a lot younger than me and is just now entering high school. I sent him a text to let him know that I got the pic, but he had no idea what I was talking about. I guess I could scan it, post it on facebook, and tag him in it to jog his memory. But that would be cruel because I am well aware of the fact that the picture was taken about a week before he got his braces off. I do have photo albums and two boxes of photos; although, I don’t send them in the mail to anyone. Maybe it could be added to that collection. For now it is sitting, homeless, on my dining room table. Scorpio is going to need to show my mom how to use the scanner.
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Pen and Paper
At some point in college I decided that I needed a pen that lights up. I guess I saw it on-line. I don’t think I really foresaw writing in the dark, but I just thought it was too cool to pass up. To justify the purchase, I assured myself that at some critical moment it would serve me well. I must say that there is some sort of satisfaction in clicking the top that makes the LED turn on and off. I never actually wrote with the pen because 1) I never found myself taking notes in a movie theater, 2) eclipses don’t happen very often, and 3) while it looks like a clicky top, it is actually a twisty top. We all know what happens when we write with twisty tops – the ballpoint slowly retreats back into its cylinder mid-page.
Finally, I have found a use for this marvel of LED technology. I decided that if I am going to be a blogger, I need to be prepared to capture my ideas at any moment. This includes the middle of the night. Having brainstorm ideas just before falling asleep and then forgetting them by morning has always been a problem for me. I have now solved this with the most obvious of all solutions – pen and paper. I placed a small, hard backed notebook and my light-up pen beside my bed. This way, if I have an epiphany, I can bring it back with me from dreamland by immediately writing it down. I have no excuses now.
After the alarm went off for the first time this morning, I had a brain explosion. It was the best idea for a blog entry ever! The sun was already up negating the need for the light on my pen, but I knew that I better roll over and jot this one down. It would be the first of many ideas to be recorded in my little notebook. Then I had a moment of arrogance. I thought, “this is such an amazing idea that there is no way I could forget it. As soon as I get up I’ll just go ahead and write out the whole thing properly on my computer.” Then I dozed back off until the snooze sounded. While eating my yogurt at breakfast, my brain suddenly imploded. I had the best idea for a post just a little while ago! What was it?! What! I didn’t write it down? I thought my plan had been foolproof. The majority of the day was spent racking my brain trying to shake my idea loose again. No success.
Now I need to figure out how to preserve the ideas that I have in the shower. Maybe a dry erase board mounted to the tile.
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Connected
Of course my trepidation concerning the infamous internet and cable provider, Comcast, did not prove futile. I had a 10-2 time slot and the technician came at 4, as I had expected. He grumbled under his breath about hooking up a wireless router even though he knew on the front end that we had requested one. Not being very technically savvy myself, I did not know the full extent of the damage until Aquarius came home. Our HD box had been hooked up to our HDTV with an analogue signal, and all of Aquarius’s beautifully zip-tied cords had been wrecked. He really shouldn’t have had to re-wire his Xbox just because we got the cable hooked up. As he sat rectifying the disaster amidst a mess of cords , he invented new and creative curses for this technician whom he never even met. Apparently you can learn a lot about a person’s intellect by merely inspecting his cable-running technique.
You have to understand that Aquarius is a pretty typical geek. He is meticulously anal about his electronic devices. He is not at all particular about the housework or whether or not his clothes match, but cords are serious business. The night before Comcast’s arrival he was setting up my desk. I have a laptop but insist on having a docking station which provides the best of both worlds – portability for Pisces on the go and a large screen and keyboard for Pisces at home. He was using color-coded zip-ties to wrangle all of my cables and wanted to know exactly where I would need the keyboard to be. My answer was that I would need some wiggle room depending on my mood. This seemed to exasperate him because he asked if six inches would be enough. What he doesn’t understand is that six inches would absolutely not be enough. If it is a really pretty day I may decide to move the whole setup closer to the window, or if the cat is by the window I may need to move myself closer to the wall to accommodate my feline friend. This explanation frustrated him to the point of snapping, “I don’t know how you can live like this,” before giving up and leaving the room. In his book it is a sacrilege to have excess cable. So, by the time Comcast got to his media cables, I think he already felt vulnerable over not being able to pin my keyboard down to a 3 inch radius.
Unfortunately, today I discovered that he forgot to hook up the power cable to my speakers. I thought it best to take care of this myself, but all I could find was a messy box of spare cords. It looked like a knot of vipers curling around each other. I don’t see how he can stand for this box to be so unorganized. I suppose the excess cord theory only applies to cords that are currently being employed.
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Prioritization
Procrastination. It is a really nasty word – rather accusatory – and I think I will stop using it . I prefer prioritization. For about half a year I planned to start a blog, but I had other more important priorities. I finally did it! That was a year and a half ago. I had a wonderfully insightful piece of writing reflecting on the regret of my career choice and the hesitations of continuing down the depressing path that ensued. My husband, Aquarius, fixed up the perfect spot for me on WordPress.com, and I proudly posted my chef d’oeuvre. It turns out that if you don’t post for six months WordPress deletes your account altogether.
So, here I am again. I figure that if I make myself pay money for a .com, I will feel more motivated. Maybe the word is obligated. My main obstacle at the moment is that I don’t have internet. We just moved into a new condo and I apprehensively await Comcast’s visit. I took the plunge anyway and headed down to my local coffee shop to register my domain, but that was only the first step. I have plans to patronize said establishment again very soon to post this – my first blog entry.
Last night I had very good intentions of getting up at sunrise this morning to begin my writing career. Instead, I slept in, went out for coffee and internet, discovered that there had been a problem with my debit card in paying for my web hosting, bought a few groceries, and went by the post office to change my address. When I got home I found that I needed to clean the kitchen and take the flimsy moving boxes down to the recycling bin. While flattening the cardboard, I realized that I had yet to unpack my heap of shoes, so upon my return upstairs I sat down in my closet to take care of this negligence. Before I could match a single pair, I spied the overflowing laundry hamper and thought about what few clothing options I would have come morning. Suddenly I felt domestic. Normally the washing and ironing don’t cross my mind until late at night, but I figured, “hey, why not get a jump on things.” Luckily for my blog, I had de-boxed my books and filled my three cases yesterday, or I could have put off writing even further. Next, I sat down with my iphone to figure out the debit card snafu. That only took a second because my solution was to forward the email to Aquarius. Before I knew it I found myself on YouTube watching Ellen Degeneres’s bit about this very topic of prioritization. It seems that I have the same problem that she has. If she can go on tour and earn a living talking about stalling, then the least I can do is write about it. Thanks for the inspiration, Ellen. Now that I have started writing I feel less guilty about my previous prioritization downfalls. If I am willing to start a blog with limited internet access, I must be one committed Pisces. Now, back to the unpacking.
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