trying harder doesn't tend to fix things for me. if i'm at a place where i think "if only i was trying harder, this would work right", it's usually that i am trying my hardest, beating my head against the wall, doing damage to myself-- and it's still not working, and i don't have anything else to give.

so that leaves trying differently. for me, that seems to involve walking away from what i think the problem is, so that i can deal with whatever is underlying it. then the hardest part is remembering to not turn around and poke some more at the apparent problem.

xat and qubit are in town, so this morning, a bunch of people went out for celebratory dim sum. i'm still not telling you where we went; it's my favorite place and i don't want it to be crowded. so, it was xat, qubit, vic, marisa (marissa? i'm not sure), andy, lauren, heidi, and nathan and i.

dim sum is the best breakfast food ever. instant gratification. "here! have some food!"

there was much good talking, and i got to see xat and qubit's wedding pictures. oh, the cuteness!

and one last day of dreadful slowness at work, and in fifteen minutes, i'm out of here for the week. popcap.com games have been my friend this week.

no brains. zombies must have visited while i wasn't watching.

christmas celebrations went very well. no family bickering at all. no nephews, however. they are sick, and as such stayed home.

at my parents' house, we had lasagna for dinner, and then opened presents. pirate got a fluffy green bed and some rawhide treats. i got a bunch of stuff which i will tell you about later.

at nathan's parents' house, we had chicken which wasn't perhaps as done as it might have been, and pirate got to play with mr. aaron pupland, who is an eight year old yorkie. there was much tearing around the house and a little vomiting, as well. oh, small dogs. we also had a quite reasonable political discussion, which surprised the heck out of me. but it was good.

for christmas, many more things than you ever wanted to know about me.

100. i wear mens shoes almost all of the time.
99. i hate doing dishes.
98. green is my favorite color.
97. i went to macalester college in st. paul.
96. i recently bought many pair of e.g. smith socklings and now i wear them all the time.
95. i think that one's medical history is a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss on a date and am baffled when i meet people who think otherwise.
94. speaking of medical history, i have rheumatoid arthritis....
93. ...which i've had surgery for once. descriptions available upon request, but it makes some people queasy.
92. i like rpgs, but am not good at remembering the rules to them.
91. my shadowrun characters always have a monofilament whip.
90. i am chairing, for the second year in a row, a convention named supercon.
89. i am an internet addict. addict, i tell you.
88. .. but not in the committing crimes to afford my net connection sense.
87. i like pink wine best.
86. i also like single-malt scotch, just so you don't think i'm a complete heathen.
85. i am, however, pagan. discordian to be precise. but mostly lapsed.
84. i own lots of books. but not as many as i'd like to own.
83. first person shooters make me seasick.
82. i get labyrinthitis a lot.
81. i had food poisoning for the first time ever this year!
80. i run a bulletin board named l-space.
79. despite the name, i don't read pratchett.
78. i don't like most things that try to be funny.
77. i like neil gaiman's comic book writing, but not his novels.
76. the first robert heinlein book i was exposed to was _podkayne of mars_. the second was _friday_. i was nine.
75. nathan and i own a duplex.
74. i like being a home owner even though it's a pain.
73. my family moved around a lot before i was seven, and then after that we stayed in the same town, although in three different locations.
72. i went to montessori school when i was a kid.
71. my first elementary school ran on the 45/15 system, which i thought and still think is the most reasonable system for such things.
70. i have owned guinea pigs in the past. my most recent piggie was named trent.
69. i am allergic to guinea pigs, which is why i don't own them any more.
68. i'm also allergic to cats.
67. i am not at all allergic to small yappy dogs named pirate.
66. i think that dog drool is one of the six most disgusting substances on the planet.
65. i singlehandedly doubled the diet coke consumption of akademgorodok for a week this summer.
64. i crochet, but not very well.
63. my friends heidi and matt call their not-yet-born baby the name i suggested and i feel very proud of that.
62. the first sf convention that i went to was minicon, i believe minicon 24. the zen of fan maintenance, i do believe.
61. i don't like being touched while i'm trying to get to sleep.
60. i've had both short hair and long hair and like short hair better.
59. i'm cribbing many of these points from hobbitbabe.
58. i learned to read when i was two. my mother says it's because of all of the sesame street that i watched while she was doing bedrest while pregnant with my sister.
57. i was planning on being six feet tall when i grew up.
56. i have had six grandparents. (all right, two of them were step-grandparents.)
55. i was born in new york city.
54. i live in the twin cities on purpose. i like living in minneapolis, but i've also been happy living in st. paul.
53. i have very wide but very shallow taste in food.
52. i occasionally think of starting an all dumplings all the time restaurant.
51. i like lotus notes.
50. larn is my favorite of all the nethackoid games.
49. i used to belong to mensa.
48. and i could apparently join triple nine society if i wanted to, which i don't.
47. i used to spend enough time out at the minnesota renaissance festival so that people who worked there thought i worked there too.
46. i started calling bulletin boards when i was about fifteen.
45. i bugged my college sysadmin to hurry up and get usenet news installed on our vax.
44. i like celery. a lot.
43. when i was in high school, my family went to disneyworld.
42. i got cucumber smelling lotion there and liked it a lot. i haven't been able to find good cucumber smelling things since.
41. my ears currently have five holes in them.
40. i forget to wear earrings most of the time.
39. on my desk at work, i have a tiny stuffed gargoyle, gir, and a beanie baby lemur.
38. i am a member of the secret feminist cabal.
37. as such, i go to wiscon over us memorial day.
36. i like books better than i like people, on the whole.
35. my ex's cat hates me, because i told the ex that he could either sleep with me or the cat, since i was allergic.
34. i can't remember the details of books i've read very well.
33. i used to plan to run away and live under the merrygoround at my elementary school.
32. i don't remember anything about living in arlington virginia.
31. when i was four, we moved to milford, michigan, to a little pink house.
30. i have a livejournal account, but i never post there and am assiduously avoiding learning how.
29. i like the way my dog smells, even when she needs a bath.
28. the next time that i totally hate my entire life and need to move to get away from it, i plan to move to boston.
27. i don't expect that i ever will totally hate my entire life again.
26. i don't like the taste of most alcohol, but also don't like girly drinks.
25. i like drugstore generic bandaids better than i like bandaid brand.
24. i chew on my fingers when i get tense, and therefore have a near-professional opinion on bandaids.
23. i don't wear a bra unless i'm seriously dressing up and whatever i'm wearing won't hang right without one.
22. my degree is in anthropology, and yet here i am working in computers.
21. i feel weird that too many of these start with the word "i".
20. my car is a toyota prius, brilliant blue pearl, 2002, with the fancy gps system.
19. i recycle.
18. after i win the lottery, i plan to go to grad school in public health.
17. i don't like dishes that have an irregular texture. they squick me out.
16. i'm scared of bugs.
15. i skipped from the first half of kindergarten to the second half of first grade, and then repeated third grade.
14. we have people come in and clean our house. i feel some guilty about this, but much more grateful.
13. cherry flavored things remind me of cough syrup, and i don't like them.
12. i have been to siberia.
11. mint is my favorite set of flavors.
10. i don't like heights much because they call to me to jump from them.
9. this week, lasagna is my favorite food. earlier in the year, it was mock duck laab from pad thai grand cafe.
8. i like mocha flavored things a lot, but i don't like coffee.
7. i have a funny purple scar on my knee.
6. i don't like arguing politics with people.
5. i wear the same size pants as my father who is a foot taller than i am.
4. my coworkers have accused me of being a visitor from another planet. but they were kidding.
3. at different points in my life, i have wanted to have the same career as each of my parents has/had.
2. i worked at plasma alliance taking needles out of people's arms for a few months. (they wouldn't let me put the needles in yet, before i quit.)
1. my hair is half light brown and half bleached blonde at the moment. time to rebleach it.

i'll be mostly away from the computer until the 26th, so i thought i'd give you something long to read. have fun.

at work. i have done all i can do for christmas readiness; i can do no more. nathan will pick me up at about five, and then off to my parents' house.

i seem to have left my eloquence in my other pants. i'll have to look for it.

in the meantime, i ran into someone who i used to be really close with on friday night, and it was sad for me. due to lack of eloquence, i shall say no more.

b.c. also jogged my brain and i figured out why i was so irritated with an ex, the most recent time that i was irritated with them. this is good to have figured out, although not currently useful.

i'm at work today, and tomorrow, and thursday and friday, too. wheee.

tuesday night, we go over to my parent's house for christmas eve. wednesday daytime, over to nathan's parents for christmas day. and on thursday evening, i go over to sigrid's house for boxing day. this will be a good thing.

from google groups


From: Bearpaw (bearpaw01@earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A great Politically INCORRECT website!
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Date: 2002-12-13 06:41:22 PST


Miche wrote:
>
> Northern Woman wrote:
> > An extensive & well designed site devoted to exposing immigration,
> > political correctness, race, feminism, homosexuality, culture, free
> > speech, and more!
>
> Hm.
>
> Exposing them to what?

Reality, one hopes, though the odds seem low. I see that it's still
politically correct to be self-righteous about fitting into a really
narrow but generally popular definition of "politically incorrect".

Bearpaw

Read Comments

some days i just don't understand what my hormones carbonate over. not at all.

BBC NEWS | Health | US blocks cheap drugs agreement

The United States has blocked an international agreement to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs.

This means millions of poor people will still not have access to medicines for diseases such as HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

A civics lesson, and other stuff

KIDS, AS WE learned last time, the American government is divided into three parts -- the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. Each has its own function; that is the genius of our system.

(jon carroll, from sf gate online.)

CNN.com - A distant Pioneer whispers to Earth - Dec. 18, 2002

NASA engineers picked up a radio signal this month from the first spacecraft to fly beyond Pluto.

hello little pioneer! hello!

Downtowns use events, nostalgia to lure holiday shoppers

Brennan and fellow St. Thomas marketing Prof. Lorman Lundsten found in a recent survey that just 1 percent of respondents said they would spend the most money this holiday season in downtown St. Paul, while 4.3 percent chose downtown Minneapolis.

sad for the downtowns, hurray for my dad! his study (his along with professor brennan) is quoted twice in this article.

Amazon.com - Your Lifestyle

Make a Romantic Getaway

Make Every Girl Want You
by John Fate, Steve Reil
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Book Description

Wouldn’t you rather have hot female friends who want you, have casual sex with you, and are excited to introduce you to their female friends?...

Read more

See more in Make a Romantic Getaway

Echinacea: Cure for the Common Cold

Conclusion
From the studies and research summarized here, it is apparent that Echinacea is a useful herb in helping to bolster the immune system when the first signs of a virus set in. It has been shown to have the greatest benefits when it is taken at the beginning of a cold, and helps to lesson the duration and symptoms of the sickness. However, research reveals that this herb should not be taken continually in hopes that it will prevent sicknesses because there may be destructive side-effects to body tissues as a result of the heightened number of free radicals in the system.

fyi.

there's also the fact that if you have a disease which is linked to an overactive immune system (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, some thyroid diseases), you should not take echinacea or zinc or co q-10 at all. if you feel you must, then check with your doctor first.

(oh, look! my immune system is systematically destroying my connective tissue! i think i'll give it a boost! yay, how smart i am!)

i just went and looked at The Container Store website.

oh. my. goodness. look! things to put stuff in! how exciting! wow!

right. i should stop hyperventilating.

the real apology, from ampersand, by b. deutsch.

on sunday, my family celebrated the birthday of the fine fine m. socks. we went out to bascali's brick oven restaurant, and i had lasagna again. (because it had been so good the night before, you see.) i got m. socks some socks! (i am so clever!) and a mixer so that she can make more cookie press cookies and give them to me me me me... er, i mean, so she can mix the cookie dough better.

my dad has a cold, and is coughing like mad and using his inhaler all the time. i am moderately worried. i mean, he doesn't seem any sicker than he usually is when he has a cold, but he is not one of those people who gets a little pale and needs to rest but is otherwise fine; he does not get colds gracefully. you can tell he's sick. more on this in the other blog, i think. (replace betsy with lll in the url above.)

on saturday, i went out to dreamcat's birthday thing at pizza luce. i had lasagna there, not being up for negotiating about pizza flavors with people. i was having a pretty good day, went shopping with nathan as i'd mentioned earlier, and then home, and then he went off to work and i went off to luce, and i felt oddly deflated. i was pretty much a quiet lump during dinner. ah, well. i was very pleased with the card i'd gotten him for his birthday, and the food was excellent, and it was good to see people even though i was quiet.

Kissinger Quits Post As Head of 9/11 Panel (washingtonpost.com)

(if you're drinking something, put it down.)

The withdrawal came as a surprising and disappointing setback for the White House, where officials had been convinced that Kissinger's name would bring credibility to an enterprise they had once resisted.

at work right now, we're oddly short staffed. those of us who are either out of vacation time or who have big plans for next year (i am in both categories!) are working all the time, and those who have time left are gone last week, next week, or week after, or some combination of the above. whew.

i'm doing the notes enrollments. ibm owns lotus, so i should not say bad things about the process for manually enrolling users. this is me not saying bad things.

today nathan and i did some present shopping, and i did some earlier in the week, too. (considering how dreadful calhoun square is for shopping most of the year, it's remarkably nice for christmas shopping. their seasonal kiosks rock my world.)

Technical Difficulties

just go watch. it's an animated thing, so don't go away and wait for it to finish loading.

i am sleepy and off to bed with the puppy. who loves me. who will lick my ears until they are all clean or more likely until i tell her no more licking. the puppy, she loves me. all the time. this is a goodness.

okay, okay, just one minor ranty bit.

my sorry ass! ha!

okay, done now.

[long rant about hypocrisy and how it's so often accompanied by rationalization deleted in favor of getting a hobby]

tonight, i may go to the framing store and get some things (both christmas presents for other people and some things for the house) framed. i expect that i will also fold the four loads of laundry that are clean, and address some more winterfair cards. (if i haven't bugged you yet, send me your snail mail address.)

here is a list of christmas present suggestions. for me. um. just so you know.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

I spent most of my life living under the Nuclear Threat, the fears of horrid planetary death. Fear of Smallpox? Yes, I can pencil you in.

Does Monday work for you?

there's some political blathering in the middle of the column; feel free to skip it.

but at the end, which i've quoted here, there's some stuff that makes me think.

when i was a kid, i knew what was going to happen. i was going to die in a nuclear war. everyone was, really. it was just a matter of time. i wasn't particularly worried about it. the sky is blue, the sun comes up in the east, we're all going to die in a nuclear war; that's just the way things are.

when i got a little older, i worried a little that i wouldn't be killed immediately, that i'd end up having to kill myself because i wouldn't be able to get my prescription arthritis drugs. yes, i'd be able to break into the pharmacy in town, but there'd only be so much of a supply there, and i'd eventually run out. but still, it was the same. a nuclear war, and then i'd be dead.

so really, all this nattering about smallpox and anthrax isn't causing me to lose any sleep. it's just slipped into the spot where nuclear war used to be. i read about it, and learn about what, if anything, i will be able to do when it happens, and make plans for ten, fifteen, thirty years from now, because expecting it to happen and preparing for just in case it didn't is what worked out last time.

New hope for the excluded middle

I BELIEVE THAT it is both necessary and possible to defeat George W. Bush when he runs for president again in 2004. I believe that a majority already exists in this country that could make that happen. I believe that a campaign run on issues rather than on personalities could prevail.

now appearing as the voice of reason, jon carroll.

New Scientist

Measles banished from the Americas

An aggressive programme of measles immunisation across the Americas seems to have paid off, only two years behind schedule. The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) is now reporting an unprecedented two-month absence of any locally transmitted measles infections. In 1994, there were 250,000 cases in the region.

well, goddamn.

this is amazing.

Dow - A Chemical Company on the Global Playground

from the dow homepage:

Did you know...
Dow is responsible for the birth of the modern environmental movement. In 1969, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring about the side-effects of a Dow product, DDT, on North American bird populations. Her work created a groundswell of concern, sparking the birth of many of today's environmental action groups. Another example of Dow's commitment to Living. Improved daily.

someone who is either very dumb or very very sneaky is about to lose their job. that's what i think. (but oh, the laughter beforehand from non-dow people...)

why on god's green earth would anyone post about relationship problems in unlocked posts on livejournal? why, i ask you?

i mean, it's cheaper and easier than getting the "kick me" signs printed, but that's the only advantage that i can think of.

TIME Magazine: Rheumatoid Arthritis, The Other Crippling Joint Disease

As debilitating as osteoarthritis can be, it at least develops gradually. That may not seem like much consolation until you consider the other arthritis—rheumatoid arthritis—which in severe cases can hit as fast and hard as a freight train. "People who are jogging one day," says Dr. Stanley Cohen of Dallas' St. Paul Medical Center, "can't get out of bed two weeks later."

this is the disease that i've got.

i am really amazingly lucky. it's been fourteen years since i was diagnosed. i finished high school, and then college, and now i'm holding down a responsible full time job and volunteering in my copious free time. i tolerate the meds well, and they're working for me. and all of that? luck. it's not that i have a relatively mild case because i'm a good person. it's luck.

i just realized that while i did bring my elmo doll to alt.polycon in boston, i did not even think about bringing hematite to stick in my pocket.

huh! well, good for me.

(no, this doesn't make sense to you. unless, possibly, you're lore. then it might make sense.)

Project Delphis: Mystery of the Silver Rings
The young dolphin gives a quick flip of her head, and an undulating silver ring appears--as if by magic--in front of her. The ring is a solid, toroidal bubble two feet across--and yet it does not rise to the surface! It stands erect in the water like the rim of a magic mirror, or the doorway to an unseen dimension.

physics based toys made by dolphins. way cool.

nathan and i saw _kissing jessica stein_ finally. (sigrid saw the first hour or so with us, then had to take the connor dog home.) we watched it on thanksgiving.

my thought is that i like it much better than i had expected to. i had expected to like it, but to be wobbly about the fact that i liked it. however, they got to the ending in a different way than i thought they would, which made me much less ambivalent about it. also, the scene where jessica comes out to her mother is wrenching and wonderful.

however, completely screwing up my hip indie queer girl status, i would just like to announce that i really truly hate "i kissed a girl" by jill sobule. they use it in (i think) the credits, and over a bunch of the extras on the dvd. it's catchy as hell, but i fail to see how it's about anything other than lying, sneaking around, and tourism.

have i mentioned how catchy it is? i especially hate catchy songs that i don't like.