Monday, November 22, 2004
Writing
The thing is -I love the act of writing. I love the physicality, the appearance of squiggles and shapes that convey meaning. I like hearing the voice inside my head when I type or push a pen (preferably a .5 rollerball or mechanical pencil). But evidently, sadly, I have nothing to say. Whenever I start to write, nothing particularly interesting or even substantial takes shape. I've tried free association, tree-branch writing, one-on-one tutorials, online classes, workshops, community college classes, phone coaching, etc., etc., etc. When I attended college two hundred years ago my school viewed writing as vital for academic explication but otherwise as essentially vocational, so therefore they didn't teach creative writing and I suppose I adopted their dismissive attitude until, one day, I realized I wanted to write essays and stories. There's some kind of block here (oh really?) since I find suggestions and books and prompts unbearably annoying, and since I go utterly blank as soon as I try to think of something that happened when I was a child or anything at all to write about, as soon as I face a paper or screen. Boy would I be a happy person if I found a writing guide that worked for me. Suggestions (other than giving up) are welcome.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:58 AM

Sunday, November 21, 2004
Movies page
I've begun a page of movies I especially like and am putting various categories on it - and will update it regularly. There are or will be movies set in San Francisco, New York City, London, Kansas, Washington DC, Buffalo and other places as I decide to add them. I'm setting them up with links to the IMdB description for viewing ease and fun. I'm open to suggestions for movies to include but (disclaimer of course) the choice is mine. Ah, the heady power of one's own page.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:06 PM

Friday, November 19, 2004
Kinder, gentler....
Everyone talks about how nasty the modern world is, but I have to say that in my personal experience people have become kinder and more attentive. Oh, sure, some specific individuals have become harder and colder, more isolated, more unkind. But work colleagues and friends seem to me to be demonstrating that old adage - about not getting older, just getting better. (No, I'm not drinking or smoking anything; I just want to begin my giving of thanks a few days early.)

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:08 PM

Saturday, November 13, 2004
No! not more snow!
This is too perfect for today. Can't resist.
"Dear Diary,
Aug 12 - Moved to a new home in Maine. It is SO beautiful here. The hills are so majestic. I can hardly wait to see them with snow covering them. I love it here!
Oct 14 - Maine is the most beautiful place on earth,.The leaves are turned all the colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful mountains and saw some deer, they are so graceful, Certainly they are the most wonderful animals on earth, this must be paradise. I really love it here.
Nov 11 - Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. I hope it will snow soon. I just love it here!
Dec 2 - It snowed last night. I woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off of the steps and shoveled off the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won) and when the plow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place, I love Maine.
Dec 12 - More snow last night. I love it, the snow plow did his trick again to the driveway. I love it here.
Dec 19 - More snow last night. I couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. I am exhausted from shoveling. Fucking snow-plow.
Dec 22 - More of the white shit fell last night. I've got blisters on my hands from shoveling. I think the snow-plow hides around the curve and waits until I'm done shoveling the driveway, asshole.
Dec 25 - Merry fucking Christmas, more friggen snow. If I ever get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who drives that snow-plow, I swear I'll kill that bastard. Don't know why they don't just use more salt on the road to melt the fucking ice.
Dec 27 - More white shit last night. Been inside for three days except for shoveling out the driveway after that snow-plow goes through every time, can't go anywhere, car's stuck in a mountain of white shit! the weatherman says to expect another 10" of the shit again tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 10" is?
Dec 28 - The fucking weatherman was wrong. We got 54 inches of that white shit this time. At this rate it won't melt before next summer. The snow-plow got stuck up the road and that bastard came to the door and asked to borrow my shovel. After I told him I had broken six shovels already shoveling the white shit he pushed into my driveway, I broke my last one over his fucking head.
Jan 4 - Happy F**ing New Year to you too. I finally got out of the house today, went to the store to get food, on the way back a damned deer ran in front of the car and I hit it. Did about $5,000 damage to the car. Those fucking beasts should be killed. Wish the hunters had killed them all last November.
May 5 - Took the car to the garage in town, would you believe the thing is rusting out from that fucking salt they put all over the road.
May 10 - I gave in and moved to Arkansas. Please tell me why ANYone lives north of the Carolinas??!"

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:26 PM

Snow. More snow.
Going someplace to admire snow's beauty or to ski is a swell idea. Shoveling show off your car when you get home to the train station at 8:30 or 9 at night is a bad idea. And it snowed yesterday. Already. Not the earliest it's ever snowed but way way way too early. The last two winters have been wet and long and gray so I dread the thought of another one. Would lots of Vitamin D help?? Besides, days in the last several summers alternated between being unbearably hot or wet and rainy. Does anyone else remember being taught that the northeast is in a temperate zone? And doesn't that mean 'pleasant'? Maybe it's the Russians. Oh, no, that's right, they're good guys now. Maybe it's the atom bomb. Oh, whoops, that's not an issue now. Mercury? Power lines? Who or what to blame?? (Does this read with the sarcastic tone I intend?) Bet it's hard to believe I'm actually an upbeat positive person. I'm sure it'll all come back, just like riding a bike. Right?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 4:17 PM

Fun with carpet cleaners (not!)
Needing to get some carpets cleaned, I called the place that came when I moved into the house and had the whole house cleaned. They had excellent technique, process and even cost, and the two guys who came were wonderful. Today, a surly guy arrived, got out of his truck, showed me no i.d. (and none was on the van), asked to come in the house to dry off from sweating after the last job (ick), then asked to see what I was having cleaned. Aside from not identifying himself professionally (unlike the team last year), he exuded a major negative attitude. Anyway, since I didn't see the same equipment as last year, I asked about the difference. He was very annoyed by that and by the time he got to the part about dumping the dirty water down my drains, he was combining hostility and boredom (an unusual mix, I thought to myself). I mentioned that last year they'd taken the water away and said I didn't think my system would handle it. He said then he'd dump it in the street. I questioned the environmental impact of that, at which he gave me a rude look, made a gutteral noise, asked what I thought they did with the water after it was in the truck (a scary question), and said we should just get on with it. I paused, reminded myself that I'm the buyer and, more important, an adult, and asked him to leave. Rah rah for adult behavior but of course my carpets aren't cleaned. (P.S. So instead a lovely lady who uses only organic cleansers is coming. I made lemonade!)

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 2:34 PM

Tuesday, November 9, 2004
Which is preferable: experts or generalists?
A business principle I sometimes find myself wondering about is whether it's better to have some employees who are experts and therefore necessary to smooth work progress - or - to have many employees who know how to do things well (if not necessarily at the expert level). The first cogent issue is what "better" means. If the main goal is efficiency, then it's probably better to have more people who know a lot even if no one is superb. If the predominant goal is high quality, then it's important to have some superduper performers. But suppose you want highly qualitative efficency. And keeping in mind that you always want fairly content employees, another piece of the puzzle is personal satisfaction. In the efficiently qualitative business, don't people who are high performers feel held back and discouraged from shining and excelling, while midlevel performers feel inadequate? What's the way to maximize it all?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:37 PM

Sunday, November 7, 2004
Knitting success
It's nice when a project comes out better than you expected. I made a little girl's poncho and hat in one of those new polymid yarns - Cheerio, in platinum. It knitted up even nicer than it looked in the skein. Seems almost woven instead of knitted with a little bit of a sparkle. The poncho looks kind of like a skating outfit. Maybe I'll just "have" to make leg warmers and a muff too. I also made a Santa hat for a baby girl and it looks wonderful. Unfortunately the pompon on the top/bottom of the pointy part of the hat sheds like mad. I used Sirdar's Funky Fur yarn for the white and it's absolutely wonderful in terms of looking like fur. It's very white, perfect in most regards. But when it's cut in making the pompom, its furry pieces fly off everywhere. All the furry yarns seem to do the same thing. If anyone knows a good trim white furry yarn that won't shed when cut, let me know!

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:56 PM

Saturday, November 6, 2004
Christmas gift ideas
I need some great ideas about Christmas presents! After years of buying them, I feel bored by most of the choices and there's so darn much pressure to find clever, fun, appropriate, long-lasting, unique gifts. I want people to smile when they open my gifts and I want them to enjoy them for eons. What to buy and where to buy it??

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:16 PM

Election question
The election is obviously the paramount event of the week. It's astonishing that a president who won one of the few majorities in our modern history should nonetheless inspire so much derision. We are split in ways I find puzzling. When Reagan was elected, many of us thought it was scary and alarming, but we didn't threaten to move to Canada - or at least no one I knew suggested it. We redoubled efforts to better situations we thought needed improving, and we went on to live with the man who had won the election. Why not this time? Why so much anger?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:57 AM

Wednesday, November 3, 2004
After the ball is over.....?
What do you suppose will happen after the election? Given the fervor on each side, how can the dust settle? Since one of them will lose and one of them will win. The language of this year's debate ratcheted up to an astonishing level, burbling with disgust and anger. The good part is that it's involved large ideas like courage and freedom, patriotism and loyalty. But people usually just prefer one or another candidate and talk about why. This time, many supporters believe their man is good and the other man is bad. Black and white. Here's my problem with that: aside from the fact that each man almost certainly has the best interests of the country at heart and is not a satanic hologram, what does everyone do with such extreme convictions after one wins and one loses?
On Wednesday morning (or whenever it is), how do the two men - and we - resume life as usual? A huge portion of the country believes Kerry is a self-serving, lubricious, and lugubrious (credit for that wonderful pairing of "l" words to Alan Sullivan), truly unfit for command. On the other hand, a huge portion of the country believes Bush is a frightening near-despot. In other words, many Americans believe many other Americans will elect someone who lies and deceives... and both sides sling the description at the other. Can each candidate summon the resources to congratulate the other graciously? And even if they can, can the rest of us possibly put aside the year's passion and accumulated convictions? Can everyone make a reasoned and resigned nod of acceptance and go forward? Can we put our passionately felt convictions to good use? Can we avoid making the country more divided? I guess this is yet another test of our resilience and inherent goodness. I hope we pass.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 2:54 AM