Basically, I am wondering if anyone knows what happened to the show. It was on ABC, and it was supposed to be on for thirteen weeks, while we waited for new episodes of LOST. I really liked the show. After like five episodes, it was replaced by a couple of half hour comedies that I don't think anyone is watching.
I don't think many of my readers watched the show, so I thought I'd post it on the weekend when most of your aren't reading anyway. Probably you'd be more interested in the previous post about drunks.
But, just in case, here it is. And I've included the two comments from the other blog.
(the following was originally posted on another blog on November 18th)
I thought Wednesday night's Daybreak was an excellent two hours of television.
Unfortunately, the other people I would normally discuss such things with somehow managed to miss the show.
I can't understand why they didn't watch it. It was great. Similar in some ways to Groundhog Day, the equally amusing Stargate episode Windows of Opportunity, and the more serious but lesser known 12:01 (which I am told is quite different from the 12:01 short story, in which the main character keeps repeating the same hour); it was a time loop story, in which the day keep repeating itself and only the main character knows it.
In the first two hours of the series, the main character goes through the original day and three repeats. In the original day he saves a dumb pedestrian, gets framed for murder, finds out his brother-in-law is beating his sister, gets set up by his partner, gets arrested, watches his girlfriend and alibi get killed, is told that he will have to confess to the murder he's accused of if he doesn't want his family similarly killed, is beaten by thugs, and is then sedated. The first repeat of the day is very similar, except that he doesn't save the pedestrian, he tries to warn a few people about what is going to happen but they don't believe him, and he pushes his wife-beating brother-in-law into a glass display case. The third time around he doesn't bother with much of anything except trying to get out of town with his girlfriend, which doesn't go as planned, and the bad guys follow and shoot at them. He gets wounded in the shoulder, and there's blood everywhere, but luckily his girlfriend is an ER nurse and she patches him up. The cops catch up to them at a motel, and his partner seems like she is setting him up again, but this time she is obviously just there to try and help him, which then gets her killed. He and his girlfriend get away, and he drives all night.
And somehow is back in his bed about six in the morning on the same day as before.
But somehow, the events of the repeating days stay with him, and this time he starts the day off with a trip to the ER, because he's bleeding from what appears to be a bullet wound. The episode ends with him getting away from the cops at the hospital in the middle of the third repeat of the day.
I like most of the actors, which include Skinner from the X-files and Jane from Firefly. I should know who the partner is too, but I just can't think from where at the moment.
So did anybody else watch this show?
2 comments
the husband said...
Yes, it is an interesting show. We have several bodies a day turning up and it seems that Our Hero will be hard pressed to set up the day in such way that he saves all of them. Of course, not all of them are worth saving.
how many blogs do you need, dear?
Laughingattheslut said...
Isn't that sweet. He called me dear.
Well, I thought since I was just going to have a regular blog that I'd start a different one without a name that puts off regular people who don't know about it already.
And then I thought that I'd have this one for just sci-fi and related stuff, and then I'd have the other one for the mundanes to read. See?
Saturday, March 31, 2007
I do not have much experience with drunks
I have very little experience with people drinking at all. I don't put up with much of it. If you have like one drink, and I think that we are going to stay wherever we are long enough that it will wear off before we leave, I probably won't say anything. If you order another drink, I'm probably going to ask if you are driving. That is, I'm going to ask if you are driving if you didn't already volunteer that information after that look I gave you. If you order another one after that, I'm probably done talking to you anyway.
But I rarely have that much of a problem even at the New Year's Eve party or the Halloween party. And those last hours and hours, so possibly even three drinks would wear off.
I'm sorry if you think you need a few drinks to loosen up a bit. I'm sorry that you can't do a bit of the When Harry met Sally restaurant scene sober. Have you tried? I have.
I used to not be so strict. I still didn't drink, but I didn't bother other people much about the alcohol, if they planned ahead of time. I had a friend whose mother would let all the kids come to the house and drink, but if they had more than one drink they had to check with her before they left, and it was just assumed that most of them would be spending the night anyway. I used to think this was a great idea. I still think that this is a better idea than to just start drinking without a plan, but I am now very much in a just say no phase.
So I used to go to this girl's house, but I didn't drink. After a few times, she asked me not to come anymore. My good influence was rubbing off on other people or something, cause they stopped drinking too, and she didn't want to drink by herself.
Anyway, I've only had a few experiences with actual drunk people. Once was a drunk guy that hit my truck. Luckily, no one was in the truck at the time. The guy came in the store and said that he thought he had put a little dent in my door. The little dent was so big that it made it impossible to open the door. The cops came, found an a guy that was clearly driving drunk, which is illegal, and driving without insurance, which is illegal, and couldn't get anymore insurance because everyone knew that he was a drunk. And nothing happened to him. The cops did not arrest him or take his license or anything. He hit a parked vehicle, but since we were in a parking lot on private property, he did not even get a ticket. Weird.
Another time I had to deal with a drunk person was during a college field trip to Galveston Island. Some of the kids were going to camp on the beach, but I wasn't feeling well and needed my sleep. Four of us were supposed to go in together and rent a room for the weekend. The fourth girl had to cancel before we'd even reserved the room. The other two girls I did not know very well, but they seemed nice enough. They hated the field trip and left that first morning. That left me with the bill for a very expensive room all by myself. But I wasn't feeling well, so I kept the room rather than try to sleep on the beach.
At about two in the morning on the second night, I woke up after hearing someone pound on the door. I opened the door to find six of my classmates, a few of them soaking wet, and one of them with a very big smile and wide eyes.
"Can we use your shower?"
Since I have just been woken up at 2am, I am not yet awake enough to manage to say "What the f***?" or anything else that might have been appropriate. I guy that I thought was pretty nice stepped into the room to talk to me while two other girls dragged the smiling one into the shower. She was having a really bad time, over some problem that was none of my business, and she wouldn't talk about it. Her friends decided that enough was enough, and they got her drunk so that she would tell what was going on. After that there was a bit more drinking, and the girl took a walk into the ocean. A couple of them went after her, and now they needed a shower. And I was the only one they knew who still had a room at the motel.
I still had a room at the motel because I was sick and needed my sleep. Take out your wallet and get your own room. But I didn't actually say that, and the guy got me to calm down. We waited for the three girls to come out of the shower. While we were talking. A fourth girl decided that as long as there was a free shower, she might as well have one too. She didn't ask or anything, and everyone had to wait on her. The guy I was talking to was the only one who even apologized, and no one even offered to pay for some of the room or buy me breakfast the next day or anything.
Back to the girl having people over to drink at her mom's house.
All the kids had a beer, but when they heard me say that I didn't drink, that's about all that most of them had. That is, almost all of the kids had a beer. I declined, and so did this guy I liked. I assumed that he declined to impress me.
The guy I liked was not my usual type. He was good looking and sort of looked like Tom Cruise. The thing was that he knew he sort of looked like Tom Cruise. He would even go up to people and ask if they thought he looked like Tom Cruise.
So I should think that it was very obvious to everyone that I was here mainly because I was interested in Tom Cruise guy. This guy said he liked me too, but we were not in relationship. Okay, whatever. But he does kiss good, and I'm hoping for some alone time later.
Going to this girl's house and watching people drink was not actually my plan for the evening, even with Tom Cruise guy. My plan for the evening was trying on shoes, and they were dress shoes, so I was wearing a dress. A Sunday dress, not a go out with my friends who are going to drink kind of dress. Everyone else is in jeans. I just happened to run into Tom Cruise guy and some of the others at the mall and got invited over. So I look way out of place.
Across the room from me is a blond scruffy-looking guy. He just always seems to be looking at me. Well, maybe he is just wondering why the hell am I wearing a Sunday dress. And I'm sitting with Tom Cruise guy, so I don't really think much of it.
A bit later the girl come over and says something not to subtle about needing me in the kitchen.
So she tells me that scruffy guy is into me.
Really? Cause he hasn't said two words to me.
Well, he said that you have sexy feet.
Sexy feet? There are a few people who like the way I look. I have my fans. I have been called sexy. But sexy feet. No. I do not have sexy feet.
He actually said that? Sexy feet?
Yes. What are you going to do?
Do? I'm not going to do anything. And can't he tell that I came here to be with someone else?
You mean you're not interested?
In the scruffy guy? I can't even tell if he's good looking under all that hair. (It was the eighties.) And he hasn't talked to me or anything. I am just supposed to to be really impressed with this guy?
Most of the girls at school are. He's slept with a lot of them.
Have you slept with him?
No. I'm not into him.
Well, I'm not either.
The Tom Cruise guy was not as much fun here as he had been at the mall. He was all glad to see me at the mall, but now he was all quiet. I know we are not in a relationship, but I don't see why he doesn't want to talk or go outside with me or anything. After a while I give up.
Which gives the scruffy guy a chance to talk to me.
Okay, so there were some pretty blue eyes hiding under that hair. He might clean up nice, but I don't think he bothered with that very often. I didn't want to be rude at my friend's house, so I talked to him.
It was just dumb chit-chat that you could have with anyone. He did not have anything impressive to say. He wasn't a trekkie. He didn't read a lot.
I don't remember if he was in a band or anything like that to explain his appearance.
And I didn't see any reason that anyone would be impressed with him, other than the eyes and that the rest of his appearance might really be something after say, a haircut. And knowing that a bunch of other girls had slept with him was a turnoff for me. And the idea that I was just really supposed to be impressed with that was even more of a turnoff. I didn't see that we had anything to talk about, and I'm not really sure why we were talking at all.
I think maybe he'd had a few before I got there.
And I think maybe he'd never seen a girl in a Sunday dress before.
What was really bothering me was that Tom Cruise guy never came to rescue me. I thought he was into me. I thought that he wasn't drinking to impress me. I gave up and went home.
Me and the Tom Cruise guy were kind of on and off for a while. It just wasn't going to work out. It's a whole long story how I ever was interested in him in the first place, which I will not get into right now. But we were both friends with this girl, so I still saw him once in a while, and she would tell me stuff about him.
Tom Cruise guy did not decline the beer to impress me. Apparently he had a problem. My personal belief is that anyone who drinks has a problem, but this guy had a serious problem. If he starts drinking, he doesn't stop.
At another one of these things at my friend's house, Tom Cruise guy had a few drinks. And he had a few more drinks. He didn't have a car anyway, so no one said anything. He had a few more drinks.
At some point during the evening he was seriously after my friend. My friend was in a long term relationship, and everyone knew that she was off limits. She did not give me all of the details, but at the time she was really not happy about it. Her boyfriend came and rescued her. Tom Cruise guy woke up the next day in a neighbor's lawn, missing his shoes, and having no idea how he got there or that he had done anything to my friend. He really remembered very little of the evening.
He did a lot of apologizing and such. After about a month or so, everyone was friends again. He was at the house one day, and he had a drink, and then he had a few more drinks, and then he had a few more drinks.
After that it was about the same as the other time, except that this time he wasn't after my friend. He was seriously after my friend's boyfriend.
Tom Cruise guy woke up in a neighbor's lawn without his shoes. He had no idea how he got there, and he remembered very little about the evening.
We didn't see much of Tom Cruise guy after that.
But I rarely have that much of a problem even at the New Year's Eve party or the Halloween party. And those last hours and hours, so possibly even three drinks would wear off.
I'm sorry if you think you need a few drinks to loosen up a bit. I'm sorry that you can't do a bit of the When Harry met Sally restaurant scene sober. Have you tried? I have.
I used to not be so strict. I still didn't drink, but I didn't bother other people much about the alcohol, if they planned ahead of time. I had a friend whose mother would let all the kids come to the house and drink, but if they had more than one drink they had to check with her before they left, and it was just assumed that most of them would be spending the night anyway. I used to think this was a great idea. I still think that this is a better idea than to just start drinking without a plan, but I am now very much in a just say no phase.
So I used to go to this girl's house, but I didn't drink. After a few times, she asked me not to come anymore. My good influence was rubbing off on other people or something, cause they stopped drinking too, and she didn't want to drink by herself.
Anyway, I've only had a few experiences with actual drunk people. Once was a drunk guy that hit my truck. Luckily, no one was in the truck at the time. The guy came in the store and said that he thought he had put a little dent in my door. The little dent was so big that it made it impossible to open the door. The cops came, found an a guy that was clearly driving drunk, which is illegal, and driving without insurance, which is illegal, and couldn't get anymore insurance because everyone knew that he was a drunk. And nothing happened to him. The cops did not arrest him or take his license or anything. He hit a parked vehicle, but since we were in a parking lot on private property, he did not even get a ticket. Weird.
Another time I had to deal with a drunk person was during a college field trip to Galveston Island. Some of the kids were going to camp on the beach, but I wasn't feeling well and needed my sleep. Four of us were supposed to go in together and rent a room for the weekend. The fourth girl had to cancel before we'd even reserved the room. The other two girls I did not know very well, but they seemed nice enough. They hated the field trip and left that first morning. That left me with the bill for a very expensive room all by myself. But I wasn't feeling well, so I kept the room rather than try to sleep on the beach.
At about two in the morning on the second night, I woke up after hearing someone pound on the door. I opened the door to find six of my classmates, a few of them soaking wet, and one of them with a very big smile and wide eyes.
"Can we use your shower?"
Since I have just been woken up at 2am, I am not yet awake enough to manage to say "What the f***?" or anything else that might have been appropriate. I guy that I thought was pretty nice stepped into the room to talk to me while two other girls dragged the smiling one into the shower. She was having a really bad time, over some problem that was none of my business, and she wouldn't talk about it. Her friends decided that enough was enough, and they got her drunk so that she would tell what was going on. After that there was a bit more drinking, and the girl took a walk into the ocean. A couple of them went after her, and now they needed a shower. And I was the only one they knew who still had a room at the motel.
I still had a room at the motel because I was sick and needed my sleep. Take out your wallet and get your own room. But I didn't actually say that, and the guy got me to calm down. We waited for the three girls to come out of the shower. While we were talking. A fourth girl decided that as long as there was a free shower, she might as well have one too. She didn't ask or anything, and everyone had to wait on her. The guy I was talking to was the only one who even apologized, and no one even offered to pay for some of the room or buy me breakfast the next day or anything.
Back to the girl having people over to drink at her mom's house.
All the kids had a beer, but when they heard me say that I didn't drink, that's about all that most of them had. That is, almost all of the kids had a beer. I declined, and so did this guy I liked. I assumed that he declined to impress me.
The guy I liked was not my usual type. He was good looking and sort of looked like Tom Cruise. The thing was that he knew he sort of looked like Tom Cruise. He would even go up to people and ask if they thought he looked like Tom Cruise.
So I should think that it was very obvious to everyone that I was here mainly because I was interested in Tom Cruise guy. This guy said he liked me too, but we were not in relationship. Okay, whatever. But he does kiss good, and I'm hoping for some alone time later.
Going to this girl's house and watching people drink was not actually my plan for the evening, even with Tom Cruise guy. My plan for the evening was trying on shoes, and they were dress shoes, so I was wearing a dress. A Sunday dress, not a go out with my friends who are going to drink kind of dress. Everyone else is in jeans. I just happened to run into Tom Cruise guy and some of the others at the mall and got invited over. So I look way out of place.
Across the room from me is a blond scruffy-looking guy. He just always seems to be looking at me. Well, maybe he is just wondering why the hell am I wearing a Sunday dress. And I'm sitting with Tom Cruise guy, so I don't really think much of it.
A bit later the girl come over and says something not to subtle about needing me in the kitchen.
So she tells me that scruffy guy is into me.
Really? Cause he hasn't said two words to me.
Well, he said that you have sexy feet.
Sexy feet? There are a few people who like the way I look. I have my fans. I have been called sexy. But sexy feet. No. I do not have sexy feet.
He actually said that? Sexy feet?
Yes. What are you going to do?
Do? I'm not going to do anything. And can't he tell that I came here to be with someone else?
You mean you're not interested?
In the scruffy guy? I can't even tell if he's good looking under all that hair. (It was the eighties.) And he hasn't talked to me or anything. I am just supposed to to be really impressed with this guy?
Most of the girls at school are. He's slept with a lot of them.
Have you slept with him?
No. I'm not into him.
Well, I'm not either.
The Tom Cruise guy was not as much fun here as he had been at the mall. He was all glad to see me at the mall, but now he was all quiet. I know we are not in a relationship, but I don't see why he doesn't want to talk or go outside with me or anything. After a while I give up.
Which gives the scruffy guy a chance to talk to me.
Okay, so there were some pretty blue eyes hiding under that hair. He might clean up nice, but I don't think he bothered with that very often. I didn't want to be rude at my friend's house, so I talked to him.
It was just dumb chit-chat that you could have with anyone. He did not have anything impressive to say. He wasn't a trekkie. He didn't read a lot.
I don't remember if he was in a band or anything like that to explain his appearance.
And I didn't see any reason that anyone would be impressed with him, other than the eyes and that the rest of his appearance might really be something after say, a haircut. And knowing that a bunch of other girls had slept with him was a turnoff for me. And the idea that I was just really supposed to be impressed with that was even more of a turnoff. I didn't see that we had anything to talk about, and I'm not really sure why we were talking at all.
I think maybe he'd had a few before I got there.
And I think maybe he'd never seen a girl in a Sunday dress before.
What was really bothering me was that Tom Cruise guy never came to rescue me. I thought he was into me. I thought that he wasn't drinking to impress me. I gave up and went home.
Me and the Tom Cruise guy were kind of on and off for a while. It just wasn't going to work out. It's a whole long story how I ever was interested in him in the first place, which I will not get into right now. But we were both friends with this girl, so I still saw him once in a while, and she would tell me stuff about him.
Tom Cruise guy did not decline the beer to impress me. Apparently he had a problem. My personal belief is that anyone who drinks has a problem, but this guy had a serious problem. If he starts drinking, he doesn't stop.
At another one of these things at my friend's house, Tom Cruise guy had a few drinks. And he had a few more drinks. He didn't have a car anyway, so no one said anything. He had a few more drinks.
At some point during the evening he was seriously after my friend. My friend was in a long term relationship, and everyone knew that she was off limits. She did not give me all of the details, but at the time she was really not happy about it. Her boyfriend came and rescued her. Tom Cruise guy woke up the next day in a neighbor's lawn, missing his shoes, and having no idea how he got there or that he had done anything to my friend. He really remembered very little of the evening.
He did a lot of apologizing and such. After about a month or so, everyone was friends again. He was at the house one day, and he had a drink, and then he had a few more drinks, and then he had a few more drinks.
After that it was about the same as the other time, except that this time he wasn't after my friend. He was seriously after my friend's boyfriend.
Tom Cruise guy woke up in a neighbor's lawn without his shoes. He had no idea how he got there, and he remembered very little about the evening.
We didn't see much of Tom Cruise guy after that.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Not doing much again
Okay, so either no one has read my last post yet, or everyone has read it and they're just too polite to leave any "What the f***?" kind of comments.
I have no car today. The mechanic finally called back with a thousand dollar estimate. That was about three times what I was expecting, and I was really hoping it just needed a new hose or something and would be less. Anyway, I don't even have a thousand dollars at the moment, so they are just going to do half of the repairs at the moment, so I can get an inspection sticker, and I'll have to bring the car back later after I get another five hundred dollars.
So I am stuck at home for the day. And it is too wet outside to garden, so I thought this would be the day that I finally get some housework done. But I feel a bit sick. Usually, I take a common over the counter medication, and I feel better in an hour or so. The last time I took this medication was during the spring break trip, and I can't find any here, so I must have left them packed with the stuff that my husband took with him this week. So I should go to the drugstore and get some more.
Did I mention that I don't have a car today?
Plan B is to eat half a bag of cookies and hope for the best.
Today I have advice for people trying to cook a fried egg and a side of of spaghetti. Fry the egg first and then make the spaghetti. Somehow it is less messy than doing it the other way round.
And why would anyone want to cook a fried egg with a side of spaghetti?
I may have this plan to take over the world, but I do not have the answer for everything.
I have no car today. The mechanic finally called back with a thousand dollar estimate. That was about three times what I was expecting, and I was really hoping it just needed a new hose or something and would be less. Anyway, I don't even have a thousand dollars at the moment, so they are just going to do half of the repairs at the moment, so I can get an inspection sticker, and I'll have to bring the car back later after I get another five hundred dollars.
So I am stuck at home for the day. And it is too wet outside to garden, so I thought this would be the day that I finally get some housework done. But I feel a bit sick. Usually, I take a common over the counter medication, and I feel better in an hour or so. The last time I took this medication was during the spring break trip, and I can't find any here, so I must have left them packed with the stuff that my husband took with him this week. So I should go to the drugstore and get some more.
Did I mention that I don't have a car today?
Plan B is to eat half a bag of cookies and hope for the best.
Today I have advice for people trying to cook a fried egg and a side of of spaghetti. Fry the egg first and then make the spaghetti. Somehow it is less messy than doing it the other way round.
And why would anyone want to cook a fried egg with a side of spaghetti?
I may have this plan to take over the world, but I do not have the answer for everything.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
When I take over the world, everyone will be a single parent
This one was originally in another blog. A funny thing about that is that on the other blog the title was too long for the whole title to be listed on the previous blogs. So it said that When I take over the world, everyone will be a sin....
So, hopefully, when I take over the world, everyone will get the title right and not be a sin.
Another thing is that I happened to write it on what would have been my dad's 65th birthday.
But never mind. Read on. And I have included the two comments from the original post
(the following was originally posted in another blog on Febuary 9th)
I was going to start a new blog to talk about how I would fix things if I had a magic wand. But I have several blogs already, and I've hardly used this one at all. So I'll just make the when I take over the world stuff a section of this blog.
I wasn't sure which of the take over the world posts to start with. Recently I read someone else's blog, and she was talking about being a single mom. So I guess I'll start with that.
Every once in a while, I hear that someone has a plan to pay people to volunteer for a sterilization procedure. A mathematical formula would determine how much of a potential financial drain your future children would have on society. If you agreed to be sterilized instead of having these children, the government would pay you a percentage of the estimated tax money saved.
Sounds great to me. I don't want any kids anyway. If someone offered me a free and safe permanent method of birth-control, I'd probably take it. If someone offered pay me to do it...wow.
Of course, I like to think that my high I.Q. would prevent me from being paid much money. On the other hand, my low personal income would also be factored in, and the two would probably cancel each other out. But if I'm offered any amount of money before I'm too old to have children, I'm going to take it.
Not that it will ever happen. I like the idea, but everyone else seems to hate it. And I really don't get most of the arguments. Like a bunch of poor people will go and have the procedure, or a bunch of black people will go have the procedure. So what? What if a bunch of poor black people willingly go have a sterilization procedure done and get paid for it. A bunch of other poor black people won't go and have the procedure. That would forever put an end to the discussions about welfare moms cranking out babies to get more money. If some people were really doing that sort of thing, and you offered them something like this instead, wouldn't they take the easy money up front?
Several years ago I read a book, and I can't remember the name of the book, or even who wrote it. It was a woman, I remember that much, so I want to say it was by Anne McCaffrey or Vonda McIntyre, because that was who I was reading at the time. Anyway, in this book all the people were legally allowed custody of one child. Period. But they had sole custody. There were no custody fights and arguments about visitation or how someone thought their child's other parent wasn't raising the child right. You have custody of one child, and everyone else back off, including the child's other biological parent.
Wouldn't that just solve all kinds of problems? Custody of children is decided before they are even conceived. If a couple gets a divorce, there is no custody battle. If the custodial parent wants to pick up and move to Alaska, that's okay. There is no arguing about how much child support the non-custodial parent will have to pay, because there is no such thing as child support. If you can't afford to take care of a child yourself, don't have one. You and you alone are responsible for that one child.
Which is not to say that you couldn't have custody of one child and live with someone who has custody of another child. You could raise them together, share living expenses and all of that. For that matter, you could live with ten other people who have custody of ten other children, and raise them all together and share living expenses and all of that. But it would be very clear who had custody of a particular child, and who had the final word on all things concerning that child.
There were a lot of things in the book that would probably never work in America. In the book the custodial parent paid the other biological parent for creating the child. In general, women were paid more than men per child. On the other hand, in an individual's lifetime, a man could father many more children than a woman would be able to have. In the book, the main character's custodial parent was paid to be the biological father of over three hundred children, but he still owed money to the biological mother of the child he had custody of. Paying someone to have sex with you, even for the purpose of creating a child, is still prostitution. And it might seem too much like babies for sell. We don't buy and sell people anymore.
There are other things that did not happen in this book that I would also think about. If you have bad genes, besides paying someone of the opposite sex to help you create a child, couldn't you also hire someone of the same sex for the same purpose, so that the resulting child would not have your bad genes. And since I don't want any children anyway, could I sell my legal right to have custody of one child to someone who would like to raise more than one child?
A lot of things will be different after I take over the world.
2 comments:
a friend said...
Concerning high IQ vs low income: I don't think Einstein was ever rolling in the dough, and who really wants to see the Donald Trump or Paris Hilton genes propagated! In other words, the high IQ probably matters, but the level of personal income really might not matter much.
Concerning the author: Did you read Ursula Le Guin? She liked to deal with similar issues, as I recall. The only McCaffrey's I read were "light" and never got into such serious issues. I only read one McIntyre ("Star Trek II")
What was done in the book if a parent happened to be a very bad parent who should not have custody at all? Or did they ever go into such things?
"There were a lot of things in the book that would probably never work in America."
You'd have the opposition from Catholics and others who want larger and larger families.
"Paying someone to have sex with you, even for the purpose of creating a child, is still prostitution."
Actually, this is legal in many countries, and in a small part of the US. If you make insemination artificial, this gets rid of any of this concern if it is necessary to get rid of such a concern. Then it takes us one step toward "Logan's Run" by disconnecting sex with procreation.
Concerning bad genes: Yes, some people have very bad genes. The problem right now is that there are a lot of bad genes out there and there is probably no ability to identify them and screen everyone readily. This is changing, however. The advances in genetics, even in the past 6 or so years, are rather significant.
"And since I don't want any children anyway, could I sell my legal right to have custody of one child to someone who would like to raise more than one child?"
That would make sense as part of this. However, the same complainers would call this "exploitation".
"A lot of things will be different after I take over the world."
With or without the help of lab rats...
Laughingattheslut said...
The proper question is with or without lab mice, not lab rats.
And I guess it will have to be without, cause I'm sure he'd soon find a way to get rid of me.
No, the level of personal income matters, because the point was to lower the number of children of parents who can't financially take care of them. It's a math problem--spend X amount of money now to convince someone not to have children, or spend several times X amount on the children through welfare, food stamps, unpaid medical bills, etc....
McIntyre wants to cure everything with virus therapy. And I hear that her day job is scientist, so she might actually do it. Once she's cured everything, she'll move on to making people who can fly and people who can live underwater.
The book did not get into such things. The woman in the book had a very loving father, who was a bit upset that he still hadn't been able to meet his financial obligations to the biological mother.
I don't doubt it would be done artificially a lot of the time, but this was not the implication in the book. The man was well liked and had been paid to father over 300 children. It probably wasn't entirely for his high IQ. I did wonder about the phrasing of the contract. If a pregnancy doesn't happen right away, how long do the people have to keep having sex before one of them is allowed to disolve the contract, and is there a fine one of them pays to get out of the contract, etc....
There's always someone complaining about exploitation in this sort of thing, so I don't think it would happen anytime soon. I still think it's a cool idea.
So, hopefully, when I take over the world, everyone will get the title right and not be a sin.
Another thing is that I happened to write it on what would have been my dad's 65th birthday.
But never mind. Read on. And I have included the two comments from the original post
(the following was originally posted in another blog on Febuary 9th)
I was going to start a new blog to talk about how I would fix things if I had a magic wand. But I have several blogs already, and I've hardly used this one at all. So I'll just make the when I take over the world stuff a section of this blog.
I wasn't sure which of the take over the world posts to start with. Recently I read someone else's blog, and she was talking about being a single mom. So I guess I'll start with that.
Every once in a while, I hear that someone has a plan to pay people to volunteer for a sterilization procedure. A mathematical formula would determine how much of a potential financial drain your future children would have on society. If you agreed to be sterilized instead of having these children, the government would pay you a percentage of the estimated tax money saved.
Sounds great to me. I don't want any kids anyway. If someone offered me a free and safe permanent method of birth-control, I'd probably take it. If someone offered pay me to do it...wow.
Of course, I like to think that my high I.Q. would prevent me from being paid much money. On the other hand, my low personal income would also be factored in, and the two would probably cancel each other out. But if I'm offered any amount of money before I'm too old to have children, I'm going to take it.
Not that it will ever happen. I like the idea, but everyone else seems to hate it. And I really don't get most of the arguments. Like a bunch of poor people will go and have the procedure, or a bunch of black people will go have the procedure. So what? What if a bunch of poor black people willingly go have a sterilization procedure done and get paid for it. A bunch of other poor black people won't go and have the procedure. That would forever put an end to the discussions about welfare moms cranking out babies to get more money. If some people were really doing that sort of thing, and you offered them something like this instead, wouldn't they take the easy money up front?
Several years ago I read a book, and I can't remember the name of the book, or even who wrote it. It was a woman, I remember that much, so I want to say it was by Anne McCaffrey or Vonda McIntyre, because that was who I was reading at the time. Anyway, in this book all the people were legally allowed custody of one child. Period. But they had sole custody. There were no custody fights and arguments about visitation or how someone thought their child's other parent wasn't raising the child right. You have custody of one child, and everyone else back off, including the child's other biological parent.
Wouldn't that just solve all kinds of problems? Custody of children is decided before they are even conceived. If a couple gets a divorce, there is no custody battle. If the custodial parent wants to pick up and move to Alaska, that's okay. There is no arguing about how much child support the non-custodial parent will have to pay, because there is no such thing as child support. If you can't afford to take care of a child yourself, don't have one. You and you alone are responsible for that one child.
Which is not to say that you couldn't have custody of one child and live with someone who has custody of another child. You could raise them together, share living expenses and all of that. For that matter, you could live with ten other people who have custody of ten other children, and raise them all together and share living expenses and all of that. But it would be very clear who had custody of a particular child, and who had the final word on all things concerning that child.
There were a lot of things in the book that would probably never work in America. In the book the custodial parent paid the other biological parent for creating the child. In general, women were paid more than men per child. On the other hand, in an individual's lifetime, a man could father many more children than a woman would be able to have. In the book, the main character's custodial parent was paid to be the biological father of over three hundred children, but he still owed money to the biological mother of the child he had custody of. Paying someone to have sex with you, even for the purpose of creating a child, is still prostitution. And it might seem too much like babies for sell. We don't buy and sell people anymore.
There are other things that did not happen in this book that I would also think about. If you have bad genes, besides paying someone of the opposite sex to help you create a child, couldn't you also hire someone of the same sex for the same purpose, so that the resulting child would not have your bad genes. And since I don't want any children anyway, could I sell my legal right to have custody of one child to someone who would like to raise more than one child?
A lot of things will be different after I take over the world.
2 comments:
a friend said...
Concerning high IQ vs low income: I don't think Einstein was ever rolling in the dough, and who really wants to see the Donald Trump or Paris Hilton genes propagated! In other words, the high IQ probably matters, but the level of personal income really might not matter much.
Concerning the author: Did you read Ursula Le Guin? She liked to deal with similar issues, as I recall. The only McCaffrey's I read were "light" and never got into such serious issues. I only read one McIntyre ("Star Trek II")
What was done in the book if a parent happened to be a very bad parent who should not have custody at all? Or did they ever go into such things?
"There were a lot of things in the book that would probably never work in America."
You'd have the opposition from Catholics and others who want larger and larger families.
"Paying someone to have sex with you, even for the purpose of creating a child, is still prostitution."
Actually, this is legal in many countries, and in a small part of the US. If you make insemination artificial, this gets rid of any of this concern if it is necessary to get rid of such a concern. Then it takes us one step toward "Logan's Run" by disconnecting sex with procreation.
Concerning bad genes: Yes, some people have very bad genes. The problem right now is that there are a lot of bad genes out there and there is probably no ability to identify them and screen everyone readily. This is changing, however. The advances in genetics, even in the past 6 or so years, are rather significant.
"And since I don't want any children anyway, could I sell my legal right to have custody of one child to someone who would like to raise more than one child?"
That would make sense as part of this. However, the same complainers would call this "exploitation".
"A lot of things will be different after I take over the world."
With or without the help of lab rats...
Laughingattheslut said...
The proper question is with or without lab mice, not lab rats.
And I guess it will have to be without, cause I'm sure he'd soon find a way to get rid of me.
No, the level of personal income matters, because the point was to lower the number of children of parents who can't financially take care of them. It's a math problem--spend X amount of money now to convince someone not to have children, or spend several times X amount on the children through welfare, food stamps, unpaid medical bills, etc....
McIntyre wants to cure everything with virus therapy. And I hear that her day job is scientist, so she might actually do it. Once she's cured everything, she'll move on to making people who can fly and people who can live underwater.
The book did not get into such things. The woman in the book had a very loving father, who was a bit upset that he still hadn't been able to meet his financial obligations to the biological mother.
I don't doubt it would be done artificially a lot of the time, but this was not the implication in the book. The man was well liked and had been paid to father over 300 children. It probably wasn't entirely for his high IQ. I did wonder about the phrasing of the contract. If a pregnancy doesn't happen right away, how long do the people have to keep having sex before one of them is allowed to disolve the contract, and is there a fine one of them pays to get out of the contract, etc....
There's always someone complaining about exploitation in this sort of thing, so I don't think it would happen anytime soon. I still think it's a cool idea.
Not doing much
Well, I do not have anything particularly interesting to talk about today. I did not have to console a friend after a break-up like Rachel, I did not take an exciting trip like Playtah, and I did not discover the secret to life and the universe and everything is popping bubble-wrap like David.
On the other hand, I have three new readers since spring break, so I should probably write something.
Welcome new readers.
Okay. I think for a while I will alternate the new stuff with the stuff that I'm bringing over from the other blog.
So here is the new stuff. I am waiting to see if I'm going to get some bad news. While I waiting to see if I get some bad news, I am also waiting to see if I get some other bad news. And right now at this very moment, I am waiting for the mechanic to call and tell me how much it is going to cost me to get the car fixed up to get a state inspection sticker.
So pretty much the high points of my week have been watching TV, and today finding out that only four people were in line ahead of me to get a new license plate.
At school the ceramics instructor decided that we were going to put glaze on the white tiles instead of underglaze. And this he tells me right when I'm putting on the underglaze. But that's okay, cause I like my tile and this gives me an excuse to make another one at the school's expense. Still, I need to finish something that actually counts towards my grade soon, and this isn't helping.
The next post will probably be one from the other blog. Today, one of my new readers wrote in her blog about being a mom, so I think I have something that would go with that, though I have totally different opinions on the subject.
On the other hand, I have three new readers since spring break, so I should probably write something.
Welcome new readers.
Okay. I think for a while I will alternate the new stuff with the stuff that I'm bringing over from the other blog.
So here is the new stuff. I am waiting to see if I'm going to get some bad news. While I waiting to see if I get some bad news, I am also waiting to see if I get some other bad news. And right now at this very moment, I am waiting for the mechanic to call and tell me how much it is going to cost me to get the car fixed up to get a state inspection sticker.
So pretty much the high points of my week have been watching TV, and today finding out that only four people were in line ahead of me to get a new license plate.
At school the ceramics instructor decided that we were going to put glaze on the white tiles instead of underglaze. And this he tells me right when I'm putting on the underglaze. But that's okay, cause I like my tile and this gives me an excuse to make another one at the school's expense. Still, I need to finish something that actually counts towards my grade soon, and this isn't helping.
The next post will probably be one from the other blog. Today, one of my new readers wrote in her blog about being a mom, so I think I have something that would go with that, though I have totally different opinions on the subject.
Battlestar Galactica stuff
Most of this post is transferred from another blog. It is stuff about Battlestar Galactica. Most of it doesn't matter now, cause we pretty much learned the identities of the other Cylons on Sunday, but I thought I'd post it anyway.
(the following was originally posted on November 17th)
Carl Lumbly on Battlestar Galactica
Did anybody notice that doctor declared Bulldog was not a Cylon based on the fact that his DNA profile was the same as the one on record from three years ago?
Doesn't really prove that he's not a Cylon, does it?
Not that he is a Cylon. It's very unlikely that he's a Cylon. It's very unlikely that a Cylon spy just happens to be the pilot that got that particular black ops mission. If the Cylons deliberately sent him to get a mission like that, the odds of him actually being chosen for the mission have to be extremely small.
But the DNA profile just proves that he's either the same man that left three years ago, who may or may not have been a Cylon, or that he's one of the copies of the same model Cylon, if he was a Cylon, right?
I didn't see anything to suggest that the story is going to go that way, but when the doc first said that, I'm like--hey, that doesn't prove anything, so why'd he'd say that? Something is up with that. He wouldn't have said that just to being saying that.
But, everyone has not read the same books on writing that I have, so maybe he did say that just to be saying that.
Anybody think that we're descended from the Cylons or Sharron's baby instead of the thirteenth colony or people from the fleet?
(the following was originally posted on January 14th on another blog)
BSG discussion
Not much to say about last week. Except that I went to dinner with some friends, who were swearing a lot because Battlestar Galactica is moving to Sundays.
Then someone made a rude joke about Caprica Six. He said she should have named Caprica Five.
You figure it out.
That was followed by someone deciding what the remaining five Cylons were called.
I'm not going to explain that one either.
(the following was originally posted on another blog on February 26)
BSG joke
My brother loaned me his Space: Above and Beyond dvds.
I think I know why the blond Cylon on the new Battlestar Galactica is number six.
(the following is new material)
And that's all of Battlestar Galactica that we are going to get for the rest of the year. Not just the rest of the season, but the rest of the year. The new episodes won't start for at least nine months, which has led to a lot of swearing and a lot of jokes.
Nine months? Is somebody pregnant?
Well, actresses have gotten pregnant before, and they usually don't stop filming for nine months because of it. They film around the lady, or they hide her behind stuff, or they have her character kidnapped or sent to another country for a few months, or they pretend that she's trapped in a bottle for most of the season. They probably wouldn't stop filming for nine months unless half the cast all got pregnant at the same time.
The popular idea seems to be that something was filmed for the show that they now regret, that doesn't fit in with what they are writing for next season, and if they make us wait long enough we'll forget about whatever it was and not notice the problem.
(the following was originally posted on November 17th)
Carl Lumbly on Battlestar Galactica
Did anybody notice that doctor declared Bulldog was not a Cylon based on the fact that his DNA profile was the same as the one on record from three years ago?
Doesn't really prove that he's not a Cylon, does it?
Not that he is a Cylon. It's very unlikely that he's a Cylon. It's very unlikely that a Cylon spy just happens to be the pilot that got that particular black ops mission. If the Cylons deliberately sent him to get a mission like that, the odds of him actually being chosen for the mission have to be extremely small.
But the DNA profile just proves that he's either the same man that left three years ago, who may or may not have been a Cylon, or that he's one of the copies of the same model Cylon, if he was a Cylon, right?
I didn't see anything to suggest that the story is going to go that way, but when the doc first said that, I'm like--hey, that doesn't prove anything, so why'd he'd say that? Something is up with that. He wouldn't have said that just to being saying that.
But, everyone has not read the same books on writing that I have, so maybe he did say that just to be saying that.
Anybody think that we're descended from the Cylons or Sharron's baby instead of the thirteenth colony or people from the fleet?
(the following was originally posted on January 14th on another blog)
BSG discussion
Not much to say about last week. Except that I went to dinner with some friends, who were swearing a lot because Battlestar Galactica is moving to Sundays.
Then someone made a rude joke about Caprica Six. He said she should have named Caprica Five.
You figure it out.
That was followed by someone deciding what the remaining five Cylons were called.
I'm not going to explain that one either.
(the following was originally posted on another blog on February 26)
BSG joke
My brother loaned me his Space: Above and Beyond dvds.
I think I know why the blond Cylon on the new Battlestar Galactica is number six.
(the following is new material)
And that's all of Battlestar Galactica that we are going to get for the rest of the year. Not just the rest of the season, but the rest of the year. The new episodes won't start for at least nine months, which has led to a lot of swearing and a lot of jokes.
Nine months? Is somebody pregnant?
Well, actresses have gotten pregnant before, and they usually don't stop filming for nine months because of it. They film around the lady, or they hide her behind stuff, or they have her character kidnapped or sent to another country for a few months, or they pretend that she's trapped in a bottle for most of the season. They probably wouldn't stop filming for nine months unless half the cast all got pregnant at the same time.
The popular idea seems to be that something was filmed for the show that they now regret, that doesn't fit in with what they are writing for next season, and if they make us wait long enough we'll forget about whatever it was and not notice the problem.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Missing an old blog buddy
(most of this was originally posted on December 14th in another blog)
Cabinboy has not posted anything since September.
I know that it is none of my business. He's a grown man, and it's a free country, and he's allowed to stop blogging any time that he wants to. I just wonder what happened to him, that's all.
It's not like he said he wasn't going to blog anymore. That would be nice, if people would leave a note saying that they're too busy to deal with the blog for the next year or so. But I guess they rarely do that. Just one day he didn't blog for a while, and then his next post was about his dog dying. And then the post about the dog was removed, and then nothing.
His mom hasn't posted anything on her blog since then either.
It's silly to think that anything happened to them. It's silly to be concerned about people I have never even met. I should get over it.
I wonder what happened to Cabinbabe too.
Happy Holidays, wherever you are.
(the following is new material)
Wonder what happened to Elranito?
That's why I originally started writing to many of you. I hit the next blog button and found Elranito. Started reading Anon 1. Starting talking to Rachel. Starting talking to David and some other old guy who reads Heinlein, and one of them (can't remember which) refered to me as "one of Anon's harem."
Anyway, the guy was blogging for about two months. He was debating about whether or not he should move back to Miami. Then something happened to his computer. Then he got a new computer and said how much he loved Sony, and that was the last blog post.
Does anyone know if he moved back to Miami or if he's okay and all of that? Maybe if he moved back to Miami he has such a busy social calender that he no longer has time for blogging. Hope that it is something nice like that, and not that he was killed in a terrible car crash trying to drive on the ice in the great white north.
Cabinboy has not posted anything since September.
I know that it is none of my business. He's a grown man, and it's a free country, and he's allowed to stop blogging any time that he wants to. I just wonder what happened to him, that's all.
It's not like he said he wasn't going to blog anymore. That would be nice, if people would leave a note saying that they're too busy to deal with the blog for the next year or so. But I guess they rarely do that. Just one day he didn't blog for a while, and then his next post was about his dog dying. And then the post about the dog was removed, and then nothing.
His mom hasn't posted anything on her blog since then either.
It's silly to think that anything happened to them. It's silly to be concerned about people I have never even met. I should get over it.
I wonder what happened to Cabinbabe too.
Happy Holidays, wherever you are.
(the following is new material)
Wonder what happened to Elranito?
That's why I originally started writing to many of you. I hit the next blog button and found Elranito. Started reading Anon 1. Starting talking to Rachel. Starting talking to David and some other old guy who reads Heinlein, and one of them (can't remember which) refered to me as "one of Anon's harem."
Anyway, the guy was blogging for about two months. He was debating about whether or not he should move back to Miami. Then something happened to his computer. Then he got a new computer and said how much he loved Sony, and that was the last blog post.
Does anyone know if he moved back to Miami or if he's okay and all of that? Maybe if he moved back to Miami he has such a busy social calender that he no longer has time for blogging. Hope that it is something nice like that, and not that he was killed in a terrible car crash trying to drive on the ice in the great white north.
Thinking of transferring stuff from another blog
First I would like to say hello and welcome to a new reader. I stopped by your blog as well, but didn't really have any interesting comments that applied to anything. Just that I was confused for a moment and thought that Mr. Giggles was a cat. Guess I was reading too fast.
Anyway, over at eclectic spaghetti blog we were nominating ideas for silly holidays. One of them was write your blog like you live in a soap opera day, which is not really a special day thing here, since the blog started because of the little soap opera going on here because of the homewrecking-slut.
So I was thinking that maybe I have done a bit too much whining and such this month. I've decided that I'm going to transfer some of the posts from another blog here. I don't think that anyone reads that blog. So far the only comments I've gotten were from my husband and someone who was already reading this blog.
Originally, I had planned to do just the opposite. I had planned to transfer all the non-Bimbo related stuff to the other blog, where people would not be put off by my name. But since most of my readers are here, and there are fewer posts over there, moving stuff here seems a better idea.
A lot of that stuff at the other blog was written in December. While I don't think it is a problem to buy Christmas presents in March or have Halloween decorations out in April, I just thought I'd mention that the seasonal stuff I wrote about was actually written during the appropriate season.
Okay, on with the show.
Anyway, over at eclectic spaghetti blog we were nominating ideas for silly holidays. One of them was write your blog like you live in a soap opera day, which is not really a special day thing here, since the blog started because of the little soap opera going on here because of the homewrecking-slut.
So I was thinking that maybe I have done a bit too much whining and such this month. I've decided that I'm going to transfer some of the posts from another blog here. I don't think that anyone reads that blog. So far the only comments I've gotten were from my husband and someone who was already reading this blog.
Originally, I had planned to do just the opposite. I had planned to transfer all the non-Bimbo related stuff to the other blog, where people would not be put off by my name. But since most of my readers are here, and there are fewer posts over there, moving stuff here seems a better idea.
A lot of that stuff at the other blog was written in December. While I don't think it is a problem to buy Christmas presents in March or have Halloween decorations out in April, I just thought I'd mention that the seasonal stuff I wrote about was actually written during the appropriate season.
Okay, on with the show.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Elsewhere in the blogsphere
A while back, a friend of mine from the great white north noticed that I had both a "stupid people" post label and an "idiot bloggers" post label. He wondered if maybe I should have an category about intelligent people. I should at least have a "nice bloggers" label.
Today is the 27th of March, and if I am not mistaken, Playtah is spending the day in Minnapolis. She is going to audition for Last Comic Standing. Everyone wish Playtah luck.
There. My first "nice bloggers" post. The whole month of March is not totally about morons after all.
Good luck Playtah. Knock 'em dead, or whatever it is that you are supposed to do at an audition.
Today is the 27th of March, and if I am not mistaken, Playtah is spending the day in Minnapolis. She is going to audition for Last Comic Standing. Everyone wish Playtah luck.
There. My first "nice bloggers" post. The whole month of March is not totally about morons after all.
Good luck Playtah. Knock 'em dead, or whatever it is that you are supposed to do at an audition.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Well, that's f***** up
My husband's boss just called looking for him. Today's schedule has been canceled.
I skipped church yesterday so we could go and do stuff, cause he only had the one day off and was going to be out of town for a week. Now they're saying that they don't even need him today.
That would have been nice to know yesterday, or even two hours ago before he left.
Probably should save the rest of this for next Monday.
I skipped church yesterday so we could go and do stuff, cause he only had the one day off and was going to be out of town for a week. Now they're saying that they don't even need him today.
That would have been nice to know yesterday, or even two hours ago before he left.
Probably should save the rest of this for next Monday.
Monday Morons at conventions
As some of you may know, I recently went out of town the week of spring break. I wanted to rest and spend some time with my husband. I should have been home catching up on housework and doing stuff in the garden, but I decided that other things were more important.
While I was gone, I missed two small sci-fi conventions that were in my area the weekend of the 16th. I wanted to go to both of them, but besides the fact that I also wanted to go out of town and rest, I also did not have a lot of money and did not want to be tempted to buy autographs and such. Most of my friends went to one of them, and they had a blast even if they didn't spend money on autographs and such. Our little group even had a private room, and some of the actors stopped by. Can't get much better than having the actors in your private room.
But I didn't write this post to say I was a moron for not going to the convention. I did not have a perfect week away, but if I hadn't gone I think I would have regretted it. And I did not write this post to call my fellow get-a-lifers morons either.
I wrote this post to complain about the people who organize the conventions.
What were they thinking, organizing two convention on the same weekend?
I personally don't think that there is enough stuff like that to do in the area, and then there are two things the same weekend? You'd think that one of them would here about the other one and reschedule.
Unless maybe one of them did that on purpose.
I don't really think that was the case this time. I think that this is the third year for All-Con, and they are trying to make this an annual thing, and you want to try to have your annual thing on the same weekend every year. I did not go to the first one, but I went last year.
As for the comic con, those happen fairly often, and I think that the guy running that show either picks a day when he can get a good deal at the convention center, or on a day that he thinks he'll get most of the talent he's interested in signing. In my opinion, All-Con was not promoted very well this year, so it is very possible that comic con guy did not even know about the other convention until it was too late.
But in the past, we had a couple of groups doing conventions here, and they would be on the same weekend. It looked like Creation Con was trying to run off Vulkon. Vulkon would plan a convention, and then Creation Con would have something that same weekend, with really cheap tickets. Or Vulkon would plan a convention around a certain actor, and then Creation Con would plan a convention nearby for the month before that, with the same actor.
One time Vulkon planed a convention in Irving around the guy who played Odo (Rene Auberjonois) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Creation con then hired the same actor to be at one of their conventions the month before in Plano. If everyone already got Rene's autograph in Plano, then they probably wouldn't have any reason to buy tickets to the convention in Irving. Anyway, when the actor found out that Plano and Irving were in the same area, he decided to cancel on the Plano convention. He made the commitment to Vulkon first, and he didn't want to see them get screwed. I think he made the right decision, but it ticked off a lot of people who bought Creation Con tickets, who then couldn't get their money back. The convention in Plano wasn't cancelled, they just got a different actor. I don't even remember who it was, but it was someone who'd already been to that area, and a lot of the people already had that person's autograph.
After a couple of years of this sort of thing going on, Vulkon quit coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And Creation decided that they weren't making enough money here, so they quit doing Star Trek conventions here too. I think that they did a couple of Buffy the Vampire Slayer things, but I didn't go to them. And they did a Stargate thing two years ago, but that is all that they've done in the area for the last ten years or so.
So there was this whole stupid thing of both companies fighting over the area, and then neither one of them wanted to do business here. So we all got screwed.
I really hope that this isn't the same thing all over again.
While I was gone, I missed two small sci-fi conventions that were in my area the weekend of the 16th. I wanted to go to both of them, but besides the fact that I also wanted to go out of town and rest, I also did not have a lot of money and did not want to be tempted to buy autographs and such. Most of my friends went to one of them, and they had a blast even if they didn't spend money on autographs and such. Our little group even had a private room, and some of the actors stopped by. Can't get much better than having the actors in your private room.
But I didn't write this post to say I was a moron for not going to the convention. I did not have a perfect week away, but if I hadn't gone I think I would have regretted it. And I did not write this post to call my fellow get-a-lifers morons either.
I wrote this post to complain about the people who organize the conventions.
What were they thinking, organizing two convention on the same weekend?
I personally don't think that there is enough stuff like that to do in the area, and then there are two things the same weekend? You'd think that one of them would here about the other one and reschedule.
Unless maybe one of them did that on purpose.
I don't really think that was the case this time. I think that this is the third year for All-Con, and they are trying to make this an annual thing, and you want to try to have your annual thing on the same weekend every year. I did not go to the first one, but I went last year.
As for the comic con, those happen fairly often, and I think that the guy running that show either picks a day when he can get a good deal at the convention center, or on a day that he thinks he'll get most of the talent he's interested in signing. In my opinion, All-Con was not promoted very well this year, so it is very possible that comic con guy did not even know about the other convention until it was too late.
But in the past, we had a couple of groups doing conventions here, and they would be on the same weekend. It looked like Creation Con was trying to run off Vulkon. Vulkon would plan a convention, and then Creation Con would have something that same weekend, with really cheap tickets. Or Vulkon would plan a convention around a certain actor, and then Creation Con would plan a convention nearby for the month before that, with the same actor.
One time Vulkon planed a convention in Irving around the guy who played Odo (Rene Auberjonois) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Creation con then hired the same actor to be at one of their conventions the month before in Plano. If everyone already got Rene's autograph in Plano, then they probably wouldn't have any reason to buy tickets to the convention in Irving. Anyway, when the actor found out that Plano and Irving were in the same area, he decided to cancel on the Plano convention. He made the commitment to Vulkon first, and he didn't want to see them get screwed. I think he made the right decision, but it ticked off a lot of people who bought Creation Con tickets, who then couldn't get their money back. The convention in Plano wasn't cancelled, they just got a different actor. I don't even remember who it was, but it was someone who'd already been to that area, and a lot of the people already had that person's autograph.
After a couple of years of this sort of thing going on, Vulkon quit coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And Creation decided that they weren't making enough money here, so they quit doing Star Trek conventions here too. I think that they did a couple of Buffy the Vampire Slayer things, but I didn't go to them. And they did a Stargate thing two years ago, but that is all that they've done in the area for the last ten years or so.
So there was this whole stupid thing of both companies fighting over the area, and then neither one of them wanted to do business here. So we all got screwed.
I really hope that this isn't the same thing all over again.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Is it a weed?
You think you know what is weed is, don't you?
Well, if you're not into gardening, maybe you don't. It isn't a particular kind of plant. A weed is a plant that was not cultivated and you do not want. Or, at least, you do not want where it is growing. In theory, a rose bush could be a weed, or a tomato plant could be a weed, or a sunflower could be a weed. In theory, a dandelion could be cultivated.
In my yard, pecan tree seedlings are a common weed. Except for the very tall tree that was already there when I moved in, I do not want any pecan trees. I did not plant them. However, they did not accidentally appear in the pots with my pepper plants and next to my tomato plants. The squirrels did that for me. It was easier for them to put the pecans there, since I had already done most of the work.
Mulberry is also a common weed here. Many people find that the fruitless tree grows into a desirable shade tree, but most people do not actually like mulberry fruit and do not want fruiting trees. Birds eat mulberries, so someone who watches birds might want one, but the birds never eat all of the fruit, and the leftover rotting fruit on the ground smells horrible. It doesn't smell much worse than say, leftover rotting peaches or pears, but people eat those, so they like those trees better. I kind of like mulberries myself, so I've decided to keep one of this "weeds" in a large pot. If I can keep it small, the birds and I should be able to prevent the fruit from rotting.
So that one little mulberry tree growing in the pot is technically not a weed, but a volunteer. A plant that you did not intentionally grow that you like, or at least, that you don't dislike, is a volunteer. Unless it is growing in the wrong place. Sometimes you have to transplant volunteers to keep them from becoming weeds.
I have recently found a clump of "weeds" that turned out to be cilantro. I like cilantro. I like herbs in general, even though I rarely cook with those that I am able to grow. But I frequently buy cilantro to cook with, and maybe if I can get these transplanted I won't have to buy any this year. So the cilantro is not a weed in my yard, but a valued volunteer.
I think that wildflowers are volunteers. My neighbors think that they are weeds. I get notes taped to the door warning me to cut them or someone while be hired to cut them for me and I'll have the bill added to my rent. They should be able to tell that spiderwort is not a weed. In fact, it is in the bulb catalog, and here I've been lucky enough to get about a hundred or so for free. But it is difficult to convince people that they are pretty purple flowers when they only bloom in the morning, and I'm the only one to see it.
Another thing that the neighbors complain about is the jerusalem artichoke. It is a cultivated plant, and I do occasionally eat it, though not as much as the cilantro. It looks like a very tall sunflower, only without the big flower, and often without any flowers at all. But no, it is not a weed, and it is not even a volunteer. I went to the store and bought tubers and planted them. They are not weeds. I'm sorry that everyone else has trouble identifying plants, but get over it already. You'd think that someone would at least notice that they are all growing in one spot next to the onions and maybe get a clue from that.
To me, the worst weed is grass. Yes, everyone else loves their grass, but I hate it. I have no use for it. I do not have a golf course, nor do a have a cow or goat to feed it to. It is just the most invasive weed. I do not cultivate it, and I do not want it choking out my herbs and lettuce and such, therefore, it is a weed.
My neighbors have a different kind of weed. But they are not growing it. Or, at least, I have not seem them growing it. But I have smelled them using it.
Why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Well, if you're not into gardening, maybe you don't. It isn't a particular kind of plant. A weed is a plant that was not cultivated and you do not want. Or, at least, you do not want where it is growing. In theory, a rose bush could be a weed, or a tomato plant could be a weed, or a sunflower could be a weed. In theory, a dandelion could be cultivated.
In my yard, pecan tree seedlings are a common weed. Except for the very tall tree that was already there when I moved in, I do not want any pecan trees. I did not plant them. However, they did not accidentally appear in the pots with my pepper plants and next to my tomato plants. The squirrels did that for me. It was easier for them to put the pecans there, since I had already done most of the work.
Mulberry is also a common weed here. Many people find that the fruitless tree grows into a desirable shade tree, but most people do not actually like mulberry fruit and do not want fruiting trees. Birds eat mulberries, so someone who watches birds might want one, but the birds never eat all of the fruit, and the leftover rotting fruit on the ground smells horrible. It doesn't smell much worse than say, leftover rotting peaches or pears, but people eat those, so they like those trees better. I kind of like mulberries myself, so I've decided to keep one of this "weeds" in a large pot. If I can keep it small, the birds and I should be able to prevent the fruit from rotting.
So that one little mulberry tree growing in the pot is technically not a weed, but a volunteer. A plant that you did not intentionally grow that you like, or at least, that you don't dislike, is a volunteer. Unless it is growing in the wrong place. Sometimes you have to transplant volunteers to keep them from becoming weeds.
I have recently found a clump of "weeds" that turned out to be cilantro. I like cilantro. I like herbs in general, even though I rarely cook with those that I am able to grow. But I frequently buy cilantro to cook with, and maybe if I can get these transplanted I won't have to buy any this year. So the cilantro is not a weed in my yard, but a valued volunteer.
I think that wildflowers are volunteers. My neighbors think that they are weeds. I get notes taped to the door warning me to cut them or someone while be hired to cut them for me and I'll have the bill added to my rent. They should be able to tell that spiderwort is not a weed. In fact, it is in the bulb catalog, and here I've been lucky enough to get about a hundred or so for free. But it is difficult to convince people that they are pretty purple flowers when they only bloom in the morning, and I'm the only one to see it.
Another thing that the neighbors complain about is the jerusalem artichoke. It is a cultivated plant, and I do occasionally eat it, though not as much as the cilantro. It looks like a very tall sunflower, only without the big flower, and often without any flowers at all. But no, it is not a weed, and it is not even a volunteer. I went to the store and bought tubers and planted them. They are not weeds. I'm sorry that everyone else has trouble identifying plants, but get over it already. You'd think that someone would at least notice that they are all growing in one spot next to the onions and maybe get a clue from that.
To me, the worst weed is grass. Yes, everyone else loves their grass, but I hate it. I have no use for it. I do not have a golf course, nor do a have a cow or goat to feed it to. It is just the most invasive weed. I do not cultivate it, and I do not want it choking out my herbs and lettuce and such, therefore, it is a weed.
My neighbors have a different kind of weed. But they are not growing it. Or, at least, I have not seem them growing it. But I have smelled them using it.
Why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Saturday, March 24, 2007
A few more complaints about ceramic class
We didn't have to buy as much stuff for this ceramics class as I did for the one I took in 2004. We've only been asked to buy about half as much clay and a basic tool kit. We didn't have to buy mallets or paddles or paint brushes. We didn't have to pay for the plaster. (I did, but I wanted extra.) We haven't been asked to bring plywood or buy glaze or anything. We're even encouraged to pair off and buy the occasional bag of clay together and split it. I don't do that, because I want to do extra projects, but it's nice to have that option. The instructor has given us clay for three of our tiles, just because he thought it was pointless to have us buy a lot of clay when one or two bags could be divided up between the whole class. He didn't even collect a dollar from everyone to pay for it, he just found some way to get the school to buy it. There's even a whole table of underglazes that we can use if we have to paint anything.
So it's really nice that there is all this free stuff and they've tried to keep the costs down and all of that. But occasionally there is something that really gets on my nerves. And today I really hate the wedging table.
If you don't know what a wedging table is, it's this table with a plaster top that is covered with canvas. You knead the clay on this. And you cut your clay in half, stick it back together, hold it over your head, and then throw it back down on the table and listen to it make a loud "splat" sound. Then you do it again.
In theory, the clay doesn't stick to the table. Well, a little bit of it does stick to the canvas, and you're supposed to clean it up a bit after you use it. But there is still always a little bit left even after that. So you are supposed to work with the white clays on one side of the table, and the darker clays on the other side of the table. That way the white clay doesn't get stained with little tiny bits of darker clay on the canvas.
And, since we haven't got any other place to do this, the wedging table is also where we leave newly mixed clay that is too wet to work with.
Of course, whenever you want to use the wedging table, the side that you need is usually already in use. Either someone else is wedging, or someone has covered a fourth of the table with wet clay that has to sit there for a day or two. Also, on the white side of the table, the plaster seems to be breaking up under the canvas, and while you should be able to get a nice flat surface on your clay, your clay ends up having all these little craters on it.
And I've just found out that the next to last project has to be made from terra cotta. I've about run out of the terra cotta that I bought, and it seems dumb to buy any more of it, since I have a backyard full of mud that could be made into terra cotta clay.
So next time I go to class, I'm going to be evil and cover a fourth of the wedging table with wet clay.
And yes, I could just pour a slab of plaster so I could dry out my wet clay at home. But someone borrowed about half of that plaster I bought earlier, and that was a few weeks ago and I have not been repaid.
Oh, I just found out that not all of our projects will be fired this semester, and we'll have to go back and get some of our things during the summer.
So it's really nice that there is all this free stuff and they've tried to keep the costs down and all of that. But occasionally there is something that really gets on my nerves. And today I really hate the wedging table.
If you don't know what a wedging table is, it's this table with a plaster top that is covered with canvas. You knead the clay on this. And you cut your clay in half, stick it back together, hold it over your head, and then throw it back down on the table and listen to it make a loud "splat" sound. Then you do it again.
In theory, the clay doesn't stick to the table. Well, a little bit of it does stick to the canvas, and you're supposed to clean it up a bit after you use it. But there is still always a little bit left even after that. So you are supposed to work with the white clays on one side of the table, and the darker clays on the other side of the table. That way the white clay doesn't get stained with little tiny bits of darker clay on the canvas.
And, since we haven't got any other place to do this, the wedging table is also where we leave newly mixed clay that is too wet to work with.
Of course, whenever you want to use the wedging table, the side that you need is usually already in use. Either someone else is wedging, or someone has covered a fourth of the table with wet clay that has to sit there for a day or two. Also, on the white side of the table, the plaster seems to be breaking up under the canvas, and while you should be able to get a nice flat surface on your clay, your clay ends up having all these little craters on it.
And I've just found out that the next to last project has to be made from terra cotta. I've about run out of the terra cotta that I bought, and it seems dumb to buy any more of it, since I have a backyard full of mud that could be made into terra cotta clay.
So next time I go to class, I'm going to be evil and cover a fourth of the wedging table with wet clay.
And yes, I could just pour a slab of plaster so I could dry out my wet clay at home. But someone borrowed about half of that plaster I bought earlier, and that was a few weeks ago and I have not been repaid.
Oh, I just found out that not all of our projects will be fired this semester, and we'll have to go back and get some of our things during the summer.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Someday I'm going to need that
My husband liked to go to estate sales and garage sales and thrift stores. Since I've been married, this has been my habit as well. Not a week goes by that we don't at least go to a Half-Price Books store, and usually we manage to shop at a Goodwill or Thriftown. Even when we go out of town we usually stop at a Goodwill.
Always I see some odd thing that is either a really good deal on something common, or an okay deal on something uncommon. And I think that I should buy whatever it is, just in case. I don't need the thing now, but if I don't buy it now, I'll need something just like it in a month or so. But in a month or so the things will be gone, so if I really want it I have to buy it right now.
So I accumulated a lot of stuff. Some of it I didn't need after all. Some of it I did need, but when I needed it I couldn't find the one I got the good deal on, so I ended up buying another one. Some of it might have been useful, but it was damaged in a flood or when we moved or something. Some of it I forgot why I bought it and never did anything with it.
I try not to buy stuff like that anymore. I try to only buy things that are a really good deal that I know for sure I will use, or things that are really unique that I can't just go and buy later when it is more convenient. This year I bought a Dickel bottle (Saurian brandy from Star Trek). I can't really regret buying something like that. I don't think that they've made the things in the last thirty years.
But other things I am trying to cut back on. Like books. I can't seem to stop buying books. But I am at least not buying so many. I have bought books that I have never read and have not even opened since the day I bought them, which goes as far back as 2001 at least.
But still there are dumb things that I remember seeing for a good deal that I did not buy. And sometimes I regret it a few days later. But the really odd thing is that I will sometimes remember something being on sale that I didn't want at the time, and years later I still remember the sale, and years later still I finally have a use for the thing and think if only I had bought the thing back then I wouldn't have to spend more money on it now.
So lately I am regretting not buying something at a garage sale. The garage sale was at least three years ago, probably more like seven years ago. I had no use for the thing until just a month or so ago. Such a dumb thing. But for some reason the thing stuck in my head all of this time.
I was at a garage sale, and I saw a stack of about a dozen five gallon buckets. Everything in the world seems to come in five gallon buckets. Paint, laundry soap, bird seed, and pickles come in five gallon buckets. I already had a few of these buckets. Currently, I have five of them. About a year and a half ago, we painted my brother's apartment, and the year before that we painted ours, and I don't even think that we kept those two buckets. How many five gallons buckets does a person need anyway?
But I remember noticing this stack of buckets at the garage sale, and the man wanted 25 cents a piece for them. And I didn't need them for anything at the time, and I just couldn't imagine needing them for anything later. I don't even like five gallon buckets most of the time when I need a bucket. They are really big, and if you fill them with anything that makes them too heavy for me to carry, and they don't have a spout. I'd much rather have a smaller bucket with a spout from the dollar store.
Last summer I sort of regretted not having the five gallon buckets. I found a gardening book that suggested growing tomato plants and pepper plants in them, and the containers could easily be moved to areas with more sunlight in the spring and fall, and into more shade in the middle of summer. Maybe I could even move a few of them indoors for the winter. It seemed like a great idea. Of course that wouldn't have been a very attractive container, and I would have had to make something to hide the buckets behind so the neighbors wouldn't have a fit, so I didn't really regret it too much.
But now I am in ceramics class, and I find that more of the five gallon buckets would be helpful. We were actually required to have one in my other ceramics class, but we only used it for storage that time. (We kept our leftover clay in a bucket under a table, since the lockers were only big enough to store our tools.) But now I've found out that so many people use five gallon buckets in ceramics that it is just assumed that you have several, and there are tools designed to specifically go with five gallon buckets.
Someone has thought of the idea of putting a screen at the bottom of a flat bowl which exactly fits just inside the top of a five gallon bucket. It is a great idea. It makes things just a bit less messy. The bowl is about four inches deep and is big enough for maybe half a gallon of slip (clay and water mixed together). If you don't have a five gallon bucket and whatever you are using has an opening too large, you can't use this as a filter without getting someone else to hold the thing over your bucket. If you use something with an opening too small, the bowl could still be set on top of the bucket, but you'd have to be very careful with it or it would fall off and spill everywhere.
So now that I've learned that I can make terra cotta clay with the mud from my backyard if I use two or three of these screens, I think I could use some more five gallon buckets. I think about sixteen of them would make a good production line. And that makes me want to go to garage sales looking for cheap five gallon buckets, which is would just be the dumbest waste of time. If a lot of garage sales had stacks of five gallon buckets for a quarter, the one that I saw before wouldn't have made an impression. There's no way I'm going to go out this weekend and find that same thing for sale like that again.
I wish I did not remember dumb stuff like that.
Always I see some odd thing that is either a really good deal on something common, or an okay deal on something uncommon. And I think that I should buy whatever it is, just in case. I don't need the thing now, but if I don't buy it now, I'll need something just like it in a month or so. But in a month or so the things will be gone, so if I really want it I have to buy it right now.
So I accumulated a lot of stuff. Some of it I didn't need after all. Some of it I did need, but when I needed it I couldn't find the one I got the good deal on, so I ended up buying another one. Some of it might have been useful, but it was damaged in a flood or when we moved or something. Some of it I forgot why I bought it and never did anything with it.
I try not to buy stuff like that anymore. I try to only buy things that are a really good deal that I know for sure I will use, or things that are really unique that I can't just go and buy later when it is more convenient. This year I bought a Dickel bottle (Saurian brandy from Star Trek). I can't really regret buying something like that. I don't think that they've made the things in the last thirty years.
But other things I am trying to cut back on. Like books. I can't seem to stop buying books. But I am at least not buying so many. I have bought books that I have never read and have not even opened since the day I bought them, which goes as far back as 2001 at least.
But still there are dumb things that I remember seeing for a good deal that I did not buy. And sometimes I regret it a few days later. But the really odd thing is that I will sometimes remember something being on sale that I didn't want at the time, and years later I still remember the sale, and years later still I finally have a use for the thing and think if only I had bought the thing back then I wouldn't have to spend more money on it now.
So lately I am regretting not buying something at a garage sale. The garage sale was at least three years ago, probably more like seven years ago. I had no use for the thing until just a month or so ago. Such a dumb thing. But for some reason the thing stuck in my head all of this time.
I was at a garage sale, and I saw a stack of about a dozen five gallon buckets. Everything in the world seems to come in five gallon buckets. Paint, laundry soap, bird seed, and pickles come in five gallon buckets. I already had a few of these buckets. Currently, I have five of them. About a year and a half ago, we painted my brother's apartment, and the year before that we painted ours, and I don't even think that we kept those two buckets. How many five gallons buckets does a person need anyway?
But I remember noticing this stack of buckets at the garage sale, and the man wanted 25 cents a piece for them. And I didn't need them for anything at the time, and I just couldn't imagine needing them for anything later. I don't even like five gallon buckets most of the time when I need a bucket. They are really big, and if you fill them with anything that makes them too heavy for me to carry, and they don't have a spout. I'd much rather have a smaller bucket with a spout from the dollar store.
Last summer I sort of regretted not having the five gallon buckets. I found a gardening book that suggested growing tomato plants and pepper plants in them, and the containers could easily be moved to areas with more sunlight in the spring and fall, and into more shade in the middle of summer. Maybe I could even move a few of them indoors for the winter. It seemed like a great idea. Of course that wouldn't have been a very attractive container, and I would have had to make something to hide the buckets behind so the neighbors wouldn't have a fit, so I didn't really regret it too much.
But now I am in ceramics class, and I find that more of the five gallon buckets would be helpful. We were actually required to have one in my other ceramics class, but we only used it for storage that time. (We kept our leftover clay in a bucket under a table, since the lockers were only big enough to store our tools.) But now I've found out that so many people use five gallon buckets in ceramics that it is just assumed that you have several, and there are tools designed to specifically go with five gallon buckets.
Someone has thought of the idea of putting a screen at the bottom of a flat bowl which exactly fits just inside the top of a five gallon bucket. It is a great idea. It makes things just a bit less messy. The bowl is about four inches deep and is big enough for maybe half a gallon of slip (clay and water mixed together). If you don't have a five gallon bucket and whatever you are using has an opening too large, you can't use this as a filter without getting someone else to hold the thing over your bucket. If you use something with an opening too small, the bowl could still be set on top of the bucket, but you'd have to be very careful with it or it would fall off and spill everywhere.
So now that I've learned that I can make terra cotta clay with the mud from my backyard if I use two or three of these screens, I think I could use some more five gallon buckets. I think about sixteen of them would make a good production line. And that makes me want to go to garage sales looking for cheap five gallon buckets, which is would just be the dumbest waste of time. If a lot of garage sales had stacks of five gallon buckets for a quarter, the one that I saw before wouldn't have made an impression. There's no way I'm going to go out this weekend and find that same thing for sale like that again.
I wish I did not remember dumb stuff like that.
The quest for yarn, cell phones, and some peace of mind
I am just sort of ticked off about everything today. Yesterday I went to the evening ceramics class. On the way there I went looking for yarn. I went to four different stores. I cannot find the particular ugly green yarn that I used on the currently 26 foot long Dr. Who scarf. I usually use Red Heart, medium thyme color. But I didn't have any when I started this scarf, and they didn't have any at the Walmarts I went to that day. But they did have a display of a different brand yarn, camouflage colors, and I bought three skeins of this solid green color. I can't find a wrapper, so I don't know what the official name of the color is, but it's this army green color.
Since they had it at Walmart, I didn't think it would be hard to find. I have since been to four other Walmarts, and they don't have any. I have now also been to JoAnns's, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby. They all carry that brand yarn, and they even have the camouflage line, but they don't have that solid green color. I have now run out of places to look for the yarn.
I guess that I'm going to have to switch back to the medium thyme color. Not that I wasn't going to switch back eventually. This brand of yarn is a bit more expensive than the Red Heart. But I at least wanted all the yarn in the same scarf to match.
Tuesday night, I meant to write this funny post about going to the clinic. But somehow writing it just made me unhappy about the whole thing again. I'm unhappy with them for some other reasons too, which I won't go into that much. But there are all these tests that they require you to take, and I don't really see the point of all of them. Still, you try to be a grown-up about it and do what they say. But if you ask for an extra test, they tell you that they don't do that until you have a "problem." And I don't get that. I can see that they should insist certain people have an extra test or two, if there is a "problem," but I don't understand why they would refuse to give someone a test if they asked for it. Tell them that it probably isn't necessary, sure, but refuse to give them a test? What's up with that?
So I have to wait like two weeks for the regular test results, and then if there's a "problem", I'll have to have more tests and wait another two weeks for those. Why couldn't they just get them all over with at once so I don't have to wait a whole month? While I'm already at the clinic, go ahead and take more samples. If I'm already concerned about something, it just doesn't make any sense why I should have to wait for there to be a "problem" or why I should have to go back a second or third time and get poked, prodded, and/or stuck with a needle again when we could just get it all over with the first time.
Should I have lied and tried to make up a problem? At one point the doctor was asking me something like "Has this always been there?" Well, I don't know about always, but it has certainly been there a long time. And you'd think that it would be in my file somewhere. You'd think that someone would have made a note of it during my first exam, and that there would be year after year of notes about it, so that the next year they could just look at the file and see that yes it was there the last year and the year before that and so on. Maybe I should have said, "No, I've never seen that before. I just noticed it about a week ago. I think it's cancer. I'm going to die." Then maybe they would have done some of the extra tests I asked for in a effort to calm me down.
So I am ticked off about that too. There's no army green yarn, and I have to have blood drawn again in a week or two, I possibly have to have more tests a week after that, and I have to have a mammogram within the next three months. Not happy now at all.
I have all of this stuff to do, mostly housework, and I don't want to do it. I have these rare moments that I really want to just get on with it and get it done no matter how unpleasant it might seem. I have actually had three of these rare moments in the last few weeks, but right when I get started something comes up, everything gets postponed, and when I come back and look at it again I get really depressed about it. I give up on the idea and find something else to do.
Here's a silly thing I have to do, that for some reason I am now dreading more than that other stuff. I have to deal with this cell phone. I have to call someone and complain about this message on my cell phone. The first guy had such an accent that I had trouble understanding, and they ended up just sending me a new phone. The new phone came right before I went away for the week, so I had to call again and get the new phone registered. I could understand this man better, but he reminded me of the French guy Michelle on the Gilmore Girls. Anyway, you after you do that, you have to wait a day or two, and then you have to make a test call from your zip code. Only I went out of town and didn't take the phone with me since I couldn't make a test call from out of town anyway. So now I have this unregistered sim message on the phone, and I just don't want to deal with these people anymore.
I don't talk on cell phones much. It is supposed to be for emergencies. I use the thing once or twice a week for like two minutes. I have spent more time talking to the cell phone company people than I have actually spent talking on the cell phone.
No yarn, no cell phone, the house is a mess, stuff needs to be done in the garden, and I'm going to sit around for a couple of weeks wondering if there is a "problem."
Since they had it at Walmart, I didn't think it would be hard to find. I have since been to four other Walmarts, and they don't have any. I have now also been to JoAnns's, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby. They all carry that brand yarn, and they even have the camouflage line, but they don't have that solid green color. I have now run out of places to look for the yarn.
I guess that I'm going to have to switch back to the medium thyme color. Not that I wasn't going to switch back eventually. This brand of yarn is a bit more expensive than the Red Heart. But I at least wanted all the yarn in the same scarf to match.
Tuesday night, I meant to write this funny post about going to the clinic. But somehow writing it just made me unhappy about the whole thing again. I'm unhappy with them for some other reasons too, which I won't go into that much. But there are all these tests that they require you to take, and I don't really see the point of all of them. Still, you try to be a grown-up about it and do what they say. But if you ask for an extra test, they tell you that they don't do that until you have a "problem." And I don't get that. I can see that they should insist certain people have an extra test or two, if there is a "problem," but I don't understand why they would refuse to give someone a test if they asked for it. Tell them that it probably isn't necessary, sure, but refuse to give them a test? What's up with that?
So I have to wait like two weeks for the regular test results, and then if there's a "problem", I'll have to have more tests and wait another two weeks for those. Why couldn't they just get them all over with at once so I don't have to wait a whole month? While I'm already at the clinic, go ahead and take more samples. If I'm already concerned about something, it just doesn't make any sense why I should have to wait for there to be a "problem" or why I should have to go back a second or third time and get poked, prodded, and/or stuck with a needle again when we could just get it all over with the first time.
Should I have lied and tried to make up a problem? At one point the doctor was asking me something like "Has this always been there?" Well, I don't know about always, but it has certainly been there a long time. And you'd think that it would be in my file somewhere. You'd think that someone would have made a note of it during my first exam, and that there would be year after year of notes about it, so that the next year they could just look at the file and see that yes it was there the last year and the year before that and so on. Maybe I should have said, "No, I've never seen that before. I just noticed it about a week ago. I think it's cancer. I'm going to die." Then maybe they would have done some of the extra tests I asked for in a effort to calm me down.
So I am ticked off about that too. There's no army green yarn, and I have to have blood drawn again in a week or two, I possibly have to have more tests a week after that, and I have to have a mammogram within the next three months. Not happy now at all.
I have all of this stuff to do, mostly housework, and I don't want to do it. I have these rare moments that I really want to just get on with it and get it done no matter how unpleasant it might seem. I have actually had three of these rare moments in the last few weeks, but right when I get started something comes up, everything gets postponed, and when I come back and look at it again I get really depressed about it. I give up on the idea and find something else to do.
Here's a silly thing I have to do, that for some reason I am now dreading more than that other stuff. I have to deal with this cell phone. I have to call someone and complain about this message on my cell phone. The first guy had such an accent that I had trouble understanding, and they ended up just sending me a new phone. The new phone came right before I went away for the week, so I had to call again and get the new phone registered. I could understand this man better, but he reminded me of the French guy Michelle on the Gilmore Girls. Anyway, you after you do that, you have to wait a day or two, and then you have to make a test call from your zip code. Only I went out of town and didn't take the phone with me since I couldn't make a test call from out of town anyway. So now I have this unregistered sim message on the phone, and I just don't want to deal with these people anymore.
I don't talk on cell phones much. It is supposed to be for emergencies. I use the thing once or twice a week for like two minutes. I have spent more time talking to the cell phone company people than I have actually spent talking on the cell phone.
No yarn, no cell phone, the house is a mess, stuff needs to be done in the garden, and I'm going to sit around for a couple of weeks wondering if there is a "problem."
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I don't even know what to call this post
Someone told me that there was something in the Bimbo's blog about her f****** another married man and ruining his life even before we had ever heard of her. So much for her not going after married men. (She says that. She made a big deal about she didn't go after married men, that he was the first. Somehow the fact that she was after my married man didn't count. What? You're not a homewreckingslut if you only wreck one home?)
Anyway, I have read the post in question, and I don't see anywhere that she says he was married. But whatever was going on, she did f*** someone when she knew that she shouldn't, and it did really upset the guy. Ruining his life was mentioned. And again with the she has no regrets. She's determined not to regret anything, so of course she'll never learn from her mistakes. (If you can even call such a thing a mistake after you've very clearly thought about it and knew it was a bad idea, and then did it anyway. I tend to think a mistake is something that is almost an accident or something you did without giving it any thought.)
But whatever. I'm not up to reading through the whole thing again at this point to find out how she ruined the man's life or if he was actually married. But, yes, she's totally into ruining people's lives, not just mine. She supposedly feels bad that she hurts people, but if it is something she wants to do she does it anyway.
But never mind about her. The really funny thing is about her friend. The one that doesn't seem so much into hurting people and destroying marriages and ruining lives, but is really into some strange sex stuff.
For the most part, she seems much smarter than the Bimbo. And she doesn't have anything to do with married men. I am not sure if this is a moral stand, or if she's done that in the past and got hurt, or if she just doesn't think married men are worth the effort. All of that and more are good reasons not to get involved with married men, and she doesn't.
But she wrote the funniest thing a while back.
She said that she wished she had fewer hangups about sex.
????
The woman is into this S & M bondage stuff.
She's into leather and other weird clothing. (Okay, can't really fault her on that one, just trying to paint a picture. If you know my other identity you know I am not picking on her choice of clothing. This rest of you will just have to take my word for it.)
She's been in a threesome.
She has pretended to be a dog. (I don't think I'll explain that, but I am not referring to a common sex position.)
What hangups does the woman have left?
Does she regret that she's uncomfortable getting involved with married men?
Does she regret that she doesn't get paid for sex?
Does she want to do it on film?
Does she want to do it with animals?
Does she want to do it with someone underage?
Does she need more than two other people in bed with her?
????
What's left that she has these hangups?
Ask a dumb question....
There were five of them. Five. One, two, three, four, five. F****** five of them together.
She was all sad and sick about her decision to break up with someone. And then....
PARTY TIME!!!!
FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
????
Anyway, I have read the post in question, and I don't see anywhere that she says he was married. But whatever was going on, she did f*** someone when she knew that she shouldn't, and it did really upset the guy. Ruining his life was mentioned. And again with the she has no regrets. She's determined not to regret anything, so of course she'll never learn from her mistakes. (If you can even call such a thing a mistake after you've very clearly thought about it and knew it was a bad idea, and then did it anyway. I tend to think a mistake is something that is almost an accident or something you did without giving it any thought.)
But whatever. I'm not up to reading through the whole thing again at this point to find out how she ruined the man's life or if he was actually married. But, yes, she's totally into ruining people's lives, not just mine. She supposedly feels bad that she hurts people, but if it is something she wants to do she does it anyway.
But never mind about her. The really funny thing is about her friend. The one that doesn't seem so much into hurting people and destroying marriages and ruining lives, but is really into some strange sex stuff.
For the most part, she seems much smarter than the Bimbo. And she doesn't have anything to do with married men. I am not sure if this is a moral stand, or if she's done that in the past and got hurt, or if she just doesn't think married men are worth the effort. All of that and more are good reasons not to get involved with married men, and she doesn't.
But she wrote the funniest thing a while back.
She said that she wished she had fewer hangups about sex.
????
The woman is into this S & M bondage stuff.
She's into leather and other weird clothing. (Okay, can't really fault her on that one, just trying to paint a picture. If you know my other identity you know I am not picking on her choice of clothing. This rest of you will just have to take my word for it.)
She's been in a threesome.
She has pretended to be a dog. (I don't think I'll explain that, but I am not referring to a common sex position.)
What hangups does the woman have left?
Does she regret that she's uncomfortable getting involved with married men?
Does she regret that she doesn't get paid for sex?
Does she want to do it on film?
Does she want to do it with animals?
Does she want to do it with someone underage?
Does she need more than two other people in bed with her?
????
What's left that she has these hangups?
Ask a dumb question....
There were five of them. Five. One, two, three, four, five. F****** five of them together.
She was all sad and sick about her decision to break up with someone. And then....
PARTY TIME!!!!
FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
????
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Annual Physical
Okay. Today is the dreaded day, but I'm a grown woman and this is going to be no big deal. One of life's little annoyances. I get it over with today, hopefully get a clean bill of health, and another year's supply of birth control pills and things of that nature.
I don't waste time talking to a friend at school. It would have been a good day to have a nice long chat, but no, I have a schedule to keep. I left at 11:30 and got on a freeway that I rarely use, because the exam is three towns away from the college.
At 12:00 I got off of the freeway. At 12:05 I buy a taco and a large Coke. I don't really need the calories in the large Coke, but I deserve something with lots of sugar to make up for the rest of this awful day.
At 12:45 I am at the clinic. Perfect timing. There's usually a form to fill out, and my appointment is at 1:00. I sign in and take a seat.
At 1:05 a woman is trying to get her little girl to behave. The little girl keeps going to get magazines for people who don't want them. I'd like a magazine. She brings me a phone book. Nice.
At 1:35 not only has my name not been called, but they haven't given me any forms to fill out. There are usually forms to fill out. Did they forget about me?
At 1:40 the receptionist tells me that I do not need to fill out any forms because I was there for something else a few months ago, and those forms only need to be filled out once a year. And I'll be the next one called.
Okay.
At 2:15 my name is finally called. Come this way, please. Could you step on the scale, please. Could you give us a urine sample?
Okay.
2:20--Thank you. Could you please go to the next room and have a seat on the blue chair? Thank you. Now, could you look this over and tell us if there have been any changes since your last visit? Thank you. Now if you'll roll up your sleeve we'll get your blood pressure. Thank you. Now if you'll disrobe and put this on with the opening in front and put this over your legs, the doctor will be with you shortly. Thank you.
2:40--Thank you for waiting. Your blood pressure seems a little high. Any reason for that? I see. We'll have to have that checked again soon. Also, since you've reached the magic age of 40, you'll have to have a mammogram within the next three months, but we don't do those here. Please pick up a referral list before you leave. Are you experiencing any other problems that we might help you with?
I don't think so.
2:45--Now if you'll just take a deep breath. Breath in, breath out. And again. And again. One more time. Thank you. Now if you'll move down to the edge of the table and put your feet here. Thank you. Now this is going to feel a bit cold. Almost done now. Just a couple more things. Okay. Now there's this last thing that we advise now that you've reached the magic age of 40....
Where?
Okay, fine, get it over with.
2:55--Now you can get dressed, and I'll be right back to take some of your blood.
3:00--Okay, this is going to sting a little. Oh, that's going to leave a bruise. Here, hold this down tight. Got plenty of blood for the tests now. Blood just popped right out. We should know in a couple of weeks if anything is wrong, and you'll need to get your cholesterol checked in a week or so. Just don't eat anything that morning before you come in. Okay, all done. Don't forget the referral list on your way out.
3:05--Okay, that will be two hundred and four dollars.
I don't waste time talking to a friend at school. It would have been a good day to have a nice long chat, but no, I have a schedule to keep. I left at 11:30 and got on a freeway that I rarely use, because the exam is three towns away from the college.
At 12:00 I got off of the freeway. At 12:05 I buy a taco and a large Coke. I don't really need the calories in the large Coke, but I deserve something with lots of sugar to make up for the rest of this awful day.
At 12:45 I am at the clinic. Perfect timing. There's usually a form to fill out, and my appointment is at 1:00. I sign in and take a seat.
At 1:05 a woman is trying to get her little girl to behave. The little girl keeps going to get magazines for people who don't want them. I'd like a magazine. She brings me a phone book. Nice.
At 1:35 not only has my name not been called, but they haven't given me any forms to fill out. There are usually forms to fill out. Did they forget about me?
At 1:40 the receptionist tells me that I do not need to fill out any forms because I was there for something else a few months ago, and those forms only need to be filled out once a year. And I'll be the next one called.
Okay.
At 2:15 my name is finally called. Come this way, please. Could you step on the scale, please. Could you give us a urine sample?
Okay.
2:20--Thank you. Could you please go to the next room and have a seat on the blue chair? Thank you. Now, could you look this over and tell us if there have been any changes since your last visit? Thank you. Now if you'll roll up your sleeve we'll get your blood pressure. Thank you. Now if you'll disrobe and put this on with the opening in front and put this over your legs, the doctor will be with you shortly. Thank you.
2:40--Thank you for waiting. Your blood pressure seems a little high. Any reason for that? I see. We'll have to have that checked again soon. Also, since you've reached the magic age of 40, you'll have to have a mammogram within the next three months, but we don't do those here. Please pick up a referral list before you leave. Are you experiencing any other problems that we might help you with?
I don't think so.
2:45--Now if you'll just take a deep breath. Breath in, breath out. And again. And again. One more time. Thank you. Now if you'll move down to the edge of the table and put your feet here. Thank you. Now this is going to feel a bit cold. Almost done now. Just a couple more things. Okay. Now there's this last thing that we advise now that you've reached the magic age of 40....
Where?
Okay, fine, get it over with.
2:55--Now you can get dressed, and I'll be right back to take some of your blood.
3:00--Okay, this is going to sting a little. Oh, that's going to leave a bruise. Here, hold this down tight. Got plenty of blood for the tests now. Blood just popped right out. We should know in a couple of weeks if anything is wrong, and you'll need to get your cholesterol checked in a week or so. Just don't eat anything that morning before you come in. Okay, all done. Don't forget the referral list on your way out.
3:05--Okay, that will be two hundred and four dollars.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Monday Morons at motels
So I'd like to talk a bit about this last trip specifically, and then a bit about travel in general.
So we were off to spend a few days in the middle of nowhere Texas, near a lake, and very near the Louisiana border. The week before we left, my husband had talked to a few people about where we were going and whether or not there would be a good motel in town and stuff like that. Several of the people had been to this little town before. He was told not to worry about that. There was a motel. No one seemed to remember the name of it, but it used to be a Super 8.
I do not quite understand why people say stuff like that. If we've never been there before, we don't know where the Super 8 used to be.
Now, maybe I lived down the street from a motel that used to be a Ramada Inn, but telling someone from out of town to go to the old Ramada Inn just doesn't help, unless the out of state person used to live near me about two years ago and happens to remember where the Ramada Inn was. Or maybe a person has visited the place so often that he knows where the Ramada used to be. But mostly, it seems like a dumb thing to say, but people say stuff like that a lot.
My husband once had to work at a mall and was told to set up in the space that used to be the San Fransisco Music Box Company. After they take the sign down, how are you supposed to know which space used to be the San Fransisco Music Box Company?
Another time my husband had to set up photography equipment at a clubhouse that we were told was "down the street from the Rock Shop" but not to worry about it, cause everyone knows where it is. Well, first, we don't know where the clubhouse is and we don't know where the Rock Shop is, or we wouldn't be asking. And everyone going to this event is not a member of your club, so maybe they don't know where your clubhouse is, and maybe they don't know where the Rock Shop is either.
So we were driving out in middle of nowhere Texas, looking for what used to be a Super 8. The mapquest directions were very bad, and at some point we were supposed to get on this little dirt road. No way. We went back about ten miles to try a different way. We found the town, but it seemed smaller than I expected. I didn't even see a Walmart. How small do you have to be to not have a Wallmart?
But, we did find a grocery store, and somebody there knew of the place that used to be a Super 8. So were were again sent about ten miles out of town, but this time directed towards Louisiana. We drove through another small town on the way there, but we found the place, and the address on their business cards stated that we were still in the town that we drove away from ten miles back. Whatever.
I do not know what kind of gerrymandering nonsense was going on when the map of this place was drawn. My husband went to look for the church that he was supposed to work in this little town. So he drove back away from almost the Louisiana border going west and then a bit south back into town. And he couldn't find the place. But again he went to the grocery store to ask for directions, and he was sent back out of town, south this time. He drove almost twenty miles and passed through yet another couple of small towns to get there, but he did find the place. And of course, there was another motel right next to the church, but it didn't used to be a Super 8, and no one told him about it, and now we already had the other room. So he had to drive forty-five minutes everyday to go to work, even though the addresses of both places were supposedly in the same small town.
But back to the motel that used to be a Super 8. The place is right on the lake, and the lake is very pretty and all of that. But lakes are wet. And it rains a lot, and it rained several times while we were there. And, like a lot of places, there is a mat outside the door so that hopefully you do not track too much water inside when it does rain. Only this place had a mat so big that it extended past the doorway's small overhang, and so the mat was actually out in the rain so that it really soaked up more water for you to step in right when you came in the door. And there was not a second dry mat inside the door. So the floor got a bit wet every time someone came in the building.
Most motels I have been in the past few years have television sets in the breakfast area, so that the guests can watch the morning news while they are having their donuts and coffee. I have thought it would be nice if the TVs were on a turntable so that the employees could watch TV from the front desk after the guests finish with breakfast. At this place, they didn't even bother with that. They actually had the TV permanently turned toward the front desk so that the guests can't see it at all. Every morning I listened to JAG during breakfast, rather than watch the news as I did at most places.
The company my husband works for wants him to send them a package everyday. Now that they use digital cameras, the package ends up being very small, so you'd think once or twice a week would be often enough and they could put more stuff in one package, but they don't see it that way. Fine. The package is picked up everyday by DHL, which is like Fed Ex or UPS, but they drive red and yellow vans. When we are near home, we leave the packages in a drop box, but when we are out of town and don't know where the drop box is, we leave the package with the front desk and call for a pick-up.
The first day we called DHL we were told that this place was so remote that they might not get to it that day. It wasn't near the routes that had been given out that morning. They couldn't get to it before 5pm, and they thought it might not be picked up until the next morning. Fine. The next morning we called very early and told them that we had another package. They still hadn't picked up the first one, and we just wanted to remind them about that one and tell them that now there was a second one. We we came back from dinner on Wednesday night, both packages were still waiting to be picked up. We decided if they were still there on Thursday morning when we left that we should take them with us.
At some point before we left Thursday morning, one of the packages was picked up, and the other was not. What is up with that? I can understand not being about to find the place, since it is on a lake and ten miles away from the place on the map, but I don't understand why after someone found the place that they would only pick up one package after we called and told them that they needed to pickup a second package.
I get really annoyed with places that claim to have a Jacuzzi or whirlpool or spa or hot tub or sauna. This place claimed to have a heat indoor pool, and I don't remember if they used the term spa or hot tub. But anyway, it was on the sign at the front desk. And the hot tub or spa part was not marked out, so it should still be there. And the indoor pool and tub were both there, but the pool didn't seem very warm to me, and there was not a drop of hot water in the tub. There was hot water in the shower, and there was enough hot water in the sink that if you weren't careful you might get burned. But they couldn't seem to get any hot water in the actual hot tub.
I seem to have a lot of trouble with stuff like that. We sometimes pay a little bit more or drive a little bit farther to get a place advertising a hot tub and/or sauna, but when we get there we can't use it. Sometimes we just have bad luck and it just so happens that it is being repaired while we are there. Sometimes the thing hasn't worked in months or years, but they continue to advertise it. Half the time the thing is outside, and it is closed for the winter. The other half of the time it is the summer and it hasn't even been turned on because they claim they didn't think anyone would want to use it unless it was cold outside.
I really like hot tubs, but I don't care that much for saunas. My husband likes both. Hot tubs are more common than saunas. Whenever we find a place in our budget advertising a sauna, we try to go there. A few times we have found that the advertised sauna was actually a hot tub.
I can understand when a person says Jacuzzi, which is a brand name, when they actually mean some other hot tub. Whirlpool might also be a brand name, but I would still understand that it was some form of hot tub. The word spa is a bit more confusing, since it is sometimes used to mean a plastic hot tub with water jets, but sometimes it means a place where you can get rubbed with sea salt and have your nails done while you take a nap with cucumber slices over your eyelids.
But a sauna is a small room with steam. It is not a hot tub. It might be next to a hot tub, but it is not a hot tub. Nor is the room the hot tub is in properly called a sauna. If there is enough steam coming from the hot tub that you think the hot tub room is an actual sauna, then the hot tub is way too hot and someone could get killed. I understand the confusion about the word spa, and I understand if a person calls their less expensive hot tub a Jacuzzi, but I don't understand how a person could get hot tub mixed up with sauna.
Let me close with the two dumb things I did during the trip. First, when I was packing, I left the keys in the car door, and I didn't discover them there until we were on the other side of Tyler. And the other thing I did was I spent several days just across the bridge from Louisiana, and I forgot to buy Powerball tickets. And we actually went into Louisiana for lunch on Monday. But it turned out okay, since my regular numbers didn't win any money that week, and I don't regret not getting a few quick-picks either.
Oh, I almost forgot. The vasectomy reversal billboards are still up, in case anyone needs that service in Houston. We saw one going east on I-20, and we saw another one coming home on I-45.
So we were off to spend a few days in the middle of nowhere Texas, near a lake, and very near the Louisiana border. The week before we left, my husband had talked to a few people about where we were going and whether or not there would be a good motel in town and stuff like that. Several of the people had been to this little town before. He was told not to worry about that. There was a motel. No one seemed to remember the name of it, but it used to be a Super 8.
I do not quite understand why people say stuff like that. If we've never been there before, we don't know where the Super 8 used to be.
Now, maybe I lived down the street from a motel that used to be a Ramada Inn, but telling someone from out of town to go to the old Ramada Inn just doesn't help, unless the out of state person used to live near me about two years ago and happens to remember where the Ramada Inn was. Or maybe a person has visited the place so often that he knows where the Ramada used to be. But mostly, it seems like a dumb thing to say, but people say stuff like that a lot.
My husband once had to work at a mall and was told to set up in the space that used to be the San Fransisco Music Box Company. After they take the sign down, how are you supposed to know which space used to be the San Fransisco Music Box Company?
Another time my husband had to set up photography equipment at a clubhouse that we were told was "down the street from the Rock Shop" but not to worry about it, cause everyone knows where it is. Well, first, we don't know where the clubhouse is and we don't know where the Rock Shop is, or we wouldn't be asking. And everyone going to this event is not a member of your club, so maybe they don't know where your clubhouse is, and maybe they don't know where the Rock Shop is either.
So we were driving out in middle of nowhere Texas, looking for what used to be a Super 8. The mapquest directions were very bad, and at some point we were supposed to get on this little dirt road. No way. We went back about ten miles to try a different way. We found the town, but it seemed smaller than I expected. I didn't even see a Walmart. How small do you have to be to not have a Wallmart?
But, we did find a grocery store, and somebody there knew of the place that used to be a Super 8. So were were again sent about ten miles out of town, but this time directed towards Louisiana. We drove through another small town on the way there, but we found the place, and the address on their business cards stated that we were still in the town that we drove away from ten miles back. Whatever.
I do not know what kind of gerrymandering nonsense was going on when the map of this place was drawn. My husband went to look for the church that he was supposed to work in this little town. So he drove back away from almost the Louisiana border going west and then a bit south back into town. And he couldn't find the place. But again he went to the grocery store to ask for directions, and he was sent back out of town, south this time. He drove almost twenty miles and passed through yet another couple of small towns to get there, but he did find the place. And of course, there was another motel right next to the church, but it didn't used to be a Super 8, and no one told him about it, and now we already had the other room. So he had to drive forty-five minutes everyday to go to work, even though the addresses of both places were supposedly in the same small town.
But back to the motel that used to be a Super 8. The place is right on the lake, and the lake is very pretty and all of that. But lakes are wet. And it rains a lot, and it rained several times while we were there. And, like a lot of places, there is a mat outside the door so that hopefully you do not track too much water inside when it does rain. Only this place had a mat so big that it extended past the doorway's small overhang, and so the mat was actually out in the rain so that it really soaked up more water for you to step in right when you came in the door. And there was not a second dry mat inside the door. So the floor got a bit wet every time someone came in the building.
Most motels I have been in the past few years have television sets in the breakfast area, so that the guests can watch the morning news while they are having their donuts and coffee. I have thought it would be nice if the TVs were on a turntable so that the employees could watch TV from the front desk after the guests finish with breakfast. At this place, they didn't even bother with that. They actually had the TV permanently turned toward the front desk so that the guests can't see it at all. Every morning I listened to JAG during breakfast, rather than watch the news as I did at most places.
The company my husband works for wants him to send them a package everyday. Now that they use digital cameras, the package ends up being very small, so you'd think once or twice a week would be often enough and they could put more stuff in one package, but they don't see it that way. Fine. The package is picked up everyday by DHL, which is like Fed Ex or UPS, but they drive red and yellow vans. When we are near home, we leave the packages in a drop box, but when we are out of town and don't know where the drop box is, we leave the package with the front desk and call for a pick-up.
The first day we called DHL we were told that this place was so remote that they might not get to it that day. It wasn't near the routes that had been given out that morning. They couldn't get to it before 5pm, and they thought it might not be picked up until the next morning. Fine. The next morning we called very early and told them that we had another package. They still hadn't picked up the first one, and we just wanted to remind them about that one and tell them that now there was a second one. We we came back from dinner on Wednesday night, both packages were still waiting to be picked up. We decided if they were still there on Thursday morning when we left that we should take them with us.
At some point before we left Thursday morning, one of the packages was picked up, and the other was not. What is up with that? I can understand not being about to find the place, since it is on a lake and ten miles away from the place on the map, but I don't understand why after someone found the place that they would only pick up one package after we called and told them that they needed to pickup a second package.
I get really annoyed with places that claim to have a Jacuzzi or whirlpool or spa or hot tub or sauna. This place claimed to have a heat indoor pool, and I don't remember if they used the term spa or hot tub. But anyway, it was on the sign at the front desk. And the hot tub or spa part was not marked out, so it should still be there. And the indoor pool and tub were both there, but the pool didn't seem very warm to me, and there was not a drop of hot water in the tub. There was hot water in the shower, and there was enough hot water in the sink that if you weren't careful you might get burned. But they couldn't seem to get any hot water in the actual hot tub.
I seem to have a lot of trouble with stuff like that. We sometimes pay a little bit more or drive a little bit farther to get a place advertising a hot tub and/or sauna, but when we get there we can't use it. Sometimes we just have bad luck and it just so happens that it is being repaired while we are there. Sometimes the thing hasn't worked in months or years, but they continue to advertise it. Half the time the thing is outside, and it is closed for the winter. The other half of the time it is the summer and it hasn't even been turned on because they claim they didn't think anyone would want to use it unless it was cold outside.
I really like hot tubs, but I don't care that much for saunas. My husband likes both. Hot tubs are more common than saunas. Whenever we find a place in our budget advertising a sauna, we try to go there. A few times we have found that the advertised sauna was actually a hot tub.
I can understand when a person says Jacuzzi, which is a brand name, when they actually mean some other hot tub. Whirlpool might also be a brand name, but I would still understand that it was some form of hot tub. The word spa is a bit more confusing, since it is sometimes used to mean a plastic hot tub with water jets, but sometimes it means a place where you can get rubbed with sea salt and have your nails done while you take a nap with cucumber slices over your eyelids.
But a sauna is a small room with steam. It is not a hot tub. It might be next to a hot tub, but it is not a hot tub. Nor is the room the hot tub is in properly called a sauna. If there is enough steam coming from the hot tub that you think the hot tub room is an actual sauna, then the hot tub is way too hot and someone could get killed. I understand the confusion about the word spa, and I understand if a person calls their less expensive hot tub a Jacuzzi, but I don't understand how a person could get hot tub mixed up with sauna.
Let me close with the two dumb things I did during the trip. First, when I was packing, I left the keys in the car door, and I didn't discover them there until we were on the other side of Tyler. And the other thing I did was I spent several days just across the bridge from Louisiana, and I forgot to buy Powerball tickets. And we actually went into Louisiana for lunch on Monday. But it turned out okay, since my regular numbers didn't win any money that week, and I don't regret not getting a few quick-picks either.
Oh, I almost forgot. The vasectomy reversal billboards are still up, in case anyone needs that service in Houston. We saw one going east on I-20, and we saw another one coming home on I-45.
It is good to be back in my own bed
My husband got off work early yesterday, so we came home. I hated to waste the money, since we'd already paid for the room for the night, but it wasn't that great of a room and we didn't have any plans in the area for this morning, so we left. And, even though we stopped and had dinner with the only one in his family he is still speaking to, we still got home before dark.
Not that I got much sleep. I forgot to take a pill. Somehow, part of me must realize that I forgot to take it, because I never seem to get enough sleep when that happens. But usually, it is not a big deal. I finally realize I forgot to take something, and I either go to the kitchen or the bathroom for a drink of water and take the pill and go back to bed. But tonight I realized I forgot to take something, and the medications were packed in a bag that I'd taken on the trip. And the bag did not turn up in the pile of stuff dumped in the living room, so I had to get dressed to go out and get the bag out of the car. So by the time I did all of that I was pretty much awake and not going back to sleep any time soon.
But it is still better to have insomnia in my own home. At least here I can play with the computer.
As some of you might have guessed, I have been away for the week, and I did not have Internet access. I did get to take my knitting machine, which is actually a lot like packing a big screen TV. When it is put together, the knitting machine is 39 inches long. Rather than risk damaging it, I do not take the thing apart. If I have to put it away or move it somewhere, the box I keep it in is 44 inches long, about 20 inches wide, and about 7 inches deep. To make room for it, I packed clothes in the smallest bag I could find and we took out the Coleman electric cooler. Since I didn't cook anything to take on the trip, and we hoped to have refrigerators at the motels, we didn't really need the cooler.
I hadn't really made arrangements to have my mail picked up and stuff like that, but my brother lives across the field, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I put four plants in the sink and hoped they would survive without me for a while. But I still left the house thinking something was wrong.
The first stop was the Dairy Palace for buffalo burgers. It was a bit expensive for hamburgers, but we liked the place, and I finally started to relax a bit.
The second stop was a Walmart. I had packed the knitting machine, but since I didn't think I'd be able to do that, I hadn't bought any yarn. And I totally lucked out at Walmart. They had five of the exact colors I needed for one scarf, and they had two other colors that were close enough that I switched and used them. They also had three out of four colors I needed for two other scarves, which left me lacking only the light grey for the Ravenclaw scarf, and I was pretty sure that I'd be able to get that Thursday morning at a Hobby Lobby. I couldn't go to Hobby Lobby that day, because they are closed on Sundays.
The first motel was right on the lake. There's all sorts of dumb stuff I have to say about the motel, but since tomorrow is Monday, I will save it. Still, a motel right on the lake is nice, and that sort of thing rarely happens. And we didn't even plan it that way. The motel just happened to be on the lake.
It did tend to rain a lot. But when it didn't rain, I was on this beautiful spot on the lake, and when it did rain, I had plenty of knitting to keep me busy.
So there was this seafood restaurant on the lake, and my husband thought that we should go. And it looked really cool with plants and palm trees and such. Inside were mounted fish and head of furry things with big horns. And luckily there was a line of people in front of us, or we might not have noticed the sign saying that their credit card machine wasn't working, or we might have spent the night washing dishes. But, we were out in the middle of nowhere, and the place closed at nine, so we ended up just going back to the motel and microwaving soup. We were just not up to looking for an ATM in the dark. We'd just go there some other time for lunch.
Only the place wasn't open at all on Monday or Tuesday, and they only opened from 4-9 on Wednesday, when my husband would be at work, and we'd be leaving the next day. So no Bryce's Seafood for us.
The next day we went to a different fish place in Louisiana. And they had fish mounted on the walls. And pictures of people posing with fish. And T-shirts with fish. And we ate catfish. And just the whole area was all about the fish.
On one of the times that it was not raining, I went for a walk and picked up some pine-cones and stuff like that. I found seed pods from water lilies. I don't know what the seed pods are called, but they look interesting. I found some more of those, but before I went back for them it started raining again. Maybe it is just as well. I pick up this stuff once in a while, saying that I will make wreaths or something with them, but there are no wreaths in my house, and I can't remember the last time I actually finished making a wreath.
Well, I did almost stay home from this trip. But the night before we left I did mention some rules, and he wasn't happy about it, but he didn't seem actually mad about it either. So that was awkward, but I was glad I got that over with before we left and thought that was the end of it. But, no, he still doesn't get it. We sort of had the discussion again. And one evening I thought it was going to get ugly, but it didn't. But he still doesn't get it. He so doesn't get it I don't even want to bother talking about it anymore. Can't we even just agree that we are not going to have serious discussions about our relationship while we are out of town? Even if there was a point to having one of these same discussions again, or even if there is something new to talk about, can't we talk about it at home? While we're out of town, can't we at least pretend things are okay?
So I mostly got through to him, and he said that everything was okay, and there was nothing to get upset about.
Wednesday night he got off of work early. He got off early enough that we went back to Bryce's seafood restaurant. The dinning area was not so interesting as I would have thought from the outside. And the light inside was really bright, and it was really dark outside, so we couldn't see the lake. They have these really huge windows, and they are right on the lake, but you can't see any of it. And I was really tired Wednesday night. The I'm going to fall asleep on my food kind of tired. So it was really nice of him to take me there, but it just wasn't as nice as we had imagined it would be Sunday night. And it wasn't that late either. We got back to the motel in time to watch LOST.
I was working on a Dr. Who scarf. I think it is season 17. Anyway, it is whatever season they took two of the old scarves and sewed them together. The panel was about 26 feet long when I had to stop because I ran out of green yarn. That took fourteen hours. It will take about another hour to finish knitting on the machine, I don't know how long to join the tube together, and another two hours for the fringe. It might end up being 30 hours or so.
Then it was Thursday morning, and we went to some other small Texas town. This one was between Dallas and Houston. On the way there we stopped at Hobby Lobby and got my grey yarn for the Ravenclaw scarf. I was not crazy about the motel. And maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed damp or humid or something. It made sense on the lake, but not here. I knitted and joined the Ravenclaw scarf, and the final Gryffindor scarf for the wife of my friend from up north. Now I just have to put fringe on both of those, which should take about four hours.
Friday we had lunch at someplace called the Moosehead Cafe. Without thinking, I ordered the special, which was catfish. I must have had catfish five or six times that trip. Not that it was bad, but I should have ordered just about anything except catfish. My husband also bought some fig preserves. We almost bought something called Blue Blazes, which was blueberry preserves with jalapenos, but they didn't have any samples of that out. Maybe some other time.
We somehow managed to eat out everyday for a week without eating either Chinese food or a pizza. I'm dying for a pizza. And just boring stuff that I usually only eat at home, like fried eggs, or spaghetti.
So far as I can tell, nothing terrible happened while I was away. The four plants left in the sink survived without me. My brother got sick and wasn't able to pick up my mail, and my mom forgot about it until Friday, but that's probably okay. There were no urgent messages on the answering machine, and no annoying notes taped to the door.
I cannot believe how tired I am. I didn't do anything but knit all week, and yesterday I didn't even do that. Luckily I don't have to go to school until Tuesday.
Not that I got much sleep. I forgot to take a pill. Somehow, part of me must realize that I forgot to take it, because I never seem to get enough sleep when that happens. But usually, it is not a big deal. I finally realize I forgot to take something, and I either go to the kitchen or the bathroom for a drink of water and take the pill and go back to bed. But tonight I realized I forgot to take something, and the medications were packed in a bag that I'd taken on the trip. And the bag did not turn up in the pile of stuff dumped in the living room, so I had to get dressed to go out and get the bag out of the car. So by the time I did all of that I was pretty much awake and not going back to sleep any time soon.
But it is still better to have insomnia in my own home. At least here I can play with the computer.
As some of you might have guessed, I have been away for the week, and I did not have Internet access. I did get to take my knitting machine, which is actually a lot like packing a big screen TV. When it is put together, the knitting machine is 39 inches long. Rather than risk damaging it, I do not take the thing apart. If I have to put it away or move it somewhere, the box I keep it in is 44 inches long, about 20 inches wide, and about 7 inches deep. To make room for it, I packed clothes in the smallest bag I could find and we took out the Coleman electric cooler. Since I didn't cook anything to take on the trip, and we hoped to have refrigerators at the motels, we didn't really need the cooler.
I hadn't really made arrangements to have my mail picked up and stuff like that, but my brother lives across the field, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I put four plants in the sink and hoped they would survive without me for a while. But I still left the house thinking something was wrong.
The first stop was the Dairy Palace for buffalo burgers. It was a bit expensive for hamburgers, but we liked the place, and I finally started to relax a bit.
The second stop was a Walmart. I had packed the knitting machine, but since I didn't think I'd be able to do that, I hadn't bought any yarn. And I totally lucked out at Walmart. They had five of the exact colors I needed for one scarf, and they had two other colors that were close enough that I switched and used them. They also had three out of four colors I needed for two other scarves, which left me lacking only the light grey for the Ravenclaw scarf, and I was pretty sure that I'd be able to get that Thursday morning at a Hobby Lobby. I couldn't go to Hobby Lobby that day, because they are closed on Sundays.
The first motel was right on the lake. There's all sorts of dumb stuff I have to say about the motel, but since tomorrow is Monday, I will save it. Still, a motel right on the lake is nice, and that sort of thing rarely happens. And we didn't even plan it that way. The motel just happened to be on the lake.
It did tend to rain a lot. But when it didn't rain, I was on this beautiful spot on the lake, and when it did rain, I had plenty of knitting to keep me busy.
So there was this seafood restaurant on the lake, and my husband thought that we should go. And it looked really cool with plants and palm trees and such. Inside were mounted fish and head of furry things with big horns. And luckily there was a line of people in front of us, or we might not have noticed the sign saying that their credit card machine wasn't working, or we might have spent the night washing dishes. But, we were out in the middle of nowhere, and the place closed at nine, so we ended up just going back to the motel and microwaving soup. We were just not up to looking for an ATM in the dark. We'd just go there some other time for lunch.
Only the place wasn't open at all on Monday or Tuesday, and they only opened from 4-9 on Wednesday, when my husband would be at work, and we'd be leaving the next day. So no Bryce's Seafood for us.
The next day we went to a different fish place in Louisiana. And they had fish mounted on the walls. And pictures of people posing with fish. And T-shirts with fish. And we ate catfish. And just the whole area was all about the fish.
On one of the times that it was not raining, I went for a walk and picked up some pine-cones and stuff like that. I found seed pods from water lilies. I don't know what the seed pods are called, but they look interesting. I found some more of those, but before I went back for them it started raining again. Maybe it is just as well. I pick up this stuff once in a while, saying that I will make wreaths or something with them, but there are no wreaths in my house, and I can't remember the last time I actually finished making a wreath.
Well, I did almost stay home from this trip. But the night before we left I did mention some rules, and he wasn't happy about it, but he didn't seem actually mad about it either. So that was awkward, but I was glad I got that over with before we left and thought that was the end of it. But, no, he still doesn't get it. We sort of had the discussion again. And one evening I thought it was going to get ugly, but it didn't. But he still doesn't get it. He so doesn't get it I don't even want to bother talking about it anymore. Can't we even just agree that we are not going to have serious discussions about our relationship while we are out of town? Even if there was a point to having one of these same discussions again, or even if there is something new to talk about, can't we talk about it at home? While we're out of town, can't we at least pretend things are okay?
So I mostly got through to him, and he said that everything was okay, and there was nothing to get upset about.
Wednesday night he got off of work early. He got off early enough that we went back to Bryce's seafood restaurant. The dinning area was not so interesting as I would have thought from the outside. And the light inside was really bright, and it was really dark outside, so we couldn't see the lake. They have these really huge windows, and they are right on the lake, but you can't see any of it. And I was really tired Wednesday night. The I'm going to fall asleep on my food kind of tired. So it was really nice of him to take me there, but it just wasn't as nice as we had imagined it would be Sunday night. And it wasn't that late either. We got back to the motel in time to watch LOST.
I was working on a Dr. Who scarf. I think it is season 17. Anyway, it is whatever season they took two of the old scarves and sewed them together. The panel was about 26 feet long when I had to stop because I ran out of green yarn. That took fourteen hours. It will take about another hour to finish knitting on the machine, I don't know how long to join the tube together, and another two hours for the fringe. It might end up being 30 hours or so.
Then it was Thursday morning, and we went to some other small Texas town. This one was between Dallas and Houston. On the way there we stopped at Hobby Lobby and got my grey yarn for the Ravenclaw scarf. I was not crazy about the motel. And maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed damp or humid or something. It made sense on the lake, but not here. I knitted and joined the Ravenclaw scarf, and the final Gryffindor scarf for the wife of my friend from up north. Now I just have to put fringe on both of those, which should take about four hours.
Friday we had lunch at someplace called the Moosehead Cafe. Without thinking, I ordered the special, which was catfish. I must have had catfish five or six times that trip. Not that it was bad, but I should have ordered just about anything except catfish. My husband also bought some fig preserves. We almost bought something called Blue Blazes, which was blueberry preserves with jalapenos, but they didn't have any samples of that out. Maybe some other time.
We somehow managed to eat out everyday for a week without eating either Chinese food or a pizza. I'm dying for a pizza. And just boring stuff that I usually only eat at home, like fried eggs, or spaghetti.
So far as I can tell, nothing terrible happened while I was away. The four plants left in the sink survived without me. My brother got sick and wasn't able to pick up my mail, and my mom forgot about it until Friday, but that's probably okay. There were no urgent messages on the answering machine, and no annoying notes taped to the door.
I cannot believe how tired I am. I didn't do anything but knit all week, and yesterday I didn't even do that. Luckily I don't have to go to school until Tuesday.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Talk amongst yourselves: or, the clip episode and catching up
This is the anniversary of the when the trouble started, but I didn't know that at the time. Or, I guess I should say, when the real trouble started. There were problems before that, but March 11th was the day that the Homewrecking-slut decided that she would seriously go after my husband.
My husband had left a comment on her blog, and his email address. I can't believe that he meant any harm by it, but she took it to mean that he wanted her. So she had to think about it for a longtime (2 days), and then she decided it was okay. He tried to correct her, told her that he loved me and would never do anything to hurt me, and that he wouldn't even be talking to her if he there was anyway that they would ever meet in real life. Her second email invited him to come to London and f*** her in the a**.
I don't know what was said during the next few days, other than she must have promised him all kinds of sex. They can't have had any meaningful conversations. They can't have talked about anything that decent people discuss. I'm sure that they were all about sex, and I'm sure he didn't really care anything for her then. He erased all of those emails right away. If they were about the important things in life, if this was really someone he cared about, he would have kept the emails. But he kept very few of those, so I can only imagine want they said. And even the earliest ones that he kept for a while were all about f***ing. Before a week was up she sent him nude photos and a close-up of her butt.
But I do know that in that first week she invited him to move in with her, in London. My husband is quite obsessed with London. He is also quite fond of a movie called "Same Time Next Year", and before he decided that her emails were something he should keep she had not only agreed to reenact this movie with him, she offered to pay for it as well. What kind of disgusting creature offers to pay thousands of dollars to get a married man to cheat on his wife? What can possibly be in it for her to do something so vile to another human being?
But he still said he loved me and couldn't stand the thought of leaving me. She had to work on him for another two or three weeks to get him to come around to that. Then when he changed his mind and didn't want to do it, she reminded him that he'd given it a lot of thought and waited along time to tell me. Sure. Almost a month is a long time to decide to ruin an relationship that had lasted almost two decades. She has like a five-year-old's definition of a long time.
Anyway, she came here, and as soon as he saw her, he knew he didn't want her. He got very depressed. I don't know if she didn't notice the difference, or if no one really wants her and there was no difference, or she just didn't care or what. About two hours after she got here, they decided that they might as well get on with it before dinner. I still cannot grasp why they would do that after it was obvious that they had no future together. A few hours after that he realized he had made a serious mistake.
The next morning, he called me and told me that I was right about everything. I had already told him that there were conditions if he came back, so I thought that he was going to come home and do all the stuff that had already been discussed. He said that he would see me later. I thought that he was taking her to the airport and that he would be home in a couple of hours. I waited, and I waited. He took her shopping and did a little sightseeing.
????
So he finally comes home, thinking that he is going to keep seeing her for the next few days until she can arrange to stay with a friend in Chicago.
????
When he came home, he forgot to pack his things, and I had to drive him to the motel to get some of his stuff. And she's actually trying to get him to change his mind while I'm waiting in the car. He finally convinces her that the best thing is for her to stay at a different motel closer to the airport, and that he won't ever be seeing her again.
After she left, she still wouldn't leave him alone. She kept emailing him and such. I knew he had sent her a few emails to make sure she got home and all of that, but more than a month later she's still in contact with him. For all I know, she still is. She just wouldn't go away. And then she's blogging about her romantic trip that didn't work out and that she wasn't sorry for what she'd done and that she did what she had to do. She had to do it? How sick is that? Not even that she'd learned her lesson about married men or strangers on the Internet or anything. This was just something that she had to do.
After that she was blogging about what a wonderful person she was. She was a giver. So, I left a comment that giving it away doesn't make you a giver, it makes you a slut. She didn't like me doing stuff like that, so her blog didn't take anonymous comments after that. That was the first time that I got a blog, so that I wasn't anonymous.
So that's what I originally got the blog for, to make fun of stuff that she said on her blog. But then she had a members only blog and then she didn't blog at all for a while, so I just had this blog that I wasn't doing anything with.
I think that everyone should be caught up now.
I've been asked to provide links to my favorite posts. I thought that my second post wasn't too bad, even though it didn't have anything to do with the original reason for the blog. It starts out with an apology for being a boring post that had nothing to do with anything, and ended up this long explanation on why I like black (especially black clothes) and why is that anybody's business if I wear black most of the time.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/todays-planned-post-has-been-lost.html
The next entry had more to do with what I wanted the blog to be about
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/recomend-website.html
and the one after that was supposed to be a contest in creative insults. I was the only one writing the insults, but I thought they were pretty good.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-do-you-even-call-such-vile-person.html
I thought that the name of this one would get some attention, but it is actually about my temp job at the Halloween store.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/giant-penis.html
And this one also has a good title, but it is actually about the one-size fits all myth (in clothing, not the other).
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/sluts-r-us.html
This one is about how I used to really like something when I was a kid and I have a very different view of it now.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/10/darkness.html
This one is a silly bit about the Halloween party.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/10/rende-awards.html
There are a lot of just this is what I did today and things that I am thinking about, but I thought this one was pretty good.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/11/murphys-law-and-other-annoying-things.html
This one is about how I feel about my husband now.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/11/sort-of-like-shallow-hal-but-not.html
This is just too weird. I saw it many years ago, but I just got around to writing about it recently.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/bizarre-billboard.html
This is the going on a diet stuff that I wrote after Anon 1 did that bit about fat women.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-im-not-exactly-fat.htmlhttp://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/watch-movies-and-eat-popcorn-diet.htmlhttp://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/review-of-diet-drinks.html
And since the earlier link didn't work, this is all the stuff where I mention the Homewrecking-slut in passing. I didn't really write that much about her, but I probably will later. http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/search/label/bimbo%20bashing
So, just in case I don't get to write much this next week or so, that should be plenty to keep everyone busy.
My husband had left a comment on her blog, and his email address. I can't believe that he meant any harm by it, but she took it to mean that he wanted her. So she had to think about it for a longtime (2 days), and then she decided it was okay. He tried to correct her, told her that he loved me and would never do anything to hurt me, and that he wouldn't even be talking to her if he there was anyway that they would ever meet in real life. Her second email invited him to come to London and f*** her in the a**.
I don't know what was said during the next few days, other than she must have promised him all kinds of sex. They can't have had any meaningful conversations. They can't have talked about anything that decent people discuss. I'm sure that they were all about sex, and I'm sure he didn't really care anything for her then. He erased all of those emails right away. If they were about the important things in life, if this was really someone he cared about, he would have kept the emails. But he kept very few of those, so I can only imagine want they said. And even the earliest ones that he kept for a while were all about f***ing. Before a week was up she sent him nude photos and a close-up of her butt.
But I do know that in that first week she invited him to move in with her, in London. My husband is quite obsessed with London. He is also quite fond of a movie called "Same Time Next Year", and before he decided that her emails were something he should keep she had not only agreed to reenact this movie with him, she offered to pay for it as well. What kind of disgusting creature offers to pay thousands of dollars to get a married man to cheat on his wife? What can possibly be in it for her to do something so vile to another human being?
But he still said he loved me and couldn't stand the thought of leaving me. She had to work on him for another two or three weeks to get him to come around to that. Then when he changed his mind and didn't want to do it, she reminded him that he'd given it a lot of thought and waited along time to tell me. Sure. Almost a month is a long time to decide to ruin an relationship that had lasted almost two decades. She has like a five-year-old's definition of a long time.
Anyway, she came here, and as soon as he saw her, he knew he didn't want her. He got very depressed. I don't know if she didn't notice the difference, or if no one really wants her and there was no difference, or she just didn't care or what. About two hours after she got here, they decided that they might as well get on with it before dinner. I still cannot grasp why they would do that after it was obvious that they had no future together. A few hours after that he realized he had made a serious mistake.
The next morning, he called me and told me that I was right about everything. I had already told him that there were conditions if he came back, so I thought that he was going to come home and do all the stuff that had already been discussed. He said that he would see me later. I thought that he was taking her to the airport and that he would be home in a couple of hours. I waited, and I waited. He took her shopping and did a little sightseeing.
????
So he finally comes home, thinking that he is going to keep seeing her for the next few days until she can arrange to stay with a friend in Chicago.
????
When he came home, he forgot to pack his things, and I had to drive him to the motel to get some of his stuff. And she's actually trying to get him to change his mind while I'm waiting in the car. He finally convinces her that the best thing is for her to stay at a different motel closer to the airport, and that he won't ever be seeing her again.
After she left, she still wouldn't leave him alone. She kept emailing him and such. I knew he had sent her a few emails to make sure she got home and all of that, but more than a month later she's still in contact with him. For all I know, she still is. She just wouldn't go away. And then she's blogging about her romantic trip that didn't work out and that she wasn't sorry for what she'd done and that she did what she had to do. She had to do it? How sick is that? Not even that she'd learned her lesson about married men or strangers on the Internet or anything. This was just something that she had to do.
After that she was blogging about what a wonderful person she was. She was a giver. So, I left a comment that giving it away doesn't make you a giver, it makes you a slut. She didn't like me doing stuff like that, so her blog didn't take anonymous comments after that. That was the first time that I got a blog, so that I wasn't anonymous.
So that's what I originally got the blog for, to make fun of stuff that she said on her blog. But then she had a members only blog and then she didn't blog at all for a while, so I just had this blog that I wasn't doing anything with.
I think that everyone should be caught up now.
I've been asked to provide links to my favorite posts. I thought that my second post wasn't too bad, even though it didn't have anything to do with the original reason for the blog. It starts out with an apology for being a boring post that had nothing to do with anything, and ended up this long explanation on why I like black (especially black clothes) and why is that anybody's business if I wear black most of the time.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/todays-planned-post-has-been-lost.html
The next entry had more to do with what I wanted the blog to be about
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/recomend-website.html
and the one after that was supposed to be a contest in creative insults. I was the only one writing the insults, but I thought they were pretty good.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-do-you-even-call-such-vile-person.html
I thought that the name of this one would get some attention, but it is actually about my temp job at the Halloween store.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/giant-penis.html
And this one also has a good title, but it is actually about the one-size fits all myth (in clothing, not the other).
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/sluts-r-us.html
This one is about how I used to really like something when I was a kid and I have a very different view of it now.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/10/darkness.html
This one is a silly bit about the Halloween party.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/10/rende-awards.html
There are a lot of just this is what I did today and things that I am thinking about, but I thought this one was pretty good.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/11/murphys-law-and-other-annoying-things.html
This one is about how I feel about my husband now.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2006/11/sort-of-like-shallow-hal-but-not.html
This is just too weird. I saw it many years ago, but I just got around to writing about it recently.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/bizarre-billboard.html
This is the going on a diet stuff that I wrote after Anon 1 did that bit about fat women.
http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-im-not-exactly-fat.htmlhttp://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/watch-movies-and-eat-popcorn-diet.htmlhttp://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/2007/01/review-of-diet-drinks.html
And since the earlier link didn't work, this is all the stuff where I mention the Homewrecking-slut in passing. I didn't really write that much about her, but I probably will later. http://insidioustruth.blogspot.com/search/label/bimbo%20bashing
So, just in case I don't get to write much this next week or so, that should be plenty to keep everyone busy.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Tomorrow is Spring Break
It's official now. Spring break is here. Though my class ended at about 11:30 am on Thursday, other classes were still going on Friday and Saturday, and I went to the Saturday until about two. The instructor wanted to leave earlier than that, but he doesn't chase me away if he has to stay for some reason, and despite his best efforts another student had to stay even later than that.
I divided up a 50 pound bag of plaster today. So that made a bit of a mess. I meant to cast three tiles today, but the third one still needs some work, and casting the first one took longer than I expected. I was mixing plaster, and I got some of it on my shirt. I was standing right next to the sink anyway, so I tried to clean up a bit. So then I go back to the plaster, and it sets up while I'm in the middle of pouring it. So not only is that cast not near as good as the other one, but it took more than an hour to clean out dried plaster so that the next person could use the equipment.
The next batch of plaster I probably poured too soon, but I didn't want the same thing to happen a second time. It looks alright, and it will have all week to dry out anyway.
Next, I put slip on one of the vases, and that didn't go as well as I hoped either. Mostly, I just painted little squiggly lines, but I would have liked them to be more uniform. They got progressively bigger, but I didn't notice how far off they were from the first one until I got back around to the beginning. The main design in the center looks good, but the sides are off. I guess it doesn't matter. It wasn't the most symmetrical vase to start with. It will be a good test of the process anyway.
Damn. I meant to bring home the box. We're supposed to sand it, and I figured that there was nothing special about the sandpaper in the lab, so maybe I'd get away with at least doing that at home.
Not that I'm actually supposed to be at home. My husband has wanted me to go with him on the last few trips, and I've put him off. I almost went this week. I probably would have gone, but then I remembered about spring break and put it off one more week. Anyway, I did want to go. The last few weeks I was trying to do extra work in class so that I could go without feeling guilty about it. But now I'm not so crazy about the idea.
To start with, I was told to pack light. Non-sequitur. Not so much in the usual way of "What will I wear?" I don't really care about that. I'm going to spend most of my time stuck in a motel room anyway.
My problem is what to do with all of those hours being stuck in the motel room. I really don't want to go without my knitting machine. But taking the knitting machine isn't exactly packing light, is it?
And we are going to the middle of nowhere, Texas. I don't even know if there will be a swimming pool or a hot tub or anything. Probably not. But I don't even know for sure that they will have the Sci-fi channel. I might be stuck for a week someplace that doesn't even have decent cable.
But the real problem is that last weekend was not exactly wonderful, and it did not put me in the mood to want to spend an entire week with the man.
Worse, I am remembering that last trip before Christmas. It was a disaster. Is that what I can expect to happen again? Should I set some ground rules before we leave? Would that just make it worse?
You'd think he'd would just know, this is the way things are, these are the rules. But, somehow, he doesn't know that. So you have to explain to him, this is the way things are, these are the rules. And then one day something comes up, and you have to remind him about a rule. So after the rules have already been explained to him, and after he's been reminded about one in particular that same day, he still doesn't get it. And then he gets mad cause things aren't going the way he wants.
It's almost like he expects our problems to magically go away because we go out of town for a while. He thinks the rules don't apply. If anything, they apply more then. If he does something to upset me at home, if I absolutely cannot take it anymore, I can leave for a while. I can go visit my mom or go see a movie or something. Or maybe he'd be reasonable and leave me alone for a bit.
But we can't do either of those things when we go out of town. We're both stuck in the same motel room. It can be really awful.
Not that it's always awful. When we go away for a while, it is usually very nice. If it wasn't usually nice, I wouldn't go so often. But because of school and such, it has been almost three months. And that last time was really bad. The weird thing was that he just had this puzzled expression on his face, like he didn't understand, like he didn't even remember what the problem was.
So I don't know if I want to go. But I probably will go. So I'd better go finish packing.
I divided up a 50 pound bag of plaster today. So that made a bit of a mess. I meant to cast three tiles today, but the third one still needs some work, and casting the first one took longer than I expected. I was mixing plaster, and I got some of it on my shirt. I was standing right next to the sink anyway, so I tried to clean up a bit. So then I go back to the plaster, and it sets up while I'm in the middle of pouring it. So not only is that cast not near as good as the other one, but it took more than an hour to clean out dried plaster so that the next person could use the equipment.
The next batch of plaster I probably poured too soon, but I didn't want the same thing to happen a second time. It looks alright, and it will have all week to dry out anyway.
Next, I put slip on one of the vases, and that didn't go as well as I hoped either. Mostly, I just painted little squiggly lines, but I would have liked them to be more uniform. They got progressively bigger, but I didn't notice how far off they were from the first one until I got back around to the beginning. The main design in the center looks good, but the sides are off. I guess it doesn't matter. It wasn't the most symmetrical vase to start with. It will be a good test of the process anyway.
Damn. I meant to bring home the box. We're supposed to sand it, and I figured that there was nothing special about the sandpaper in the lab, so maybe I'd get away with at least doing that at home.
Not that I'm actually supposed to be at home. My husband has wanted me to go with him on the last few trips, and I've put him off. I almost went this week. I probably would have gone, but then I remembered about spring break and put it off one more week. Anyway, I did want to go. The last few weeks I was trying to do extra work in class so that I could go without feeling guilty about it. But now I'm not so crazy about the idea.
To start with, I was told to pack light. Non-sequitur. Not so much in the usual way of "What will I wear?" I don't really care about that. I'm going to spend most of my time stuck in a motel room anyway.
My problem is what to do with all of those hours being stuck in the motel room. I really don't want to go without my knitting machine. But taking the knitting machine isn't exactly packing light, is it?
And we are going to the middle of nowhere, Texas. I don't even know if there will be a swimming pool or a hot tub or anything. Probably not. But I don't even know for sure that they will have the Sci-fi channel. I might be stuck for a week someplace that doesn't even have decent cable.
But the real problem is that last weekend was not exactly wonderful, and it did not put me in the mood to want to spend an entire week with the man.
Worse, I am remembering that last trip before Christmas. It was a disaster. Is that what I can expect to happen again? Should I set some ground rules before we leave? Would that just make it worse?
You'd think he'd would just know, this is the way things are, these are the rules. But, somehow, he doesn't know that. So you have to explain to him, this is the way things are, these are the rules. And then one day something comes up, and you have to remind him about a rule. So after the rules have already been explained to him, and after he's been reminded about one in particular that same day, he still doesn't get it. And then he gets mad cause things aren't going the way he wants.
It's almost like he expects our problems to magically go away because we go out of town for a while. He thinks the rules don't apply. If anything, they apply more then. If he does something to upset me at home, if I absolutely cannot take it anymore, I can leave for a while. I can go visit my mom or go see a movie or something. Or maybe he'd be reasonable and leave me alone for a bit.
But we can't do either of those things when we go out of town. We're both stuck in the same motel room. It can be really awful.
Not that it's always awful. When we go away for a while, it is usually very nice. If it wasn't usually nice, I wouldn't go so often. But because of school and such, it has been almost three months. And that last time was really bad. The weird thing was that he just had this puzzled expression on his face, like he didn't understand, like he didn't even remember what the problem was.
So I don't know if I want to go. But I probably will go. So I'd better go finish packing.
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