The Wordmistress

Over Easy

The kids in my neighborhood are now engaged in an annual ritual known as "egg wars." It's exactly what you imagine it to be. Rival gangs are parked at each corner, in alleys, in flowerbeds, armed with, er, eggs. It happens every year from about mid-October until Halloween. And then it mercifully stops. It's an opportunity, I suppose, for the boys to act powerful, the girls to act bored yet impressed and the neighbors to act outraged. All without the messy aftermath of gunfire with which to contend. Normally, I think this custom is quaint, but since some of these kids are surely allied with the little criminals who broke into my apartment a few weeks ago, I am less than enthused at the hubbub this year. So, counting down ... until Halloween. Scary!

Around the House

Does this guy look familiar to you? He's the new Brawny guy. Am I wrong to be strangely attracted to him? The old guy was kind of pre-Friends Tom Selleck looking.

Ah, the things that take my attention these days.

I've been madly baby-proofing for the past few days, which mostly means keeping a couple of steps ahead of Mia as she boldly goes where many babies have gone before. I've tethered the bookcases to the walls, bought a new entertainment center so that the TV is finally in a safe place and won't come teetering down on her head. Last week when I was working so hard I kept missing her first couple of steps, which was a real bummer. Now I've seen 'em. Pretty cool stuff. Rock on Miss Mia, Queen of the New Frontier.

Switcheroo

So I was at the gas station yesterday and do you know what they're doing now? They're sticking regular in the middle!! That's got to be unfair business practices. I've long been aware that they've been taking regular for a joy ride so that distracted folks like myself might accidentally pump a couple of extra pennies into their car, but in the middle?? Does anyone fall for this? Man, this pisses me off. Rant. And breathe. Okay!

Here's a couple of other tidbits for you.

I finally won one of my fantasy football games last Sunday! My record is now a whopping 1-6! My team, Puffy, has never had such a bad start to a season. Cheer for me this Sunday. I'll be the one napping with the little girl and surreptiously checking the stats online.

I've pretty much finished my freelance gig and I'm way in the mood for MORE WORK. Here's another thing that makes me crazy. Over the past two years I've applied many times for a job with Google that I'm perfect for. It's working with their AdWords program and making it more effective for their clients. I've sent them cover letters of all stripes: funny, sad, ugly, pretty, serious. I don't get it. I'd be great. Are they even looking at my resume? No offense, but I'd be the best!!!!!

Look at this post. Exclamation points everywhere. I don't like exclamation points. Sure sign of lack of sleep ergo lack of creativity.

And with those self-deprecating words, and the tones of somber past revisted, I'll wind down and let you off the hook. Adieu and happy Friday (no exclam)

Dah!

Mia's entire vocabulary pretty much consists of the sound "Dah" and iterations of it. She has a wonderful voila-y dah, when she is very proud of one of her achievements. Or if she is feeling kind of conversational, she will pull out her "how's the wife and kid's dah." Then there's the fall-back, lazy day musical dah-dah-dah-dah dah and the wish she was saying mama, dada dah. But I've got to admit, there's something to be said for communicating this way. I know she's on the verge of adding words and, as reported before on these pages, she has looked at a bottle and uttered some ba-type word. But Dah feels good. It makes sense. And on a day like today, it kind of sums up how I'm feeling too.

Auto Focus

I opened a gift today from an old friend -- a framed picture of my brother in high school. It was from our friend Gary who stayed with me right after Ross died and was very close to both my brother and me during high school. My mom watched me open it and we spoke for a while. I could hear her footsteps and tears after I went into my room to work. It's still like that. And we go strangely, wildly, from grief to glee, omigod to daily grind and it seems all right. Mia chugs along, head-first into toddlerdom, determined to walk by end of month. Design by nature implies a reason, I prefer to think of fate as random. Our only imperative is to focus.

Don't Forget Your Protection

You might notice a new icon on this page, lower left as the crow flies. It is the Creative Commons logo and it signifies that the content on this site is semi-copywright protected. Now I really don't care what anyone does with what I write on this site but I am way way in favor of what this awesome non-profit company is doing with their brains. They've essentially put together an accessible way to protect your online work. It allows all of us would-be artists, writers and general know-it-alls to express ourselves freely without fear of being ripped off. What my particular license restricts is someone else's ability to profit from my words, thoughts or deeds. Well, actually just my words. I guess you're free to profit from my thoughts. There are a variety of different levels of licenses depending on your medium and your requirements.

Now before you click away in disgust, please understand my ego is not so huge that I think that you are all dying to take my writing and claim it as your own. And then full of glee and pride go ahead and sell it. Yeah, like I've had so much luck with that so far. But I do like the concept so I'm showing my support. They are also working on the file sharing issue, coming up with a new licensing process for music that would circumvent the whole RIAA fiasco.

So three cheers for Creative Commons, smart folks who are solving problems. So unlike most of the rest of the world.

Idiot Patrol

Clicking around today looking for something to distract me when I should be working, I came across this woman's story of how she was asked to stop breastfeeding on a Southwest Airlines flight. Man, that really gets my goat. She had every reason in the world to be angry.

I, myself, couldn't breastfeed, which in this modern world is akin to saying that I left my child alone to be raised by Kathie Lee Gifford. I wanted to breastfeed, tried to, and it didn't work out. 'Nuff said. But I fully support the little suckers.

Web Happy

It's official. I've gone web happy. Every time I get a break from my work, my baby, housework, etc., I've been working on web projects. Truth be told, these are actually projects that have been sitting on my "to-do" list for ages now, but I feel like I've finally broken through some sort of invisible shield. Once I figured out how to upload onto my host's server and muddle through html, I feel like I've stepped into the netherworlds. And I think, no I know you know what I mean.

So my next project is a web site for moms. It's basically a clearinghouse of informational links. That's always been my beef ... where to get good links. Google and I are never far from one another's loving arms, but I figure if I can pass some of my prime linkage on to some other time-pressed moms, then I've done something good. And if I can get a sponsor or two, well then I've done something profitable. I'm working on it right now, between the freelance job, starting a fiction weblog, keeping this diatribe fresh and making faces at the gremlin. So watch these pages and I'll tell you when it launches. Now for some reason, I feel like a nap.

Color of Money

I got a new $20 bill today. It looks more fake than any American money I've seen yet. It's got all these little cartoon 20s on the back. It's supposed to thwart counterfeiters, but I'm thinking with all these multiple versions of each currency, the only thing it's going to thwart is any chance of me getting out of a grocery line with my sense of humor intact and some ridiculous tabloid secure in its shelf where it belongs.

Back in the Day

I've just started this weblogging thing and like a lot of neophytes I'm way into my visitor stats. I'm always curious if anyone has been to my site. It feels the same as it did when I first started surfing the Web - around 1991. I plugged in my 14.4 and accessed some text network. That's all there was of course, just text networks pretty much. And AOL 1.0, which had about four lobbies. Do they still have lobbies? Anyway, when you first connected, and you knew that you could connect with strangers, it had this very sort of voyeuristic and exciting and geeky and modern feel to it. I mean I was the type of kid who used to dial long distance numbers in the middle of the night just to see who would wake up. So I was into it. That's kind of how it feels knowing that people are watching. So, fair warning: I can see you.

David Blaine. Jeesh. I get it, you don't eat and now you feel spiritual. Hello! People have been fasting for years and feeling spiritual. It's called meditation, not show biz. It's called inner peace, not I need a piece. Boring.

Today was some work and some play. Tomorrow is all work and no play makes Robin a dull girl. Good thing my sparkling personality mitigates any temporary damage.