mealtime

mealtime
Originally uploaded by Lucky Haskins.

I'm testing out my ability to post blog pictures from Flikr, so here's a picture of Rusty and Cider eating each other's food. Enjoy!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Hairy Tales

I have a confession to make.

I don't shave as much as I should.

I know! It's horrible, but true! Some women I know will whip out the razor when they feel the slightest bit of stubble. With me, my shaving schedule is directly correlated with the frequency that someone else sees my legs. In the summertime when I wear capri pants or skirts I shave every other day. In the winter, when I wear pants constantly and see Mike only once a week, well...once or twice a week is about it.

I do make some efforts to prolong the results of my shaving. I use a nice brand of razor which I replace often and a shaving gel that promises to limit hair growth. But the intrinsic rewards of shaving - knowing that, even if nobody else sees it, my legs are smooth beneath the legs of my trousers - are often outweighed by the cost and pain. Yes, pain...I'm someone who sustains at least two to three minor flesh wounds every time I shave. It doesn't matter how slowly I go, how sharp my razor is, or what position I'm in. I'll either slip or startle or do something else to draw blood. It's not a fun time.

While some people may peg me as unfeminine or lazy, I stand by my shaving decisions. Why should I alter my body to please someone else? If my hair doesn't bother me, why should it bother them? Why should I subject myself to cost and pain when nobody else will recognize it? Why can't I let my body do what it naturally does without interference? I won't conform to society's arbitrary standards!

That is, until I have to wear a skirt to work. Then it's back to the razors again.

Cafeteria Food

The quality of the cafeteria food at work has really been going downhill lately. Before, I could go there and find at least one item that was fairly enjoyable. Sure, the cheese was usually on the greasy side and the meat was always a little fattier than I usually like it, but it was fairly good.

Not anymore.

Today I chomped on nachos. The cheese was cold and the chips were chewy. In honor of Lent I had eschewed the ground chuck that normally comes with the dish and that's probably a good thing. If they can fuck up melted cheese and tortilla chips that badly I'd hate to see what they could do with meat.

Earlier this week I resorted to pointing and saying, "Oh, I'd like some of...uh...that. What is that?"

The lunchlady glowered at me. "It's chicken."

"For real? Oh, well, it looks good," I said hastily, noting her expression. It's not my fault. They do put out a menu each day, but the dishes available seem to be related to the printed choices only rarely. Once before there were some kind of mystery sandwiches available. Nobody knew what was in the Hot Pocket-like creations until I bought one and bit off a corner. Turns out it was chicken, cheese, and taco spices. That didn't fit with anything on the menu.

I've been thinking lately about bringing a lunch, but between our fridge that only keeps things room-temperature and our microwave from the Carter administration a homemade lunch doesn't hold much more appeal than a cafeteria lunch. I do have an insulated lunchbag and a couple of frozen cold packs so I suppose I'll have to make use of those.

Man.

I really yearn for the days of fatty burgers topped with greasy cheese.

Tarzan Boy

This was an inquiry by Alette - the song I was trying to think of was "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora. Here are the lyrics:

Baltimora - Tarzan Boy Lyrics

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
(4X)

Jungle life
I'm far away from nowhere
On my own like Tarzan Boy

Hide and seek
I play along while rushing cross the forest
Monkey business on a sunny afternoon

Jungle life
I'm living in the open
Native beat that carries on

Burning bright
A fire the blows teh signal to the sky
I sit and wonder does the message get to you

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
(4X)

Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other chance
tonight
Gimme the other, gimme the other
Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other world

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
(4X)

Jungle life
You're far away from nothing
It's all right
You won't miss home

Take a chance
Leave everything behind you
Come and join me
Won't be sorry
It's easy to survive

Jungle life
We're living in the open
All alone like Tarzan Boy

Hide and seek
We play along while rushing cross the
forest
Monkey business on a sunny afternoon

Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other
Chance tonight
Oh Yeah
Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other
Night to night
You won't play
Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other
Chance tonight
Oh Yeah
Night to night
Night to night
Gimme the other, gimme the other

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
(4X)
(Repeat)

Awesome!

Livin' on a Prayer

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Like all good Catholics I've spent the past few days planning my sacrifices. At Mike's suggestion I gave up Cadbury Creme Eggs but that didn't quite seem like enough. Today, though, as I was walking down the hall and heard a teacher and student yelling back and forth a snippet of a prayer ran through my head.

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace."

It's a piece of the Prayer of St Francis, and it inspired my second Lenten promise. Every day before I leave for work I'll recite the prayer to fortify me for the day ahead. Here's the full text of the prayer for all you non-Catholics out there:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

I think it's something any educator should aspire to - putting aside your own wants and needs and concerns to serve your students more fully. It's a good way to live, but it's a particularly good way to teach.

Now, if only I could pass it along to the teacher who was ripping into that kid...

A letter postmarked White Town

To whom it may concern,

Just tell me what you've got to say to me, I've been waiting for so long to hear the truth. It comes as no surprise at all you see, so cut the crap and tell me that we're through. Now I know your heart, I know your mind, you don't even know you're being unkind.
So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways, you just use me up and then you walk away. Boy you can't play me that way.

Well I guess what you say is true, I could never be the right kind of girl for you, I could never be your woman.

When I saw my best friend yesterday, she said she never liked you from the start. Well me, I wish that I could claim the same, but you always knew you held my heart. And you're such a charming handsome man, now I think I finally understand, is it in your genes? I don't know, but I'll soon find out, that's for sure. Why did you play me this way?

Well I guess what you say is true, I could never be the right kind of girl for you, I could never be your woman.

Well I guess what they say is true, I could never spend my life with a man like you, I could never be your woman.

Yours most sincerely,

Christine

PS – I had that song stuck in my head ALL DAY.

Here we go again...

Oh gosh...I've been having problems posting to Blogger. Does anyone know if Blogger has a feature where you can back up your entries?

Chills and Thrills

I'm always cold.

Seriously. It's getting absurd. Last night I had the heat cranked up, the fan whirring to make sure the heat stayed on the lower level of my loft apartment, and I was wearing jeans, socks, a sweater, a wool cardigan that was zipped up all the way, and a blanket. And I was still cold. I had high hopes recently when I visited the doctor...she seemed very interested in my blue-tinged fingernails and she did a series of blood tests. Unfortunately it all came back normal. I guess my chill defies medical intervention.

The only time I'm not cold is when I'm sleeping. This is because I never, ever sleep alone. On the nights I don't spend with Mike I still sleep with two of the warmest creatures on the planet - Rusty and Cider. In the winter they like to huddle as close as possible so I usually fall asleep under a down comforter with a cat in the curve of each hip. It's heavenly.

I wonder if my work would let me bring the comforter and the cats into my office. It was a little chilly today. Either that or I'll start using Dykewife's cure, which is a warm bath along with a mug of cocoa and a shot of brandy. I can't really bathe at work, but the mug is feasible. That would make work a lot more tolerable.

I also wanted to send an idea (the "thrills" part of the post) out to my fellow ex-dxers...I've found many of my old blog entries by going to Yahoo's search engine and typing in "site:indigojones.diary-x.com." You just click on "Cached" under each one and it takes you to the page that Yahoo has stored. But do it quick - I'm not sure how long they'll be there! Mike showed me how to do it (you've got to give credit where credit is due!). I recovered some of my favorite entries this way. Also, if you haven't already, check out the Diary-X database to see where your favorite blogs have gone or to add yours. Some of my favorite reads are still missing, but hopefully they'll be added soon. Cross your fingers!

Goodbye, Diary-X

Recently I’ve been fretting over what to do with this blog. As you probably know I used to have my blog on Diary-X, and only came over here after their server crash. I figured that I’d use this as an interim blog and go back to D-X once the site was running again and the server (and my data) was restored. But then I began to debate. I had all of my archives on Diary-X, but Blogger has an RSS feed. Diary-X keeps track of your site’s statistics, but Blogger lets me keep my journal on Mike’s website. I was going back and forth about it, but on Saturday night I found out that the decision had been made for me.

I was over at Mike’s apartment and he shouted from another room, “Hey, did you hear about Diary-X?”

I poked my head out of the computer room where’d I’d been checking my email. “No, what happened?” When I’d last checked the Diary-X page on Friday evening there still wasn’t word about how the recovery efforts were going.

“It’s gone,” Mike said.

“Gone? Like, done?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “All of it. There’s nothing left.”

I went back into the computer room and quickly went to the Diary-X page. Sure enough, the page said that the site was gone. All of it. Even the backups that had been performed in 2004 were faulty. I’d been keeping a blog there since 2003, and now there was nothing left of it. And not only that, the site itself was closing down.

It seems funny to grieve a blog, but I guess that’s what I’ve been doing. I suppose it’s no different than if someone spilled coffee all over your photo album and all your pictures were destroyed. Since I’d stopped keeping a personal journal in the spring of 2004 I had most of my memories on that blog and now it’s gone.

Well, most of it is gone. Pieces are still floating around. Mike offered to help me recover as much as I can. He has some, somehow, on his desktop, and Jen pointed me towards the Wayback Machine, a project that is slowly archiving the entire internet. It had archived four of my entries. I have a hunch that despite our best efforts, out of the hundreds of entries I wrote I’ll only get a dozen or two random ones back.

The thing I’m most upset about, though, is the blogs I’ll no longer read. Some people were nice enough to email me after the crash or I emailed them, but there were lots of people whose blogs I lurked on or whose addresses I didn’t have. Those people are lost. Thankfully Stephen Deken, who ran Diary-X, has started a database where you can leave your forwarding information, but who knows how many people will use that?

I still want to carry on with my journal because it’s become a surprisingly important part of my life. But it feels strange to be doing it here instead of there.