srah blah blah

Okay, precious folkses. For the next couple days, while I work on the Big Move to MT, I will be helping Katie out by enriching her blog with CRAP. I can be found at:

http://www.sojoyful.com/weblog

It may be a bit longer than expected for the Big Move, as the phone line that my computer's modem dials through has very beautifully decided not to work, just when I was going to put last night into making the big push to MT. Oh well, I needed the sleep anyway. Hopefully I'll be converted by the end of the weekend.

...If I have to do it manually. Ho hum. There are a lot of steps here. Maybe it will take me until November.

In case anyone wondered, I have somehow managed to blog 2486 blog-posts since the beginning of time. It will be super-fun to go through all of those and fix dates and things. I half meant that, because I do like to read my own crap quite a bit.

I am a bit disappointed all of a sudden because I just realized that I can't remember a single person asking to see my pictures since I've been home. I've foisted them on several people, but I don't remember any requests. No one cares...

Well, I was so frustrated at my lack o' skillz (yes, I totally spelled it that way), I went and installed Movable Type in order to prove myself. It took until 2am to get everything configured and I worked through dinner, but I did it. I don't know how I did it, but it's up there now and I may start blogging there soon. I'm not sure yet... my Blogger Pro subscription lasts until October 2003 so it seems like a waste to switch now, but MT is very lovely and tempting. I'll keep you posted.

Muchas muchas gracias to Shireen and Bob and Robin for their help and support during this difficult time.

Remember my country, The Empire of Srahnce? Here's the latest (the country has changed quite a bit in its month of existence):

The Empire of Srahnce is a very large, safe nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. Its compassionate population of 163 million enjoy extensive civil freedoms, particularly in social issues, while business tends to be more regulated.

The large government devotes most of its attentions to Education, with areas such as Defence and Commerce receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 26%, but much higher for the wealthy. A small but healthy private sector is led by the Basket Weaving industry, followed by Uranium Mining and Gambling.

Same-sex marriages are increasingly common, genetic researchers have been expelled, the nation is completely gun-free, and all tarrifs have been abolished. Crime is relatively low. Srahnce's national animal is the llama and its currency is the donut.

Why do all churches seem to want to be called First X church of X? Is there something better about being the first one? This is frustratingly repetitive to archives employees who have just made it to the Fs.

Most normal people with sort of scrubby-looking, leaky shoes would get rid of them, rather than thinking to themselves, These are really great shoes! You can't get rid of shoes like this! I just can't wear them when it rains!

Then again, I'm not most people, and I'm certainly not normal.

Unfortunately, I find myself back in Michigan surrounded by people who are relatively normal and who would probably insist that I débarrass myself of them if they knew I was wearing leaky shoes. Relatively normal, or at least pretending to be so. I wouldn't hang out with anyone who was completely normal. That wouldn't be any fun.

So anyway, these are great shoes despite their leakiness, and you will have to pry them off my cold, dead feet to get me to take them off.

Dudes, I am hopeless. I tried to put in a Blogroll to update my links and it didn't work at all. Why am I broken? Why don't I know how to do the simplest computer things? Why, when I put it in, did it refuse to be the font-size I told it to be and did it insert random insane characters into all of my other javascript scripts that messed them all up? I think I will have to give up all hope of ever putting this thing on Movable Type because I can't even do this. Help help help...

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Right now I am finishing off a tube of Aquafresh bought in France because it was the only kind I could find that stood up. Normally in the US I buy Colgate because I like their packaging better than Crest's. They're all the same, anyway.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Whatever my mommy has bought. In France, I bought The Pink Kind That Is On Sale brand toilet paper. I was very loyal to this brand.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
I don't have any loyalty to a particular brand. My current trainers are Nikes (prounounced "nykes" because I bought them in France), but I think my last pair were Reebok or Adidas or something. Right now I am wearing a French shoe labeled Buggy. I don't know if that is the make or the model.

4. What brand of soda pop do you drink?
I try to avoid pop if possible, but usually end up drinking Coke when I do drink it. I drink Coke over Pepsi for the same reason I pick Colgate over Crest - I prefer red-and-white to red-white-and-blue.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?
I don't like to chew gum. It makes me feel trashy-looking.

I get so proud of myself when I suddenly understand things I didn't understand the first five hundred times. I was just listening to Up the Junction by Squeeze, which starts with the lines "I never thought it would happen/ with me and a girl from Clapham" and only just got the connection... Clapham Junction. I still don't know what Clapham Junction is, besides a London Underground stop, but I am very pleased with myself for having finally made the connection.

Sometimes I have to share these things in my blog because I know no one cares and I don't have enough real-life friends to lose them by telling them stupid things like this.

Being a member of the digerati, I often lose track of time. I was embrangled by my borborygmus, but it became pellucid when I looked at my watch and realized I hadn't had breakfast. I hadn't been hungry at the time and had considered it otiose to eat when I wasn't hungry. I got up and went to the kitchen, stubbing my hallux on the doorframe on the way. I found a bottle of iced tea, which I decided would quench my thirst, if not my hunger. After drinking it, I didn't know what to do with the cullet. Garbology told me I should throw it away, but something told me I should recycle it instead. Frustrated by these antipodes, I decided to defenestrate it instead.

[thanks to Cheryl for sending me the link and giving me something useless to do over my lunch hour]

Dude. Why do we keep pets?

It occurred to me this morning that most people would squish a spider if they found it in their house, or at least put it outside. But lots of people keep animals on purpose, feeding them and medicating them and all. If you really think about it, it seems ridiculous that we try to keep some animals out of the house, considering them pests and keep others in, considering them members of the family. I was so annoyed by this that I spent all morning trying to squish Howie.

Alex and I saw Down With Love last night. As a big fan of Tony Randall movies Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies, I was rather excited about it and rather disappointed. I found it fluffily entertaining but confused, disjointed, overcomplicated and long. It felt like it wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie or a parody thereof. I would recommend it on video, but it's not particularly worth seeing on the big screen, except maybe for David Hyde Pierce, who was excellent as Tony Randall the hero's neurotic boss and friend. He made me giggle.

So. American Idol's over.

I called it.

That is all I have to say about that.

When they closed the United Artists cinema at the mall, I was not terribly upset because it was kind of skanky and I never went there anyway. It did, however, seem like a waste to have a big movie theatre there and nothing playing. I decided that if I suddenly became rich, I would buy the theatre and show old, foreign, and art-house movies there (with free parking!).

At some point while I was gone, someone did just that, freeing me up from investing in the potentially risky scheme of putting an art-house cinema in a place frequented by brainless 15-year-olds. It plays harder-to-find things, but some of the mainstream films as well. Alex and I are going to see the Chilean film Te Amo (Made in Chile) tonight, and L'Auberge espagnole comes out next week, so I will be moving in there then. I am happy to discover that someone has made Ann Arbor suck just a little bit less.

I hadn't missed speaking French as much as I thought I would. I hadn't had a nervous breakdown and taken to wearing a tinfoil hat and muttering to myself in the corner. Then I listened to La pêche à la ligne on my headphones.

... C'est à peine l'aurore/ Et je tombe du plume/ Mon amour dort encore/ Du sommeil de l'enclume/ Je la laisse à ses rêves/ Où je n' suis sûrement pas/ Marlon Brando l'enlève,/ Qu'est c' que je foutrais là ?/ Sur un cheval sauvage,/ Ils s'en vont ridicules/ Dehors y a un orage,/ Y sont mouillés c'est nul !...

I love that part. I wanted to play it for all of my friends here at home. 'Isn't it funny?' I would say to them, 'Listen to the lyrics. Can't you see it? Isn't that funny to imagine?' But no. It's not. Because no one I know knows Renaud, which is what makes him and the wild horse and the big romantic scene so funny. And even if they did know Renaud, they don't speak French so they can't understand the lyrics in the first place.

Vous me manquez...

The evil institution that will have me in its clutches next year is making me jump through hoops to prove that they can't charge me out-of-state tuition. I have lived in Michigan all my life, folks, except for spending a few months in France twice. You can't charge me out-of-state tuition. I would qualify for in-city tuition if such a thing existed, you jerks. Now I have to fill out papers and tell the university everywhere I've studied, everywhere I've worked, and every single place and my parents and I have lived since 1948.

My new phrase is going to be "that's so jive". We really don't hear this phrase enough.

Money talks
but it don't sing and dance and it don't walk.
And long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be
forever in blue jeans.

Honey's sweet.
But it ain't nothing next to baby's treat.
And if you pardon me
I'd like to say we'll do okay
forever in blue jeans.

I am in such pain. I've had this song in my head sans cesse for at least five days now, I think. I hope that by inflicting it on you and listening to something else, I can get it out. Pray for me.

People kept having to re-explain things to me today, over and over again. I felt like I didn't understand anything. To be precise, I felt almost exactly like this:

King: GUARDS!!! (two guards come in) Make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get 'im. (starts to go)
Guard 1: (repeating) Not to leave the room, even if you come and get 'im.
Guard 2: *Hic*
King: Nono.... *Until* I come and get him.
Guard 1: Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room.
King: (stops) Nono, no... You *stay* in the room, and make sure *he* doesn't leave.
Guard 1: And you'll come and get him.
Guard 2: *Hic*
King: Right.
Guard 1: We don't need to do anything, apart from just stop him, entering the room.
King: Nono. *Leaving* the room.
Guard 1: Leaving the room, yes.
King: All right?
Guard 1: 'Right.
King: Right. (goes out the door)
Guard 1: Oh! If if if uhhhh.... if if uhhhhh.... If if if we......
King: (coming back in) Yes, what is it?
Guard 1: Oh. I-if....... Oh....
King: Look, it's quite simple.
Guard 1: Uh.....
King: You just stay here, and make sure 'e doesn't leave the room. All right?
Guard 2: *hic*
Guard 1: Oh, I remember! Uhhhh, can he leave the room with us?
King: No...nono, no. You just keep him in 'ere, and make sure...
Guard 1: Oh yes, we'll keep him in here, obviously, but if he *had* to leave, and we *were* with him...
King: nononono just KEEP HIM IN HERE
Guard 1: ...Until you or anyone else...
King: No, not anyone else, just me...
Guard 1: ...Just you...
Guard 2: *hic*
King: Get back.
Guard 1: Get back.
King: All right?
Guard 1: Right, we'll stay here until you get back.
Guard 2: *hic*
King: (pause) And, uh... make sure 'e doesn't leave.
Guard 1: What?
King: (pause) Make sure 'e doesn't leave!
Guard 1: The prince??????
King: Yes, MAKE SURE 'E DOESN'T LEAVE...
Guard 2: *hic*
Guard 1: Oh, yes, of course!! I thought you meant him! (motions towards the second guard) You know, it seemed a bit daft me having to guard him when 'e's a guard...
King: (pause) Is that clear?
Guard 1: Oh, quite clear, no problems!
Guard 2: *hic*
King: Right. (starts to leave. The guards follow him) Where are *you* going?
Guard 1: We're coming with you!
King: Nono, I want you to *stay* here and MAKE SURE 'E DOESN'T LEAVE!
Guard 1: Oh, I see, right!

I never really felt pity for that guy before.

For a moment, I thought I had forgotten how to spell Alzheimer's. Then I realized I had never really known for sure. Is it better to be ignorant than senile? I'm not so sure.

Who has the responsibility of introducing me to the members of the staff I don't know at Tea? Is it my ultimate boss, my project supervisor, my sub-project supervisor, or my mommy? Probably none of the above. It's probably me.

Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to do it, because I feel they should know and fear me already, from the tales and lore shared with them by the others. I consider them new staff and me old staff. I am a mutant: the five-year returning temporary summer employee.

And this happens every summer.

Very confused. Many projects. Little sleep over the weekend. Very little archival knowledge osmosed (is that a verb?) during the last five years I have worked here, but no one seems to realize that I was just photocopying and reorganizing the supply cabinet and don't actually know anything about archives. All will be fine once I am settled in. I hope.