muumuu. Yes, indeed. That thing my grandma ran around in that looked like a big tent.
Why you ask? Because running around starkers, as the British say, is not an option. Something about roommates. What a drawback. Bedroom about 92 degrees by 10pm. Office about 96 degrees by 10pm. That’s with the fan last night.
So yes, the most unsexy, unattractive piece of clothing ever invented I lust for. That is one that is sleeveless and covers all the bits while allowing some airflow as I move and work.
somehow I skyped to the malik that MSO has another love.. silicon and has gone to see her. And then I realized, the irony, the irony. … that he has a girlfriend named copper but truly loves silicon….
the elements of it all!
It makes me happy that the balance has shifted and I’m now getting more of a parnership with a bit more equal contribution and valuation of eachother’s part in the relationship. It makes me sad to watch the endgame of a 20+ year marriage. One half of that marriage is crashed in our guest room at the moment and I truly feel sorry for both of them – so much pain and struggle for answers. It makes me look at MSO and I and realize how far we’ve come and some hope for us holding together in the long run.
One of the largest problems with the average person being capable of making changes in their lifestyle is that environmental impacts are carried out on a much longer time scale the the average person thinks in. Our bodies have many many feedback mechanisms but they work on a very short timescale and so transferring the thoughts and reactions of a short timescale to a longer timescale makes many people think that there is “nothing wrong” as their day to day life isn’t directly impacted or the impact is so small that they figure it’s random variation. The one thing we, as a society, need more of are feedback mechanisms that help average people make better environmental choices. Higher prices for water and electricity come to mind first. There would need to be a “basic allocation” at a basic price, ie enough drinking and washing water for a family of four, and then the price would go up significantly giving the right pricing indicators for people to conserve their water use. Paris, of all places, seems to have come up with another feedback mechanism, one that is innovative and just a bit of fun!
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/07/14/paris-visualizes-air-quality-via-color-changing-balloon/
I came across this today
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/business/coal.php
Which has interesting implications for the price of energy in general and oil in specific. And then add that to the Economist’s retraction regarding Simmon’s writings in 2005. It’s not often you see the Economist say they got something wrong. But it’s so very glaring now-a-days that they kind of had to fess up to it. I wonder how many other naysayers will do so in the relative near future? Or how much anger the grandchildren will have at our generation for doing, effectively, nothing in the face of real data.
http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/07/peak-oil-prophet-plans-for-apocalypse/
Finally, after two months of just straight craziness I got a chance to sleep a decent night’s sleep and get some actual work done. I’ve got two stories in the hopper, took a 10 minute yoga break, got a cup of tea and am back at it with two more stories to rough out. It feels amazingly good to have finished something, just anything, and not have it hanging loose and have to change focus to the most unpleasant dealings of a frivilous and false lawsuit. Harrassment, etc. etc.
This also coincided with a break in the weather as we got rain, lots of it, so I don’t have to water the new trees or the garden and the temperature broke. So the office is cool enough to work in and not mop up sweat from the keyboard every few minutes. I finally got curtains from the thrift store in the office so the afternoon sun doesn’t blind me (the window spot is the only clean spot in the office to sit). MSO needs to finish cleaning the rest of the office so I can file stuff and have access to more of the desk. It’s on the list but low priority for him, and I don’t blame him.
In other news, I am wholly and completely tired of calling contractors to track down bids, but I know this is jut the beginning. They’re all very nice, just busy. Am hoping for a fix before the damage blows and we have a real mess. So it goes.
In the bad news category, I am saddened everytime I look at the bamboo flooring A. and I laid in the east rooms. Christian – the nightmare renter – scraped through the finish and into the bamboo. Bamboo is supposed to be a very hard surface so this is beyond frustrating. There are some people in this world that are just plain mean and inconsiderate and unfortunately we have spent two months dealing with one.
I’ve been using an RSS reader quite heavily for the last bit and have found it quite useful to narrow my focus when I need to cover a particular subject. That’s easy for tech subject but here is a method to give you thought, analysis and learning in a variety of other subjects:
http://polymeme.com/
I’ve also discovered that a regular pruning of the RSS feed is necessary and helpful for focus. Not that I don’t on average wake up to 1000+ articles and often dump in areas I don’t have time or interest for. Very few blogs and feeds continuously hold my attention before they begin to get repetitive after enough time reading them…
In other tech news, I’ve given up on Safari, Camino, FF3 and have discovered that I can crash any browser out there. Flashblocker is the best invention ever and the code is clippable and transferable as a script from FF3 to other browsers. It keeps the fan from kicking on because of stupid flash ads.
I am formally giving up on yahoo messenger which I’ve reloaded three times in the last couple of months and it continuously crashes on me. I’m on skype and will post contact info soonish, it’s low priority.
Every so often I join the real world. That is, I’m online. Sadly this last month has been legal and harrassment hassles from a former roomer. The good news is that he’s gone and I managed to learn how to change locks. 
I will probably disappear offline again in a few weeks to manage to go work on the cabin. A very important thing, probably the dearest thing to my heart. Note I said thing, not person.
And for a fun, innovative way to make decisions as a group this is amazing reading:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/06/29/global-voices-and-collective-decisionmaking/
Sensible, easy, and good for discussion that actually matters. If only we could choose a political canidate the same way.
So MSO and I got into a fight. He made a nasty comment about my eating potato chips and dip. (oh and coke, I fell off the wagon again). My stress level is through the roof trying to deal with our roomer. I don’t feel safe in my own house and so my, unhealthy, reaction is to eat my way through it. Not good. Not good at all.
This was MSO’s apology after our discussion of his comment.
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/drop_dead_gorgeous/10ddg.php
Timely, funny, and so him. I do love him.
So all the neighbors stop by now. They’re paying attention because they can see the changes around the house. The woman across the street who must be 70 if she is a day, gave me clematis and caraway. I am thrilled. But she also dropped of the extra of fresh cut rhubarb and asparagus. I don’t know how to thank her properly as she seems to have everything, including a really oversized duplex.
I am still working on the plumbing for the garden – a watering scheme that requires few hose moves and allows me to turn on the water and leave it for an hour or so and then turn it off. Bought more hose but the connectors are a pain to find – not in stock and not in stock. It’s been weeks now and getting worrisome that I’ll have to problem solve in a different direction for the watering while we’re out of town. I don’t want the cat/plant/garden/house sitter to have TOO much work.
So about the “crazy” french lady up the street. She stopped by the other night and MSO was outside. He got lectured that we’d better have vegetables in those beds and we should be putting in sour cherry trees, etc. etc. He didn’t remember her whole list. Personally, I thought it funny that the neighborhood would put in personal requests for what they want us to grow. But then I thought about it, she’s around 80 and is past the time that she’s starting her own garden but she has years of experience, so not so crazy afterall.
MSO has requested grapes – doable and chestnuts- a bit more difficult to fit in the yard but probably will happen in the next couple of years. I’m back to desperately wanting a cob oven on the patio. Don’t know how to broach the subject with MSO as it’s kind of a permanent structure etc. etc. but would look really nice out there.
So I pulled up a dandelion, it was in the wrong place. Full yellow heads, got the root… happy.
Two days later? Three days later? It’s lying on the porch….
gone to seed.
Now there is a will to survive and scatter!
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