some nasty words thrown into the air in the general direction of tripod (and geocities before them that necessitated the move to tripod in the first fucking place). grrrr. the images that i made for this blog have not been loading because.... well, fuck it. i don't quite know why they aren't loading. presumably because tripod doesn't want people using their free webhosting service as a place where people can store their pictures that are going to load on another site. but they don't actually mention that they're going to do that. they just put up some kind of block and make us poor schmoes work it out for ourselves. same goddamned thing that geocities did.

so now i am without images and i'm contemplating what to do. joe offered to let me put some on a folder on his site, which is unaccountably generous, but i'm starting wonder if i shouldn't just take this as a karmic sign: redo the site. or something to that effect.

something to contemplate. meanwhile, i have an image to make for my mother's birthday, which is being celebrated on saturday. happy birthday, mom!

chalk this one up to random blogger strangeness: i posted twice yesterday and both posts got lost. now i log in and discover that they made it through the snowstorm to the database but they didn't get published. great. wonderful. i deleted the whiny "blogger lost my post" post and i'm trying to think of something new and original to post now, mostly because i was going to write out something small and desultory to see if blogger was working or not. apparently it is.

ho. hum. what to write about? i'd guess that you don't want to hear about the quality of my sex life.

how about this?

no? well, i updated the souvenir koan. interesting enough for you?

another long weekend, although this one was justified because we had another day and not just because we spent so much time carousing on saturday night. as a matter of fact, we went out friday (shrek), saturday (catacomb) and sunday (the black cat). and too much caffeine on monday, which made it hard for me to sleep.

we picked up the funk box collection, which starts with james brown asking if he can get up and do his thing and ends (four disks later) with atomic dog. bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay. i'm such a white boy, it's not even funny. but i do like that bass. it tickles me deep down in the soul.

shrek was good. go see it. support the idea of story. never mind the animation. honestly.

catacomb wasn't all that exciting, to be honest.

and we saw two bands at the black cat on sunday. one was called speedwill (i thought that they were calling themselves speedwell, which sounds better to me). the other was called charming. i liked speedwell's complete lack of pretension and utter willingness to go nuts and rock out on stage. charming had a whole mod schtick going on (the lead guitarist was wearing a sharkskin suit, for fuck's sake!) which would have been annoying if the lead singer hadn't been cute. what can i say? i'm a sucker for a girl in go-go boots and a short skirt. the funny thing was that our group of people were the only ones in the audience (including the other bands) that was willing to banter back to the people on stage. what? since when have audiences been completely cowed by the aura of the artist? when did this happen? they make a joke, you're meant to be yelling stupid things back at them - if only to keep them laughing and feeling like they're playing for actual people. am i right?

hello...?

i spent two days in training. learning about the wonderful new worlds that windows2000 can give us. (can you feel the sarcasm?) i was telling shannon about something or other over dinner and she looked at me and said "you're turning into a geek, matt." fair enough. i do geeky things at work. i'm good at it. i have an agile mind that allows me to remember why dns is important while being able to plot a novel in the back of my mind. i need something to keep me interested and engaged at work and, on top of that, something to keep my mind occupied so that i don't get burned out on literature. everyone needs a release from their art from time to time. just a moment to step back and say "time out."

hrm. i was talking to someone last week about novel structure and he asked if there was a shortcut or somewhere that he could learn it. i told him that the best lesson is to go through and read as many novels as you can, paying attention to how they're put together. he told me that that approach took the fun out of the reading process. now that i think about it, it does. sort of. except that i enjoy paying attention to how people write. it's like a game. "can i do that?" "how did he do that?" "where did that twist come from?"

maybe i am a geek. but is that such a bad thing?

i got this in my mailing list, from someone (thanks claire!) who got it from one of her other mailing lists.

LITERATURE ABUSE: AMERICA'S HIDDEN PROBLEM

SELF-TEST FOR LITERATURE ABUSERS

How many of these apply to you?

1. I have read when I was depressed or to cheer myself up.

2. I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day.

3. I read rapidly, often 'gulping' chapters.

4. I have sometimes read early in the morning or before work.

5. I have hidden books in different places to sneak a chapter without being seen.

6. Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read.

7. Sometimes I re-write film or television dialog as the characters speak.

8. I am unable to enjoy myself with others unless there is a book nearby.

9. At a party, I will often slip off unnoticed to read.

10. Reading has made me seek haunts and companions which I would otherwise avoid.

11. I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I have finished a book.

12. I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead.

13. I have attempted to check out more library books than permitted.

14. Most of my friends are heavy readers.

15. I have sometimes collapsed from a night of heavy reading.

16. I have suffered 'blackouts' or memory loss from a bout of reading.

17. I have wept, become angry, or irrational because of something I read.

18. I have sometimes wished I did not read so much.

19. Sometimes I think my reading is out of control.

If you answered 'yes' to three or more of these questions, you may be a literature abuser. Affirmative responses to five or more indicates a serious problem.

Once a relatively rare disorder, Literature Abuse, or LA, has risen to new levels due to the accessibility of higher education and increased college enrollment since the end of the Second World War. The number of literature abusers is currently at record levels.

SOCIAL COSTS OF LITERARY ABUSE

Abusers become withdrawn, uninterested in society, or normal relationships. They fantasize, creating alternative worlds to occupy, to the neglect of friends and family. In severe cases they develop bad posture from reading in awkward positions or carrying heavy book bags. In the worst instances, they become cranky reference librarians in small towns.

Excessive reading during pregnancy is perhaps the number one cause of moral deformity among the children of English professors, teachers of English, and creative writing. Known as Fetal Book Syndrome, this disease also leaves its victims prone to a lifetime of nearsightedness, daydreaming, and emotional instability.

HEREDITY

Recent Harvard studies have established that heredity plays a considerable role in determining whether a person will become an abuser of books. Most abusers have at least one parent who abused literature, often beginning at an early age and progressing into adulthood. Many spouses of an abuser become abusers themselves.

OTHER PREDISPOSING FACTORS

Fathers or mothers who are English teachers, professors, or heavy book readers; parents who do not encourage children to play games, participate in healthy sports, or watch television in the evening.

PREVENTION

Pre-marital screening and counseling, referral to adoption agencies in order to break the chain of abuse. English teachers in particular should seek partners active in other fields. Children should be encouraged to seek physical activity and to avoid isolation and morbid introspection.

DECLINE AND FALL: THE ENGLISH MAJOR

Within the sordid world of literature abuse, the lowest circle belongs to those sufferers who have thrown their lives and hopes away to study literature in our colleges. Parents should look for signs that their children are taking the wrong path--don't expect your teenager to approach you and say, "I can't stop reading Spenser." By the time you visit her dorm room and find the secret stash of the Paris Review, it may already be too late.

What to do if you suspect your child is becoming an English major:

1. Talk to your child in a loving way. Show your concern. Let her know you won't abandon her--but that you aren't spending a hundred grand to put her through Stanford so she can clerk at Waldenbooks, either. But remember that she may not be able to make a decision without help; perhaps she has just finished Madame Bovary and is dying of arsenic poisoning.

2. Face the issue: Tell her what you know, and how: "I found this book in your purse. How long has this been going on?" Ask the hard question--Who is this Count Vronsky?

3. Show her another way. Move the television set into her room. Introduce her to frat boys.

4. Do what you have to do. Tear up her library card. Make her stop signing her letters as 'Emma.' Force her to take a math class, or minor in Spanish. Transfer her to a Florida college.

You may be dealing with a life-threatening problem if one or more of the following applies: * She can tell you how and when Thomas Chatterton died. * She names one or more of her cats after a Romantic poet. * Next to her bed is a picture of: Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, or any scene from the Lake District.

Most importantly, remember, you are not alone. To seek help for yourself or someone you love, contact the nearest chapter of the American Literature Abuse Society, or look under ALAS in your telephone directory.

one of my great pleasures in life is coming across a brand new word. even better is when you read the word and realize that you know another form of it, but never knew that this one existed. the whole process is sublime and only takes a few seconds, but it happens with decreasing frequency. in fact, i can't remember the last time it happened before yesterday.

i was on the metro ride home last night, reading ubik by phillip k. dick when i came across the work 'malappropriate.' i knew the word 'malapropism' but i never knew that it could be used quite like that. it was one of those moments that made me enjoy the english language.

it's been a weird, woolly and wild week here at work. i'm trying to give our new intern something new to do while managing my own work projects. i'm also trying really hard not to just flat out give him all of my backlogged stuff. phew. this responsibility thing really sucks sometimes.

one of my new web projects is a blog where i'm publishing new fiction. once a week is the frequency that i'm shooting for at this point, but that may change upwards. i'm trying to get into the habit of writing something new and short once a week. at some point, i may even develop an audience. (i know, i know...)

consider this my attempt to be proactive about getting serious about writing. or something.

my favorite manager left yesterday for greener pastures. i don't really blame her for going, but i'm really going to miss her. i've never had a manager that i was actually sorry when she left. oh well.

i woke up this morning and went "bleah." i started to eat breakfast and decided that i wasn't going anywhere today. i rarely call in sick at all, so i just made a command decision and went back to bed. i've been in and out of bed all day, but i still don't feel very good. so all in all, it's been a rather slow day for me, really.

and nerve has a rather frightening item about a man searching for his perfect girl. very odd.

and another day dawns. lotta shit to get sorted out this week. i was trying to get a new drive image loaded onto my main work computer (as opposed to this one, which is my main non-work work computer). thing is that i'm encountering all manner of problems when i try to get this new image to work on the domain. aggravation. so i reloaded the image and it still wasn't working. we're loading a good image from elsewhere and we're going to apply that one. and that should work. fingers crossed.

i saw my grandfather last night and he basically kicked me out early. i really like talking to him about writing and literature and so forth, but i realize that the man is old and not in the best of health. i try to see him every time he comes down for a visit (they have a house in long island and an apartment in wheaton). still, i get maudlin when i consider that the man is 77 years old with not many more years left to live. it's a stark truth, but a very sad one. at any rate, it was a good visit and he gave me some good mind gristle to chew on. i'm sort of chomping at the bit to start writing anyway, so he sort of added fuel to the fire. not that i mind, really.

i've been considering a change in my photoshop habits. i've gotten to the point where i'm good at what i do (when i can do it) but i think that there are other things i could be doing with my skills. besides, i've barely touched certain sectors of the program. i've got to get comfortable with other stuff. at the same time, i've been flipping through this adult site a lot. the redclouds section (a pay section) has tons of great material, so i'm in a bind of sorts. do i continue with what i was doing, or do i make a change? i'm thinking that i should change or swerve or make a sharp turn or something. i've got an abundance of material and i have the disposition. i'm just not sure i have the direction i want to go in. making erotic art can be tough, if you want to be good at it.

one of the things my grandfather said to me last night was that i don't just talk about writing - i do it. it's a critical threshold, for some reason. the application of an art is far more important than the discussion of it (although the discussion of writing is pretty damned important to me). but, for the most part, i keep my opinions to myself. is this technique good? does it work well? is it played out? could i use it? how? what situation would i put it in? all of these conversations occur to me and take place in that part of my brain that is dedicated to writing. not because i think that no one else would understand, but because i want to work it out for myself. quietly. apply it. see what the result is. smoothe the rough patches. move on to something else. this is what i mean when i say that i am a writer.

and blogger returns. i was going to make an entry yesterday, but our favorite web-publishing program was on the skids. but it's okay now and everyone's happy.

mother's day was fun. i got my hair cut because i do try to look nice for my mother every now and then. i don't see her all that often, but when i do, i want her to remember it with fondness. small things, but that's what life is about, really. my grandparents are in town, too. i'm going over to their apartment tonight after work. dinner and conversations about literature; all that a person really requires in life. for the most part, anyway.

i lost my keys last week, which earned a resounding "fuck!" from me. so now i'm down to only one set of car keys and we had to make a duplicate house key. crap. the kicker is that i'm not sure where i lost my keys. i could have sworn that i had them when i left the office - if i did, then i lost them on the metro. either way, they're gone. no more. oh well.

sort of interesting days at work. busy as all hell, but sporadic entertainment, too. there was a high-level argument going on in our program that someone had the courtesy to cc to one of my inboxes. i got to watch someone be asinine in public. imagine, working on a program and not knowing how the procedures work. but jesus there have been a lot of fucking phone calls this week.

tuesday and my head hurts. my sinuses? maybe. it doesn't help that the weather changes from day to day. first it was hot, now it's cool. what fun it is to live in washington.

things have really started to slow down here at work. i did a whole lot of nothing yesterday, which was fun. some photoshop work, mostly. enough to know that i'm very rusty. my results were really bad. ugh.

and we have some concerns about the viability of laser tag. we've only got twelve people signed up and we need a minimum of fifty. that's not good.

and i like this part of glassdog.

all i have to say at this point is "thank god it's friday." it's been a long, weird week, full of troubleshooting strange permissions errors and the like. on top of that, yahoo groups died rather suddenly on tuesday afternoon. interestingly, this coincided with the mysterious death of the culture list mail server. so i got no community at all on wednesday. nothing. no communication. no conversation. it was like being cut adrift and i was paranoid for a few minutes that i'd been cast out...

then i came in yesterday, checked the yahoo groups site for the backup culture list and saw that i wasn't alone in my paranoia and reflexive need. everyone else felt it, too. (while i'm on the subject of the culture, a hearty hello to whoever it is that's checking my blog from the list that eccles maintains. i see you but i don't know who you are. sorry i'm not updating this more often. it's been busy at work...)

in other news... i was about to write the exact same paragraph that i'd written on tuesday. i even started it the same. spooky.... i always find it strange when i come up with a good line or description and think "yeah, that should go in just there." so i go in and prepare to insert said line and discover that i'd already had that bright idea. it's like my brain can't remember it's own creativity. or it's like a beach and the ocean washes across it every once in a while to erase the less important stuff, leaving smudges where there used to be intricate detail. i think i like that analogy better, actually. it's awkward, but apt.

i had a good thought this morning just as i was climbing out of bed:

"i'm remembering my bible stories. st. thomas was from the new testament version of missouri, because he didn't believe anything. when jesus appeared to him after death, st. thomas demanded to touch the stigmata - that's the wounds that jesus got on the cross. st. thomas wanted to put his fingers in the hole in christ's side so that he could know for sure. no faith at all, and the man's a saint. i guess it takes patience to be a martyr, because i wouldn't have let st. thomas stick his finger in my side. either he believed or he didn't."

i guess that's what i get for reading elmore leonard before i go to bed, huh?

things have finally (!) quieted down here at work. i for one have to say "thank fucking god!" the phone calls have subsided to a dull roar in the background and, while the programmers valiantly struggle to learn the old system so they can tear it down and replace it with something new and shinier, the hotline gets to catch their collective breath. (yes, i realize i went from first person to third person in the course of a paragraph. so sue me.)

my sinuses are ganging up on me and i'm not very happy about it. all of my mucus membranes were draining last night: watery eyes, runny nose, drippy mouth, sore throat... i took a generic nyQuil (big fucking Q!) and hit the bed. i semi-seriously contemplated not coming to work today. then i took a sinus pill and resolved to sit and feel detached for the whole day...

these days are warbling all over the place, timewise. sometimes it feels like the day is dragging until i look at the time and discover that it's actually 2:15 in the afternoon. or other days, the day feels like it's flying by but it's only noon. i hate that.

in other news, i don't think i'm getting what i'm meant to be getting out of the whole "write characters" exercise. i keep forgetting to do it and it just doesn't feel like something i'm naturally inclined to do. notice people, yes. try to understand character, not necessarily. i'll admit that i've started to deduce character motivations (and, thus, stories) from people i see on the street. it didn't used to be something that i did. i used to sit and look blankly at the people around me and just be annoyed at their presence. the fact that they were there kept me from (for example) stripping naked and running up and down the metro cars. not that i wanted to do that, you understand. i just wanted the freedom to know that i could do that if i wanted to. um, yeah...

i sent shannon this link yesterday and she spent three hours reading it. i honestly didn't expect her to get that into it. learn something new every day, i s'pose. she even joined the mailing list. funky.