June 2002 Archives

Waiting for C. to finish sewing a straight line. The 30 year old sewing machine is plaguing her, and every time it does something silly I have to take over and fix it, because I just can't explain how to thread it or do anything from any angle other than directly in front of it. I doubt I could even draw a picture from memory of what all the bits are that the thread has to go through. But I can damn sure thread the thing even at 11:30 at night when I am this tired.

I was the only one who saw the Bourne Identity who thought it was believable that Franka and whatshisname shagged. I think I was prejudiced by my extreme desire to make her mine.

Re: wacky anarchistic librarians that are trying to make information available to more people through the magic of ebooks. I can just imagine a publisher's rep trying to explain the difference between ebooks and normal books to a librarian:

Publisher: The problem is, we aren't getting as many sales, because people have access to the material for free.
Librarian: Kind of like when they check it out with a library card.
Publisher: Um...But they can make copies of the ebooks.
Librarian: Like with a photocopier.
Publisher: Except that then they would have to leave the house and spend money - the way you're doing it, it's easy to copy the material.
Librarian: So you don't really care if they have a free copy, or spend money that you don't get, you just want them to be inconvenienced?
Publisher: Um, yes.
Librarian: Basically, a deterrent to reading unless you have a lot of money to spare.
Publisher: Um, yes.

Also, interesting site about street harassment, which often plagues women in Austin who are minding their own business walking to their class at the Texas Department of Health. Not that I'm bitter....but it's nice to see that someone has realized this is a problem.

The New York Times is cracking me up. Here's a subtitle:

As crews battle wildfires, tourism officials are fighting the impression that the entire state is on fire.

I was right to be suspicious. One of the events that followed the burrs was my mother calling to say my grandfather was in fact not ok. He's in the hospital, in pain, and they can't figure out what's wrong in addition to the blood clot in his lung.

When the first thing that happens in your day is that your pajamas get burrs on them, you can't help but be suspicious about what comes next.

From the New York Times: "Amazon is told not to help anyone fake results ever again."

Ever. Ever ever. You bad things!

Laura Bush offers slice of reality: she says SUV-loving Americans need to be realistic about oil

This is funny because if you read the article, you can see that no, she really doesn't.

So I guess we just need to figure out the way to come to terms with all of everyone's interests . . . to try and figure out the most efficient and environmentally sound way to meet our energy needs," she said. "And I think we can do that."

Everything is still defined as an energy "need," rather than as a desire. The "most" efficient and environmentally sound way to meet our current "needs" probably isn't much of either, IMHO. Particularly not if designed by the people currently in the White House.

OK, so grandfather seems reasonably ok for now. They'll have to "cut on" him later, but he's cracking jokes on the phone, so I feel better. I just started reading the family history book he wrote at the laundromat today, and it's quite good. (Clarification: my grandfather did not write a book at the laundromat today. He doesn't have to go to the laundromat, because he has a house with a washer and dryer.)

So it turns out they didn't even get as far as working on my grandfather's heart - they just did the bit where they stick the tube in to find what's wrong, and *that's* what made the hole that caused the internal bleeding. So he gets to go home, but then he has to go back. Feh.

I used it an a reason to withdraw from the panel I was supposed to present on next week, though. I had gotten stuck doing the panel b/c I was the only one in the research group that was definitely going to be in Austin for the summer. As it got closer, I realized it was an activity that fell into the "Why do I keep eating food that sucks?" category - i.e., when there's no good reason to do an activity, and you don't like doing it, perhaps you should stop. And it is true that Grandpa may need to go back in next week, so leavin' my calendar open to help out is totally legit. *sigh of relief* Now I don't have to figure out something clever to say about Community Technology Centers and civic engagement.

And to top off that good news, the new bandaids we bought stayed on perfectly in the shower. I love that.

heretic's linkblog of fun had something to say about this news article:

a Philadelphia court has thrown out the idea of filtering porn sites from public library terminals, in the name of free speech. Tough call - the principle is sound, but at the end of the day I just don't feel it's appropriate to have people surfing porn sites in public libraries.

Now I don't like it that the Klan has websites, or that people read them, but that doesn't mean we can just keep people from looking at them. On top of that, libraries are funded with public dollars, making it double-bad to monkey with speech on their premises. I might be prejudiced, since K. and I heard a radio interview with a woman who was suing a library system because her son had seen so much porn using a library computer that he felt like no one should stop him from seeing whatever he wanted. That's probably not the legal argument they were using, but that's how she put it. She went on to add that this case was only about child protection, and if you were against it, you were "basically anti-child." Left me with a bit of a bad feeling.

In other news, I missed the quilt guild meeting due to silly time confusion, resulting in being gone for 2 hours so I could read magazines and wait for buses. Feh.

A. taunted me for not blogging, and that's fair. If I'm going to have this thing, I should use it.

Today and yesterday, F. was here quilting for the last time before she moves to Montana. We got a lot done and it was extremely entertaining to boot. The previous evening, I had a conversation with my friend B. in which she blamed her lack of quilting on not having anyone to quilt with. I scolded her for a lack of devotion, but I have to admit that my productivity and creativity are definitely lower than when I was in Boston and had scads of people to keep me company and make me use pink.

My ex-husband used to ask what we did in the quilting meetings - like, drink tea? I told him we cursed and talked about sex, which is true. But we also helped each other on design or technical issues, even when our tastes were very different. It was ok to do your own thing.

I did not get such a vibe from the "ladies" at the quilt show here in town when I volunteered. They didn't seem to know what to do with someone who didn't already know everyone, and when I couldn't identify some easy to grok traditional style of quilting as my particular flavor, they didn't have much to say to me. I know the intergenerational gap is hard to bridge, but my grandfather called me last week to talk about finding a suitable relational database for his genealogy research, so I know it can be done. I felt game to try with the quilt guild people. It didn't work.

But I'm going to try again. Tomorrow evening is the quilt guild meeting, and I shall attend and see if I can get in the swing of things. They have "bees", which are groups that meet to sew together, and maybe I could do that. The Art Quilt bee I signed up for last time ended up being a discussion bee held at a non-public transportation-friendly coffeeshop. Ah well. We'll see if life has improved.