glitches

internet!

I don't know why I was cursed.  I spent much of today dealing with internet problems.  Just when you think you have it under control, the internet comes back to bite you in the ass. 

A review:
We lived in connecticut.  I had a vpn to get access to the university library database.  everything worked perfectly.  My internet addiction was manageable, if only because I wasn't every away from the internet for longer than a day or two.  It was fine.

We moved to new mexico.  We lived at my dad's house, which is far enough away from town that neither cable nor dsl options were a possibility.  We had to go with this crazy antenna thing where they would beam a signal to us from the ski basin and we would receive it with this radio receiver the internet company had installed on the roof.  When we were setting this up, all they kept asking us was "can you see the ski basin from your house?"  It all seemed a little too crazy to work.  They assured us it would.  The internet company would also rely on internet transmissions to send messages, which was a problem when we didn't have internet reception in the first place.  But most of the time it worked, and it was our only option, and they forced us into a 2 year contract, so who could really complain?  It was that or dial-up.  When you're an internet addict, dial-up is not an option.

When the weather dropped below freezing and the first big snow fell, the ski basin internet started to fail.  I ended up spending hours at starbucks, trying to update my life and keep myself sane.  This was not the best month to be taking on the challenge of holidailies.  This would have been a great month to write my first novel.  Other than the fact that I was moving and all, but you know. 

We moved, finally, after much frustration.  Our new house had internet through the cable, and the people at comcast assured me it would work right away.  one frustrating night wrangling with the modem proved them wrong.  Then my computer wouldn't read their system because of my vpn at Yale.  An hour with tech support yesterday solved that problem.  Today, the modem they gave us stopped working.  another hour with tech support.  A drive across town, past the mall and Target and christmas shopping gridlock madness, all to exchange the modem.  There, I am assured by the counter person that it will work when I get home.  Not so much.  More calls to tech support.  It's getting to the point where I have started a file on my computer so I can keep track of the reference numbers they give me with each call.  I hate calling tech support.  The condescension, the step by step talking, the slow pace... it drives me up the wall.

But today, right now, I have internet.  And I can update today.  If that's all I need, then I am satisfied.  at least for now, right at this moment.

punishment

Oooh- that was irritating.  Someone was sending little trackback demons to my weblog and they were doing it faster than I could delete.  So, from now on comments are moderated and there are no trackbacks and you have to give me some sort of identifying information before I comments can freely swim about.  Ack.

I feel like that teacher who took away everyone's recess because some dolt in the back of the classroom wouldn't stop making farting noises.

The weekend has been a total waste.  I feel completely out of it- in fact both days I have taken longish naps and have awoken feeling only a mite bit refreshed.  I have a wierd cold and I'm not afraid to sleep on it.

Tune in next week for more stimulating and entertaining whylime.  But for the time being, visit dish and spoon and join in the chatter.

Excitement!

We have much excitement around here.  So much excitement, I can't keep it to myself.  With the help of the village, we have a website and a forum for you to visit, join, and take over.  Please visit, make comments to me here or there and let's build a happy family together!  Yay!  I want to improve the site with your feedback, so please let me know when you see something that needs attention.

The name came from my own brain.  We played with a lot of different paths and ended up settling on this, partly because it has a certain flair to it, and partly because I have this whole thing about spoons, and I like the thought of getting together to dish. 

So, thanks in advance for what I hope is a great community. 

Hooray! yay, dish and spoon!

my kingdom for a name

I'm in the process of turning a paper I wrote a year ago into a manuscript for publication.  I have a long history of writing decent papers, intending them to become manuscripts and having them sit around until the information is so out of date it would require writing a whole new paper to make it worth my while to revise.  The publication aspect of my life is such a pain in my buttom.

A few days ago I posted a quick query of you readers asking if anyone was interested in participating in a forum generated by me.  There was some interest before I took the post down, but the interest took a little while to get back to me and in the meantime I felt a little like I'd invited people to a party and everyone had looked the other way.  But I really do think I'm going to go through with it.  I've been investigating my options, and I think I've found a way to do this that isn't so complicated and time consuming that I could write a dissertation about the process once I'm done.  So I'm trying to come up with names for this site.  I like glitches, but that url is taken.  I also like the word "concentric", but that url is taken too.  Naming after myself seems a little too much, and besides, "whylime.com" is taken.  I like the idea of a group made up of friends and virtual friends, where we talk about what we're interested in: partners, no partners, babies/kiddos, journaling, crafting, being irritated, being not so irritated, parenting in general, pup culture, and whatever else we're obsessing on at the moment.  For example, I'm obsessing on yoga, so I would have a yoga thread.  You might be obsessing on this person, and you would have your very own place to spread that love around.

With those thoughts in mind, can you help me come up with a name?  I need a name.  namey?

high school

I feel like I've been so out of touch lately.  Really, for the past month.  Things have been so crazily insane, or insanely crazy, that I just can't keep track of it all.  Not just treading water, but trying desperately not to sink below.  I really wanted to be supportive of sweets going to Borneo, but when he came back and the lentil got sick and I still hadn't had time to myself I started to get a little irked. 

The lentil is better now, thank you.  Three days home from day care, then a sickly weekend.  Now he's so happy to feel better, he can't stop running around.  This little boy went to day care last wednesday a baby and got sick.  In the four days that he was sick he metamorphosized into a full-blown toddler.  He has temper tantrums! he says NO and means it!  He hates having his diaper changed and will only eat cheese!  The product of two very stubborn adults happens to be a very stubborn toddler.  Lesson learned.

(I am, at this very moment, bearing witness to some incredibly bad fashion.  Black and white french-maid-ish dress with knee high white socks and black and white ballet slippers.  This MUST be a costume.  But it's not.  No, I assure you, this is deliberately horrific.  Unless the Moulin Rouge Cafe and Bar just opened up in the nearby strip bar, I suppose.  Then it might be a uniform.  Oh- no.  I get it.  School just let out and this happens to be within walking distance of the local high school.  Ah, high school.)

On one of the email groups I participate in it has recently become clear that there is a large number of people on the list who are closely linked to the same small town where I went to high school.  There has been a little name throwing about, with people talking about who knows who and so on.  Although I am happy that we all have a common bond, I am a little uncomfortable with the fact that people out there can verify my geekdom with people from my past.  It's not that I've created some farcical life on the internet and I'm really a maine coon cat with a good sense of grammar.  It's just that I have some control over how people see me on the internet.  Even though I have no problem with meeting friends from online in real life (hi, Greschya! hi persephonee!).  It's more that I was so incredibly unhappy as an adolescent, I hate to think that somewhere out there is a group of people who's only frame of reference of me is of that very painful iteration.

For disclosure:  I was a shy, withdrawn teenager with a love for alcohol and mischief, but I hated getting in trouble.  I liked learning.  I never cut class, but I let my friends cut my hair.  I played saxophone in a rock band, and we played mostly cover tunes like "all along the watchtower" and "summer in the city."  I was infatuated with the bass player of the band, which made my life both very exciting and very painful.  my parents were recently divorced and my mother was much more focused on her new relationships than on her daughter.  I played soccer on the women's soccer team until I got mono and had to quit, but nobody seemed to notice that I was gone.  While I always identified with the alterna-kids, it wasn't until high school that I clued in that punk rock was really the way to make positive change in this world.  and thus, punk rock saved my life.  From this little blurb you can see that I was just like every other uncomfortable and angst-ridden adolescent in middle america.  I was a geek, I was a weekend alcoholic, and I made it my duty to stay as low on the horizon as possible in order to avoid attention from authority figures.  Even so, I had my run-ins, like the time I was called in to the principle's office to be interrogated for an hour because they thought I was bringing a gun to school.  Keep in mind, this was before Columbine, so I got off with only a warning.  And I didn't even own a gun, for the record.

That said, I really doubt anyone even remembers me from high school.  The few times I've run into former classmates, I have been able to just avoid the subject and they rarely remember having met me in high school.  So, I figure with this internet group that the names will be dropped and nobody will remember me and life will go on.

I guess the issue here is that I'm so much more than I was in high school.  Basically, the minute I left that town after graduation my life changed dramatically.  I started a 'zine, I got a job and had some real authority, I went to college and made real music, I found a group of other native kids with whom I could share my experiences as an urban indian, and I finally found a boyfriend who wasn't going to jerk me around until his girlfriend came to visit in a few weeks.  I was so unhappy in that place that I've made a point to never return for more than a few days.  I hated it there.

So if you happen to run into someone who went to high school with me, tell them I say hi and just see if they can remember who I am without referring to their yearbook.  I dare you.