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Thursday January 18, 2001
"Chance could not imagine what being on TV involved. He wanted to see himself reduced to the size of the screen; he wanted to become an image, to dwell inside the set." Jerzy Kosinski , Being There
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who'll stop the rain? Cold. Rain, more rain. More cold. The streets I drive seem to be developing large potholes by the minute. On the way home tonight it wasn't bumper-to-bumper on Mopac. I can only conclude that there was either a bad wreck somewhere preventing people from getting to that stretch or that people have simply lost the will to go downtown in the cold rain. Dad is late with his quarterly tax payment. Because he doesn't have the coupon or the address. So I print one off the WEB and take it to him on the way to work. Lunch time, I go over and eat leftovers with them and then give my Mom a lesson or two on the computer. I'm thinking of getting one of those snoop programs that tracks keystrokes and screen shots. Except it would probably make Windows ME crash. Sometimes I can figure out what she did and explain it to her. Sometimes not. She likes it, though. We get a snail mail letter printed out. We make a print out of her contacts' e-mail and I show her how to send someone else's e-mail address to one of her contacts. We try the calculator. In the last few years, there has been a lot of attention given to, um, attention deficit disorder. Adult attention deficit disorder even. I never had a name for it, as a kid. Sure, sometimes I can concentrate. When looking for a bug or reading or writing something particularly interesting. Usually, though, I want to skip from one task to the next with alarming frequency. I usually just go with it. Do a little here and there, forget where I was, fumble through. Get everything done, a tiny bit at a time. Accommodation. Sometimes I buckle down when there is a looming deadline. Today I tried to just make myself spend one hour reading some stuff I needed to read but soon enough I interrupted myself. I think that's why I am always crashing Windows. I always have all these Windows going at once. It supports my AADD. Until there is a crash and I have to boot! As I get older I have trouble remembering stuff. Sometimes I let the thing I'm trying to remember sift around in my brain. Sometimes I forget what I'm trying to remember. A night at home trying to organize myself. Every flat surface in here is stacked with stuff. I can never keep a bit of work space. The floor even gets stacked. Maybe our new resolution to save money will keep us from accumulating so much stuff. Trying to save money has made me realize that I have an unreasonable desire for gadgets. Now I'm trying to think it through, decide what I'm really going to do with the gear. Promises to save lots of money. Even if I eventually capitulate...the price drops and the gear gets better. He who hesitates, gets a better deal. Sometimes. Yep. Those pesky resolutions. How am I doing? Save Money If you can make yourself write it down, you can do this one. It's just so much trouble to write it down! I think we are doing OK. Energy costs are rising, but I feel bad burning lights and turning on the heat anyway what with California going dark. Just another thing for California, isn't it? Mud, earthquake, fire, riot, traffic. And then...no electricity. So...they have to read by candlelight and can't surf the WEB. And can't turn on the TV and find if the mud or fire is heading for their house. Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, they pay a million bucks for a two bedroom house. Maybe this will be good for the Austin economy. After all, a two bedroom house in this neighborhood is only $200,000.
Hrmmph. I weighed 175 today. That's about the same, huh. At least I'm not gaining!
This is an easy one. Just flip on the B&W TV in the bathroom and watch drug ads and coffee ads, while whisking away more tartar. Sometimes I hear some inane news, too. Like someone making the leap from a guy falsely convicted of rape and murder to how lucky he was since 'with all the discussion of George Bush and the death penalty" that he didn't die. First, he was abused by the Austin police (say you are sorry, George, I'm sure it's your fault) into cofessing to get a life sentence. If it had gone to trial he might have been exonerated. And folks, as I've reminded you here, the death penalty isn't just George's responsibility. It is a Texas law and these are judges and juries or Texans. And several dozen people were executed while Ann Richards was governor. And she exhausted what the gov could do short of granting clemency for many more. One guy was executed on George's inauguration day as governor. What will the pundits say if George doesn't give a pardon to Timothy McVeigh? If he does? And, you know what, I wish they'd killed Kenneth McDuff after he was sentenced to die for killing several people and not let him out to kill Colleen Reed and several others. Maybe it's murder. A state murder. But you could pick worse people to inflict it on!
Work Harder at Work Hey, I'm trying. I have AADD. Maybe I can get a disability for it?
This is directly tied to getting the paper read! But, actually, I've been making an effort to pick up something every time I leave a room that needs to go somewhere else. This gets the coffee cups back to the kitchen anyway. It gets the socks off the floor by the bed. And the shoes out of the way in front of the easy chair. And we spread up the bed as soon as we get up.
I've done the journal, but that's about it. I've been thinking about that book. But not writing. Read the Paper Every Day They are piling up. Yikes. Too many social obligations!
Hmm...I'm dabbling through a few. The thin but poignant Being There. (Obviously, from the quotes.) A book about the Oxford English Dictionary and a strange contributor to it: The Professor and the Madman. Definitely need to retire to do this resolution right.
Exercise More Can't even eXtreme dog walk in this weather. Get to the gym! Well, um, I'm walking up and down the stairs at work. Yeah, I know. FFP has been going to Westwood. I'm waiting until they shut it down for remodeling, then I'm using that as an excuse.
Well...who put this one in? I learned a new French word, though. One. Tutoyer. Can't believe I never encountered it before in my dabbling with the language. To address someone as 'tu.' Now that I know this word I think I would give it to a character in my novel. If, that is, I were writing a novel.
I have consciously had water with meals and gotten a tall glass with my 'large strong coffee' out of that machine at work.
Yeah, right. I decide to back some stuff up to a CD. Every time I look at properties in Explorer for the CD, WIN98 crashes. Isn't that sweet? I got one backup CD built. More this weekend. My Mom calls at nearly 10 PM to report that she left her computer alone for a long time and it hasn't 'cut off.' (Gone to power saver mode, I assume.) Who knows? I ask her if she can still do things. "Yes, but some of the Windows you opened aren't there." "You must have closed them. Is it asking you to do anything?" "I didn't, um, I guess I did. No, it isn't asking anything." "Well, just leave it. It won't hurt anything," I say hopefully I keep telling her nothing is her fault and she can't hurt anything. It's more or less true, isn't it? I suspect she closed Word instead of one Word window. Maybe. I don't know why it isn't going into power saver mode.
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