Posts tagged ‘Blogs’

It has been over a year since I added a post to this blog.  Things got a little crazy, and then I couldn’t get into my blog to be able to make changes, but all of that is resolved now (or least as resolved as it can be!).

Anyway, I’m back and I’m sure I have some things to say.  Just don’t know what they are right now!  I think this is going to continue to be a place where I can expand on things beyond what I would normally put on Facebook.  After all, who really wants to read through an overly-detailed description about someone else’s vacation?  This way, it’s here, if you want to read it you can, and if you think it’s bullshit, so be it!

I will be posting as I have time.  No pressure to write every day or anything like that.  Just going to write when I can and when the mood inspires me.

See you soon!

There is a phenomenon known as “Phantom Limb Syndrome”.  Amputees experience it during the first months after having a limb removed, and, in some cases, it can last years.  The brain perceives signals from the nerves in the missing limb, and interprets them as sensation.  An amputee will feel pain in an arm or leg that is no longer there.  (Until recently, no one knew what to do for these poor people to alleviate their excruciating pain.  In a previous blog, I mentioned a contemporary genius,  Vilayanur Ramachandran.  He has come up with a solution and you can learn about it here.)  In my life I have, thankfully, never been in a position to completely understand this phenomenon, but I recently came close.  While I have never lost a limb, about a month ago, I dropped my laptop.

It was early on the second day of E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo.  My husband had been religiously following the proceedings on the first day and had asked to borrow my laptop so that he could view the streaming key note presentations.  “Why not?”, I thought.  No harm in letting a geek borrow technology.  It’s not like he can do anything to hurt the laptop.  Of course, I was right on that point, but it was when I “borrowed” my own laptop back to check my email before heading to work.  I picked it up off my husband’s desk, used it, and got ready to put it back on my husband’s desk when I lost my balance and dropped the whole thing.  I watched it, as if in slow motion, spin out of my hand and slide onto the floor.  Not having time to inspect the damage myself, I left a quick note scrawled on a paper towel (don’t ask) and headed off to work.

It wasn’t until later that day I learned of the havoc I had left in my path of destruction.  Not only had I trashed the hard drive in my brand-new two-month-old laptop, but, horror of horrors, my husband could no longer watch the streaming E3 videos!  He tried everything he could think of before finally acknowledging defeat.  Luckily, I was still under my warranty, but the process of filing a warranty claim, getting the new hard drive installed and getting all of my software took FOREVER.  And in the meantime, here I sat, twiddling my thumbs, without a computer of my own to be able to do my “stuff”.

I was still able to check my email on my phone, and I did borrow my husband’s system occasionally, but for the most part I was an involuntary Luddite for several weeks.  Of course, being in a position to NOT be able to write made me all the more anxious to write.  The longer I was without my laptop, the more I began to miss the freedom I felt (and had taken for granted) with my own portal onto the web.

Now that I am back, I am slowly gearing up to where I was before.  I have been posting to Facebook and Twitter, I have been playing my online-time-waster games, and finally, I am writing again.  It almost feels like I am starting all over again, and in a way, I am.  Today is a new beginning in brand new world.  One where I don’t drop my laptop ever again.

I decided last week I was going to take the weekend off for Mother’s Day.  I was not going to worry about writing, just going to enjoy the weekend.  That was all well and good until Friday morning.  I was in the shower, getting ready for work, and I started thinking (always a dangerous prospect with me) and I began composing in my head.  And I remember thinking it was a really good idea for a writing topic.  It then segued into two topics that were somewhat related, with the closing of the first to be sort of an introduction for the second.  So, I decided, right there in the shower, that instead of taking the weekend off, as I had planned, I would write both topics after I got home from work.

So far, so good, except that on Saturday afternoon, we were hosting a family party for Mother’s Day.  Both sides of the family were coming to our house.  By the time I got home from work, the remainder of Friday afternoon went to straightening up the house and doing what I could to get ready for Saturday.  Still OK.  Put the toddler down for a nap, and I was ready to write.  I came in to my desk, sat down, and fired up my browser.  My home page links to my Gmail, and I saw that I had several new messages.  I went to Gmail, and found a couple of other online things I needed to take care of before I could write.  Still OK.  Should only take a few minutes.  Half-way through my short list of tasks, I started having trouble.  I called to my husband (who was at his own workstation, doing HIS thing) and asked him if he had done something to our WiFi that would interfere with my ability to access the internet.  It was about then that we realized that we had no outside phone, either (no internet, no internet phone).  Grabbed my cell phone and called our ISP.  We were part of a “known outage” that should be resolved in an hour or two.  Still OK.  I started going through my coupons, making my shopping list for the store.  By the time I got done food shopping, everything would be resolved and I could sit down and write.

The toddler woke from his nap and we headed out to the store.  When we finished our shopping, I called my husband to have the older boys ready to come out and unload the car.  He answered our house phone.  Great!  The outage had been resolved and I would hop on the web and write to my heart’s content as soon as the groceries were put away.  Still OK.  My topics were still floating around in my brain.  Maybe not as fully formed as they were in the shower that morning, but enough that I was going to have no trouble reconstructing them.  By the time I got home (five minutes later), our internet was out again.  I put the groceries away, fixed dinner, and fed the heathens.  Finished up the last of the dishes, got everything squared away for Saturday.  Still no internet.  On the phone again with the ISP.

This time I was not as nice as I had been.  I told “Cedric” (like that’s his real name) that we had been told six hours prior that we were part of a “known outage” and that the problem was supposed to be resolved five hours ago, but we still didn’t have internet.  “Cedric” said that the outage was resolved and we needed to reset our modem.  Done, but still no internet.  “Cedric” offered to have someone come out on Saturday.  I told him that was fine, as long as they could come and go before noon, as we were having our party at 1:00.  “Cedric” told me he could do this, but he had to have a phone number for the tech to call before his arrival.  I assured him someone would be home, although I would be at work.  I told “Cedric” the only phone number for the people who would be home on Saturday is our home phone, which wasn’t working BECAUSE WE HAD NO INTERNET.  The service tech could call my cell phone, but I would not answer because I would be at work.  “Cedric” said if the tech called and didn’t  get an answer, he would assume that no one is home and would cancel the service call.  Clearly, we were not getting anywhere.  My husband told me to hang up, and I told “Cedric” I would have to call him back.  The toddler and I went in and started getting ready for bed.  Still OK.  I had been reminding myself of my wonderful topics and I would be fully ready to get up in the morning and, at the very least, jot down some notes before I go to work.  I set my alarm for extra early, so that I had time to write.

Saturday morning and my alarm clock is going crazy.  I hit the snooze and went back to sleep.  Crazy buzzing again.  Time to haul my butt out of bed.  Jumped in the shower, reviewed what I was going to write about.  Got all ready for work, and, surprise, surprise, NO INTERNET.  Sigh.  Still OK.  I made a couple of notes on some scratch paper in the kitchen, and headed to work.  Once there, my boss and I had a short conversation about me leaving early to go home and get ready for the party.  That should be fine, she said, and that was the plan right up until the part where we did 1/3 of our expected business for a “normal” Saturday in an hour.  So much for leaving early.  I finally got home and set to the food preparations for lunch.  Everyone came, we ate too much, and then sat around and visited.  Still OK.  I figured I could write once everyone left.

The party was over, everything was cleaned up and I was too tired to think.  I sat down and watched some TV and veg for bit.  When I finally was ready to sit down to write, I began looking for the paper with my notes on it.  Still OK.  As long as I could find the paper, I would be able to write about whatever it was I had been thinking about in the shower on Friday morning . . . . except that I couldn’t find the paper.  I searched through all the piles on my desk.  No notes.  I kept looking, all the while racking my brains trying to figure out what it was that I had thought of in the shower.  I finally concluded that the scratch paper must have found its way into the garbage in the last-minute clean up for the party.  The most I was able to resurrect was the closing line of the first topic – the one that is the introduction to the second topic.  At this point, I will still be able to write the second one, but somehow, I feel that it will be diminished because of the missing lead in.  I had it at one point, but now it’s gone.  I am losing it.  Check that.  I have lost it.  And I will probably never get it back.

When I started this blog, I was determined to follow the advice of countless writers before me: Write something every day.  I was on board.  I had willingly drunk the Kool-Aid and was writing daily.  Then life happened.  One of my favorite sayings is “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  After the day I had yesterday, he must be ROFLHAO.

It all started very benignly.  I got up and went to work.  Now, some people might view this as a chore, but I work in a place where, at least once a day, I am laughing so hard I have to put effort into not peeing my pants.  Anyway, a situation came up at work and my boss needed someone to cover some additional hours, and I willingly volunteered.  Had a great day, but then, when I got home, I had two hours to try and get done all the things that I had planned to do in the five hours I originally had scheduled.  One downfall to being a perfectionist is that, if one is not sure that EVERYTHING is going to work perfectly, there is a tendency to procrastinate until the stars align and perfection is attainable.  This explains why my house is in a constant, fluctuating state of chaos.    So, rather than trying to achieve what I had originally intended, I put out a few fires and got things ready to go for the next event on the schedule – the spring concert at the school.

I love all my kids, but each has their own particular quirks that can sometimes drive me completely mental.  In order to make sure he arrived in time to prepare for the concert, the performing son wanted to arrive an hour early.  The brooding son wanted nothing to do with the whole affair but was attending under duress, and the toddler cared only that he was getting to ride in the car.  Sitting quietly and waiting for the concert to start was an absolute impossibility for a 3-year-old. He only wanted to RUN!  He could not even be dissuaded by the DS, so I ended up watching him circle the cafeteria at breakneck speed, hoping he wouldn’t splat face first into the tile.  (I was lucky, this time.)  The brooder wandered aimlessly waiting for the concert to start, constantly texting with his friends.  During the concert was another story.  Three trips to the potty, two suckers from Grandma, and fruit snack and dry Cookie Crisp cereal kept the toddler mildly amused.  The rest of the time was devoted to seat dancing!  The brooder, in the meantime, kept excusing himself to also “go to the restroom.”  On our third trip back from the potty, the toddler and I saw him in the lobby of the auditorium, phone in hand and thumbs flying.  Oh, well.

Anyway, by the time we left school, picked up dinner, came home, and ate, it was time to prep the toddler for bed.  As he and I were putting on pajamas and brushing teeth, my husband came into the room.  Now, my husband has also been working on a little writing project of his own, and has been very devout about spending time each day writing.  He mentioned that he had not yet written, but that he was expecting to be able to do so once the boy and I had both gone to bed and the house would be quiet.  I replied that I, also, had not written yet, but that, along with the to-do list still waiting to be completed from the afternoon, my little blog was going to go a day without an entry.  And once again, the perfectionist in me popped up and said, “Self, you could just run out to the laptop and put in ANYTHING, and then you could sleep soundly, knowing that your streak has not ended.”  I told the perfectionist in me to STFU – I was going to bed!  I hope the warmth I am feeling is just summer coming on!

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away I had a Yahoo email address. And that was all. I would search the web for information and I would check my email. Most of it was spam, but I felt “connected” to those people that actually took the time to email me. A lot of it was informational – when a meeting was, events coming up, etc. Sometimes, it was just to catch up – what have you been doing, this is what I have been doing. And then someone created Google. And imdb. And Facebook. And Twitter. And Shutterfly. And Blogspot. The internet has become a personal black hole, and I am being sucked in. I have a cell phone that I can use to check my email addresses (yes, that is now plural) and I can tweet, post, or blog just by texting. I knew when I got married that I was acquiring a certain amount of geek-by-marriage in my life. I just didn’t know how contagious it was. The geek makes fun of me now. Apparently, I spend too much time checking my email, playing my Facebook games, uploading photos, and tweeting, so of course I have decided to create a blog for the whole world to see!

I really have no idea where this is going to go, but my other blog is just for stuff related to family events and photos, so this will probably be my place to ramble, muse, ponder and vent. And if no one ever reads it, that’s fine, too. I have learned in my life that the process of writing it down helps to clarify thought. And in a world of so much “connectedness”, a little clarity of thought may not be such a bad thing.