This is what happens when I turn on the computer to Blog. I check my email account, it is usually porn-related junk mail, but sometimes, my friend Tanya or my friend Lana will send me an email, I enjoy hearing from them and I write them back, unless I'm in a hurry. (Recently my friend Tanya wrote me that she thinks my blog is PG-13. She said it in a complementary way, but it still bugged me a little, so allow me to interject this: MOTHERFUCKER. There, now I'm in company with Kurt Vonnegut, some idiots in Iowa once burned a book of his because one of his characters said MOTHERFUCKER. Iowa is full of idiots, I should know, I'm from Minnesota.) After I check my hotmail account, I check the hotmail account I share with my husband. Sometimes there will be an email from my mother-in-law that will tick me off good, subtly hinting, as all her correspondence does, that Ben and I should move our butts back to Minnesota pronto.
Or, there could be a few dozen enormous sound files from my sister, causing a huge red flashing at the top of the screen, telling me I have exceeded the storage limit on my account, and will not be receiving further emails until I do something about it, preferably sending $10 to Microsoft to buy extra storage. I think not.
Then I usually check Tanya's blog, which can take up some serious time, as she is compelling and long-winded. I am usually a bit jealous at the size of her posts. Next I check Jamie's blog. She is a fellow knitter. I then make my way to Blogger.com. After signing in I check the traffic on my Blog. I might check out a Blog of Note, only to upbraid myself for not spending more time improving the layout of my blog, and posting some pictures, already. Finally, I get to my Blog and by this point I am near cross-eyed from staring at the screen for so long, and afraid that anything I post will be derivative of all the things I have just read. It's a risk I have to take.
Last night I had a dream I was driving across the Fremont bridge and the oil light in my car came on. (In waking life, my car eats oil, and I am not as diligent about checking the oil as I could be, because I'm pissed at the car for eating oil in the first place.) I knew I only had ten seconds to pull over and turn the car off, or my engine would seize. At this point I woke up with an extreme thirst. I got up to get a glass of ice water. It was 12:49. This is the first dream I have been able to recall after waking in several months.
8:09 PM | permalink
Tuesday, October 8
One afternoon about 18 months ago, Ben made himself a turkey sandwich. We didn't have much food in the house, and he was very hungry. We did have some bread, a slice or two of turkey, and mustard. We buy good mustard from the German deli. We probably have four different kinds of mustard in our fridge right now. Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, hot mustard, mild mustard in a tube.
Ben was trying to stretch the little bit of turkey, he put about a quarter cup of mustard on this sandwich that day. He sat on the sofa to eat it, and soon I heard him whimpering. I looked over and he was beginning to sweat. Still, he ate the sandwich. I asked him what was wrong, with a full mouth and a runny nose he replied, "I put too much mustard on." And he took another bite. I walked over to him and took the sandwich out of his hand. There was about half of it remaining. I walked into the kitchen, took a butter knife out of the drawer, opened the sandwich and scraped the mustard off and into the sink. I went back to the sofa and handed the sandwich back to him. He gratefully accepted it and ate the rest.
Moral of the story: Sometimes you continue doing something that is not good or enjoyable because you are in no shape to help yourself, it's good to have a friend who can step in to fix your sandwich.
9:05 PM | permalink
Monday, October 7
I work in an office full of Republicans. Which is strange, because I work in a union plumbing and HVAC shop. One plumber once explained to me that once he had money, he wanted to hang on to it, so he became a Republican. He listens to Bill Sizemore on the radio. Bill Sizemore is a anti-tax weiner whose been in a bit of trouble with the law recently for questionable accounting practices and election fraud in connection with his organization, "Oregon Taxpayers United." Bill Sizemore would love nothing more than to destroy the union that made my plumber friend so financially comfortable. So be it.
I like most of the people I work with. They are decent human beings, they seem to be generous and caring and understanding to those around them. The first week I was working there, the head dispatcher, Clyde, said he's "very" republican. I said I'm "very much" a democrat, but that does not mean I base my judgements of other people on whether or not they agree with my politics. Clyde agreed. Since then, we have gotten on like gangbusters.
I pretend that I didn't notice the Clinton jokes forwarded around the office email, and they ignore my vintage donkey campaign button that reads, "VOTE DEMOCRATIC."
I know I'm not going to change any minds by arguing with them, and so do they. Coming toward each other in this spirit of forgiveness for the other's naivety, I find more opportunities to raise gentle points about the value of diverse opinons and social programs then I would if we were constantly sniping about the Bush vs Gore 2000 election.
Because we put politics aside until we all got to know each other, we now have the rapport to discuss our views calmly. The human mind changes slowly or not at all. So be it.
5:17 PM | permalink
Sunday, October 6
My husband needs his own blog. Right now, he is standing over my shoulder yapping about what I should write. "Get your own damn Blog," I say, "Then you can write all the limericks you want about Al Franken, you weirdo."
