atomic-raygun

 
             

   
 
 
----------->vivian-oblivion<--------

Site Feed

www.flickr.com

31 August 2003

 

I was thinking about some old friends and wondering what happened to them, so I put their names in Google and got some info. They had a child in 2000, and I can't remember if that's the one I knew about or not -- probably not. I started thinking about how cool it would be to have an 00 birthyear -- then thought, well, people have babies when the have them -- they don't try for special dates. My mum always felt she was the product of her mother's office's Christmas party, since she was born 12/26/23. My friend Mildred was born in 1898 -- she used to say she was two years older than the century. Once I said to her, "I always know how old you are because you're 55 years older than me." She was stunned, "55 years! Oh my!" Mildred was a sculptress who worked a a young person at her family's business on the Hood Canal. At that time the place was jumping as little tour boats stopped in daily and everyone had lunch. Mildred told me they hired a waitress who was s-l-o-w and then it came to light that her philosophy was to help one person all the way through a meal before then waiting on another person. Someone showed Mildred's family how to fold the tablecloths before ironing them, and that saved a lot of time, she said. Then she got a job teaching school in a wild area -- she went home periodically, and once the person didn't meet her and she had to walk in the dark and could hear things preparing to eat her -- still that way around here, and a woman was leapt upon by a cougar...when was that...a year or two ago. There was something about a big hole, too -- a big hole she might've, but didn't, fall into in the dark -- she would've been killed. At the little school one day the students wanted to play a trick. They tacked down everything -- imagine their glee as school opened -- but Mildred had arrived early and un-tacked everything -- her joke -- but never said a word. She just looked at their eyes growing huge. At one point she reached for a ruler, but it was the only thing she hadn't un-tacked. Then she went to Paris and studied sculpture. I should keep writing, but maybe I'll add to this later...



30 August 2003

 
I talked to my father's wife today. She's going away for a week's break with her family, but my father is doing very poorly and may die any time. I'm the person they'll call if it happens between now and the 9th.

I wanted E to have a fun time today, so I took her to Egan's Drive-In for dinner, then to DQ. DQ sucks -- I haven't been there for years and now I know why. I don't particularly like ice cream, but I especially don't particularly like soft ice cream. After I dropped her off I started crying -- I was always very close to my father, so it's a difficult time for me.

Spent most of the day working on the website for She-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless-In-My-Blog.

Yesterday had to go over and fix E's computer, which has had the pitter-patter of little setting-altering feet all through it. Got it online, etc., but I think I should totally re-do it sometime when it's cool. I got very hot -- her apt was oven-ish. I'd been calling her during the day to see if it was cooling down enough for me to come over; it never did, and E said I would have a hard time as "It's even hard on me." It's unfortunate that E's best friend has a restraining order again the man upstairs. They went swimming one day, but G can't really visit again, or anyway not much.


 
I am interested to see that Howard Dean is not a lawyer. He's a doctor.

A simple list of qualities preferred by me for next president of USA:

1. Not Republican
2. Not a lawyer
3. Not from the South or West
4. Not an idiot

He meets every one!!



29 August 2003

 
Another Valuable Piece of Information to Help Make the World a Better Place

This must be Number Three.

A friend wrote: " Empathy is a by-gone quality. Empathy is a quality I wanted my children to acquire--much talked about between my husband and I when they were tots. I was convinced (and remain so) that if you aren't naturally like that you can be taught the quality-both my kids are--who knows what came with or what was learned--but at least I know we made the effort."

It occured to me this morning as I was lying in bed reading a mediocre book called "In the Casa Azul," that empathy is a quality that a person can't have if he or she is a brutal dictator, violent criminal, etc., etc.* If children were raised to be empathetic, and if in fact empathy is acquired that way (I believe it is), then people couldn't fail to be concerned about others. Maybe this is a point in favor of social-education -- not sure, however.

*I had plenty of brain-juice idle while I read THAT book. It had to do SOMETHING.



28 August 2003

 
R-E-S-P-E-C-T from my student

glad u liked that site. i figured u mite. wut do u mean i cant torture the newbee???? thats-thats! unthinkable!!and blackmail me...HA! if i had secrets i'd be alot more secritive! well talk 2u later crazy woman.....

Vivian Kendall wrote:
I enjoy watching all those stick movies on the web -- there are some hilarious ones -- but I'll deny it if anyone finds out! Ha! Well, I don't know anything about Comcast, but I loathe and despise AOL, so it's got to be better. AOL is a stick-death ISP. Well, I guess this coming school year you are the Number One -=- you own the artroom. I must bow down to you... ugh..can't...get..UP. More web stuff, more animation (I was just putting last year's animation together, you'll be happy to know -- better late than never). I don't know who your teacher will be, but maybe that person will be easy-going. Mr. V got a job near his house and left us. Too bad -- don't torture this new one tooo much. It's so hard to figure things out when you are a brand-new teacher...heh heh... I have a rogue thought about getting a few students sent to Centrum this year for a week-long art-theatre-writing extrava-palooza. Major major fun. I will have to gather info on you early so I can blackmail you later ;-)
See you when school begins -- too soon for me, by jingo.



25 August 2003

 
The 11 huge boxes Colby sent just arrived, and the nice UPS man brought them in.


 
I lay in bed this morning thinking about my early memories. I can remember sitting in a highchair with a contraption in front of me that went "plink, plonk." Then something flew up out of it, and I was delighted -- a jack-in-the-box. I can remember my aunt and uncle's cat Tinker. And lying on my stomach watching a ballerina. I asked my Auntie Anne about it 20 years later, and she said it must've been Christine's music box, as it had one of those twirling ballerinas. I can remember playing in the street. There was a Big Bully I was leery of -- he was 4 or 5. I remember going to ballet school and my best friend Belinda, who probably grew up into a normal person, and not a freakin' weirdo like me. And I can remember, before we left, being given good-bye presents by my brother Steven's friend. Steven was given a ceramic statue that looked like our leg-humping dog, Bobbie. My sister Deborah was given something I used to be able to remember but can't now, and since she admits she can't remember anything, she didn't even recall having been given anything when I asked her last Spring. I was given a stuffed Eeyore -- my favorite, favorite. My sister and I were very much into Kanga and Roo, but that was probably because she was. I always loved Eeyore, who was exactly like my mother. In Canada Deborah and I would sing Christmas carols all summer long, to the great annoyance of Steven, who'd shout, "Shut UP!!!!!" We had a stack of classical records and would dance the minuet and practise ballet, with Deborah tormenting me as she liked to be the "teacher." One Christmas we were given huge, stiff, unsatisfactory dolls, and we'd make them dance the minuet. They disappeared, thank god -- they were as tall as me, and entirely overcome with rigor mortis. Once we were given battery-powered cars, but when the batteries wore out my parents threw them away. Steven had one of those hockey flipper games, and we liked that a lot. Of course, we skated, and every tiny town had a rink. You could even skate on the field if it flooded before it froze. Then we moved to Pennsylvania and the winters grew warmer and warmer until the ponds didn't freeze over at all. My skates grew moldy and out-grown.


 
Woe Is Me
Yesterday I slipped on a carpet and fell and injured my knee, and had to ice it all night. Now my bed has a wet spot that smells like frozen green beans, and I hurt more that usual. And I have to go to work tomorrow, boo hoo.

[I feel like I was twisted, and kicked in the liver, too. When I was about 8 I was out foxhunting and fell off as my horse was going over a large downhill chickencoop.* That's not the biggest crime in the world, I suppose, but I thought it was at the time, and my father certainly encouraged me to think it. My horse tried not to, but he trod on my ribcage and my shoulder in passing -- not putting all his weight on me or I'd be dead, but putting enough weight so that my right-hand side ribs are concave. I was dragged off to the hospital somewhere, and X-rayed, but nothing was broken. That didn't do my liver much good, I'm sure]

*I'm not going to explain anything -- if you weren't raised the way I was raised, and you don't understand this, don't read it.



24 August 2003

 
I just watched a red balloon float across my window from the right, and then I watched it float down as far as I could see -- this is a big lake, and that balloon just seemed like it would keep going. It was sometimes very high, but once it was dropping rapidly and I thought it would go into the water. No, the water must reflect lots of heat, as the balloon got close then zipped up high again.


 
I was just reading something that referred to a group of people disdainfully, and called them the "over-literate." These awful people apparently can be identified when you see them reading things like... uh... the things I read. Although I wouldn't say I have had any kind of education, really -- missed it by two countries and moving too much -- and as far as the social education that has replaced the education-type education, well, I missed that too, so I feel like I don't know much and I'm socially inept to boot. I am amazed that there could be a category called "over-literate" in this day and age, and that if such a category were made it would include me. I was shocked Only someone hopelessly under-literate would think I am over-literate.


 
Begin your magick today!

People are just infinitely ridiculous, and I'm sure I fit right in there, so laugh away, laugh away. But isn't it funny that this is for sale: Altar Tool Set
An Altar Tool Set that is complete and ready for your blessings and energy. Begin your magick today! A beautiful carved box contains: Athame, Chalice, Wand, Brass Cauldron, Wooden Pentacle Altar Tile and Altar Cloth.
Some people can sell anything, I'd reckon, although I am the same way as an old neighbor who used to say, "I buy high and sell low. People ask, 'How do you make money?' I tell them volume, volume!"



The magikal* herbs they say are rare hardly seem rare even to me. And I have -- well, not a black thumb, but a green thumb that's brown around the edges and smaller than it should be. I used to grow tons of elecampane just because it was easy. Maybe you can't grow it if you live in Arizona. Maybe anything is rare in some places. Still, I think of rare as something different than, "only grows in appropriate locations." I mean, isn't that everything except chia pets?

*Damn, I see they are spelling it "magickal," sorry. I never did find the 13 month calendar, anyway.




 
When my mother died I got a bazillion photographs, some I'd never seen. A couple of years before my mother died -- and she wasn't even sick, I kept suggesting that we look at the old photos and write down who's in them, etc. We never did because it was always too much trouble for my mum to think about. Now I have a few I'm in the dark about, a few I'm unsure about, and more than I ever expected of my (unknown to me) half-brother John and his mother, my father's first wife (he married two Joans, which seems strange all by itself). One thing that has been good about not seeing photos for a long time is that I sometimes have a different feeling about them. I always though I was a bad, inept, cursed person, and that everything in the world was my fault. And ugly, too.
(My friend Lesli and I used to argue, jokingly: "I'm responsible for everything in the world," -- "No you can't be, because I'm the one who's responsible," etc.
So now when I see these old photos of me as a stressed-out tyke I think, "Ah!" I've always thought extreme stress had SOMETHING to do with my being vulnerable to illness, and I've never been able to trace it back to a stress-free time. There wasn't one, actually. My parents came out of the war and of course, rationing kept right on going for years, and the aircraft industry fell apart, and it wasn't their fault at all -- and the style of things then was to treat your children as if they were dogs or other pets, and yank them from country to country without an explanation or any preparation at all. As well as a lot of other stuff I'm not going to go into. So now, I can look at an old photo of myself and think, "Hmmm. Doesn't really look bad, inept, or cursed at all. Doesn't, in all truth, look like she's responsible for the entire world, either."


 
Blogmail

Now I don't say a word but people exclaim, "Don't put me in your blog!!!! Please!!!" If I can't earn a living with an identity-theft clearinghouse, maybe I could get into blogmail.


 
Worms and Viruses

I don't know why I think this is kind of funny.

I guess it's the way it's written, or that we have arranged everything so that it teeters on a square inch. Someone waxes the square inch and we can't function. Aha! Maybe that's why it's funny-ish to me -- I can't function so I think it's funny when nothing else can either. I don't know. It's probably only funny because it didn't happen. I was somewhere the other day -- oh, yeah, at E's meeting -- where someone said how amazing it was that next year is 2004 and what happened to Y2K. To me MM seems like a long, long time ago, and the Y2K stuff was interesting but hardly anyone really believed it, truly. I had a friend who went into hospital for an operation on the... oh, probably the second, I can't imagine it being the first. And I had a friend who flew on the first. People (me included) like to get all excited over things, but we don't actually want any trouble. That gets boring too fast. Here, where the power went out 6 or 7 or more times last winter, even that small thing made life stop for me, and I usually had to go to bed as I don't have much stamina and going out somewhere would've been worse. Plus, with a garage-door opener it seems easier just to wait it out, rather that spring the catch and open the door (easy even for me). I can always read with a flashlight if it is dark, but I hate not having the computer.



23 August 2003

 
I went to the Shelton Farmers' Market today. I saw two people walking along the road as I drove towards Route 8, and raised a hand in salute as I crawled by in the left lane. They just stared at me -- they must be from the suburbs. I was raised in the country -- sometimes very wealthy country, but not always -- and like any other country person I'm galled by the way these outsiders behave. They aren't friendly, they like everything to be painted, cleaned, mowed, are judgemental and intolerant of people in the country -- the people who belong and were raised there. Country people don't go to the Burbs and criticise. [City people are like a different species entirely. I remember going to 69th Street in Philadelphia as a child ("Direct Your Shopping Feet to 69th Street" was their jingle) and one particular time being startled and scared by the people walking around on the street, who all looked strange and crippled to me.]

Anyway, these people stared, and didn't wave back. That's really why I was going to the Shelton Farmers' Market in the first place. The Olympia Farmers' Market is very busy, bustling, and all that, but it's just too twee for me. I've always disliked twee-ness. Twee-ness is a suburban failing.

So Marilee had told me where it was, and I had a strong mental picture in my head. It was smaller than I'd expected, but that's about all. I parked, went to one booth (out of about 8), and got green beans, yellow crookneck, cucumbers, zucchini, onion, green peppers. The kind woman put them in Sha for me, and I left. I'd regretted not taking my camera as I was driving over by way of McCleary (the view from which is too shockingly clear-cut -- made me feel sick), but honestly, I left before 12:30 and was home by 1:30, even with a pitstop at Twin Totems.

Thursday night I tossed all night and yesterday woke up feeling awful. I slept better last night, but don't feel very well today. The heat kills me, then it turns cold and something else kills me. At the Rest Stop at Twin Totems I started fantasizing about what would happen if I'd left my keys in Sha, and heard him start up and drive away. I decided I would stagger over to the store, tell someone my car had been stolen, buy string, and hang myself. Then I thought maybe I should carry string around with me in case. Then I started thinking how maybe they should pair up the people who want to die for some disease reason, with people who want to be murderers. But I thought I wouldn't want them to do it in any spooky or icky way. Then I realised the potential murderers wouldn't want to do it if they couldn't be spooky and disgusting. Then I started thinking about the differences between someone like J.Dahmer and a hit-man. I can't think of any similarities, actually. So it can't be just the killing the murderers like. They must want to be icky. I guess that's no surprise.

I've spent a long time (years and years) thinking about the nature of things, and if some things are intrinsically not nice, or if we are just conditioned by society to feel that certain things are not nice. Is it just wrong for say, a mother to sleep with her child, or is that a rule society applies to a situation neither wrong nor right? And I wonder why some things that seem not nice to me are regarded as fine. Once I was riding as a passenger in Connie's truck, and we were stopped at Sam's school (where the lamp shop was on Pacific). I was sitting there idly waiting for Connie and thinking about this stuff. There was an egg carton (a paper one) on the ground next to a sapling, between the sidewalk and the parking lot. I thought how some people might say, "Look at that -- someone just threw that garbage out. That's a bad thing -- jeez, it makes things look a mess." Then they'd continue driving along and stop in at K-Mart, or buy something from some ugly store that was built to be ugly and a blight on the landscape because making it that way was cheaper. And the egg carton probably just got wet and mulched around the sapling and anyway, was probably gone in 3 months -- but the ugly building built on purpose continues for many years to blight the landscape, but was considered to be fine. I think building an ugly building is much worse than littering. Why should these things hinge on money? This area is all right if you are only looking at mountains and salt water, but there is almost nothing man has built here that improves on what was here before he began. And there's a great deal that is painfully ugly and blights our existence 24 hours a day like the sea washing away the rocks. Can't anybody see how ugly it all is? Ug. Why is that all right??????

It would be by far more interesting and less of a blight, and much less long-lasting if they would put up beautiful tents to sell things in. That would be a good new law: No new buildings at all, and if you use one the taxes are high, but if you have a tent the taxes are low, and get lower the more beautiful the tent is. I'd better email Arnold and tell him -- maybe California could do it. That reminds me, as I was leaving the farmers' market I said, "I'll be back," then corrected myself instantly and said "Ull B Bug," and the farmer said, "Ull B Bug" along with me.



22 August 2003

 
Spent two seconds this morning thinking about peri-menopause, with all its attendant woes. I always liked my period, and I never thought of it as bad in any way. I'm a painter, and it was always like red paint to me. As much as an artist can have a favorite color, red is often mine. Last week Frank (who wants me to get with the 13-month calendar) asked me if I'd looked at 13moons.com and found out my "signature." Yes, yes, I did -- I looked at the stuff thinking, "Who made up all THIS?" and hoping it wasn't anything to do with the bloodthirsty Aztecs. I wasn't happy to see I am in the Yellow Solar Human category, because, I told him, I don't like yellow -- it's a death color for me. And not yellow in practice -- I've painted lots of things yellow by choice and been very happy. More like yellow in theory. I told Frank about a dream I had when I was about 8. In the dream I was sick in a high bed with a bedside table loaded with pill bottles. My (dead) dog Boy, a border collie, was below, reaching his nose up to me, but I couldn't reach him -- the bed was too high (or maybe I was TOO HIGH ;-). His formerly white ruff and teeth were yellowed -- like white hair might be yellowed, or ivory, or... Frank said I hadn't interpretted the dream correctly, and that yellow meant blah-blah, which I didn't take in because my theory of death is so long-standing. I first encountered the 13 month calendar when I read that calendar book (history of) -- and I could see the logic of it, but I thought about it carefully and realised it didn't appeal to me because I don't like things that are symetrical. However, that's a pretty personal reason. I have come around to thinking it might be good, as I like things to change radically for the fun of it. They will have to (to appeal to me) come up with some better names, though, than the ones I've seen. One of the reasons our present calendar is considered undesirable is because the names don't match the month-number when they are supposed to, and some people object to "August," etc., as being relics of a former mercenary era. I've always liked both things, though -- how human, that things aren't tidy, but odds and ends from the past wind up in the present...


 
Had EZ-E's job meeting.

The government thinks of everything (I wish this were true in some respects) -- the toilet had Cyalume Sticks taped to the walls in case of power outage. I can't walk in the dark (unless I'm asleep, when I can presumably use some other system of vision), so this would definitely be useful to me. Last night I was working away at the computer until it was dark in here -- and my keyboard is black, so I can't see the symbols at all. Too bad I hadn't lifted a stick. I'd never do that -- but I have to admit it would be handy. Of course, I could just turn on the damn lights before it gets dark.

E's been sent to work full-time with the Downstairs people, who are amazingly nice. E is very happy about it. Not that upstairs wasn't nice, too, but they had no work for her, so their allowance for her Down's Syndrome-ness was small. They didn't need her, so she was just a source of trouble, I'd reckon. And I think that E not having enough work, and having to go from agency to agency, just made it more likely that she'd get into trouble. Now she'll be all day Downstairs, and I told her to follow the rules and keep out of trouble or I'd kick her butt. She takes me saying things like that better than I would take my big sister saying that.

At the meeting it turned out that the Independant Living expert had tried to get in touch with E for 3 months -- calls, messages, notes taped to the door, etc. She hadn't told ME, or the case worker. I'm sure E just threw the incriminating evidence away, as she thinks she doesn't need any help. However, I've been waiting for this impatiently, as I have to take up the slack when it comes to shopping, etc., and the help that I've been providing should be provided by someone else. I accidentally said to E, "What if I were dead?" She got pissed off and told me I wasn't dead. She doesn't want me to be dead, either, no matter how much I wish I were. So that's too bad.

After the (long) meeting I took her to dinner at Brewery City pizza, and we were going to split a piece of cheesecake for desert. After we ordered the server came over and said they were Out, and the other two choices were something I don't like and don't remember, and chocolate cake, which I didn't want. I'd opened the floodgates, however, so it would've been hard to close them. We split the chocolate cake and I was so slow eating mine that the server took it away -- I guess if it'd been sitting there I'd've eaten it, but I didn't want it. Went home and tossed and turned all night. Today I feel rotten. Why?



21 August 2003

 
I'm reading Samuel Marchbank by Robertson Davies, now, and it's a chortle and guffaw kind of book -- "Geezerkraft," indeed. But, and this is weird-ish -- my last two books: I read Vanity Fair, then I read The Robber Bride -- what a strange accident! Just a coincidence that both books are about THOSE women!

posted by - 1:06 PM

 
I got a stick-death card from my Number One (this year), Christy. Her father has jettisoned stupid AOL, which is grand in my opinion as I loathe and despise AOL. Christy didn't sound too happy -- but people like the familiar. I'm thinking I might get Christy to do the class webpages, etc., etc. As well as some of the yearbook, and maybe go to Centrum. I told her I'd have to start collecting info so I can blackmail her later (about going to Centrum). I taught a high school workshop there once, years ago. It was super fun. They have a gathering in the beginning where students try to guess which person is their workshop teacher. A kid stood up, pointed to me and said, "Vivian is Our Woman!" And I was. All kinds of things happened, and my kids were wonderful, and we got in trouble, etc., etc. It was fab. High school kids are great.


 
I forgot to say that I got a spam phone call --
Ring Ring, "Hello?"
Depressed sounding young man, "Uh, hi, I'm calling about your website called Atomic Raygun -- cool name, by the way."
Me, with phone hand pulling back and finger poised to disconnect, "Uh, thanks."
"I'm calling because I represent Blah that enables you to post pictures and text to your website that can only be accessed with a password. Does this sound like something you need?"
"No."
Pause. "Well, goodbye."
"Bye"
Me (mentally) -- Wait! Are you ok? Cheer up, it can't be that bad! Get another job!

I like to ask people where they are -- because you never know. And I didn't, too bad. Sad, sad Spam-Boy. And why would anybody want such a thing anyway? If you are showing nekkid pitchers you want everyone to see, right? And if you aren't, then damme, no one is going to look. Sure, people can find out info about you -- theoretically that might be dangerous, but in reality, if you are me, it isn't. The sheer torrent of personal info camoflages to a certain extent. As a crummy blade of grass in a hayfield, I think that way. If I were a beauteous, young blade of grass it would be different. Well, so I can see why some people might need Blah, I suppose...



20 August 2003

 
Talked with my father's wife yesterday, and she believes he's failing, now, and will die quite soon. I said I regretted being unable to visit and she said, "Sweetie, I'm not even sure he'd know you." He doesn't know her a lot of the time. When I visited way back in June he was only intermittantly verbal, although he made a lot of distress noises. Shelley said, "It's your daughter -- it's Vivian," when I bent down to his bed, and he gave her a look of great annoyance, though, and said, "I know, Dear." She asked if I'd sing Ilkley Moor" to him, which I did, but he didn't respond, strangely. I whistled "Bladon Races," though, and he got a cocked-head, listening-to-far off-sounds-of-a-rescuing-army look on his face -- listening to something faint that he could almost grasp as familiar... ugh... life is rough...

Saw Winged Migration last night at OFS. It was swell. They have some stuffed loungers (I mean chairs :-) now, so we sat in them. It was great, as when I got up I wasn't in agony! Yay!!
My friend Colby in Colorado is sending me wads of garments silkscreened with designs from my students (of long ago). She wants me to sell them to raise money for my art program, but I think a better idea might be to have a fun fashion show and give the things away as premiums for donations (as NPR, etc., do), and use the money for... something... I'm open to suggestions. Maybe I could sponsor a student or former student at Centrum, or something* (http://www.centrum.org/). I've asked for the stuff to be sent to my house, as I will never see the things if they are sent to school. With that in mind I think it might be fun-ish to have a de-boxing "party" when the things arrive. According to Colby, there're twelve or so boxes -- so I'm hoping to be here when they arrive. Otherwise they might be put in the (foreign territory) carport. If I'm here I can make them bring them into the vestibule. I'm excited to see this stuff!!! Colby says, "Hello again. I've been packing, and there are 8 boxes so far. Ran out of boxes, but estimate there will be three or four more. The way we had it set up, we had lots of stock out, hanging up for people to see. But when they bought, we gave them a tee that was folded and tied with colored twine. The color is coded to the size of the shirt. That way everyone got a nice clean shirt. If some of the tees that aren't folded look a trifle dusty, sorry about that. Fairs are notoriously dusty. We tried to bring those home for our personal use, but may have missed some. Well, I'm only sorry it took me this long to get these to you! Out of sight... Enjoy! We have." She's very generous.

The work meeting for E is tomorrow. Things have happened; I'm trying to be phlegmatic about it all.

I had a call from AK needing her website set up with her domain name so she could list it in a publication. I recommended a host, then changed the domain reg. co. info to point to the host servers -- after having uploaded her stuff. The site turned up beautifully on Monday evening, then yesterday I got a different site entirely, and emailed back and forth with various people. I'm the only person who saw that, however, and my part was done correctly, the host is not doing anything -- so I suspect momentary evil on the part of the domain reg. co. -- I don't like them, anyway. Apparently the bad domain is registered to SomeOtherCo.com, and NotThe EvilOne.com, but the host gave me info that said the domain was reg. by SomeOtherCo.com -- so now I'm confused. Are they the same company? Ugh...



18 August 2003

 
Coming home today I stopped at a groceria to get a few things, parked in h'cap spot, then coming out left my cart near my car instead of taking it back to the cart pound. Some man got seriously mean about it, and told me it "wasn't right," and other pithy things. Against my intellectual beliefs (I think he was wrong) I wound up crying 5 minutes later as he had made me feel awful. Coming back from jin shin I'm more vulnerable than usual, but I've never been able to take direct attacks, ever. I guess I should try to get stronger about that (although I've been nearly 50 years as a weepy wimp).

Had nice dinner last night at the V-J's house. Got super-heated, and became even worse than when not heated. Frank told me this morning that a)It's my responsibility to keep from getting overheated and b)if I think it's going to be hot somewhere DON'T GO THERE. He's right, and those thoughts are not exactly new to me, but it is good to hear them from someone else. I'm always too eager to sacrifice myself -- not that anyone cares if I don't -- in fact they'd rather I don't.




16 August 2003

 
Drove up to Skokomish and enjoyed wonderful hospitality as always with Marilee and Pete. W and D were visiting from New York. Got home at 9:30 to phone ringing -- Joe's mother saying E had hung up on her 6 times in a row and hung up on Joe, too, when they just wanted to find out why she wasn't there as she'd said she was coming to dinner. An extremely long phonecall. I called E up and told her that if she hangs up on someone they just call me up, so it doesn't work. Not sure E is really all right, but what can I do?






 
Continuing with the strange idea I have that everyone (reviled or beloved) is dying this year:

Idi Amin is dead!

Yay!



15 August 2003

 
I haven't looked at Blogshares for a while -- was waiting to be indexed. I just looked, though, and it was whacky to me as my two blogs are now available to the public, and both have had shares bought by unknown (to me) people... and firemist-red, which is just me poking about a bit making an image log last year is worth tons more than my real blog, atomic raygun. I will have to think why... maybe because of my vivian-oblivion domain? Have to cogitate. Yesterday I went to school, grocery shopped a tiny bit, and got film developed (E's pix from camp); today I met with Louie, went to the Asian deli on Harrison, and got water from the artesian well in the Diamond lot. That's actually a lot -- for an ms person -- to what is my frenzy due?

There were fire trucks downtown as if there was some terrible thing happening, but I couldn't see from where I was. Also there was music-in-the-park, which sounded quite good at the well, as several people remarked. ****Talcott's caught fire from a fluourescent light exploding. The people in there called 911 and it was put out. Capitol Way was closed briefly. I'm surprised people are still in there as they closed more than a month ago. Didn't anyone tell them? Maybe now they can go home. Sure must've seemed like a long workday.**** Connie and Dave live in the "Talcott House."

I'm at the tail-end of Vanity Fair, which I'd never read before for some unknown reason. It's made me laugh out loud many times, and I'm enjoying every page -- in my particular p'back edition there are 666 pages.


 
Re power outage:

Hi Viv,

Everyone is fine. Karen, Lenny & Nikki got their power back very early this
morning. Mom has not her power back yet as of 9:00 this morning. Her spirit
was good when I spoke to her last night.

Richard

Ismay's in the Bronx, and I'd asked about her by email. She has let me stay there a couple of times -- so nice of her -- you can see the Bronx Museum of the Arts outside her window. It's next door.



Made me think, of course, about the blackout in the Sixties -- what year was that? I'll have to look and see.
I guessed 1965 and that turned out to be right. November -- so early darkness.


 
For a short time when I was married (so it was about 1988 or 1989) I gallery-sat at Reko Muse in downtown Olympia, kind of as a big sister of art, I suppose. I had to get the key from someone who often failed to arrive punctually, then sit and read. The artwork was not terribly interesting -- standard trying-to be-cutting-edge stuff like filling the place with mud, etc., etc. Same old, same old. I enjoyed it, though, and would've done it more except the person to whom I was married at the time was wildly against it. I saw a graffito in the toilet at Reko Muse I've always remembered -- "668, neighbor to The Beast," -- that I still think is hilarious.

My other lateral neighbor, not the highly noisy one, has a very stinky, noisy activity going on outside my livingroom window -- the stink woke me as much as the noise, which is a constant power-take-off noise, and could be worse. The pong seems un-fume-y -- thank god, as MS is Bad with Fumes. Both sides are completely mad this summer, but at least this is not outside my open bedroom windows. My underneath neighbor has evil wind chimes that I despise -- as constant polluters of my sonic space. The bottom people have their moments of extreme noise, too, such as a son's live music at 2 am under my bedroom, or a yapping, crying dog of a visitor tied up beneath my bedroom window for hours when I have a headache. Generally they aren't bad. And the windchimes are the worst of the other fellow (and some door slamming). I must produce my own noise, however, such as my computer -- plays a WAV of an atom bomb exploding when Windows starts up (usually turned way down but not always). My answering machine is noisy when the phone is off the hook. Um... I don't watch TV except once or twice a year I might rent a movie... I wasn't formerly as intolerant, but then if something bugged me I could just go elsewhere...or I probably already was elsewhere and never got bugged to begin with. The stupid MS, as well as making one -- this is how I think of it -- turn into wood, as Daphne turned into a laurel tree when pursued by Apollo -- makes one feel terrible all the time, and also makes it hard to escape from other people's rackets. They are just living their lives, after all. I must practise tolerance...om.




14 August 2003

 
In to the Lut today upon the request of our techie who wants the server TOTALLY CLEANED OFF -- as he's chucking out anything left, on Monday. So I threw away some things, stored some on the bigger comp in my room (which has been Fiddled-With and now is Not Functioning), burned some things onto a cd. Comp claimed it had no burning software -- gee, what have they been doing to confuse it so? Got in and out in 2 and a half hours. Fearful of hot weather. Summerschool going off to a Mariners game, apparently. I also sucked the children's animation movies back into my camera (after they'd edited on comp), and today stuck 'em all end-to-end beginning with the one Christy made. It had a working title of "When Eyez Go Bad*," and features an eyeball that comes out of a bear head, then behaves threateningly with a sharp pencil before lifting a fist in triumph. Lee made one with a man rolling his head up and down his arms and then being dragged away by a crocodile. Chay and Charlene made an un-edited Canoe Journey, so I threw on wave noises and credit titles. I've been making the kids make animation movies for years and years. Some kids just... get it -- and I can shoo someone like Andrew off to work alone and he'll make a interesting little movie by himself -- which we suck out of the camera to edit on the computer. Things are vastly more interesting with sound. Everything else is gravy. Sometimes things have to get speeded-up to work, which we do with Adobe Premiere. As a rule it's too hard for them, though, so we use the kid-friendly Ulead VideoStudio. I want a re-build of our bigger computer -- I'd like a different videocard, among other things. So.... despite my long talk with L. last night about offing myself, I guess I'm not totally finished yet... just 99.9% finished.
*don't remember actual title -- but it was on a green ground :-)


 
Interesting if you are me -- wait... you're NOT ME! Lucky you! Still -- this interactive java panorama of the West Pier at Brighton lets you see inside a structure built over the sea in 1866.


I like panoramas. Last school year I had the kids making panoramas of the school two of which are on the Wa He Lut website.



13 August 2003

 
I was surfing and saw the name of Reviewer, who was the sire of Ruffian. I hadn't thought about Reviewer for years -- I believe he broke a bone while turned out, and had to be destroyed not terribly long after Ruffian died. Many years ago, natch. The match race with Foolish Pleasure that was Ruffian's end is so vivid in my mind -- what an awful day that was. Match races are never good ideas -- gallant fast horses destroy themselves. Ugh. The match race was a gender thing -- colt vs filly -- and they played "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" on the tv -- I still can't bear to hear that song. She was an amazing filly. Bred to have a breakdown, though.


 
The number one toilet paper sweepstake on the internet.




12 August 2003

 
I had this brief thought of calling up Mr. B. Jefferson at the collection agency and asking him to be my Sister Family. I'm still laughing a little at that.


 
Reading the blog of Mr. C. Hagenbuch I found an idea he was passing on that would definitely help the world. It's the kind of thing that's happening in a slightly different way with computers -- we are getting to know people, learning about their lives, and there are no boundaries to this within the people who go online. The idea is from
"a series of books by Kim Stanley Robinson ... called Three Californias"

In the last book families have "sister families" they speak with using video screens and translation software. How difficult it is to generalise about the lives of people in foreign parts when we know them. We would all benefit by knowing individuals and their struggles -- struggles much the same as our own.


 
Called about the dunning letter: man was very professional. Transparently concerned with his own agenda while trying to seem friendly. First he gave his condolences -- fake but appreciated nonetheless. Then he told me how SMALL the amount was, two times, told me how he was used to dealing with huge amounts like 200,000 dollars. Talked a lot about where I am, what the weather is like today, how he'd like to visit, etc. Told me twice he would accept an amount from me that was very, very close to the amount they claim -- which was a credit card amount that was put on the credit card when my mother was dying in hospital, and which I can't help but think is inaccurate. I asked him what it was FOR, but he growled that he was not from the card company and that they'd handed the debt over and he would pursue the money to the end of time. He told me that customer service at the CC co. didn't know anything, and asked me if they'd said to fax the d.c. and it would be then end of it. I said, "Not really...well, not in so many words," (actually they said the balance was inaccurate and that etc., etc). Asked about volcanoes. Then he told me that, again he'd accept an amount that is VERY VERY CLOSE TO, etc. I said I would pay 50%, he said 50%+$28, and I said ok. I gave him an electronic check (whatever that means), and he says after it clears they will never bother me again.

Imagine working all day squeezing money out of people. He didn't sound like a bad person, and the operators were nice.

1. Offer condolences
2. make amount sound small
3. relax hysterical female with banal weather talk
4. say will accept amount very near to "owed" amount
5. clarify that self represents collection agency and will never give up
6. never accept first offer but up it as much as seems feasible
7. stress that the problem can be OVER, relief is just an electronic check away.



11 August 2003

 
Absolutely pouring with rain, today. Paris is 110 degrees but repeat after me: "There is no global warming..."


 
Postcard from SJ -- don't know why the registrar from the Henry is in SF, but it sounds a success.
At a glance I thought it was a roast chicken.

Received another evil dunning letter -- will try not to flip out.



09 August 2003

 
Lucia and Jim made a trek to deliver a friend to his new motorcycle. L took some biker art pix for me -- v nice of her.

Motorcycles have always seemed shockingly boring to me. At one time I knew how to ride a (small) motorcycle. I had a bf who'd ridden across the country (in many, many months) when he was about 16. Everywhere he stopped and got a job they wanted to adopt him as he was smart and a good worker. But he kept on going... Then we were thinking about taking a similar trip... I was 18... we broke up because I always thought he was too good looking and not mature enough, and anyway, I wanted to hang out with my best friends Jack and Marie, and become a junkie (is there irony there?)*. So I did, then I stopped that, went to England for a while on a British Horse Society course, came back, discovered he'd been to my house to find me, didn't find him back (tried, though). Moved away, worked in the horseracing industry, went to uni, went to oz, um... and so on. He was an interesting fellow in that his mother, a penurious divorcee, moved to Acapulco to stretch her dollars when he was a wee one. He and his (Mexican) friend broke the elevator in the El Presidente Hotel by riding up and down in it (he always told me). His mother used to haggle in the marketplace. Then after some years they returned to Phila. and she had a successful import business, and married a fellow who was a well-known talk radio dude. He was way into coffee, as I recall, and had to have anything related to coffee. The real father was an oil dude who was working in the Middle East. I'm sure some kind of engineer or something -- I remember his photo. Lots of father/son similarities.

*and he always liked me too much, whatever that means


 
Now I'm deep into Vanity Fair, which is terribly good, and my mailed-books-from-the-library asterickal experiment has borne fruit, so now I have riches beyond the dreams of avarice -- well, anyway, I have books for the forseeable future :-)

A short time ago I was listening to the radio in the car, as usual, and some fellow -- honestly, I wasn't listening until this point -- said ""Iddles' of the King." My god. Shot me right back to my childhood when my brother made fun of everything by mispronouncing the words. THAT was one of the things he said to be funny. And we were tykes at the time -- I remember having a little book when I was 4 or 5 that had the name "Belle" for a character. Steven would always say "Belly," and we'd scream and scream, "BELLE." And "Step Hen" for that other spelling of Steven, and "iddles" for "idylls." I can't remember a thing about the radio program, so I hope it was meant to be funny.

Once I heard a radio person say, "The house was gutted on the inside."

Once I heard a different radio person say (about the trial of Bob Satiacum), "The trial proceeded in the absence of his presence."



08 August 2003

 
Went to Chiang Mai for dinner with Jim and Lucia. Didn't have Bubble Tea, which I regretted not taking a photo of when we did have it weeks ago -- obviously the opportunity wasn't regretted enough to make me order that (foul) beverage once more. Had... um... squid, green curry, swimming angel.

Jim says I have good parking karma. I said Connie has the famously good parking karma. I was telling them about my "Thrift Shop Tag" invention, which is a webpage and the url is emailed to the taggee by the tagger. The taggee looks at the page then sends me a pic of a find, which I post. Jim said I should have Parking Karma Tag, which is good -- here's one: Yes, the tree is growing out of the beer bottle.

The fishes at C.M. were elusive. Here's one:
Chiang Mai is operated by Xinh's brother. Jim was trying to get me to say I would make a jaunt to Xinh's new rest. on B'way, but I said I wouldn't, although I do like Xinh and Lom (little son). Once, when I used to eat at Mini Saigon (squid in hot sauce) every day, Xinh said, "You need Mini Saigon Anonymous." Then I was taken up short and didn't go there as often. Then I moved and stopped going entirely. I had gone there for a few reasons: they have a newspaper, I didn't want to spoil Mekong for myself by eating there too much, and I didn't have to think at all or even look at a menu if I didn't want to.

The little daughter of the bro. of X. is about 4. Her name is Kianna, (spelling phonetic) pronounced like the 1970s synthetic fabric Qiana*, but spelled similar to the nation. I think. I don't guarantee I'm correct, however. She was VERY NICE, as all 4 year olds are, and had made a welder's mask with antennae somewhere.

*Qiana®
[DuPont] A former registered trademark for a silk-like nylon fiber composed of PACM-12. Qiana® was first introduced in 1968. However, that fiber is no longer produced and the name is currently used at DuPont for a certification mark for any fabrics reaching a set standard. Qiana® fabric had the look and feel of silk but can be machine washed. It is resistant to abrasion and most chemicals. (from Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online)



06 August 2003

 


 
Yummo!
I was certainly not cleaning my refrigerator, however, I did remove a few things that'd been hanging about for a long time... like a full half gallon of orange juice with a date on it: Dec 20. When I poured it out I was interested to see it had turned brown-ish -- and become full of funny little lumps. That's about the time my mother's lung had filled with fluid, signalling, apparently, that the cancer was back and had spread. I've been chucking things out that date from that time -- I still have three dried up oranges. Life as we know it ceased to exist... I mean for us, for us.
--------------->



 
Postcards from Tiff in Peru, and Amanda and Aouregan in London:




05 August 2003

 
This is EXTREMELY SILLY.

Also don't miss looking in the archives, esp. at "Void."


 
I Resent This

The BBC Reports:
Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, American and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings: "the semi-living artist".
Gripping three coloured markers positioned above a white canvas, a robotic arm churns out drawings akin to that of a three-year-old. Its guidance comes from around 50,000 rat neurons in a petri dish 19,000 kilometres away.


How dare they -- I am a semi-living artist, and I am not a new class of being. There're probably loads of us -- and we've been around a long time. Scientists -- bah. They think that if you force rat neurons to draw that makes the rat neurons a semi-living artist. Pah! If the rat neurons truly wished to draw, well then that would be different. I'd welcome them into the fold. Stupid scientists.

I'm reading about science, so I guess if you think the way those scientists do, I'm a semi-living scientist, too.






03 August 2003

 
Collecting Razor Blades
I have the ability to become interested in almost anything -- I suspect it's just a normal human trait. I once read an entire book about raising turkeys as I didn't have anything else to read and the book itself was well-written. So it happens like this: normal curiosity+chance encounter=transient interest. What do you have to add to that for an obsession to start? normal curiosity+chance encounter+emotional involvement=obsession? nc+ce+genetic predisposition=obsession? I don't know. It might have something to do with nest-building genes -- or maybe control. nc+ce+control freak=obsession. Uh... I doubt that, somehow.



02 August 2003

 
Beniamino Gigli

Apparently there's a very bad movie out called "Gigli." I suspect the movie is NOT about opera at all. Poor Beniamino Gigli -- however the movie will soon be deader than he is, and no one will remember it, I hope.


 
I'm deep into Dune, which is pretty good. Every time I see "Stilgar" I think of Shergar, though -- Shergar was the stallion kidnapped by the IRA circa 1980. He never turned up again, and the rumors were considered true -- that during the kidnap he hit his head on something sticking out of the van and poked his eye out. That's not a fatal injury by any means, but the IRA flipped out and killed him.

I'd better add that there might very well be information that I haven't heard. That would not surprise me in the least.



01 August 2003

 
Drove to camp and picked up E, took photo of E and counselor. Then drove up and down Yelm (town of J.Z. Knboght and Ramtha) to waste time, changing a burnt out tail light in there somewhere. Stopped at a mini golf place and spoke with the master mini-golf man, and tried to convince E to play mini golf but no, she would not. Went to Mr.Doug's Restaurant, accidentally going in the back door thinking it was the front door. I still have never seen the front door. Ate eggs over easy, E had a Mr.Doug DeLuxe burger no cheese no pickle. Then went to "Bad Boys 2" at adjacent-ish cinema, the time-target. I wanted to keep the holiday atmosphere of today for E, as 10am is too soon to end a camp week. Movie began at 12:20. Put up top as E's spillover camp gear on backseat. Icky preview for Texas Chainsaw M. Many previews, no commercials (yay!). Boy-movie type previews. Came out, drove to Crowne Pointe, asked E to identify keys to trailer/mailbox as I saw them in box I keep tail lights in. No one mentioned mailbox key yesterday at title co. Waited for E to get a. exposed camera and b. photo of Robert before he had a car accident in Cali and got brain damaged (he wants to see it but forgets unless reminded that he DOES want to see it). Waited in car which was getting hot. Couple pulls up next to me with malfunctioning car, park, and tinker with running engine. I start, back out, wave to E in window hunting through photo album, and split. Find Macromedia Flash has arrived. Install, start working. Phone. Betty from trailer park. Mailbox key. I pick up phone -- wind up driving over to give keys I think are right ones. Betty flags down buyer, so I wind up meeting buyer dude who doesn't seem with-it to me, or perhaps there was another reason why he was un-with-it-seeming. Come back, work more on Flash. Upload photo to group fotolog, check spamacious email. Write blog entry.
<---------------Mini Golf? No Way!

 

.

Site Feed

vivian-oblivion

oblivionstore

firemist red

Combat Cards

Blip TV Rocks

So many things to do, so little motivation

Backpacking Burro

Salazar Jack

Lucy Sits Up and Blogs

Tina's Universum

Nova Albion Detective Agency

Playing Statues

Yarn Miracle

Baedeker

Don Carson Creative

Flummer, Flummel, Flummo

Elle Coyote

Painting Soul

Upload Video and Images - Putfile

Artists Union

Tempietto

2002-10 2002-11 2002-12 2003-01 2003-03 2003-04 2003-05 2003-06 2003-07 2003-08 2003-09 2003-10 2003-11 2003-12 2004-01 2004-02 2004-03 2004-04 2004-05 2004-06 2004-07 2004-08 2004-09 2004-10 2004-11 2004-12 2005-01 2005-02 2005-03 2005-04 2005-05 2005-06 2005-07 2005-08 2005-09 2005-10 2005-11 2005-12 2006-01 2006-02 2006-03 2006-04 2006-05 2006-06 2006-07 2006-08 2006-09 2006-10 2006-11 2006-12 2007-01 2007-02 2007-03 2007-04 2007-05 2007-06 2007-07 2007-08 2007-09 2007-10 2007-11 2007-12 2008-01 2008-02 2008-03 2008-04 2008-05 2008-06 2008-07 2008-08 2008-09 2008-10 2008-11 2008-12 2009-01 2009-02 2009-03 2009-04 2009-05 2009-06 2009-07 2009-08 2009-09 2009-10 2009-11 2009-12 2010-01 2010-02 2010-03 2010-04 2010-05 2010-06 2010-07 2010-08 2010-09 2010-10 2010-11 2010-12 2011-01 2011-02 2011-03 2011-04 2011-05 2011-06 2011-07 2011-08 2011-09 2011-10 2011-11 2011-12 2012-01 2012-02 2012-03 2012-04 2012-05 2012-06 2012-07 2012-08 2012-09 2012-10 2012-11 2012-12 2013-01 2013-02 2013-03 2013-04 2013-05 2013-06 2013-07 2013-08 2013-09 2013-10 2013-11


I want to ask for thoughts about improving the world -- what do people need? How can things be organised?