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Saturday, March 9, 2002

Last night it rained, then it froze, then it sleeted (with bizarre irruptions of thunder and lightning), and now it's snowing hard. Ah, March, the temperamental diva of the cast of months. I am annoyed, because I'd thought I might get out this weekend and finally go see Lord of the Rings, but I'm not driving anywhere for a while, not so much because of the snow, but because everything beneath the snow (including my car) is covered with a quarter-inch of ice. Drat. If we still had any movie theatres downtown, which we don't, I could take the bus. I suppose I could bus down to the Mall of America and see it there, but really I'd rather stick sharpened pencils in my eyeballs than go anywhere near the MoA.

It's going to get cold, too, and the wind is whipping around. Ah well. At some point I'll totter my old-lady self four blocks down to the grocery store and back, but that's probably all the gallivanting I'll do this weekend. God knows I have enough to keep me busy here, between laundry and taxes and that thrice-damned pustular death-bestenched story, upon which I've made no progress in two and a half months. It's official, btw, I Am Stuck. I am beyond stuck and rounding the clubhouse turn into full paralysis.

I read over most of the blighted thing the other night, and, in between the frequent flinches and winces, I realized that parts of it I still like quite a bit. Totally apart from not wanting to flush the investment of time and effort I have in it, there are parts that work, that are salvageable. But trying to figure out how to get back into it, get it moving again ... it's like putting my shoulder up against the back bumper of an out-of-gas thirty-ton semi, and giving a hearty push. A semi that's loaded up with pig iron and lead pipe, I might add. That baby ain't moving.

I think what I really need is a fresh eye on the situation, someone to talk the whole thing through with; but unfortunately most of my trusted beta types are (a) hellishly busy, and/or (b) sufficiently put off by the basic story premise that I don't want to inflict it on them, and/or (c) not due South fans in any event.

And I know that what I really need is to stop snivelling and apply some mental discipline; discipline, after all, being something attainable even for a complete mental sloven like myself. Put down the blogs, put down the Snood, open up Word, take a deep breath, and ... one word after the next. Start anywhere, take one step, and then keep walking.

On a side note, I got an e-mail the other day from my friend Nancy E. about her new webpage, where she's put up some images of recent artwork she's done. She's planning to get a weblog going sometime soon, and I hope that she also reposts her really marvellous Highlander fanfiction (which is not currently available online, to my grief). At some point, I want to create a good set of links to visual artists, photographers, etc., but my bookmarks are currently in utter disarray. Anyway, it was a delight to hear from Nancy and to see her work.

Posted @ 11:48 AM CST [Link]5 comments

Thursday, March 7, 2002

So yesterday I went in and got my new contact lenses. I'd worn contacts for years, and then last year one of them tore or went down the drain or something, and what with work and busyness and changeovers in insurance coverage I kept not making an appointment to get them replaced, and instead I've been wearing my godawful old glasses that were fine about fifteen years ago, but my eyes have changed a great deal since then.

But, see, here's the thing: I've reached that glorious point of middle age when one can be simultaneously both very myopic (as I've been my whole life) and also presbyopic -- both near- and far-sighted, so that the old hold-the-page-closer trick no longer works. In such situations, optometrists will prescribe a default correction that gives one sharp midrange-to-distance vision, and deliver the standard it's-time-for-bifocals lecture.

Except that (a) I am not wearing bifocals, period, end of story, talk to the hand; and (b) they aren't much use to me anyway, since they assume that all close-up vision will be directed toward books or paper situated at waist-to-chest level -- but most of the reading I do these days is off a computer monitor, which is straight ahead and hence above the closer-focus line of vision provided by the bifocal inset.

So with the contacts, I'd been doing the endless fandango of the cheap drugstore reading glasses -- put 'em on, take 'em off, put 'em on, take 'em off, lose them somewhere on the desk, rinse, repeat. And I realized that my fugly old outdated prescription glasses provided a sort of compromise level of correction that worked fine for reading, and adequately for navigating through life. The optometrist told me severely, "You know these probably aren't legal for you to drive in," but hey. They functioned, and I got used to compensating, and it was a huge relief not to have to constantly try to remember where I'd left my reading glasses, and simply be able to read.

But, anyway, so now I have my new contacts, and ... wow. I'd forgotten, really forgotten, what it's like to have 20/20 vision. And I've spent a great deal of time since yesterday simply wandering around and marvelling at the beauty of the visual world. Everything is so crisp, so sharp, so cleanly edged and gloriously detailed. I can stand out on the back deck for minutes on end, being amazed at all the twigs on all the trees -- their multifariousness, their delicacy and complexity. And my god, the house at the end of the block? The edge of the roofline? It's so sharp you could cut yourself on it!

It reminds me of when I got my very first pair of glasses, in fifth grade, and the whole way home from the optician I kept saying, "Mom! Look! Look at all the leaves! I can see all the leaves on the trees!", in utter astonishment. The world is so full of detail -- exquisite, rich, dense, bristling, sharp-edged, gloriously separate and distinct detail -- and I'd never really seen any of it until I was ten, and it's still easy for me to forget it's there when I'm away from it for a while.

So, I guess it's worth the hassle of the reading glasses, to be able to actually see. Will keep the contacts. But just don't talk to me about bifocals, 'cause I am not going there.

Posted @ 07:43 AM CST [Link]9 comments

Wednesday, March 6, 2002

You know, I almost didn't watch last night's Buffy, because I was convinced from the previews that it would just be Wacky Wedding Hijinks. But ... um. Wow. Going to spoiler-text here for a moment: I know I'd called for a major rift, something to derail the nuptials. Hadn't thought it would actually happen. And hadn't really anticipated how much they could make it hurt. JM continues to blow me away--I wish I had that Spike/Buffy conversation on tape. And I'm left with genuine eagerness to see how they resolve what's been set in motion in this episode. Ah, the joys of watching a live show.

Posted @ 08:12 AM CST [Link]1 Comment

Monday, March 4, 2002

Do other people amuse themselves in idle moments by using Babelfish to translate chunks of text into a foreign language, then translate the results back into English, and giggle foolishly at the results?

I just do-si-do'ed my previous blog entry, English-French-English, and got the following:

I to want to say for saying in preceding input that I to have to add some new person side-link column -- some which I just too addle-brained to join suitable before, and sorbs, which to turn over blogging (yay!) a couple -- and of the old friends whom I am magic to see the jump in the world wacky of blogging: a one of my preferred people, it which digs the belowground like wild mole, which I was afraid had disappeared for always from the fandom; and my friend liked Dargelos. I have only overdraft the blog of Dargie in make a control of day before of my traqueur of Web and in discover its URL there, and the indicator me A justify for obtain in addition to of my duff névrotique and for him send A year-and-a-half-or-thus E-mail in delay, which have obtain a answer marvelously heat, unburdening of it fact me of a loading stinking enormous of culpability puante. I feel incredibly lucky in my friends, much more as I deserve, and I blessed the existence of the weblogs, to give us another way to be.

I love the way "Rowan" boomerangs back as "sorbs," which is in fact (I believe) a rather obscure word for the fruit of the rowan tree. "My duff névrotique" is a phrase worth retaining, as too is "a loading stinking enormous of culpability puante." I have no clue what "puante" means--it doesn't re-translate on its own--and that somehow makes the enormous of culpability even more stinking. As it were.

Lord knows I need my cheap amusements, because LiveJournal is once again being a total bitch, and refusing to let me in, even when I try logging in myself first, as Ins suggested. Damn it. I might have to do some work here. I might have to break down and go to the gym, as I've been intending to every night for weeks.

Posted @ 06:49 PM CST [Link]7 comments

Sunday, March 3, 2002

I meant to say in the previous entry that I've added some new people to the side-links column -- some whom I'd just been too addle-brained to link properly before, and Rowan, who's returned to blogging (yay!) -- and a couple of old friends whom I'm delighted to see leaping into the wacky world of blogging: one of my favorite people, she who burrows belowground as The Wild Mole, who I was afraid had vanished from fandom forever; and my beloved friend Dargelos. I only discovered Dargie's blog by doing an idle check of my web tracker and discovering her URL there, and seeing it motivated me to get off my neurotic duff and send her a year-and-a-half-or-so overdue e-mail, which got a wonderfully warm reply, thereby unburdening me of a huge fetid load of stinking guilt. I feel incredibly lucky in my friends, much more so than I deserve, and I bless the existence of weblogs, for giving us another way to find each other.

Posted @ 02:34 PM CST [Link]3 comments

Another new design, and ever more deeply into the monochrome. Had contemplated using CSS for all the layout, eschewing tables, but I'm not quite there yet. This time I wanted to try specifying two different styles of links -- underlined in main body of entries and no-decoration for the sidebar list -- and it seems to be working reasonably well in IE, but in Navigator (both 4.7 and 6.2) I'm not getting the difference in line-height also specified (100% in sidebar, 140% in main body). Ho hum. Will tweak some more at some point down the road. It seems to be OK in Opera, fwiw. (If this page looks really odd to anyone viewing on a Mac, let me know.) I also decided not to specify font size for the main text, and just set the sidebar links at 80% of whatever people's default is. That way, people who want to bump the text size up or down are free to do so.

This whole question of whether or not to specify font size in pixels is currently a hot one in the web design community, which I've been following from a distance (not being by any stretch a web designer). It seems to come down to the degree of one's determination to have a page appear a particular way, versus one's willingness to go with the inherently uncontrollable variation in browsers, hardware, user preferences, etc. If I were more of a designer, I'd probably be more of a control freak about all this and cling to pixel specifications; as it is, nothing is lost here by letting people set the font size wherever they please. (In one discussion of the subject I was recently following, at WebMaster World, the pertinent question was raised of how many users even know how to change the font size on their browsers, which is a good point too, I guess...)

I've been winged by some version of the flu the past couple of days--left work early on Friday and have spent most time since then sleeping. Am struggling today to answer wads of way-overdue e-mail and lash together a coherent thought or two on interesting topics being batted around in various blogs. In actuality, I'm mostly staring vacantly out the window at the twenty-five-below-zero windchill (at least we're not getting the snow hammering parts further south) and playing Freecell. And contemplating hot chocolate, and a return to bed.

Posted @ 11:53 AM CST [Link]4 comments