Feeling Poor

Integrity of Blogger
This was in my comment's yesterday:

Hey Leesa, I think I may have somehow deleted ~deb's comment. She made a comment and I responded to it starting my comment with "~deb:", but then I decided to remove my comment but then after removing my comment I saw that ~deb's was no longer there. If I deleted it I apologize. It was a good comment about Grant.

Now I am not going to call out the hacker who tapped into blogger, deleted a comment maliciously and exited the servers undetected . . . .

I am completely full of crap here. Maybe blogger (Google) is trying to drive us to the beta product; I won't change. I won't!

By the way, the comment that ~Deb had about Grant linked to some naked pictures of Grant when he was in the military. Perhaps that is the reason for the deletion.

Feeling Poor

I often wonder how many people have truly felt poor. I am not here to write about the romanticism of being poor, how money corrupts and the like. I enjoy shoe shopping too much to make any of those claims. But at different times of my life I have felt financially poor. Let me explain.

After college, I started working at a job where I was earning about minimum wage. Really. And when I started, I could not afford heath insurance. Actually, I purchased a very cheap policy – if I needed something major, after paying $3,000 deductible (as I recall), I had health insurance. But because of the high deductible I had no doctor, no preventative care. On the plus side, I was in my early 20s and healthy.

I do remember opting not to seek medical attention once. I had some friends who played intramural sports, and I was practicing with them one night. I turned an ankle, and if I would have had decent insurance, I would have gone to the doctor. Heck, now-a-days, I would have gone to the emergency room, seen a hunky doctor, and gotten good pain medication. But then, I opted to just limp for a couple of weeks. Yes, two weeks.

I was single, without real money. I remember knowing exactly when I got paid, how much I got, and already where most of the money had to go.

A few years ago, hubbie and I did something dumb: we ran out of checks. After the last check, I looked for the next book, and it was not there. Secondly, we had no debit card at the time. And we also had no ATM cards.

So when we ran out of checks, we temporarily ran out of money. Not really, because we had money in the bank, but for the weekend, we had no access to the money. On a Saturday morning. For the entire weekend, we had $4 between us. Hubbie actually had the $4 in his wallet. To go to a store and not be able to buy a soft drink – that's where we were. I know it seems insignificant, but it brought back feelings of being poor. And please don't argue that minimum wage is not poor. I was making $5.30/hour ($5.15 was the minimum wage at the time, and I remember when minimum wage was raised, I got a raise!), which turns out to be about eleven grand per year. Sure, money was worth more then, but eleven grand was not a lot of money back then.

Okay, now hubbie and I are doing okay, thanks mostly to hubbie. I don't really pay attention to pay day anymore. When the last week before pay day has popcorn to fill the tummy, perhaps you are a bit poor. I would do that. When ketchup and water equals soup, you are either a really bad cook or don't have a lot of money.

Would I prefer to have been born with a silver spoon – you bet your sweet ass. But I don't long to be part of the tennis set. We are a sum of our experiences – and I can remember going to sleep hungry when I was young, or without going to the ER because I could not afford it. Not a hard life – just part of a rich life, I suppose.

Elevators, Latin and Marines

I was in the elevator the other day, and a mother was asking her 4-year-old girl to press "four." And like a good little girl, she pressed the cardinal number four next to the forth floor button. The mother instructed the child to press the button, and then the elevator obeyed.

At that moment, I thought the child, not the mother, was right. The girl pressed exactly what the mother asked. And I thought to myself, how imprecise our language is. Perhaps 98 people out of 100 would have pressed the button when asked to press the number, yet we all know what people mean when they say something approximating what they want.

Anyway, I am not advocating being precise; I just found the whole experience curious.

Have you ever really enjoyed a bad movie? I mean, really enjoyed the movie but knew it was a crappy movie. It never happened to me, either.

I feel so random today. Really random.

I feel like I have been in some deep depression and the sun has just come out. So here I am just looking at the clouds, feeling good, and then it occurs to me: I don't feel like shit anymore. Speaking of being precise, what exactly does "shit" feel like? I don't even like the word.

Part of me would love to be an elementary school student again. Funny that most of us have "high school" reunions but not "elementary school" reunions. Why is that? From what I have heard many people say, elementary school rocked. I mean, you get to nap, eat paste, draw to your hearts content. I think it would be great to meet up with 30-something former classmates, talk about the guy who ate paste, sleep on mats and drink chocolate milk. That is my idea of a good time. Er, maybe I am alone.

I heard the other day about an initiative for Jewish people to learn to read Hebrew. We have a rather large Jewish population in Savannah, and I think such an initiative is great. How many Catholics would sign up for a course to learn Latin? Not me, buck-o. Heck, I can barely say, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti" or "Ave Maria."

The Marines have some Latin phrase, and I don't know what it means. I sort of think it means, "We can kick your butt" but I am not sure of the meaning. Someone said it means "always faithful." I think that's just what Marines tell non-Marines.

Well, I guess I need to adjust my medications. Sometimes I wonder if those who are psychiatric inpatients make fun of those of us who are on the outside. "Do you know how many sane people it takes to change a lightbulb? None. Sane people never change."

My Fashion IQ: 12

We are all idiots. We truly are.

Think of the most comfortable clothes you could wear? Done. Good. For me, it is jeans. I love wearing jeans, and at work, if I ever come to work in jeans, people look at me as if I slept under a bridge.

Then, many people will say the exact same words, "A little casual today, huh?" Or perhaps, "Dressing casual today?" It is almost as if there is some sort of employee policy: Ifyou see a coworker in comfortable clothing, ridicule them until they conform to the uncomfortable standards we set at this company.

We are all morons.

We have the power to say, "Nice jeans." And leave it at that. But even though I hate hearing the casual policy stuff, I have caught myself saying "dressing casual today?" Me, the one who hates this so much have said it. More than once.

Jeans are so freekin' comfortable, and nearly everyone looks good in jeans. Heck, you can dress them up with a jacket or such, and you still look hot in jeans. So what is bad about a company's bottom line if people wear jeans?

We definitely are not playing with a full deck.

Comfortable clothes – can't work in them, can't go to the grocery store in them. We do things around the house in comfortable clothes. You do it, I do it, we all do it, and we are freekin' morons.

There are some things that are good for you – when I went off to college, I ate a little more, gained a little weight (the freshman five), and then adjusted. I wore nice things to school in high school. In college, after a month, I rolled out of bed, showered, and put on shorts and a t-shirt. Shoes for this shoe lover: tennis shoes or sandals. If you would have given me this information when I was a senior in high school, I would not have believed how I would have dressed myself as a freshman in college.

Now that I am a fully-functioning adult – I wear, for the most part, uncomfortable clothes to work, to church, out to dinner, and on the weekend (unless we are bumming around the house). We only have so much time on this Earth, and it looks like we will spend many of our days in uncomfortable clothes, uncomfortable shoes.

We indeed are idiots.

---

I got the following from VX. I normally don't do these things, but it was a "what the hell" type of day.

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Leggings my Ass

Last week, I was walking with my husband, and I found myself looking at some woman's ass in front of us. It was a perfect ass, and as I reminded myself not to stare by striking up a conversation with my husband, I saw that he was staring also.

Part of me thought of not confronting him, but that part of me did not win the internal argument.

Me: You are looking at her ass. [A completely harsh statement by me because I direct this at hubbie and use the word "ass" instead of "butt," signaling my displeasure.]

Hubbie: No I am not.

Me: Yes, I saw you looking at her ass. [This time I stress the "ass."]

Hubbie: I was just looking into space.

Me: Whatever.

Okay, there are a few things that displeased me with the interaction: (1) I was not too truthful, since I was looking at her ass as well, but I just did not get caught. (2) Hubbie lied to me, but you know, it was his safest avenue to traverse. After all, I think he was sparing my feelings. (3) She was wearing leggings. I wore leggings in the 1980s! Leggings were a bad idea then, and I cannot imagine them making a comeback. Of course, how many people would have thought the New Orleans Saints would be 3-0 in this young football season?

But that interaction also brought up some thoughts about getting away with infidelities. I have not "gotten away with anything", so to speak, but I was thinking if I had – does it make it any better? Any kinder for hubbie? I know it makes it no better for me, but for hubbie? I am not sure. I know it would have spared his feelings, but it probably would not have strengthened our marriage.

And after all of this, what am I thinking about: no way do I want to buy leggings. I mean, I have done my penance already.

Clouds and Calculus

I was driving around this weekend, and I noticed something I have not noticed in a while: clouds.

Now before you suggest I start medicating myself, let me explain. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time on my back looking at the clouds. I can remember summer days when I would look into the sky for hours. Lying in the warm grass, talking to friends and just admiring the clouds.

I did a lot of thinking, looking at the clouds. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that clouds, though made up of water particles that are individually extremely light, en mass, have an incredible weight. We are talking tons. And I would think about what clouds would feel like – they look so feathery and soft. My left brain did not think that fog might be a particular type of "cloud" and perhaps being up in the clouds would be akin to being in the fog here on Earth. Not nearly the romantic thoughts I had as a girl.

In school, we had to learn about clouds in science class. They made us remember all of the cloud types – cumulus, stratus, cirrus, nimbus, and so forth. I can also remember putting some names together to describe clouds (cirronimbus). Dorky, but hey, I was in middle school.

Staring at clouds got me thinking – again, I suppose, because when I used to stare at clouds, I would think. And I was thinking about not really doing much thinking since I have become an adult. I did not consider myself an adult in college – more of a transitional phase from child to adult. And once I became an adult, I used less of my brain. College was harder than work, though I am a bit under-employed and always have been. Still, it is a shame that I don't really think all that often. I mean, I make thousands of decisions per day, I suppose, but none of them takes much real thought.

Now, I am not saying that I am going to start thinking more, but I am pondering it. I don't watch much television – so my brain does not have an automatic snooze button, but I wonder if I get some of the same brain-off satisfaction from reading without a critical eye. If some writer makes a statement, I used to measure the statement carefully. Now I just assume it is so. And it ain't always so!

---

I got this message on my comments the other day:
Hi Leesa

I'm sorry to bother you here in comments, but I wonder if you could point me in the right direction to find the code for your drop-down menus.

I've searched high and low for manually edited ones like yours ie: Blogs That Impress Me, Blog/Writing Tools. And failed.

Thanks. (I would have emailed, but you don't want to be bugged by nuts like me. Wise.)

Wombat

Two things about this: (1) I actually came up with the code myself, and (2) I can't believe other people are asking me for HTML advice. It is a bit humorous, actually. Part of me wants to say, suck an egg! I thought of this myself. But you know, that is not entirely ladylike.

Here is the code; in the message body, you have to put:

<h2 class="sidebar-title">DropDownTitle</h2> <form action="dummy" method="post"><select name="choice"> <option value="">Choose a Link</option> <option value="http://url1.html">Link Title1</option> <option value="http://url2.html">Link Title2</option> </select><input TYPE="button" VALUE="GO!" onClick="jump(this.form)"></form>

Where "DropDownTitle" is the title of the drop down list you want.
Where "Link Title1" is the title of the first link, and "url1.html" is the URL you want to jump to. The "Choose a Link" line is optional – just giving the user a hint that you need to select somewhere to go to.

I don't think you need anything in the header – some forms need javascript in the header to tell the computer what to do – and I don't think this is the case with what I have done. Please remember I am a novice at HTML, and I coded this a while back. If it does not work, I may have said something wrong.

Internet Phenom: Jessica Lee Rose

I have seen a lot of "You Tube" videos on other people's blogs, and I started messing around with You Tube this week. I understand that some use You Tube just so that they can serve small videos on their own sites, and I thought that's all it was about. I was wrong.

Almost instantly, I tripped onto lonelygirl15, and from viewing the clips, I immediately thought it was some film student using a drama student to create a nice little VLOG. I was wrong.

From Wikipedia (copying it because this may be deleted soon from the site):
Jessica Lee Rose (born April 26, 1987) is an American-born amateur actress from New Zealand who rose to popularity after playing the role of lonelygirl15, a fictional character on the popular website YouTube. Controversy arose when she was "outed" by two hackers (C. Yoon) who discovered her real identity, and that she was merely playing a role. Many viewers of her videos on YouTube believed that her episodes, played out in vlogs, represented actual events being retold by a living person.

Born in Salisbury, Maryland, Rose attended Mount Maunganui College in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty and is a graduate of the New York Film Academy's one-year acting for film program at Universal Studios. She has previously done make-up and costume work on a New Zealand short film titled Us, and she played a leading role in a short film titled 'Dearly Beloved.'

I guess I knew it was a scam from the writing - it seems to be better than average. I absolutely love the video blog on Lazy Eye. A wonderful commentary. But now there are tributes to lonelygirl15, and even at least one bulletin board/forum. It looks like lonelygirl15 has been on MTV, the New York Times, and other news outlets. But you know I live in a cave in Savannah, so I did not see any of it.

Actually I found lonelygirl15 by finding another VLOG that had someone who imitated lots of VLOGgers (not sure if this is a word). Most could guess lonelygirl15, and so I searched for her. I also found a comedian named Sherry Sirof doing VLOGs. She was hysterical. I love her thing about bad haircuts.

Actually, a lot of this stuff is stupid, and I really did not have time – I liked Sherry, but I half-thought most of other people's VLOGs was fart humor, amateur comedians and something called a beer cannon (I did not dare click on those). I guess the You Tube was suggesting humor to me, and that was okay. I needed humor yesterday.

Heck, I have not been writing much or reading blogs. But yesterday, I spent some time looking at You Tube. It is freekin' addictive. But I better get back to my normal blogging activities. I hate getting out of the routine.

Appropriate Conversations

I was listening to my brother and sister-in-law talk to their children the other day, and it occurred to me: their kids know nothing about some of the more wild things these two parents have done over the years. When the family first met sister-in-law, the common perception with the family was (1) this will never last, (2) can't little brother see her imperfections, and (3) and this girl is some kind of slut.

If I ever wanted to plan a listening devise in my parent's home, it would have been placed in the kitchen and I would have wanted to hear the family conversations after me and date, or me and significant other left for a dinner, a party, whatever. Because in those moments, I would probably have known "what my family really thinks of him." You think announcers covering gymnastics at the Olympics are picky – slight wobble on the dismount, which will cost 0.1 – you have not met my family.

I have heard that "the previous generation" had far more appropriate conversations, and I am not buying it. I mean, sure, in the print media, there was not the volume of information on cum shots, anal sex and masturbation, but that does not mean these subjects were not discussed in certain circles. I mean, I am sure, during most conversations when meeting the parents, no one talked about safe sex, dildos or sexual positions.

Gidget's Dad: So Mike, what are your plans with Gidget this evening.

Mike: Well, Mr. Lawrence, after going to the soda shop for a malted, I planed on taking your daughter to lookout point, where I would do my best to feel her up.

That conversation never happened, but if it did, "feel her up" may be code for so much more.

Now I am not suggesting I want to know that my parents or my grandparents talked illicitly about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. I don't want to know that Grandmother enjoyed "reverse cowgirl," though she called it "reverse Amazon." I don't want to know about their Friday night adventures, or what they did when they went away for a long weekend. We assumed it was to get a break from us, and it was more likely that they wanted to make a heck of a lot of noise when they were having sex.

Right now, my niece and nephew have no idea about some of the things their parents used to do, say. Heck, still do, say, behind closed doors. And I would not have it any other way.

Picasso, Peanuts and Garfield

I have been in a way crappy mood for quite a while, and I have not felt much like writing. But it has occurred to me that I am in charge of my crappy mood. I feel almost like hitting myself over the head with my princess wand and incanting, "out, crappy mood, out."

I read last year where the Peanuts Cartoon, perhaps the most well-known comic strip in the US, is going to publish all of the strips associated with it – Charles Schultz penned fifty years worth of comics, so they intend on releasing one book per year (with 2 years worth of work) for the next 25 years. I am not really a collector, but if I were, I am not sure I would collect a book that would take a generation to finish my collection. I mean, remember when the state quarters started being minted an collected? Ten years to finish the project. But I am not a collector – and maybe long time horizons are okay for collectors.

Long story short – I was thinking of Peanuts and Charles Shultz this morning, and I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but you know, I never thought Peanuts was that funny. The Peanuts Christmas special, especially Linus' "Meaning of Christmas" soliloquy was wonderful. But the strip? Not really great in my opinion. I would consider it a bit over-rated.

Sort of like Garfield when I was growing up. I am not a cat person, so maybe that is working here, but I never found Garfield that funny. Bill the Cat: funny. Garfield: annoying.

You know, in different parts of entertainment and the arts, there are some artists who stand out. In comics, I think Charles Schultz (Peanuts) and Jim Davis (Garfield) are two of the most popular doodle artists ever. The only other I can name right now is Scott Adams. And Gary Trudeau. Well, I guess I do know a few.

For "real art", I could never get Picasso. I have seen some Picasso that is very beautiful, but the classic Picasso does not fit my taste.

I know I should like Picasso, Peanuts and all, but I just don't. And it is not if I was in a pissy mood when I made these decisions.

Email Performance

I know someone at work who has problems with email. There are things that can block your ascension in a company, and it occurs to me that improper email management is now one of those stumbling blocks.

Back when I was getting out of school, email was not something that everybody really knew. I mean, people had email, but it was not part of every day work. Now, if you cannot manage your inbox, you are toast. If you neglect too many message of those who can affect your career, you may be looking for another job. And they will not say that it is email management either. It is just the mismanagement of email is attributed to other bad traits – unresponsive to others, can't prioritize, whatever.

Okay, email is important. A lot of people sit on email, and I think you can really change how people view you with your email. If you don't spell-check, if you always use fragmented sentences, if you send porn, that affects how people view you as a professional. If you forward jokes, people will think you are not serious enough. If you forward stupid stuff that looks important (the email that ends up with the stealing of an organ comes to mind), people will think you are gullible.

I have heard of someone, a physician, who has someone on staff who prints out all of his email. He sometimes will hand write a note, and the person types the information in a return email. To those who don't know it, the physician knows how to use email. This is half of the person's job. So the physician spends $15-20 K per year because he knows the importance of email. He just does not want to learn how to use it himself. Although this is a particular example, it quantifies how important one person takes his email.

I remember someone, a long time ago, who said they would not learn this "computer thing." That is everyone's prerogative. Similarly, one can all make the decision to shoot one's own foot or not. The decision is yours. Personally, I am not going to damage a perfectly good pair of shoes.

Expectations and Happiness

I have had, throughout my adult life, I have met many people who at first blush, puzzled me.

I had a girlfriend, an acquaintance really, who committed suicide while in college. She came from a wealthy family, was in a sorority, had many male admirers and was doing well in school. From all outward appearances, she was a "success." Still, that did not keep her from ingesting pills and going into a deep sleep, never to wake up again. At the time, this made no sense, but I think I understand it better now. Not fully, but better. I have read that people, for the most part, become "suicidal" by age 5 – their brains have different chemicals or something. But perhaps she just wanted some drama, some attention, and she assumed that she would not fall asleep as fast as she did, or perhaps some traumatic even changed her expectations.

Similarly, I have met some people, who by outward accounts, have gone through so much. Family abuse, limited breaks in the teenage years and so forth, yet by my age, they have a loving family, several children, a spouse that loves them deeply, and are contented. I am not sure what these people expected from a life where their own flesh and blood beat them, they had to struggle to finish college, their immediate family did not provide good role models, but they are leading very contented lives.

I have been sick for the last two days and may or may not write more on this, but this has been bouncing in my brain this morning. I am not saying that low expectations leads to happiness, or that fulfilling expectations does. I really think that we all need to look inside ourselves and find out what we really want to do with our lives, how we want to contribute to our communities and families, what makes us passionate. Maybe this is pop philosophy, or bad philosophy – I don't know. All I do know is that these thoughts are in my non-medicated brain this morning.

I hate taking medicine for anything – it makes me feel all fuzzy and other-than-myself.

Family and Sex

A few months ago, I was in a restaurant with a bunch of people from my family. The event was not important, but we more-or-less had three large tables. My siblings and I did not sit together (we know each others' stories), and so I got to sit near some "cousins." These were not first cousins, mind you, and I don't know exactly how to describe the relationship. Second cousins once removed? First cousins twice removed? Not exactly sure, but we are far enough removed, if we were in the hill country, we could be married.

So here I am with my distant cousins, making small talk, and the conversation turns to sex. Now, I have been at lunches with girlfriends that turned to sex, and I was okay with it. But here I am with family that I really don't know well, and they were talking about sex. The size of his penis when he is two seats away; men boasting about pleasing their wives, women talking about why they should be able to clean the house in the nude, why topless should be no big deal, about all sorts of things.

I was silent and probably a lovely shade of crimson. I was so embarrassed.

I know my parents had sex, but I don't want to think about them having sex. I am very happy that they had their loving, as I am a prodigy of said lovemaking. But I don't want to acknowledge it at all. Similarly, I don't talk to my brother or sister about sex. I know they have sex, but I don't want to know that they are having sex. And my siblings, I am sure, don't want to know about my sexual escapades. It just seems so wrong.

Every once in a while, when I stay home because I am sick, I will watch "daytime programs." I can't watch soap operas; actually I always think I have missed so many years, and remarkably, the plot is about what I remembered. Anyway, in my area, Jerry Springer is normally on, and if I am sick enough, I will have it on in the background. And half the time, there is someone who slept with someone's sister. Or cousins that are doing it, or whatever. Completely gross, but it must get good ratings. There was another show – I think it is new – called Cheaters. I watched it, and it was not so good. Then at the end, there was this one guy who got 5 minutes to clear his name. Apparently on another episode he was caught fooling around in a hot tub with his cousin. They showed clips of the episode, and he was going on about getting a lawyer. I guess the resolution was for him to clear his name. He looks even more guilty now. But the point is that some people don't think it is strange to mix family and sex.

I remember playing games with family, and if anything mildly sexual arose, I would get so embarrassed, and I was not the only one. I am sure my family has sex, but I really don't want to imagine any of them having sex. It is difficult enough watching some of them dance at weddings.

Random Monday

Yahoo Messenger
Friday, I got a message from a blogging buddy – she is having a hard time and wanted someone to talk with. Anyway, I answered her e-mail and then I got on Yahoo Messenger to see if she was "listening" on Messenger.

For me to launch Messenger is a pain in the butt. You see, I am not an IM-er, so when I do the messaging thing, I have to install Messenger first. So I install it, then send a message to her.

No answer.

I guess she was not listening. So after I did not get a response, I started doing other stuff at work. And then I started getting instant messages from random guys. Yeah, I guess I did not know I was "visible" and guys in Georgia started IMing me.

And I could not believe how quickly guys would hit on me. Okay, not surprised, really, but surprised on how quickly guys started IMing me. It was sort of gross, really. I mean, why would anyone really hook up with someone who randomly texted them. Yeah, and the "bonus" is that all of these guys love oral sex.

When I was dating in college, I had guys after I said "No," counter with "well, then, how about a blow job." So since sex was off of the table, I guess they thought that me massaging their penises with my mouth was what there was "behind door number two." I never even considered it an option, but I later found out that sometimes my girlfriends did consider it. After all, a 10 minute BJ would keep them from dodging "Octopus Hands" for the next hour-and-a-half. For me, I always had tests the next day – but warning, don't try that excuse on a Saturday night!

Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher
I like Amazon.com, and I just watched a couple of videos that are interviews by Bill Maher, and frankly, I have not heard of this guy. Some talk show host, and he is actually pretty good. I guess. I hope he is trivial, because I have not heard of the guy.

I have no idea if Bill Maher does other stuff – I imagine he does. For me, I just like using Amazon's site to look for books. Then I go to more of a discounter to purchase. Probably not what Amazon had in mind when it spent all of that money on its site.

September 11
I can't believe it has been five years since 9/11. I don't know what to think; I really don't. I remember where I was that day – and the previous day I can remember like that was the Challenger crash. Touchstone days. Whereas, many of us don't remember the Challenger crash, I am sure we will feel ripples of 9/11 for years to come. For me, now I can't take water when I travel. Thanks, a lot. The problem is that it is hard to know if all of these precautions we are now taking make any difference. At least we probably think about our personal liberties more and more.

So when taking off your shoes at the airport, think of the freedoms we enjoy. I am too random today for my own good.

Easter Eggs and Boyfriends

Ever get up really late in the morning, get dressed quickly, and off to work without really checking to make sure you look stunning? That was me this morning, and at work, I checked myself out in the bathroom mirror (why, I am not sure since I could do little to change it other than touch-ups) and I look good. Not evening-on-the-town good, but good for work.

Then I get to my seat and wonder what I am going to write – can I write good enough for the few loyal readers I get each day? Too soon to tell, but by the end of this, I may "look in the mirror again."

When I was six or seven years old, and I know this story will be slightly absurd, I can remember Easter at home. The grass was manicured, the dew was gently evaporating away, and me and my sister were Easter Egg hunting. Since she was 15 months my junior, we each had our own eggs to find. I had my boundaries and she had hers. I remember that crisp spring morning, surveying the lawn, and spotting most of her eggs. My eggs were well hidden, a handicap because of my advanced years to be sure.

My parents pitted us against one another throughout our early years, and this Easter Egg hunt was no exception. We needed to find the eggs in a short amount of time – and to this day, I think they were preparing us to enter Easter Egg hunts in the future and to win trophies for finding the "golden egg." Again, very silly, but to this day I can remember so much about that Easter.

We each found our eggs, and I found mine first. I "worked" at finding my eggs, while my blond-headed sister took her time. I remember seeing her tresses bobbing up and down as she skipped from easy-to-find egg to easy-to-find egg. I ended up finding all of my eggs first, and I presented them to my parents. First child, goal oriented, and I followed the script to the letter.

After the event, I remember my mother counting all of the eggs, and I had one egg more than my sister. I don't know why I had found an additional egg, but this I do remember. She "penalized me" by giving two eggs to my sister. As a young proper girl, I would never have thought, "what the fuck," but knowing what I know now, perhaps I should have mouthed those words. In my innocence, I immediately saw my sister taking from me.

As the years went forward, I continued to see the pattern. Sister taking my clothes, my toys, whatever, and parents not really "protecting me." But the culminating act of thievery was when I was a junior in high school. I had my first serious boyfriend, and I knew he liked the way my sister looked. She was extremely pretty in her sophomore year, and she had many older boys who thought she was wonderful. She ended up, I found out, kissing my boyfriend, and shortly thereafter, we broke up. I always thought of her as stealing him. I learned, years later, that she not only kissed him but fucked him, which would have surprised me actually. I knew she was flirty, but I did not really know the extent of her flirtiness.

Now over the years I have forgiven her, but I even wrote one erotic story to get back at her. My point is not to say my sister is a bitch. She really isn't. She was a bit off-course, and she enjoyed attention at that point in her life.

My point is this – sometimes, some very insignificant event may have ripples throughout your lifetime. Stealing an egg is felt years later in other ways. Now I have to go do some work and look productive. Perhaps I will read this later today, to "look in the mirror" and hope the entry does not need touching up.

Falling Out of Love with Blogger

When my blog was new, I would religiously check several things – which new blog/person linked to me, where are my visitors were from, how many hits I got that day, and the like. By the way, I just checked to see who was linked to me, and I found a wonderful post by Ddot. Oddly, it sort of talks about the same thing – but from a "remember when" approach. First people who visited his blog, etc. His post is great – check it out. Perhaps we are writing about similar things because we are approaching our anniversary at about the same time. Same general topic, different perspective. I have always liked Ddot's perspective on things. Enough love given to that DC guy.

Well, over time, I changed. I guess I really changed again. I first started writing to please me and I could not give a darn about anyone else. Then people started commenting, and for a while, I played to the masses. And then I looked at my writing and subjects and changed a third time, again writing for me. I thought about turning off comments, but I knew it would drive people away – a good blogging buddy did it, and I was so proud of her for doing so. Comments changes the way you write – it really does. But I did not have the nerve to turn off comments. I still have about the same readership, but now I have less active readers (not as many comments).

But enough about me.

Let's talk about Blogger. You know, I have not noticed Blogger down lately. Hopefully they are spending lots of time on the new beta, and they don't tinker with the other servers. What I would like is a way to write blog entries and have them post automatically at a later date. Since I am OCD – I like posting each day, whether I have something to say or not. And that would help me.

You know, I like to bitch, but I can't really bitch about Blogger. Sure, they are owned by Google, and Google is helping suppress all citizens of China (a bad thing). But the technophiles in China can get around this – with the anonymous surfing software available. And I could bitch about the lack of information when Blogger is down (they tell you about it only after the fact, leading to you trying for hours to try to post when servers are down).

But I have used other blogging-type websites, and Blogger is okay. I would even pay a few bucks to have Blogger be more reliable. Er, I mean, I would allow others to pay for my site. But there are some annoyances with blogger – the pop-up ads, for instance.

For not saying that I am going to bitch, it looks like I am bitching.

I want to fall in love with Blogger again. I have known others who have taken their blogs elsewhere. It sort of reminds me of those who decided they have fallen out of love, then look for someone else. They get the euphoria of new love, the rush, the butterflies. Then they take the new blog-type site and after a while, things change again. Little annoyances at first become big problems. Then they start looking for another blog-type site, one with a tighter ass, so to speak. One who doesn't talk your ears off. One that is different. But you don't change, and if you are chasing this "new love," you will never be happy. So here I am, with my Blogger, not in love anymore – not the euphoria love. One of my good blogging buddies have recently changed her site to myspace. That seems to be the tramp of blogging, the one slut that everyone rides. She's flashy, she's brass, and she has amazingly firm breasts. Nice eye-candy, no personality. No depth. A wife's worst nightmare.

Guess I better get going. Perhaps the beta is, in a sense, Blogger going to the gym, working on Blogger's ass. Don't worry Blogger, I don't get butterflies when you call anymore, but I am not leaving you just to chase that feeling.

Does Beta mean "Warning" in Latin?

I saw something the other day: "Sign into Blogger in Beta." I don't like beta at all. Beta to me means, "please spend your time being an unpaid guinea pig so we don't have to pay skilled people to work the kinks out." Now I know that hundreds of really stupid people (me) clicking on what I am not supposed to click on, using the software in unintended ways is hard to pay someone to do. I have been told that hundreds of people throughout the United States show up to ER's throughout the nation with light bulbs up their asses. Who would have thought of putting fragile glass in one's orifices? I mean, in America we do stupid creatively.

So anyway, I see this beta button on Blogger and it scares the crap out of me. It really does. I can see pressing a button that completely erases my blog. One day. No blog. Of course I have been absent lately so maybe I can reclaim some time.

Beta seems to be a bad word. When I was younger, I remember the Betamax and VCR debate (Beta vs VCR, really). Okay, I was a child and there is no way we could have afforded a Beta machine – but I do remember that Beta tapes were more expensive and there were fewer titles available. Again – Beta may have had the better technology, but all being said, it was second fiddle. It was bad.

Then we had the fish – Betas. All I remember is that every once in a while, someone would add one to a fish tank, and the betas would be so aggressive, they would kill all of the other fish in the tank. Take that, Neon Tetra! Take that, Algae Eater! It never happened to me, but I suspect it happened to the same people who years later could not sit down in an ER waiting room because they had a 100-watt bulb up their butt.

Now I know some techies love beta! They get to look at programs before most of us. Perhaps they have good stories about how they caught some major bug – or perhaps they had to reformat their hard drive because the program did something to some dll – I am using my small knowledge of computers to dazzle those who can't tell the difference from their butt from a light socket. The rest of you will just curl your hair around your pointer finger (women and Mike) or scoff (Prata) or do whatever men do – scratch your crotch, visit a sports website or whatever.

Me, I am not into beta. Or into sticking foreign objects in my butt. But that's just me.

Where oh where is Leesa

Where the heck have I been? That is what I am asking myself right now. I have really been out-of-sorts lately, and my normal punctual postings are neither normal nor punctual. I joked that I may be taken in a flying saucer on August 31, and after looking at how I have been feeling, perhaps I was and the anesthesia affected my brain.

And now I am trying to think of something on which to write. It is hell trying not to end in a preposition this morning.

I think I am getting older – not a stretch, as we all think we age over time. What happens if we only think we age – as it is an optical illusion of sorts. Not that I believe it, but before Bohr, I am not sure many would have thought that all matter is made of electrons, protons and neutrons. Then, years later, we talk about quarks and other bizarre subatomic particles.

But I know I am getting older – and so is hubbie. A few years ago, I noticed it with him. He said one night that Connie Chung was hot. Er, I thought to myself, isn't she a news anchor. Not sure FHM, Maxim, Blender or whatever is looking to use her for a cover spread. I actually thought his comment was cute. I know, manly stuff is not supposed to be cute, but I guess part of it is that I can compete with Connie Chung. Well, my 401K can't compete with hers, but my boobs sure can.

And when I look at yummy men, my tastes have changed. Sean Connery is looking better, and he is so much older than me. When I was young, physical attraction was so important, and now talent, power, intelligence and other attributes contribute so much to attractiveness.

And more frequently, I find myself talking about the "good old days," and I am in my thirties. What is that about? I think I will talk about this more tomorrow. Today I have a crapload of stuff to do at work, and I can't get fired this week. Lots of bills coming in.