Despite my self-congratulation re my bullets a bit ago, it is painfully clear that they went Horribly Wrong. But, having only popped on here to add the lunar calendar link, I am resisting tinkering. Yay me! Go slipshod editing go!

Mr. David Shute wrote this fascinating little time-suck called “Small Worlds.” This is me, getting back to work now. Thanks for hosting this on your site, rathergood. Mr. Veitch, some of us have Things To Do.

Also, please give a listen to the musician’s work. Mr. Kevin MacLeod has put up so much goodness and wonder that he is now a Minor Deity in Nova Terra. For free. Royalty free. Mr. MacLeod (who lives in Green Bay, ya hey) should be given large quantities of money through PayPal. I’m just saying.

Sometimes I wish I’d just done a children’s book. The kind with lots of pictures and is only 12 pages long. But sometimes a few things get a little bit easier:

• Gentle reader, I have for you two words: Google Documents. (I’d give you a link, but it insists that I mean my personal folders. So . . . um, go Google it.) Absolutely priceless if you work on two entirely different computers, as I do. Also peachy for backups. (Presumably the nice folks at Google are doing backups themselves.)

  One caveat: There is an option for editing stuff online, and it is apparently a nice little stripped down word processor. But if you’re like me, and just want to schlep your Office files from one place to another, you want to uncheck the box that pants helpfully that it will convert them to their own doc format–which as far as I’ve noticed tends to nuke my own formatting. 

  (And can I whinge here about a certain suite of office materials that only understands its own documents, although everybody else is able to understand bunchies? They have to, because they need an option to export the blasted things in the format the snotty little suite understands.)

And let’s not even talk about the fact that the horrible sunzabitches won’t let any other browser access its site than its own retard child. Nope, not going there. When my beloved Polycarp goes where ancient desktops have to go, I’m not bothering to keep the PC architecture. My next kiddo will be an admittedly horribly overpriced Mac. After all, our apps export to . . . Nope, nope, nope. Moving on:

• I have discovered that I know how to type. As in without looking at the keys. I’m not super good at it, but fixing the errors is faster than the old ways. Trouble is, I’m in the same positiion of the centipede who was asked how on earth he managed it. He stopped to think, and then couldn’t do it at all.I’m so bemused by the fact that I’ve picked up this skill after so many years, that when I pay attention the entire process just slows to a halt. I’m actually reasonably good when not really paying any attenti0n at all–but then in the back of my mind I go, “Whoa! How am I doing this? Am I doing it right?” And then it all falls apart with a crashing boom.

  There is one benefit to this, though–even when looking (presuming I’m staying out of my own way) I’ve gotten a lot faster, which is a Good Thing when transcribing page after page of text. I haven’t tried to figure out how long the damned thing is in quite some time–I’m just in denial. I comfort myself by having heard somewhere that big isn’t as bad as small in the realm of the genre novel. We shall see.

• I seem to spend a significant portion of my so-called “writing” time noodling about doing research. I already shared the funsies of Inuit grammar a month or so ago. Which started with a single “throwaway” reference.

  This afternoon’s task is also about names. I have a family with the last name of Avalon. After annoyingly clever comments for several generations, they decided to just roll with it, and now all born Avalons have names out of the Matter of Britain.  There are a lot of Avalons, and so I have finally had to break down and spelunk the crevasses of various places on the Interwebs to find a bunch. This guy’s list is the winner so far.

  Anyway, because there are a lot of them; and because they feature in a scandalous complication, which matters at least in my own wee fuzzy head, I’ve been trying for FIVE YEARS to find something that would handle family trees. Failed–unless I wanted to pay for something that apparently would sketch it all about in a twee little graphic.

  And even in the packages I demo’ed, it’s kind of complicated, when you figure out on page two-zillion-six that somebody is really related to such and who, to go in there and change it. Apparently there’s no perfect answer to this question, and the people who do it for realsies use good ol’ pen and paper–or, I should say, pencil. They then make lots of copies of sections and back up their work–er, photocopy it–undoubtedly while using a few choice words.

  I’m not that patient; I’m not that organized. The manuscript itself is in something like seven or eight notebooks at this point, all with notes scrawled randomly in them, and when the dust settles, I’m going to go in and mine it all for stuff that I was stupid about; or that answers some random-ass question after said research, etc.

  So, between me being me, and the task being what it is, anybody who knows me is now LTAO at the very thought of me with sticky notes, scissors, and several different folders of different colors. Moan.

  Then, just now, while messing with another sheet in the growing table of various data (necessary when putting together an entire society), I had the epiphany that you can do it with a worksheet.

  It’s not easy. At all. As of the moment, I have some hope that Pages will do a better job than Excel. Sigh. But that said, after a mere hour of tinkering, I have the nasty little buggers all worked out.

  The very best part of having done this is that, now that it’s all drawn out graphically–it’s actually not confusing at all. Much.

More as this exciting task progresses.

• Ironically, as I’ve been doing this blog, and having the usual (if you’re me) argument about bullets’n’paragraphs, I just popped into the HTML window, and could fix stuff. God, how I wish that you could similarly pop the hood on most things. (And no, I don’t want to hear anybody say anything about Unix based applications.)
• In other news, I’m having a kidney stone. Yay. At least now I’ll finally make the appointment with my urologist I’ve been waving my paws at for the last several months.

So how’s by you?

I’m having an panic attack here. I found out this weekend that I have somehow been signed up for Medicare Part D, which is their prescription program. I got hit with a co-pay that, although small, seems to contradict the info I have from MassHealth.

(Because our health care system is compassionate, MassHealth ensures that my co-pay should be what it always has been–it’s a state law.) Well, apparently not, at least in the computer.

So I have to get on the phone. I finally broke down and got a Bluetooth earpiece, which has reduced the hyperactivity-induced phone anxiety–but I’m not looking forward to this. 😦

Evil people (and you know who you are), don’t get in my face about health care reform until you end up with your life completely ruined as mine was–because my fall into an insurance lacuna wiped out my medication. And yes, I was, in fact, actually insured with a private company–they were excellent when we lived past 495 (a Bostonism meaning “getting to the boonies out there, ain’tcha?”) Unfortunately, they didn’t have a good network of providers here. The peachy irony is that the ensuing crash’n’burn ended up in being poor enough to get MassHealth itself. Heh.

My MCO, Network Health, did an excellent job of finishing up figuring out what My Deal was–and I’m getting better–but I’ll be on $1000 per month of medication for the rest of my life.

But even Part D would allow me to keep eating after their co-pay. (I’m guessing there, but I bet it would.)

Here’s the thing: Would America really be better off with me dead? I’m pretty harmless; both my excellent kids adore and highly value me. All three of us are in the arts; and, really, that’s important (especially as we’re good at it). I paid into my SSDI for my entire working life–and someday I hope to be able to have to cough up once more. But I’ll never do that if I stay sick–or die. And that’s what accessible health care means.

This little bit swam out of an issue that one of my folks had with another of my folks; I amused myself in the service of (of course) stalling on the main piece of actual writing. (I realize that this is the sort of thing that the class of people addressed herein like to circulate; if so, I will be inordinately flattered, but please give me credit. My ex-husband was much amused to find one of his forwarded to him the following year.)

Partner Reformatting alert!

As a result of improper installation of malware, Partner accounts “yo-yo” and “martyr” have been permanently shut down, and cannot be re-opened by any hacking whatsoever. Similarly, process DOORMAT has been identified as a rootkit and subsequently been eliminated. Previous industry tools such as SulKing and Passive Aggression will no longer be supported

Your temporary new password is “i’m_over_it” and can be used to access the Partner server for the next week. At that time, if you have not confirmed your password, the server will be flushed; your data will be regarded as abandonwarez; no further downloads will be available; and the operating system will be considered to be freely distributable.

Warning: After reformat, future system privileges will NOT be granted to those who have used Partner improperly in the past, including those who have failed to abide by the previously established end-user agreement. The system’s definitions are current, and armed against back-door attacks.

Should you decide to rescue your data–which, after all, represents a significant amount of programming time and disk space–it is imperative that you first use an anti-virus program to delete any ongoing processes which conflict and interfere with the extant OS.  Some offending third-party vendors have been identified, such as CoffeeHouse, GamingNight, Gym, and WorkingReallyLate. (Note that this last has been identified as the source of a currently running applet, which has been detected as a hijacker in the past, and should be appropriately isolated.)

These vendors have been known to encourage the proliferation of Trojans which users operate in the naivete that they are doing nothing wrong. Please be advised that the Partner sys-op has an excellent program which will infiltrate any malicious Trojans that red-flag that they have been improperly applied.

New code guidelines: It is vital to observe proper mapping of the overall network’s peer-to-peer and parent-child relationships, and to maintain the structure of your personal partition so as to increase usability by others.  Failing to pay attention to such details imposes unacceptable server loads which might cause Partner to crash without warning: Sometimes all data needs to be massaged, and a little preventive maintenance goes a long way.

The sysop encourages you to re-examine your current algorithms and run a debug, in order to identify such random processes as conflicting firewalls, false negatives, and other vulnerabilities.  An excellent aid would be The Heuristic Executables Repurposing And Programming Integrated Systems Theory package, which would also offer protection against such malware in the future.

Thank you,

Partner Sys-op

First off, apologetics means never having to say you’re sorry. (Let’s skip the etymology part.) Rather, I’m explaining my take on Lent and the long-standing concept of the Seven Deadly Sins.

For everybody lacking a serious character disorder, we all know that there are things about ourselves that we admit could use some tweaking–we are not always the best people we can be. Therefore, hear a huge Your Mileage May Vary, and if you’re able to do a little cultural translation, read on.

Being an exasperated Episcopalian, I’ve observed that a lot of people are assholes about Lent; it’s the single thing most mocked about Christianity. It’s fun to pick on Christians, because everybody knows that we’re evil, gullible, and stupid. Whatever. It’s easy and gratifying to lump people together into one group and demonize them. But the concept of Lent–and sin– is useful for most people, believers or not.

By now, everybody knows that Lent is the time when Christians “give something up:” meat, chocolate, masturbation, fanfic, whatever. For forty days; and if it’s not going to be a challenge, just don’t. Many of the people who “give something up” just pick a random thing, and think no more about it. Well, no.

This process is known as a Lenten discipline, a scary word reminding us of parents, teachers, diet coaches, and Nobodaddy. Yet, true discipline is centrally a concentration on what we need and a commitment to keep that responsibility.  And in Lent, we set aside a time specifically to examine who we are, what we do, and the differences between the two.

What many now recommend as a discipline is not to give something up, but to take something on: the good old fallback of volunteering; being kinder to people; assuming a responsibility. I’ve tried that approach, but it wasn’t . . . well . . . it wasn’t Lent. It felt like I was cheating, and as I’ve sort of sloped off at about Day 10 for every Lent of my life, I already felt that way. Guilt and shame are undervalued, as they often keep us from misbehaving, but in this case they really do just get in the way: Boo hoo, I’m so weak; this is so stupid; aren’t I working hard to defeat the purpose here?

So what I’ve done this year is to do both. And I’ve fallen into the usual Don Quixote trap: I decided to take up prayer/meditation for 30 minutes a day—and to give up (or work on) a Sin. Hmmm . . . well, what do I mean by that?

The easiest and most basic definition of sin that I know is: Sin is that which sends us away from God. (Your Higher Power. Your best sense of self. Whatever. Get yourself a big #10 can of atheistic/agnostic/term quibbling-get-over-it. You know what I mean here. Translation stops now.)  And although there are many, many things which send us away from that, the Seven Deadly Sins provide a useful structure for understanding how it works.

The Seven Deadly Sins:

• Avarice (Greed)
• Envy
• Gluttony
• Lust
• Pride
• Sloth
• Wrath

There are other and older lists; but these are currently the most commonly agreed upon, having folded a couple of concepts into each other. They are deeper concepts than they first appear, and every one has what I call a “skate:”  For some of them, you will fluff your feathers happily and say, “Well, I don’t have an issue with that!” M’kay . . . here’s an exercise, which I uncreatively call the Seven Deadly Sins game:

Take a little time to memorize the above list–give yourself a few little quizzes on them, so you more or less know what they are. Then (and at any future time) grab a piece of scrap paper, and scribble them down as quickly as you can. The last sin on the list is the one you need to examine in your life at the time.

And yes, for you frivolous wags, actually, the same thing works for the dwarves–but do ya notice that they also have concepts, which oddly enough can fairly easily be related to the sins: Doc=Wisdom, which was Greed for Faustus; Sleepy=Lust (hey, he likes to stay in bed…), Grumpy=Wrath, Sneezy=Bodily health–i.e. Gluttony; Bashful=Pride; Dopey=Sloth. And Happy is Envy, because face it, don’t we all envy him?

That said:

When we talk about sin, somewhere along the way we also need the concept of salvation, which is why the soberness of Lent is followed by the ecstasy of Easter; at least in terms of the Christian calendar. As a general and ongoing thing, you are better and happier when you realize that, as Zen monk Cheri Huber says, there is nothing wrong with you. Or, as the popular catchphrase says, God doesn’t make junk. Part of all that self-hatred comes from identifying Us as the Things We Do, and as alluded above, they’re different.

There is nothing wrong with us, but we need to be mindful, and observe the things that we do: Right action, kids. It comes down to that. Go, and sin no more.    —-Wait, who am I kidding? Y’all are about to walk out the door back into . . . being human. Which is what Lent is all about.

And, being a human who needs to cut back on my innate identification with Don Quixote, I’ve decided to redefine my parameters for my discipline: I’m actually doing pretty well with the meditation–I’m doing a drawing exercise–but I think the thing I’m giving up is eating in bed. It’s the worst little habit I have in terms of keeping me from being better and happier. And in terms of the original high-minded (and vague) objective, it’s a winner:

I’m unhappy with with what it does to my body, and angry with myself both for doing it and being lazy about working on it. l hate feeling greedy for a completely unnecessary snack, and I envy all those who just tidily eat in the dining room. And I know I’m being defensive and avoidant when I tell myself that I deserve a treat.

And hey,  who likes to have crumbs in bed?

See Lent 101 for the context in which these are written.

Gluttony

Fascinatingly, for medieval writers, this included alcohol abuse. (Food may be short, but booze rarely is.) Another “duh,” at least superficially, but the inverse skate is as insidious, and includes so, so many of us: When we’re obsessed with food in the midst of plenty, it’s also a form of gluttony. Dieting is gluttony; what one needs instead is to eat in a healthy manner without making yourself–and your friends and family–crazy. (Which is selfish; see above.)

Lust

Being a bitch at heart, sometimes when I see a family from any group with the stepstool progression of five or more kids, I think “Yo! Y’all need to get yourselves another hobby!” This goes for all the Lust cadets:

As soon as we got to this one, there was a lot of growling out there in the audience about “healthy, natural sexuality” and whatnot. The people who talk about Lust are kind of stupid. And mean. And not getting any themselves. Etc.

Sex is a part of our humanity, and the issue needs to be addressed in a healthy and non-harmful manner. True Lust is damaging: Sexual abuse; infidelity.  A more modern context includes sexual objectification and pornography addiction. (If you have homosexuality on your Lust list, I’ll see y’all later down in Pride.)

Yet there are deeper concerns with the modern anti-Lust mindset, which deserve examination:

There’s a huge misconception out there that men are naturally polygamous, while women are naturally monogamous; this last a confusing notion when you consider the vast array of cultural practices all over the world dedicated to keeping we ladies from scampering about.  (What amuses me is that the arguments supporting this are frequently drawn from other species’ behavior: Hey everybody, forget the bowling! Let’s all go over to Sid’s house and eat some lice!) Thus, the misleading word here is “natural.” (OK, now you get the italics.)

This is a dangerous, dangerous word. It’s “natural” to commit every Sin on this list, (which is kind of the point). But, far more importantly, it’s natural to defend your loved ones from harm, to feel perky when there’s nice weather, and to cry when you feel sad. It’s also natural to die in hideous agony, to shit when and wherever you like . . . you get the drift. A more useful way of looking at it is, well, whether or not it’s useful.

Having sex with anybody you want to is one thing, if you’re a middle-class white person, with cultural values promoting access to birth control, health care to handle STIs; and are able to afford and raise kids who lack attachment disorders and are given sufficient life skills and education for them to succeed. It’s quite another thing for the people whose culture has as a central feature the concept “baby daddy.”

Of course, some of you have identified the first group as the polyamorists: I am amused by the naivete of the idea that this is part of the Brave New World. In fact, the concept seems to be periodically um, invented every several generations: The Libertines. Free Love–which was at the turn of the century; the term was later co-opted by the Hippies. (Mrs. Patrick Campbell said that bit about “not caring what people did as long as they didn’t frighten the horses” back in 1910.) ‘Tis new to thee, campers. Garçon, a #10 can of get-over-it at this table, please?

While cheerfully conceding the consent point, note that seemingly the majority of the people who have assumed this as a self-identification have tied themselves into a subculture where perforce one’s primary definition is who–and how many–people with whom they have sex. Like many subcultures, this one is stifling. “Funny,” “smart,” “perceptive,” “giving,” “good at Scrabble” and whatnot are pre-empted by “puts out.”  (Really. I know scads of these people who have a lot of the qualities of the first part–and who at least seem to superficially appreciate mine–but because I don’t wanna have sex with them, I’m just not on the A list. Or even the Q list.)

Moreover–and what I personally find really annoying–in framing themselves as oppositional to the dominant culture, they have set up just as rigid a dogma; exemplified by a button I once saw reading, “Monogamy=Monotony.”  They are the new superior beings, and everybody else is unevolved and Doing It Wrong. *sigh* Some people just plain old want and are happy with monogamy.

How limiting. How sad. How obsessive with sex. How Lustful.

See Lent 101 for the context in which these are written.

Avarice (Greed)

It also encompasses selfishness, and is probably the “duh” for the basic no-argument-gotcha here. We know what this means. Unfortunately, the skate here is that of a superficial generosity, which is what Paul (#10 can, people) meant when he said, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor 13: 2) That is to say, writing the check is not enough; not writing a check (i.e., time volunteering) is as–and often more–important.

Envy

“It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”–Sheryl Crow, Soak Up the Sun

The “duh” here is, “keeping up with the Jones’.”  But there’s more to it than that. It often gets folded in together with Avarice, but they’re really two different things. Greed is holding on to the stuff you have, and refusing to share with others—-Envy is desperately wanting more stuff, and obsessing over the stuff others have.

The skate here is defining “stuff” as physical objects. But my use of “stuff” is deliberately vague here. For me right at the moment, I’m in a place of worry over a complex of things which (as so many do) partially involves money. And, boy oh boy, do I passionately envy the people who don’t have to deal with this.

I know that there are so many many people who have not walked barefoot through fire and brambles, and sometimes it makes me scream inside. It’s not fair; oh merciful God, it’s not fair. Why me? And that’s not the whiny/sarky way of saying it, but the one you sob into your pillow.

It’s hard to “want what you’ve got” when it seems that all you have is pain. But that’s when you have to reach deep down with all the discipline you have to see the things you’re grateful for. (Hey, you’re probably able to read, unless you’re using an assistive technology. Yay you!! A lot of people still can’t.)

Last, but far from least, so often we fall into the trap AA cautions against: Don’t judge people’s insides as their outsides. Sometimes that scruffy-looking guy with the funny nose has an indescribably beautiful soul–but in terms of Envy, it’s the other way around.

I know a wonderful couple who have money and two graduate degrees, but they discovered that the baby they adopted was autistic (not the Asperger’s kind, but the one that needs the protective helmets). They came to the US from South America specifically to get him the best treatment possible. I live at 88% of the US poverty line, but I have two brilliant, beautiful, and healthy kids. ‘Nuff said.

God, but I love my job! Or maybe I shouldn’t.

There is a brief passing reference to a supposed impact crater in Archimago which so far has only been used twice. In my original happy world, the boss powerful sorcerer at the time created it during a killer tantrum. I had envisioned an impact crater in Russia, which my extensive scholarly vague recall of National Geographic remembered as the Kamchatka crater. But (mercifully) I wanted a quick fact check . . .

• . . . and discovered to my dismay that this particular crater (Kamchatka) was actually a whole chain of them. So . . .
• I looked up impact/meteor craters in Wikipedia, and fished around until I found one with the right general parameters, but
• . . . it had already been marked by the local Native Americans, so . . .
• . . . the Crucio in question had to change ethnicity from Russian to Inuit, which meant that
• . . . he needed an Inuit name
• . . . which meant I had to look for one.
• So when I added it to my spreadsheet, I realized it was all teeny-tiny and spent a frustrating time trying to figure out how to get Numbers to change its row height (Mr. Inspector is Your Friend, as he is in Pages, duh!)
• And while I was noodling around with that, I came across my District page and . . .
• went looking (grr) for a (ya’d think?) US outline map that I could edit relatively easily, although the last time I did this some years ago, I couldn’t find one that was any good, and Photoshop and I didn’t speak for a few weeks, so I braced myself for a similar future conversation with Gimp, hoping that Photoshop hadn’t chatted with it about what an unreasonable bitch I am.
• But maybe the interwebs have evolved, because I found an awesome nifty one (see my links)
• However, the District page also has the Houses, so it occurred to me that . . .
• . . . this Inuit Crucio and company needed to be in a separate House (geography is destiny, campers–just play Civilization), which meant it also needed a name.
• After an estimated two and a half hours of poring through Inuit linguistics (which formed by far the bulk of all this afternoon), I came up with a name, but . . .
• . . . then I remembered that I also already had a House of  Western US Indians Continue reading →

After four hours of eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc., market research on a Bluetooth headset, other wandering around on the Internet, and getting all my desk supplies together, I am finally about to buckle down. And the crowd goes wild!!!