Adapt and overcome

The idea is - as is apparently said in various branches of the military - to adapt and overcome. Whatever works, I guess.

I team-taught an eight-day course last fall that, while exceptionally valuable to the participants and generally a feel-good experience for everyone involved, didn’t pay squat. And that’s fine, because we went into it knowing it was going to be a learning experience for us as much as for the participants. Anyway, one of the team instructors must have had something of a military experience as he OVER used the saying: adapt and overcome. It got the point where All The Things, no matter what the situation or circumstance, was seen as an obstacle to tackle. That kind of thinking is exhausting.

So there you have it.

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Do people still read blogs and make comments on said blogs any more? After I finish writing this, I’m going to go find out. Maybe.

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I use Scrivener (I actually paid money to install it on my MacBook Pro…I know: The Hell?) to draft most everything I write, with the exception of email. That is a lie. Occasionally I do use it to draft email. Whatever.

I’m constantly learning new little features and cool aspects about the program. Scrivener has a tracking feature on it complete with a little progress bar and real time word/character count. I love it! I can see at a glance how terribly I’m doing on any particular piece of writing/draft at any time!

I do like Scrivener, however, I just don’t have a clue as to how to really use it. Mostly I like it that everything is put into a binder that I can file and fuss with regarding drafts, published articles/blog posts, and stuff I find interesting - also known as research - that could prompt any number of things.

I really wish I knew more about it, you know, considering I own a legal copy of it.

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I watched a documentary on one of the movie channels a few weeks ago about the History of The Eagles. Yes. I do mean The Eagles…the band. I love their music. Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh…their solo work impressed me, too, but I can listen to Eagles albums over and over and not get tired of the music. Considering how eclectic my tastes are running these days, that is saying something about the timelessness and quality of the band’s body of work.



When I went to Baja/Mexico in January, one of the ‘things on my list’ was to take a day trip to the village of Todos Santos. Why? Because Lonely Planet told me that was where The Eagles found the inspiration for the song Hotel California. And since I’m kind of a sucker for origination myths, we paid the fees and spent the time and took the pictures. It was pretty cool. There is a Hotel California behind the Mission. For real. But…



But The Eagles documentary - and from the mouth of Don Henley himself, not a voice over narrator - spoke directly to the mysticism and legend that surrounds the meaning of the song Hotel California and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MEXICO. In fact, it has absolutely nothing to do with ANYTHING in particular. Except a really long guitar solo that has yet to find an equal. AND NEVER WILL.



I’ll stop yelling now. Sorry.

But I’m am disillusioned, all the same.

Sail on you crazy Vikings

AWOLNATION is the group responsible for my newest favorite song: Sail. I first heard it on an advertisement for History Channel’s new program Vikings. I immediately went searching for it, purchased it, and put it on loop.

Awesome. And it is even more Awesome with a Capital A in that AWOLNATION will be performing live in Fargo, ND tomorrow. I won’t be there, but still.

Granted, AWOLNATION isn’t something I’d normally listen to, it being all edgy and angry and threatening and sincerely sarcastic and bonkers and generally a mirror to myself. In such a frame of mind, one does not need to search out the melancholy to reinforce the trench dug round oneself. But, oh, if Sail doesn’t resonate with something internally primal, which is why it was a perfect pairing with the ad promos for Vikings.

Can I say perfect? No? Ok. Then it is the song/program match-up standing right next to perfect.

Unless you consider the song used for the show's opening credits: Fever Ray where have you been during this particularly dark funk I’ve been in/all my life? I strongly recommend you go listen to Fever Ray’s song called If I Had a Heart. Now.

Vikings - aside from being beautiful to watch (the scenery alone, crazy beautiful) - is a lot of fun, in a dark, medieval, murderous and ambitious way (and I use the word ambitious like Shakespeare’s Richard III would use the word ambitious).

The first episode set the stage for so many plot angles and back stories leading to the inevitable adventure West, it was all I could do to wait for the second episode. (Yes, I know I could have watched the second episode online, but I have a data issue this month and every month.) And while the second episode wasn’t as good as the premier, the following episodes have not disappointed.

(With the exception of killing off the Earl far to early in the season…there was/is still so much opportunity to dig into the Earl’s history: why/how/who killed his sons, the backstory with the Earl and Siggy, and I think there might even be room for a deep seated grudge between the Earl and whoever they could find to plausibly play Rollo and Ragnar’s father…would explain a few things and complicate a few others.)

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I’ve also been watching Game of Thrones on HBO, but I have to say that I’m easily distracted. I’ve managed to read two of the books cover to cover. I don’t remember how far I got into the third book before I gave up and just started watching the DVR’d episodes I’d saved before the new season started a couple weeks ago.

The actors are fun to watch and the scenery (while artificial in some respects) is awe worthy and interesting. But, much like in the books that failed to keep my attention, the story has wandered out of control. So many locations. So many plot lines. Oh, to go back to Winterfell and dear old Ned Stark and his brood…before the King’s entourage arrived with political upheavals and power hungry to the point of near cannibalistic tendencies. Back to Drogo and horses running across the plains. Back to the wall. Back before…when magic was a part of legend and dreams, not of character and plot device.

What would it take to get a prequel written?

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On another TV related note (you’d think I did nothing else but sit on my ass and watch TV), the previews and teasers for True Blood are out. June will be here soon enough, I suppose; I should really read the books, but I just can’t bring myself to. Not yet.

I need to read history. Biography. Sink my teeth into something meaty and raw. Something that requires digestion. My literary diet has been parked in the junk food isle, of late. And my ass (meaning the every growing size of it) is starting to show the signs.

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On a completely unrelated note, is it possible to turn comments OFF when using Facebook? I have a lot of political pages that I like to keep track of, but the comments under some (nearly all) of the postings are a race to the shallow end of the intelligence pool.

I’m convinced Facebook is the lowest common denominator in all stupid conversations, misinformation, gossip/rumor-mongering, and idiocy.

I know it is safer by far to just stay out of Facebook altogether. But damn, if the Tea Party doesn’t Facebook some interesting info-graphics about how important AK-47 ownership rights are for the 7-13 year-old demographic.

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What.

On haircuts and homebodies

I need a haircut.

The last haircut I got was just before leaving for Mexico at the end of January. I got bangs. And no, not because Michelle Obama got bangs. I don’t do such things except by unhappy accident. (Although, I like her logic: the Secret Service won’t let her get a convertible or go BASE jumping. Bangs it is! If only all midlife crises were so cheap.) My logic had to do with hiding worry lines on my forehead. So yeah. Cheaper than Botox, I guess.

Anyway, I now have bangs. And I’m more than a little ambivalent. The last time I remember having bangs I was a senior in high school. I don’t count the stage I went through in my early 30s when I had the stylist cut my hair with a razor blade. It was so short - and so blonde - it was terrible. Easy to style (wash, dry with towel, done); but terrible. I was always told the prettier the girl, the shorter the hair. Which explains why I’ve always had hair that hung below the shoulders or better (the razor hair cut the only exception).

But yeah. Haircut. Need one.

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Do you ever poke the internet just to see what will happen?

Sometimes I leave comments places - Facebook, other blogs, websites, whatever - just to see what will happen. I can find out a lot about a writer based on how they take criticism or how they deal with someone with a differing opinion. I think of it like poking a sleeping dog with your toe. Usually, a good-natured dog will raise his head, look around, yawn and go back to snoozing. Usually. But sometimes, with the internet, depending on the location and velocity of the poke…it is more like sticking your face into the personal space of a napping rattle snake.

I poked the internet. I offered an alternative viewpoint (and link to a documentary) regarding a celebrity (who was completely vilified in a narrated video compilation for being a devil-worshiping anarchist with corrupted DNA) and WHOOBABY.

Where is the anti-venom?

I guess the freedom of speech thing only applies if I smile, nod and agree on that person's Facebook page.

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All the cats have been exiled to the outdoors. I don’t care how cold it gets, either. One of them, and I don’t know which one, has developed the terrible habit of peeing in places that should not be peed in. Since I’ve not been able to catch the bastard in the act, all of them pay for it.

There is one exception: Speck. She wandered up to the house during a blizzard earlier this winter, and being a kitten and terribly skinny, we took her in. She is not fixed yet and therefore On Pain Of Death Is Not Allowed Outside. All our other animals are fixed and she will be too, if she lives to see the 18th of March.

So now the other cats prowl the porch and peer in the windows, hoping for a door to open just long enough to dart through the legs of a dog going in or out. Assholes.

What busy looks like

My partner and I use Workflowy to keep track of everything we have going on in our business. Everything from customer status tracking, bill paying (and we have some of that, let me tell you) and flat out to-do lists are tracked, tagged and dated in Workflowy. I love it. It is free, too. At least until I fill up my free amount of data, but even after the free status goes away through much love and use, to buy a Pro account is nothing, really.

It isn’t a perfect method as we were spoiled rotten with a fantastic CRM that kept track of every freaking thing on every project we ever had when we worked at the college. However, leaving the college meant leaving the CRM - and all of the lovely data. Since it was something that has to be used in order to make it useful - much like having an exercise plan (or a fitness goal in mind), one must actually DO THE WORK before the results start showing up - even the college’s CRM had problems. Specifically, staff wouldn’t use it - even upon pain of death (or firing via bad performance review).

But now that we are just two in this little pea pod we call a business, just about anything will work for a CRM these days. Provided we use it. And we do.

And it looks like we are getting the college CRM back - because they love us. The CRM not the college. The college still hates us.

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While my silence here is deafening, I have been writing on a closed platform called 750 Words for about three years. Off and on. Mostly off. And by closed platform I mean NO one sees it. Yes it is online and yes it is in a ‘cloud’ or whatever, but I’m the only one who sees it and honestly, once I close the entry page for the day, I never go back to it. It is more of a brain dump than anything else.  Just taking the 15 or 20 minutes it takes for me to dump 750 words out of my head helps to focus me and keep me just a skosh to the good side of sane.

No edits. No spell checks. No censorship. And as long as 750 Words stays true to its mission - private writing - all will be right with the world.

So here is a bit of a pickle: 750 Words is not going to stay free. The guy who runs it is going to work for Twitter and doesn’t have the bandwidth to keep it going without something in return. You know, I’ve always wondered how something like Workflowy and 750 Words (and initially Facebook, et al) were able to offer their services - and ideas - for nothing. Now in the case of Facebook, I am the commodity, and I understand that; however, in the case of 750 Words where there really isn’t a business model of any sorts except a kind of positive existential karma, which has apparently paid off (if they guy is moving his family so he can go to work for Twitter), how does one pay for the server space? The tech support? Upgrades?

So it makes sense that 750 Words is going to a paid platform - and the prices are pretty cheap really.

But I have to wonder if I would write more here if I didn’t have that private space - that cone of silence - the vault - in which to confide? Would the quality improve? Because what I’ve been writing there is crap. Much the same as it is here.

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I went to Mexico at the end of January.

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Then I went to Chicago the first part of February.

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I get around.

Nine days in

Officially the ninth day of January and I’m just now getting around to writing something this year for this website/blog/brain dump I’ve been keeping. Not very impressive. Of course, All The Stuff that has been going on behind the scenes around here would make for an interesting novel.

For those of you fancying yourself writers: should you be abandoned by The Muse and need help, I have a shit-pile o’ideas. Hit me up and I’ll pitch a few your way.

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I’m disappointed in myself.

I saw an opportunity to write for one of my favorite websites (The Fox is Black…I’m not going to link to it) and I talked myself out of applying. It wasn’t a full time gig - in fact, I doubt it would pay much at all really, but it would have had me writing every day on different topics I like or am at least curious about. I went through the whole “I don’t have a body of work to present them” and “what I do have is just a bunch of random crap” and “anything that was marginally interesting on this blog was taken down long ago during a fit of anxiety.”

Oh, and the site has a cultural bent and there isn’t much for culture on the Northern Tundra. There was some back and forth that sounded a lot like that SNL skit: I’m good enough; I’m smart enough; and gosh darn it, people like me. But the terrible angels of my personality won out and I stayed quiet.

And despite my initial disappointment in myself, I’m actually ok with it. Because instead of writing for someone else…I’ll just do that stuff here.

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The home front has been alternating between haven and hell - and I use the word haven instead of heaven because, damn, people, there is no such thing as heaven on earth. Unless you live in a tropical climate, are immune to all human disease and earthly disaster, are independently wealthy and have servants to take care of your every need, one must first die to enter heaven, should the prophecies be true. Haven I have, occasionally. Heaven, not so much.

Haven… in that the heat in my house works, I have comfortable clothes, my dog likes to sleep on my cold feet and occasionally I feel up to human contact via email, text or cell phone call.

Hell… in that it is cold outside complete with snow, wind and windchill factors; people besides me live in this house who require clean clothes, food to eat (that isn’t just peanut butter toast for breakfast, lunch and dinner), and intelligible conversations; and sometimes I have to deal with both the weather and people (in person) on the same day and occasionally even at the same time.

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For Christmas this year, The Boy gave me an iPad for which I was extremely disappointed. Not that he gave me an iPad. I love the thing. So. Much. I have everything synched up to it - email, websites, games, my Nook, drawing apps…oh my god, I love that thing. It is just so pretty! I was and still am disappointed in The Boy for giving me a gift.

You see, we don’t exchange gifts. If he wants something, he goes and gets it. If I want something, I spend six months researching it, comparing all the makes and models and price points and features, talking myself in to buying it and then I change my mind when I get to the store or to the point of “purchase now” when shopping online. I’ve not purchased anything for myself in I don’t know how long (with the exception of a sweater to wear for an important ‘must be dressed appropriately’ teaching gig for work when all I had remembered to pack was a college sweatshirt). Of course, I’m not counting things like shampoo and toothpaste.

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I have a headache, the kind that travels down the back and twitches the nerves and gnaws on muscles. Time for more pain meds and a nap before bedtime. “At least it isn’t a migraine…” she says using her best Eeyore impression.

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Oh. And Happy New Year: 2013

Edited for content

The other morning, I was sitting in The Boy’s truck (aptly - though with toungue-in-cheek - called The Great White Hope) when a woman walking along the sidewalk stopped, sidled over and tapped on my window. I was watching her, so she didn’t startle me. She was an older woman, maybe 70, dressed in a heavy parka, snow boots, fuzzy mittens, hat and a scarf wrapped in such a way as to hide most of her face. Her glasses were thick and behind them, I could see rheumy blue eyes.

I pressed the button on the arm rest that lowered the window about half way down.

“Hi,” she started.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she started again. “My name is Holly. What’s yours?”

“Teri.”

“Well, Teri, it is very nice to meet you.”

Before I could return the greeting, she hurriedly asked: “If you died today, Teri, would your soul go to heaven?”

I paused. She smiled.

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“Because.” By being vague, I didn’t lie. Not really.

She wasn't really interested in my answer, as she continued: “So you’ve taken Our Lord Jesus Christ into your heart and are saved every day?”

I smiled, my finger hovering over the button that would raise the window and end the conversation.

“You are a child of God, may He bless and keep you.”

“Thank you.”

I pressed the button to raise the window and she walked away. I’m not sure what motivates people to initiate conversations like that. She is brave. I’ll give her that.

And the weather is...

Effing Cold.

This weekend, The Boy took my Dad to Montana where my brother and his family live so as to ‘help’ with a hockey tournament my nephews were playing in. I think ‘help’ translates to ‘watch hockey all weekend’ and occasionally means ‘run for food-stuffs and/or coffee’ but whatever. From what I gathered on Facebook and text messages, they enjoyed the time. Regardless, this left Muffy and me to our own devices since Wednesday…

We ate Knöpfle soup, tuna/cheese/noodle hotdish and whatever else we wanted and when we felt like it without any mumblings about meat and potatoes. I think I ate toast with peanut butter and jelly - exclusively - on Saturday. Maybe an Oreo or two - you know, to balance out the food pyramid.

I guess there was a bit of a weather event this weekend, a blizzard of sorts that didn’t do much but toss the air temperature into a deep freeze and crank to the coldest setting so far this season. I couldn’t figure out why I was so darn cold, sitting in the front room - the heat was set to 70F, the fireplace (electric) was cranking out some nice warmth, and I was buried under a crochet project (lots of yarn) yet I was still uncomfortable with chilled toes and numb-ish fingers. On top of that, I started to get something of a cold (Muffin was sniffy and coughy all weekend).

After finding my furry house slippers, an extra pair of socks and putting another t-shirt on under my sweatshirt, I happened to walk past the front door. It could just as well have been standing wide open. I found myself stuffing old towels into open spaces around the front door. You know, to prevent snowdrifts in the entryway.

Sheesh.



And this temperature shows an improvement from a pre-dawn -9F (that's Negative Nine). Why do I live here? Right-right-The Beauty of All Four Seasons (or some such bullsh*t).