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Quandary
Things are not always as straightforward as they seem. Here's my dilemma: do I give this URL to my lover or not? Am I sharing things (straight out of the seventies); I ought not to share? Are some things better left unsaid, or better said in a different forum (i.e. face to face)? On the other hand, the more important questions may be whether I wear my wingtips, or my little red dress to the party tonight, and will I be partying with Dionysus, or not?

Are you looking for answers, or only posing questions?
It's easier to answer concrete questions, such as shoes, or dress? Of course you must understand, I didn't mean I'd wear only the shoes or only the dress, if that were the case I'd be Dionysus himself, and the party would come to me. It's also easier to ask questions than to answer them, even when they 're concrete. As a matter of fact, I'm having a hard time answering the question as to whether I'm looking for answers.

Can't you even answer your own questions?
Well this does appear to be a little bit frustrating I must admit. Seems I'm always confessing or admitting to something. I must be guilty as sin, or maybe it's because, I'm always trying to figure myself out and never quite on the mark. However, yes I can answer my own questions. I'm looking for the answers I just seem to have misplaced them momentarily.

Could it be that you're not willing to face the answers?
It's possible, but highly unlikely. One of the answers is that I'll wear the wingtips! Auh oh, concrete shoes; this isn't New Jersey is it?
Party with Dionysus? Still not sure.
Give the URL? Not likely.
Sharing what I ought not? Probably...

Anymore New Years resolutions?
One more, don't wish for things, because wishing for things necessarily creates expectation, and since my #1 resolution was to live my life without expectations...

What about goals and dreams?
That's different. Dreams are for sleeping and goals are for posting as in goal posts, or I dreamt I was awake while I was dreaming rather then I dreamt I was dreaming as I slept.

"Insanity -- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."
- - R. D. Lang
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Reflection != Resolutions
Another year, why is it we mark years going by twice? You take account when it's your birthday, and you chalk one up at New Years. Perhaps, you're really twice as old as you think you are, a sort of Steven King life line. A "green mile" (you can buy just about anything on the internet) sort of guy or gal. Someone with a palm carved with lines that thwart the best of palm readers; you are untouchable to psychics, or readers of the tarot cards. Here's an odd site that claims to help you tell the difference between a real and a fake palmist, and even has a page on hand transplants. God save us from all the charlatan palm readers! Just think about this: if you had a hand transplant and didn't tell the palmist you could be arrested by the hand police, or the snake-oil vigilantes for fraud. Keep the hands you came with, and don't let life slip through your fingers; in other words keep your hands to yourself!

Aren't you going to make any New Years resolutions?
Yeah I'm going to make some resolutions. One of them is to live my life without expectations (easier said than done), and the others I'm not sure of yet. Maybe resolution #2 should be to live my life with my hands tied behind my back; then I can be sure of keeping them to myself.

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
-- Albert Einstein
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Obsession
Wearing my programing hat; still trying to tweak my HTML and script tags on my blog page so the search engine will pick up the text from the blog. Maybe I've got the hat on backwards.
Sucessful!
Finally figured out last glitch at 8:00 pm; thanks to Ronni at atomz support! The seach engine is way cool, check it out.
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Search Parameters?
What are we searching for?
There's always something that's been lost; perhaps it's only a phone number on a small piece of paper, or is it that you can't remember you mother's birthday, or the zip code for the IRS, your social security number, your mind, or maybe the new name you've been given by the Federal Witness Protection Program (FWPP). The FWPP, now there's something to talk about. It just occured to me that all those 404 (file not found) errors are probably connected in some nefarious fashion to this dubious program. Yes indeed if you can't find it, it aint been lost it's been "relocated" by "the men in black". How about having 404 error, or Dead Duke of URL engraved on your tombstone. "All lost URLs please report to the relocation center."

Where's all this coming from?
Spent this morning configuring the site atomz search engine; but can't seem to figure out how to make it index the text in the body of the documents not just the meta tags on the pages. Anybody with knowledge of the particulars of this process please leave a comment, or send me an email. I will be eternally grateful, showering you with praise publicly, or personally whichever you prefer.
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Day After Yesterday
The latest bulletin from the front suggests that all good people should imediately move three steps to the right and one step forward in order to arrive early for wherever it is you happen to be going. Going to the nut house? Going to the beauty parlor? Going out of your mind? Going out of your way to be kind to strangers? Yes, in these days of "neverendinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng" bagel sandwichs one can never be too sure of where the cream cheese is. Do not attempt to take control of your wayward browser; the god of fortune cookies delights in giving out empty fortune cookies.

Have you ever gotten an empty cookie?
Yes it was a long time ago; I got two in a row. At the time I feared the worst of luck was surely about to descend upon me. However, days went by, and I remained unscathed by the forces of darkness. Just when I was about to give up my foolish notion of being tracked by bad luck, I stumbled upon an old journal entry. Here's what it said, "If you ever get an empty fortune cookie don't look back!"

Whatever did you think it meant?
It meant that when the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west.

Duh, so what?
It means I haven't a damn thing to say today of any value; it means that today is the day I pay for the empty fortune cookies. Blogger was down yesterday due to hackers/crackers so we don't have any micro ads on the main blogger page. This to is obviously due to an empty fortune cookie, because I just purchased 8000 impressions (my christmas present to myself).

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
-- Albert Einstein
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Oxytocin
Did you know that oxytocin is a pituitary hormone that stimulates muscle contraction and sensitizes nerves. Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin. Fewer oxytocin receptors create less attachment in relationships.

Why are you getting at?
More rationalization from the front lines of the love war zone, or perhaps it's only annoying paranoia rearing it's ugly head. Whether former, or latter it most likely doesn't matter, for what it is, is what it is, or as my favorite quote says, "wherever you go there you are."

Must you always write in code?
There is something pleasing in writing things that require at least a perfunctory knowledge of ciphering. After all if love is not an enigma, then what is?

A little plain English please?
Here's what's going on: On Thanksgiving and Christmas I invited my lover (of almost a year) to spend time with me and my family; my lover had prior "tradional" engagements. So? Well I say that to myself...so?, but what nags me about it; what I can't seem to rationalize away is this: why is there no, "but perhaps you would like to come with me...do so and so with so and so?" NOT... so I've decided to do away with some of my oxytocin receptors and thus be on my way to a more balanced relationship!

"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love."
-- Albert Einstein
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Christmas
When I was a little kid, late on Christmas afternoon we'd leave all our presents behind, except for the new scarves, hats and mittens ("don't forget your mittens," Laurie Anderson), and we'd walk up and over the hill to my best friend Trish's house to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. We'd sing happy birthday and eat birthday cake as the sun sank over the small lake behind the house.

Isn't that kinda boring for a little kid adventure?
You're right, and that was certainly not the best part of Christmas from a little kid's point of view, unless you happened to be a very religious little kid, which I was not, and I didn't know any religious little kids. However, I had to go to Sunday school every Sunday throughout my childhood and adolescence; sometimes I went to the drugstore down the street from the church and played the slot machine instead. This flagrant disregard for the rules has plagued me all my life; the tiny guy in my head has always told me not to follow the rules to closely. Not following the rules led Trish and me to heat the dead dog. No, not beat a dead horse. Heat a dead dog.

Heat a dead dog?
Initially we started off with smaller animals and with a different approach. The first animal we attempted to bring back from the dead was a crow. We found him behind the hedge directly beneath the large picture window which looked out over the South River. Obviously the poor misguided fellow had tried to fly into the house, "kerplunk" and down you go. Our first thought was of a funeral; we found a shoe box and lined it with black velvet, then we gently placed the crow in the coffin, but the crow was still warm and the only obvious injury was a somewhat wobbly neck. It was at this point we realized that with a little effort we might somehow revive the crow. The effort was small indeed; we placed an aspirin in his beak, closed his beak around it and placed what had now become his hospital bed in the shade under a fir tree. We checked his condition for three days before we returned to our original plan for a funeral.

But, what about the dog?
The crow incident happened in the spring; it was the winter of the same year that we found the dog. That year was colder than usual in the Chesapeake Bay area, and the entire South River was frozen solid. After school we played and skated on the edges of the river. We found the dog late one afternoon, frozen solid like the river and lying against a cement seawall. Trish already had a dog named Mike and I had always wanted a dog, but my father wouldn't let me have one, because he'd been bitten by a dog with rabies as a child. Well this golden retriever I thought would be perfect; once she was thawed out my dad wouldn't be able to resist her good looks, One significant problem was that she was heavy, and thus difficult for 2 small girls to lift over the seawall. We met at the seawall religiously (perhaps I was a religious kid after all) for 4 days, and tried in vain to heft the dog now known as Goldy up and over the wall. On the fifth day we enlisted the help of our friend Joanny; she brought her wagon just in case we were successful. Perhaps it was the availability of her wagon, or the extra help in the hefting that finally allowed us to get Goldy over the wall. Into the wagon she went and then the thee of us headed up the hill to Trish's house. The destination was predetermined by the fact that Trish's house had a large heat register in the floor. Goldy had been happily thawing out for about an hour, when Trish's mother got home from work. She was kind considering the circumstances. She called the SPCA, and she told us they would be much better able to take care of Goldy once she thawed out.
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Why do we Blog?
My lover asked me last night, "why don't you just keep a journal?"
Why would I want to put "everything" out there on the internet for all to see? Is it because in my heart/mind I'm an exhibitionist? Is it because I have to think a little more before I commit and hit the publish button? Do I really put "everything" out there, and if not why not? Actually I think that for me blogging is somewhat constricting; I don't put "everything" out there. Being someone with a tendency to push the limits, which is probably why sometimes I'm a non-recovering alcoholic rather than a recovering alcoholic, I would have to say that the constricting/restricting nature of my blog adventure is a positive Band-Aid on an open wound.

Oh my, where are you going with this?
Whenever I have the opportunity to jump on a swing, my instinct is to swing higher and higher. Legs pumping air, arms pulling hard against the chains the swing meets my every challenge. I always stop before the swing enters what I imagine would be a continuous loop around the fulcrum of time. Yes I know it's an odd idea, a swing around time, but just imagine that instant between going up and coming down that instead of coming down you continued to go up and around. I remember one of my favorite things as a child was jumping car shadows. There is a moment when your body is off the ground and the car shadow glides uninterrupted below your dangling feet; that is the moment when time stops.

What do you mean time stops?
It's not exactly that time stops, but rather that time is suspended. Suspended in such a way as to allow you to perceive a tiny piece of it. All those pieces strung together add up to time minus the invisible space in-between time and my experience of time.

Okay now you've lost me
Yeah, I think I lost myself as well. But, isn't that the case that you would find if you traveled forward in time; you would have a difficult "time" remembering who you are without the continuity of time as a guide.

FYI: there are 2 meanings for the word Balthazar 1. one of the three Magi. 2. a wine bottle holding 13 quarts (12.3 liters).
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Rationalizing
Well, forget the "glorious details"; I spent a great part of yesterday trying to make an audio tutorial for interface design work as expected on Barrysworld.net. NOT... so, I figure anyone coming here through Blogger is not going to care if my other pages aren't complete as of yet. Rationalizing, in a heartbeat/artbeat I can do that with my hands tied behind my back.

Why is it so easy to rationalize?
Because it's human nature to seek an explanation. We especially like explanations that fit with our point of view, or coincide with our expectations or wishes. Furthermore, we like those explanations to find no fault with decisions or choices we've made. Our first inclination is not necessarily Occam's razor (the simplest of several hypotheses is always the best in accounting for unexplained facts).

What's wrong with rationalization?
If your inclination is always to provide yourself with the explanation most closely aligned with your point of view, then you may miss the opportunity of traveling to far off places and destinations of great mystery, because you are too busy keeping your ducks in a row. However, if your inclination is to entertain all the possibilities (a universe juggler of sorts), the world retains it beauty and you may find yourself moving in streams of flowing colors around brilliant islands of elegantly constructed theories, which may or may not be true. The view from the position of the juggler is vastly improved by his/her ablility to keep it all in motion, while deciding which ball to stop on. I think I'd better add another hat to my list: psuedo philosopher.
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Alignment?
Task of the day for me is filling in the unfinished pages of this site. I've become so obsessed with blogging that I've failed to complete this site in all it's "glorious detail". However, that said, I still have something to say before taking off for the hinterlands of the design galaxy.

What craziness are you willing to share today?
There is no light without darkness!

So what, anybody knows that?
Yeah, but do we really ever think about it? Only in a rearview mirror sort of way, is it part of our consciousness. The relationship between mirrors and reflection is odd in itself; rather like a film negative: if you don't know or can't remember how you took the picture it's hard to tell from the negative which way is forwards and which is backwards unless there are words in the picture.

Well then, why do people say a picture is worth a thousand words?
Hmmmm, now that's a good question. Perhaps it's because some of us can't read, or maybe because it only takes a second to look at a picture compared to the time it takes to read a thousand words, or it could be that pictures elicit more of an emotional response than words do, or it could be a thousand other reasons and each reason could be described in one word. Now if the last were the case and each word could be represented by an image, then what would you think? Now maybe you see convolutedly how one could become obsessed with blogging!
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Christmas Ghosts
Does everyone have a tale about their worst Christmas, or their best Christmas? Do the tales revolve around gifts given and received, or around emotional events and people linked forever with a season? I used to have a cat named Jane who kept track of all the lovers who had passed/past through my life. When Jane died she was twenty two years old; that was a few years back, and now I've lost track of who went with what, and which was which, and what happened when. The living of a life sometimes occurs without conscious participation. You rummage through a drawer looking for one thing and find another instead. Memories flicker, flame and extinguish; years compressed into one smiling moment or one brief sigh are much easier than living in the moment.

Why is it hard to live in the moment?
It's a paradox, because living in the moment in one sense requires being unaware of the moment (totally present in whatever) and in another sense being totally aware of the moment. As always the key lies in awareness. Perhaps it's the scope of ones awareness that is paramount. Must rush off to "real world" concerns ...finish looking through the drawer later today.

Well, as I come back later and read over this, I think I'll just say, "happy solstice" (when the sun reaches it's northern most point on the celestial sphere: Dec. 21 or 22). FYI = all was perfectly aligned with the direction to the center of the Galaxy at the turn of the Millennium (2000), and yet we have the topsyturvy world of today. On September 11th living in the moment was a given for many of us in the western hemisphere. Is celestial alignment of little consequence, or did we failed to see the significance in the gathering darkness?

Gathering Darkness?
Girl you better put that black crayon away!
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Another Road Trip
The trip was not without car incidents, although the lack of a viable radio (see yesterday's post) made no difference whatsoever. While parked in the lot in front of a Kmart in Cambridge MD, my car was sideswiped by an old guy with alzheimers. He had been left in a car alone and was driving from the passenger seat at 40 miles an hr. He crashed into at least 8 cars; mine was the one with the least damage thank god. She's an old car, but much relied on and needed. If she'd been totaled I couldn't replace her based on the Blue Book value (see how much your's is worth). Who knows what will happen, when? Fifteen sec. before he hit my car I was getting out the driver side door; the door he hit.
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Coffee in the AM
In my reply to an email this morning, I found myself writing about how little things can make us happy/satisfied especially when the big things aren't going right. One of those little things is my 3 cups of coffee in the morning. It's not even real coffee; it's instant, but I happen to be the queen of instant coffee, or so I've been told. Well it turns out by the time I finished listing how my coffee has to be:

• in a particular cup
  
• with a particular kind of creamer
  
• exactly the right amount of creamer
  
• just the right temperature

I think maybe it's not such a small thing after all. Check out spiders on caffeine and the weaving of webs.

What happened to the window?
Luckily the window did not blow out yesterday; I didn't have to deal with it. I'm reminded of what a friend once said to me about car problems, "if the car starts to sound funny, just turn up the radio". Apparently you're only really in trouble if the radio stops working. Suddenly I'm nervous about the road trip I'm making today, because the radio hasn't worked for about 6 months. Mostly I miss listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR. Today I will miss the little known radio ability to drown out car trouble. Since the window is still relatively in place, it joins the growing ranks of things that must be dealt with "someday". "If it ain't broke don't fix it, and if it's broke don't mess with it".

Got anymore radio stories?
Yes, there is another little known radio secret, and that is the old "radio rationale" story. When I was a teenager I was upstairs in my room with my 2 sisters. We were getting stoned and listening to the radio. My dad came to the bottom of the stairway and called up, "what's going on up there?" and one of my sisters replied, "oh just the radio dad."
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Wind
Wind is gusty this morning; hoping the damn window doesn't blow out. On the third floor of my house one of the panes is in pieces and held together with masking tape. It's been that way for maybe 4 years; I guess I'll have to deal with it. There are always so many other things I'd rather do. Got to either go back to old way of naming archives, or figure out how to tweak the script so it works in Netscape 4.7. Maybe switch to SSI or PHP for archives. Any minute that damn window is going down or flying in. If you're feeling really "nutzy koo koo" you can go here to Psycho Studio and edit your own shower scene! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
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Tongue in Shoe
That's somewhere between tongue in cheek and foot in mouth. Then there's hoof and mouth disease; maybe that's where putting your foot in your mouth came from. Now we've got mad cow disease so goodbye beef tartar and hello well done.

How did we get from tongue in shoe to well done?
By jumping from one slightly off connection to another. Connections/associations are the quintessential wiring of our lives. It is the connections or the lack of connections that determine the flow of ideas, the path of a dream, and the values I assign to them if I am connected in ways that allow me to notice those particular connections. However, assigning a value to a variable doesn't preclude assigning that same variable a different value at a different place in time or for that matter removing the variable from the equation.

If variables can always take on a different value, how can I be sure of anything?
The "answer" is you can't! If you can live your life without any expectations, you will never be disappointed. This morning I am feeling disappointed.
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Bumpy Start
Things not running smoothly; only managing to publish through blogger by ftp using my program, deleting existing blogger.html and archive.html and then publishing all again. Can't figure any other way yet to get around permission to overwrite denied, but what a pain in the wazoola that is!
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Arrrrrrrka
Can't seem to get things right. Settings = blogger (no .html) and archive.html now, at one time it worked when I had setting on blogger without the html added. I look at my directory on barrysworld.net with my FTP program and things are there. but keep getting no permission to overwrite when I look at the blogger FTP log? If I ever do get it "write" will have to change all my target links, but I would love it if that were my problem instead of what I'm dealing with now!

Have posted a "redalert" to discussion forum so will just concentrate on what I want to say this morning and hope for help from someone. Like Blanch in "A Streetcar Named Desire", "I've always relied on the kindness of strangers." FYI: she said that as she was being taken off to the "loony bin".

"What's going on your 'real life'?"
I woke up at 4 o'clock am and had a good cry. One of those choked up feelings kind that finally break through, and it wasn't about my blog problems/headaches. The crying was about being out of touch, out of touch with myself, out of touch with my lover. "Out of touch" is really an odd metaphor, but so apt in my situation.

Deleted ?
Yes, Jan. 27, 2002 I discover that when you type jf cates into google, there's my blog big as life. Well, this particular post was just too over the top for all to see, thus it's been deleted by the internal affairs blog police. I will say this, when you're feeling like things aren't on track, or aren't what you want them to be act on that instinct, and don't look back.

"Feeling a bit cynical are we?"
Actually I'm feeling rather like one of those stereograms that's quite hidden and unreadable, but only if you are incapable of letting your eyes change focus.
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Moving Again?
I know, I know, I just moved from Angelfire to Geocities! However, I didn't know about Barry's World (PHP, SSI, 20MB for free and NO popup) when I made the move; soooooo... I will at least move my blog there if not my entire site.

But, why move now after everything working?
Actually everything NOT working (ie comments removed because of problems for Netscape 4.7 users), and with PHP and SSI which are not available on Geocities I can try other comment codes. Also will be rid of annoying popups. Probably won't make the switch until later today or tomorrow as I have pressing real world concerns today, like making faux marble columns look like real marble, and wouldn't you know the columns are fluted! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh...
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Love Affair != Over








If the title is puzzling, see prior post. I'm content to wait and see what developes next, or perhaps I should say, "how the loop executes" in programing "jargonese". My lover arrived at my door last night in a flurry of looking good, and while no explanation of time elasped since our last encounter was forthcoming, I nevertheless was delighted. Prior to the exquisitly pleasurable arrival, I was casually licking my wounds and readying my soul for outward bound, or some other such, "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" technique. Today I'm ready for a new beginning, or the beginning of the end whichever the case may be; I am not inclined to tamper with the Fates.
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Handstand
When I was an adolescent, I dreamt that I was doing a handstand on 2 napkins just at the edge of a cliff. Two small children were there threatening to pull the napkins out from under me (like tiny magicians whisking the table cloth from the table and leaving the dishes intact). At the time I thought the children were more interested in seeing me topple over the edge than in performing magic. The drama took place behind Zep's Gas Station; a one pump gas station that faded from existence years ago. Zep's was on Rt. 2 when Rt. 2 was a 2 lane country road winding through Anne Arundel County, across South River and into Annapolis. In reality (waking life) there was no cliff behind the station, only gentle fields rolling up to forests.

So, what does it mean?
Living on the edge is not an easy feat (feet). It's easier to stand on one's feet than on one's hands, as in "stand on your own 2 feet".
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Crack of Dawn

She ain't no plumber either! My usual time to leap out of bed is 5:00 am. This morning the 5 o'clock transition between sleeping and waking required a vigorous shake to realign brain cells. Even a wee dip in the pool leaves a dog wet. It's raining here, and thank god it's not pouring, because, when it pours it rains in the kitchen. I simply must go up on the roof and cut the vines out of the gutter; sometimes one pays heavily for procrastination.

Speaking of procrastination, I do not procrastinate on things I like to do. Just finished new interface design and uploaded it to site this morning. Saw "Return of the Mummy" with my friend Su over the weekend. Influence is obvious.
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Recovery?
My lover once said to me, "it's not the not drinking part that's hard, it's the being sober part". There's a ring of truth to that statement; I wish there was not. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a close friend of mine; I thought about having a drink, but I didn't. I experienced no difficulty with sobriety while in the presence of my friend.

Well where's the ring of truth then?
Ahh... the ring of truth lies (notice the juxtaposition) in the loss of the lover's golden tongue, the ease which one makes the witty comment or smart comeback. Perhaps to the discerning sober eye (I) the comment/comeback is off the mark or slightly slurred, but it is the ease of repartee that I'm referring to, not necessarily the quality of a particular remark.

Where are you going with this?
Recovering versus non-recovering! hats. I think it's highly likely (statistically speaking) that I'm about to embark on a non-recovering escape/escapade. A small dip in the pool of slightly manic, madcap (hat) behavior.
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Love Affair = Over?
love affair = = ?
If (love affair = program)
x = decipher source;
then y do I get core dump?

Common Programming Errors
Arithmetic underflow = poor choice of variable type

• one of us = not best choice type


• one of us has values = not correct

Off-by-One Loop Errors

• one of us = out of sync


• one of us has invaded loop boundary of other


• loop won't work with our data combination

if (love < enough || love != love)
love affair = over;
else if (love > enough)
love affair != over;
trodden != loaden;

Source Code Availabe for Downtrodden
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Imposter?
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"Amongst the most famous of these was Magdalena de la Cruz (1487-1560), a Franciscan nun of Cordova, who for many years was honoured as a saint. She was believed to have the stigmata and to take no other food than the Holy Eucharist. The Blessed Sacrament was said to fly to her tongue from the hand of the priest who was giving Holy Communion, and it seemed at such moments that she was raised from the ground. The same miraculous levitation took place during her ecstasies at which time also she was radiant with supernatural light. Falling dangerously ill in 1543, Magdalena confessed to a long career of hypocrisy, ascribing most of the marvels to the action of demons by which she was possessed, but maintaining their reality. She was sentenced by the Inquisition, in an auto-da-fé at Cordova, in 1546, to perpetual imprisonment in a convent of her order, and there she is believed to have ended her days most piously amid marks of the sincerest repentance (see Görres, "Mystik", V, 168-174; Lea, "Chapters from Relig. Hist. of Spain", 330-335)."

Are you obsessed with stigmata, or what?
No, but it does seem an appropriate place to begin vis a vis imposter. One would have to wonder at which time was Magdalena an imposter. Was it during her ecstasties, was it when the Holy Eucharist was flying to her tongue from the hand of the priest, was it in ascribing most of the marvels to the action of demons or was it ending her days most piously amid marks of the sincerest repentance?

What exactly do you mean by imposter in relation to yourself?
I mean those moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years within which I was not completely present and yet, pretended to be fully present, and even perhaps when the pretending was unconscious. I mean those times in which I failed to live entirely in the present unfettered by thoughts of concern for how I might be perceived/received. Living in the present requires being aware of the fact that you're awake (ie aware of awareness), similarly lucidity in a dream requires being aware of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming.
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Relationship or Romantic Fool?
I read "Lady Chatterley's Lover" when I was 13. I felt an instant kinship with, not her ladyship or his lordship, but rather with the gardener. Then the identification with the gardener was predicated on the intensity/passion of his feelings as he gazes up at the manor house in the darkness. What fascinates me about the gardener today is his alarm over the loss of his aloneness.

I didn't have a comfort zone with aloneness until I was about 40; prior to that I was obsessed with seeking passion, be it in the arms of a lover or in the very search itself for love/relationship. Today it is very difficult for me to find a balance between intimacy and independence and between passion and practicality. Is there a relationship here, or is this merely a discourse on inadequacy? If it's a discourse on inadequacy is it mine alone or do you share some of the responsibility?

Responsibility requires only that I be responsible for what I bring to the table. So what other mischief do I have in my carryon? The same year I read "Lady Chatterley's Lover", I read some hardcore porn. AT 13! WHERE DID YOU GET IT? I used to mow the lawn for a couple 2 blocks from my house. I had an electric lawn mower. The man and his wife both worked full time; they gave me a key to their house so that I could plug in the mower (back in the old days ordinary folks didn't have outdoor outlets). Well, there were a number of books lying about, and being the inquisitive child that I was, I plugged in the mower, sat down in an overstuffed chair and started reading. In hindsight I think they purposely left the books where I would find them. Although they never attempted to communicate with me about anything other than the state of their lawn, every week there would be a new book stacked with the rest in the same place.

But, that was ages ago; how does it effect your life now?
On the one hand you have passion, and on the other you have sex, and infrequently you get to have both at the same time and that's what we call love. So? Well... for me the nature of love will always be "tied up" with longing (ie the gazing gardener), while the nature of sex is "bound" to confound me by it's ability to exist in isolation from passion/longing.

So what do you mean by a comfort zone with aloneness?
I mean being able to take great pleasure in being alone; I mean feeling fine without input or approval from anyone else. There is a wonderful sense of freedom in living one's live without a significant other. Friendships are more meaningful when they're nurtured in a way that seems impossible when your energy is devoted/focused on a love relationship. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to be capable of having a complete relationship, but I do manage to get involved now and then nevertheless. Enough already! I seem to have run off all over the place this morning.
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So Old So Fast
It's just one of those mornings; a kind of hold your forehead in the palm of your hand morning. Seems like only yesterday I was running to catch the big yellow bus, playing marbles and dodge ball. Not only am I an old graduate student, I was also an old undergad. I returned to college in 1994 at the age of 46 and recieved my BA. in 1996. Imediately I enrolled in graduate school with grandiose ideas of getting a Phd.

So what happened, howcome you never got one?
Well, I got sidetracked for a while by my interest in computers. My initial introduction to computers came via a graduate course in statistics, which included learning to use a statistical program called SPSS: "Oh my god... I don't know the difference between storm windows and windows 98". Futhermore, it was no small thing that math was never my strong point. While struggling to keep up with the statistics, I managed to teach myself how to use the computer. Shortly after I completed all the course work and passed the comps. (thesis still outstanding), a good friend gave me a laptop. Suddenly I was wild about getting up a Web site; that summer of 98' I taught myself HTML. In the fall I started fooling around with Photoshop. "It's a Photoshop sky", or "is it a skyblue sky?" My right brained artist side rushed foward and said, "you go girl, this is what you want to do", and my left brained Nancy Drew side said, "hey girl how do these programs work, what is behind that curtain?".

Which one did you choose?
Initially I chose to peer behind the curtain; I enrolled at a local community college in an introductory programing analysis course. Then I went on to take C and C++. I struggled with more hair pulling math (the underlying basis of programing). My father said to me,
"Don't you remember what they said in the Wizard of Oz? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Duh, the lights went on and the right brained artist took her rightful place in the hierarchy of priorities.
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The Day After
It's a gorgeous day in Baltimore hon. Speaking of hon, recently I had the brilliant idea of grabbing the domain name baltimorehon.com unfortunately it was already taken. Always the genius too late. "Lexicon of Bawlamarese: How to co-moon-icate wiff the natives". Not exactly what I had in mind, but if you follow the link you'll find lots of "balmorisms", and if you know any others you can add them to the list. My thinking was more along the lines of a comic scandal sheet sprinkled with totally inappropriate honerisms.
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Moving Day
Can you guess what happened after making my big commitment. Spent much of today moving files, which luckily were on my hard drive to a new geocities site. Last night was kicked off anglefire (=denied access to my account). Most likely reason = my wild configuration of several image directories which I thought were allowing me to keep my blog going there. NOT! That said, and hours of agonzing labor pains later, I'm now the proud new parent of a geo baby.

What was the most difficult part of the birth process? Ftp failure over and over again getting the old 530 error (password or user name incorrect). Like everybody else out there, I know my own F-ing user name and password, thank you. Fix = finally changed my password and the ruby slippers began to click. I'm still working on "re URL-ing" my links, delete of old unnecessary test/transition posts and change over from archive list on main (not allowed on geocities) to a separate archive index. Will finally be able to sit back later today or tomorrow, and use this page for it's intended purpose... ranting and raving and generally trying to figuring out what the hell it means to be alive, and just what it is I want to do with the rest of my life.
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Committed
I've committed myself to creating at least one post a day, and I've decided to be as real as possible within this forum meant for me. If anybody else is interested in what's going on here, so be it. If not, fine. Yesterday I mentioned making a list of my "hats".

Here's a limited list in no particular order:
house painter
old psychology graduate student
imposter
painter
wantabee geek = what is behind that curtain?
programer
lucid dreamer
printmaker
Web designer
faux scholar
dream analyst
sometimes recovering alcoholic
sometimes not recovering
hypno therapist
romantic fool
debunker of myths

Most likely the list is incomplete, and maybe inaccurate; however it's a place to begin. Shall I run through the list as it stands or write first about those which are most significant? Perhaps they are all equally signifcant, and I'll close my eyes while pinning my finger to the screen (creating a sort of internet stigmata). Stigmata, that's the place to begin. In the mid eighties (pre piercing days) I worked in Newark, NJ. I was wearing my printmaker hat at the time and was the only woman besides the secretary, in a small (20 person) sign shop. It was while working there, that I came up with the idea of a Stigmata Kit. The prototype sits proudly on my dresser top, a brightly colored tall red box with a photograph of an open palm on the lid of the box. On 2 sides of the box in white lettering:
STIGMATA KIT
Instructions Included
Perform Stigmata Anywhere
Without Undue Embarassment, Ridicule or Regret

What's in the box:
10 copies of zerox palm prints
2 nails
1 rock
1 bottle blood red nail polish
1 pair of glasses, with nose, eyebrows and mustache attached

My dresser sits right up against the wall, and for many years, leaning against the wall behind the box, was an 18' x 24' cheap, framed print of Jesus complete with hallo and a dripping bleeding heart. About a year ago as I was dusting the top of the box, Jesus fell down behind the dresser, breaking the glass and destroying the frame. No I'm not going to tell you a story about seeing Jesus's face in a taco or that the picture left an aura on the wall; however, the remains of print and glass still liter the floor under the dresser. Point of the confession = I'm not a very good housekeeper.
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So What kind of Blogger Are You?
Up at 6:00 this morning even though I would have to put last night in the quite rough category. Re yesterday's post: made a few small changes on the Art Attack Central site. I decided not to change it's look right now, but will reconsider a revamp later in the spring.

Decisions, decisions, decisions... "lions and tigers and bears, oh my". Still undecided on what sort of persona/nonpersona I wish to convey on these pages, which are so far mostly about figuring out how to make this system behave in certain ways. Ha, sounds like me! How do I want my "system" to behave? or more to the point who is that under your hat? Perhaps I ought to make a list of the various hats I wear in order to avoid confusion (mine or yours). Today I feel like the person under my hat is rather pensively planning to elaborate on those things that make life worth hanging on to, at least another day or two.

Did you know we had a blue moon on Friday night? When you have two full moons in the same month, the second one is called a blue moon. "Ahhha so what", you say. You just had to see it! In Baltimore the night was warm; by 8:30 the moon was high in the sky. Great white clouds were flying towards the northeast covering and uncovering the shinning disk. A night like that in late November, makes me wonder how anything could be wrong in a place (in a world) so lovely. How could there possibly be wars and famine and poverty; I watch entranced as the night sky flies over me?

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Who knew? New look for artattackcentral.com?
So maybe it has a somewhat gothic flair, that's what some are saying... My lover said it; my partner said it. Well is this a bad thing? Actually my partner said, "it's just too out there for me", and my lover said, "you've got to change your site, it just can't be so gothic". The real question for me, is will this site turn off prospective clients (anyone who actually is able to find the site in the first place!)? I figured that a design site should show off some of the things a Web designer can do; just because I like black, doesn't mean everything I design will have a black background or flaming lion heads.
Gezzzzopezzzzo, am I going to have a little rant or what? Well, anyway I'm thinking about re-design. I have gotten quite attached to the place, but "the important thing" as my mother would say, is attracting (hmmm...not to be confused with attacking) clients.

And another thing, I'm not sure what direction this "blog thing" is going in either. How personal/impersonal do I really want to be? Do I want to wear a mask, or rip off all the cellophane and dance naked in the last row of the theatre, or do I want to find some more reasonable place in between?