Aaaahhh!

WTF is this?!?


I clipped this from a piece of Russian spam that ended up in the support mailbox the other day.

I think I need a drink.

(shudder!)
 

How to act

I'm dedicating this to Lovely Daughter and other students of the art*.

Here's the secret to your success, straight from Sir Ian's mouth.


Extras

Who knew?!?

I so have to watch this series....

* YSD Class of '08, this one's for you!

Introverts 101

I know you have questions. These links should help.

• How do I care for my introvert?


• I think I've got a "sociable" introvert. What's that all about?

See? Introverts* make excellent companions for knowledgeable handlers.
:)
*That's "We introverts," of course.
 

The Introvert Cafe

I leave the building during my lunch hour. We each have our own offices so I could stay put, but since I am in front of my desk 8 hours a day as it is, I feel compelled to get-the-F-out for that one hour.

Problem is... where to go? Most days I do errands or grocery shopping. I can get a lot done in 45 minutes or so and it saves me from having to do a big shopping trip on the weekends. But what if there's no shopping to be done? Or I'm just plain too wiped out to do anything but stare into space?

I escape to my quiet place.

There's a little parking lot just down the hill and around the corner from my office. It's not attached to a building so there's not a lot of foot traffic. There are lots of trees overhanging the perimeter creating several shady spots on those rare sunny days. Like a little park, only for cars.

I pull in to one of my preferred spots, turn on some tunes, and either make phone calls, eat my lunch, read, nap, or some combination of the above. I can easily spend 55 of my precious 60 minutes there and have just enough time to get back to the office. Sweet.

One day I realized that I wasn't alone -- several of the other cars were occupied by people doing exactly what I was doing. Slowly it dawned on me that only an introvert would think it was a good idea to go sit alone in a parking lot for an hour. I'd found my people!

Yes, I'm coming out: I am an introvert. People who don't know me well are usually surprised to learn that. It took me a while to figure it all out, but from what I understand -- and this is painting with a very broad brush -- extroverts get energized by social interactions while introverts end up drained. That would be me. I can do the social thing, and in the right group I enjoy it, but it costs me. At the end of the night there's nothing left of me.

So there we sit, each in our own little metal cocoon, enjoying the non-camaraderie. That's lunchtime at the Introvert Cafe.

Joke of the Day:
Q: How can you tell an extroverted mathematician?
A: He's the one looking at the other guy's shoes.

As an introvert and former-wanna-be mathematician, I concur.

Want to find out what you are?

• A quick-and-dirty test
  
• The Four Preferences
  
• The 16 Types

It's kinda like astrology, only better 'cause it's true!

(Mr B & I are both INTP. He's pretty much a classic INTP, while I ride the line between T & F and am only slightly more P than J. We enjoy our quiet time.)
:)
 

Time keeps on slippin'

Yesterday I heard from my Ex that a friend had died that morning. Ex had been very close to the family these last few months and was with them in their home when his friend passed. The friend had been ill and failing fast, but even though his death was anticipated, it was still too soon and utterly tragic.

Since Mr. B is still out of town and I had way too much time to think, I started thinking about time. The friend and his wife had been married forty-some years and it still wasn't long enough. Ex and I were together thirty years all told and it was plenty long. Mr. B and I are coming up on one year. Given my morbid state of mind, I couldn't help but wonder how long we'll have. Do we have forty years? Thirty? I can't even let myself think of numbers smaller than that. Let's change the subject.

We aren't living together; we own our own homes. We live less than 10 minutes apart but seeing each other on weeknights is tough -- he gets up way too early for a long commute and my evening schedule is lockstep from the moment I get home with Young Son until I climb into bed a scant 4 hours later*. We manage to do dinner a couple times a week but he's exhausted and I'm weary and often distracted by what still needs to get done.

We do spend every weekend we can together, alternating between houses, but even then we aren't "living together"; we're in some sort of oddball quasi-dating/visiting mode, both separated from our usual routines. One of us is always not "at home".

Sometime I ask myself why.

Always my rational self immediately provides the same answer: Because, you fool, you are still less than 18 months out of an X-treme Long Term Relationship. Any rational person can see that you have no business moving in with anyone any time soon.

But... if there's one thing I've learned since I left my old life, it's that being rational isn't always the right answer. My rational mind is what held me rigidly in place for those last several years of my marriage, because it made sense, at great cost to my emotional self. And I'm still doing the repair work resulting from that course of action.

So does that mean I should throw caution to the wind and just move in with the guy**? Uh... probably not. I have allowed myself to start thinking about it a little more, but whenever I do, I get so bogged down in the logistics*** that I give up. Too many couches! Too many beds! Too many kitchen gadgets! Way too many books! And whose house is the most livable for the three of us? Truth be told, neither. So then what do we do? And that's where I usually give up.

But is that the kind of stuff that really matters when you look back at the story of a relationship? How much does it matter? And if that doesn't matter, then what does?

Our average age is 50, certainly old enough to know that we're neither invincible nor immortal. How sure is sure enough?

* And sometimes even sooner, this time of year!

** The guy who has been single most of his adult life? But that's another story.

*** And we won't even discuss the interpersonal stuff, habits, preferences, and all that... sigh.
 

Once in a Lifetime

This one's for Mr. B.

He told me recently that his ex said he had the gift of making the Talking Heads come on the radio whenever he's in the car. I haven't done a statistical analysis*, but she may be right.


Once In A Lifetime,Talking Heads, The Best Of Talking Heads

Or... it could just be that the radio station we listen to plays a lot of Talking Heads**.

Anyway, this is my favorite Talking Heads song and video. It was one of the first videos I remember watching on MTV, back in 1982 or so***. I remember dancing around the living room to it while pregnant with Lovely Daughter. I thought it was the coolest video ever.

And you know, over 25 years later, it still retains the capacity to Rock!

p.s. Mr. B's out of town for two weeks. Not liking it.

* (yet)

** Yeah, I know. Occam's Razor, blah, blah, blah.

*** Come to think of it, that was only 3 years before I first met Mr. B.
:)
 

Freaky-deaky

I have officially Weirded Myself Out. Actually, I blame Tom Cruise.

I saw a link to this video yesterday while doing some random blog reading. I really don't give a red ripe rat's ass about Tom Cruise and his shenanigans, but for some reason I clicked. And I was appalled! WTF?!? All I knew about Scientology was that it was "invented" by a science fiction writer, which is about as good a qualification as any, I suppose. Unfortunately it doesn't even sound like good science fiction*.

Of course I immediately emailed my sister, who, being a good follower of the media knew all about it and sent me some other fascinating/repelling links in return. That's what really got me going. Wikipedia**, Xenu.net, even an article from MTV translating what Tom was babbling about in that video.

Then my sister emails me:

I'm THIS CLOSE to getting a T-shirt that reads, 'SP (Suppressive Person)'.

Scientology rented space at our local mall last year (right at the main mall entrance). One of their glassy-eyed Sci-bots approached me, and I told him to step back, because I'm an SP. He did... and later I checked my tires in the parking lot to ensure they weren't slashed."

Awesome! That sent me running to the internet to find just such a shirt. I'm afraid I must someday own one.

It's funny until you learn that people actually believe it and will pay for the privilege. WTF, indeed. That's some expensive mediocre sci-fi.

*Yes, I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy. I told you I was a geek.

**Read LRH's entry, too. In the words of Bugs Bunny, What a maroon!
 

Why we live here

Caught this amazing sight on my way to work yesterday:


That's the moon setting behind the Olympic Mountains. The cloud just above the trees is ice fog over the Hood Canal.

The shot I really wanted to get was about 5 minutes earlier, but I was in the car and by the time I fumbled around in my purse for my camera (yeah, that's some safe driving!) the moon was just about to disappear. Luckily, just then I got a red light at a fairly open intersection and was able to catch it before it slipped away.

The weather has been unusually clear for January. Typically we don't see much of the sky in the winter. The downside is that it's been cold, actually below freezing at night. I've had to scrape the windshield, like, 3 mornings in a row. We're all freaking out about it.

Yeah, I know. We're all pussies. But we're pussies with a great view.
 

Priceless!

We got this real live, no-shitter support email the other day:

Hi:

I need to kmow if I can write a paragaph on a blank sheep, but some part of this sheep is blank because I have finished a chapter and I have started a nex chapter in a new sheep and then to pass the next sheep with [the software],

I don't know how to express in english,

regards

Personally, I prefer starting documents on blank sheep. I find the non-blank sheep difficult to read sometimes. But maybe that's just me.

Sometimes I love this job.

p.s. It's still sitting, unanswered, in the communal Inbox. How would one even attempt to answer something like that? I'm so hoping George takes it on.
 

Daily grind, my ass!

Made the switch to full decaf this weekend. Ugh. The transition from quarter-caf to decaf is turning out to be more significant than I anticipated.

All of a sudden the tag "Daily grind" seems like a cruel joke.