Month: February 2006 (Page 2 of 4)

What I need right now is a fireplace. In my office. I am rarely, if ever, too cold at work, but today, I think the a/c is on. And it’s about 30 degrees outside. So! My fingers are stumpy ice blocks, the Skinnernet is not working again, and people need to introduce themselves on the phone.

That would be the first lesson in etiquette my world domination tour would enforce. Must Introduce Self On The Telephone! It’s so easy! All you do is say, “This is (your name here)”! The exceptions are, of course, spouses, family & good friends you speak with regularly. I’m not kidding you, I have people I’ve never spoken with before who’ll call up and say, “Hi Jennifer! How are you?” and wait for me to say “uhhhh, fiiiine?” and even THEN, they’ll just proceed with an attempt at chit-chat, like, how’s the weather blah blah blah, and at that point I give them stony silence followed by, “Who is this?” I feel like it’s some new approach some dickwad in sales motivation came up with, like, Hey! Don’t introduce yourself, just behave like you’re already a good friend, and the whole conversation will be friendly, you’ll be that much closer to closing the deal! Yeah, uh-huh, because people LOVE that kind of presumptive behavior in business. Monkeyfuckers. They’re going to have to clean toilets when I take over the world.

And, I have this strange thing going on with my eye, like I’ve got a scratch or infection or something horrid, and I’m probably going to end up wearing a patch, and then it will be Pirate Jen’s World Domination Tour (with Cher opening, of course.) and I will sing Eminem’s song “My Name Is” for my opening number while dressed in a lot of fur and mukluks. It will be awesome, you should get your tickets now.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Yes, I am changing my costumes/skins/templates about as often as Diana Ross changes her costumes in a show.

Right now, I’m trying on “purple”, from
Noipo, and the only complaint I have is that it doesn’t quite fit in a single frame. Sigh.

You should see me with shoes.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

My apologies if you’ve been trying to read my blog in the last hour or so. I have futzed with 8 different templates, restored links 5 times, re-installed Haloscan twice, and in general, been a complete nerd while my real job keeps interrupting me. But it’s Friday. And I think I’m going to finally leave this thing alone. For now.

No, we don’t live in Wyoming, but there are times when Midwestern sky feels just as expansive and infinite. I think what we have going on here in the Midwest that makes life a little different is an ever-changing weather situation. My husband is the ultimate weather forecaster – long ago, when we were in Orlando on a vacation together, he was watching the Weather Channel, and excitedly chimed in that a large front was coming off the coast of Africa. (Yes, “off the coast of Africa” gets said a LOT around our house now….. I couldn’t stop laughing at the time.) Of course, later, the weatherperson talked about it coming in off the coast of Africa, and James whipped around with righteous indignation and affirmation. “See!? See?!”

I went to Lawrence last weekend to visit one of my very good friends, and the drive was nothing short of a mini-slide show in Midwestern Winter. The skies were overcast & gray, and for a chunk of time, everything was clear. Then, for three minutes? Blinding snow. Then? Poof! Gone! Ha ha! Did you dream that? I drove through maybe ten segments of blinding snow, and by the fourth one, it was becoming familiar, so I started taking pictures. You can’t really see the snow, but I think it captures Kansas pretty well….. and yeah, I’m jacking up my layout to use the bigger photos!

As the temperatures here are set to plummet, nose-dive, and generally head into the deep freeze, I’m still in the grips of a sock-knitting frenzy. Good thing, given all the sock yarn I own …. and continue to buy!

I was at The Studio yesterday & didn’t buy anything! (Praise Me! Look at me! Resisting temptation for one whole day!) But there’s a skein of Opal sock yarn in a new colorway (or at least, one I hadn’t seen before) called “Flamingo” & it was a revelry of pinks. Kristin bought it, thankfully, so I could have a vicarious moment through her. Right now, I’m making JWo a pair of socks out of Trekking XXL, and the colors are so gorgeous I want to scream every time I stop to look at them. (I don’t, though, because screaming repeatedly at my knitting is probably inappropriate & a surefire way to get committed to Two Rivers WITHOUT my knitting.)

The Opal socks got finished on Valentine’s Day (so I could start JWo’s socks on the same day….) & here’s a couple of pictures…. I knit them on 1’s with a broken rib pattern on the ankles. I love the colors! And they’re verrrry cozy.

When I took Psych 101 in college, I got paired up with a very ineffective lab partner. I at least learned this right off the bat, as we were given our rat (Charles) & he sized up my partner & leapt for freedom. Yep. She let him get loose, and it became my job to catch him. That was awesome. NOT SO MUCH. Anyway, I recaptured Charles, put him in his box, and for the next couple of weeks, we took care of our rat & did our experiments & whatnot. (Don’t worry. We didn’t harm the rats. I think eventually they did get harmed by upper-level students, but LA LA LA LA LA I don’t remember, thank you for that pitcher of beer that wiped out those brain cells.)

Most of all, during that experiment, I remember studying B.F. Skinner’s behavioral theories, and specifically the effects that positive & negative reinforcement have on behavior. For instance, if every time the rat hits the lever, he gets a mild shock, the rat won’t take very long to stop hitting the lever. Conversely, if every time he hits the lever, he gets a treat pellet, he will hit the lever with gusto. But the most INTERESTING thing of Skinner’s theory is that positive reward, given randomly, actually sustains the behavior longer & at a higher frequency, than constant reward. In other words, why the slot machines give you a little bit of a win here & there, to keep you pulling the lever until you’re out of money. The rat hits the lever much faster & more often if he doesn’t know for sure the pellet is coming, but that eventually, it will.

Our work internet connection is incredibly inconsistent. Maddeningly so. However, it still connects, sporadically, sometimes swiftly, sometimes only partially. As Kristin said this morning, it really should be taken out back and shot. But I caught myself this morning, maniacally hitting “refresh” and rocketing back and forth between three open windows, trying to load different things repeatedly, because every 30 seconds or so, something actually would fly through the pipes & make contact with the outside world. I have actually spent MORE time in the past two days trying to be on the internet than I ordinarily would, simply because it still connects, but always at random, and with mixed results.

And that is why I’m now calling it the “Skinnernet”.

The worst came after I started in the workforce – and watching all the women in my department stream to the front desk to collect their elaborate bouquets of flowers….. I hated Valentine’s Day – it’s not like you could even go out to dinner with friends, because every good place in town was crammed with couples, drinking wine and eating polenta. (OK, that was just at one restaurant, but still. Oysters. Truffles. Mangoes. Pick your romantic dish.) But unlike one of those women I worked with, I never sent flowers to myself!

Now, it’s just more like another day, really. I am reminded how lucky I am, how much I love my husband – and tonight, we will go eat Thai food, with another couple, and we’ll talk about The Shield, which is about the most unromantic show on TV – but arguably one of the best. I put little FunDip Valentines in everyone’s inbox at work this morning, and that made me nostalgic for those gradeschool days, when we had parties & everyone gave each other valentine’s cards….. and someone usually brought cupcakes. Yum. And, whether you’re attached or not, at least it’s a good holiday with all the chocolate floating around….. skip the heart-shaped box of ordinary & buy a bar of something really top-notch! And, always be your own best Valentine first. I wish I’d learned that one sooner.

My apologies to Chingy & Snoop – but I do sing this to Polly, on a regular basis.

(Whachu doin?)

Just chewin’ at the Pollyday Inn

(Who you wit?)

Me and Suzyyyyyyyyyyy bring four of your friends

(What we gon’ do?)

Chew some bones and bite the postmen

One thing leading to another let the chewin’ begiiiiin