Does that seem odd to you?

Is wearing annoying earrings a suitable enough excuse for not being in the mood to blog?

Not sure?

Would it help if I showed you the earrings in question? Ok, gimme a moment.





*one moment later*

Here they are:

Or here one is, at least. Yes, I just now wasted prime blogging time by digging my camera out of my briefcase and shooting (and cropping) a pointless photo of my own left ear.

Yay me. A new height in pointlessness.

Anyway, the annoying thing about these particular earrings isn't their size or their weight (they're actually pretty light). It's the part where the monofilament that's holding on the letters makes a whoop whoop whoop noise every time I turn my head.

Yes, boys and girls. I now come with my own sound effects.

I hope you enjoyed the earring, though. It's as dressed up as I got for Halloween this year.

----------

Now, on to the meat of the matter. I got (yet another) ad from my friendly local cable company in the mail yesterday offering me an "unbeatable" package deal if I combine my television service with home phone and high speed internet.

I threw it away.

What? Not even tempted, Dee? But it was big, big savings.

Yep. It was. For someone who might want cable television, home phone, and internet. I want television. That's all I even have a use for out of that list.

You see, I haven't got a home phone. I went to just my cell a while ago, and I haven't really noticed a difference except in the way that there's less money coming out of my bank account each month. And as far as internet service goes, it doesn't do you much good if you don't own a computer.

I don't own a computer.

Does that seem odd to you?

I maintain two (well, one and a half) blogs. I'm a regular visitor on a handful of forums. I'm the search engine queen. And none of that happens at home. It's either here at work or at my father's place on weekends.





Does that seem odd?

It does to the government, apparently. And to the telemarketers and pollsters that I used to end up talking to back when I still had a home phone. It seems that if you say that you don't own a computer that it translates as I'm a Luddite or I'm functionally illiterate or I'm lacking modern-day skills or I'm Amish.

I'm not Amish, as far as I know. Just in case you wondered.

I also don't miss having a computer at home.

I suppose the fact is that I spend plenty of time on the computer at work, and it's kind of nice to not have the temptation at home. Sure, there are times when it would be more convenient to be able to look up something quickly or send off an e-mail to whomever, but most of my looking-ups and whomevers can wait until the next day. Or put up with text-messaging, if it's really urgent.

Urgent like discussing last night's virtual meeting of the t.v. club.

What? It's urgent. Ish.





And here's the part where I cut this short and go back to work. Ish. Erm, no... I really will go back to work. Sorry if you were expecting the blather to come to some sort of conclusion, but you take what you get when I spend time shooting photos of my left ear.

Them's the rules.

Maps

The other day (well, the other week) Wheat was helping me set up tables for a program. The tables have to be set up in a certain way because the room's actually a little small for the number of tables needed, and if you don't have things angled right the people sitting at the tables do nothing but bump chairs every time they try to move.

I've done the table thing enough times that I have a fairly strict method of going about it. I usually do it by myself (partly because it gives me mental prep time before the program, and partly because I'm paid to do it by myself), but when Wheat offered his help that day me 'n the sleep-deprived brain were happy to take him up on it.

Oh, and by the way... I did get some real sleep last night, so if I sound eerily lucid that may possibly be at least part of the explanation.

The problem with Wheat's help, though, was that he started from the opposite end of the room than I generally do and it completely threw me. I actually had to rearrange things in order to even be able to start setting up.

Sheesh.

At first I was thinking that I didn't need any further proof to add to the OLF file, but I'm not sure now that being obsessive was really the major difficulty. The thing is that I have a pretty clear mental map of how to set up the room in that particular configuration, and my brain was tired enough that it couldn't turn the map around and work from the different direction that Wheat accidentally tried to force it in to.

Poor Wheat. Makes you wonder sometimes why I don't get more things thrown at me.

We all work from mental maps in our daily lives, I think. Whether it's getting to work in the morning, making supper, or doing the laundry, we have plans. Steps we're meant to be taking. Sometimes they're flexible (there's no rule that says I should wash towels last, and if for some reason I had to wash them first it wouldn't really bother me), and other times not so much.

If you've ever been annoyed at having to find an alternate route someplace because of construction, have you considered how much of that annoyance is really due to having your map disrupted as opposed to the few minutes of extra travel time involved?

Ok, maybe it's just me then. I'm a creature of habit, I admit. It doesn't bother me. After all, there's comfort in regular routine, don't you think? As long as that routine doesn't take the place of, say, actually living life than there really shouldn't be any kind of problem with it.

Until someone innocently offers to help you set up tables, I guess.

I need to get back to the work routine now. You're welcome to write your own ending for the blather if the admittedly incomplete map I had time to doodle just now doesn't make sense to you.

I need a brick

A well-aimed brick. Either that or a week off.

I'm not likely to get a brick or a week off, though. Not for a little while, anyway.

That sort of sucks.

----------

The state of the non-sleep is still non-sleep (which also sort of sucks, because the weekend actually wasn't too bad for that). As a result, the state of the blog post will be a non-post. I just don't feel like putting in the effort it would require to actually think. And it doesn't seem right to ask the Toronto office to step in, since she's in the state of being cold and cranky.

I can relate to cold and cranky.

So, no post worth reading today. Let me see if I can point you to something interesting to fill in the time before I say I have nothing again tomorrow... ah, here we go. Appropriate somehow, seeing as I'm currently neither under way nor under weigh.

Later, then.

Control, control, control

The title has nothing to do with psychological issues... well, except for the fact that something helpful is currently driving me nuts.

Arrrrr.

And yes, I know that some of my two fans have no idea what's up with the arrrrr. I'd suggest that you ask around. There's likely someone out there who can explain it.

Anyway, the very helpful Google Toolbar pop-up blocker is in one of its periodic spastic phases where it decides to block every single thing that might possibly have ever considered one day thinking about being a pop-up.

Frustrating.

It means that I've been making pretty heavy use of the control button in the past few days just to open links. And the photo thingy (which doesn't need yet another excuse to hate me). And the comment box.

Yeah, if you can't get the comment box to open it might be because Google Toolbar (assuming you have Google Toolbar) is "helping". Just hold down the control key when you hit the link and it should be fiiine.

The oddest moment this caused for me this morning was when I was trying to read articles that had come up on my Google Alerts (yes, a Google product) in my Gmail (another Google product). Gmail very helpfully came up with an A pop-up blocker may be preventing this from opening message whenever I clicked a link.

The Google pop-up blocker, in fact.

Do you suppose it should go and stand in the Google corner?

This blog (or its host and related software) is also a Google product, you know. It wasn't when I started the old blog, but Google's since amoeba-ed the originating company.

Seems like Google has control issues too.




Funny, I wasn't intending to be talking about Google today. This just came out when I went to load the usual pointless photo (which, by the way, is likely to be my last outdoor spider of the year. Thin-legged Wolf Spider, if anyone is interested. On a basement window frame, if you've been trying to get a feeling for how big the spider was) and the pop-up blocker reminded me that it was still DOING ITS JOB.

Yippee.

Not that Google's the only helpful company out there. Not by a long shot. At the moment Wheat's got himself a case of the Vista blues -- actually, it's more like the Vista AAAAAUGHS -- because his new work computer wants to make sure he's sure about every single thing that he asks it to do.

My computer, on the other hand, seems to be refusing to acknowledge that Wheat's even exists. I've actually had to e-mail things to him rather than just copy them to his shared files. A couple of metres across the office, I've had to e-mail.

Helpful.




I'm out of things now. Can't even remember what my original post was going to be about.

Ah well.

Consider it a topic saved for another day.





If my helpful brain can manage to find its own control button.

Pointless photo of the day:

Head's better today, thanks. I still don't know what that was all about.

I'm apparently on weekend brain today, because it's nearly lunch time and it only just occurred to me that I hadn't blogged yet. I don't really have much in mind now, obviously.

That reads to me like I probably shouldn't bother then.

Ok, brain. Sounds good to me. Maybe I'll look up another poem to post on the other blog instead then.




Enjoy the gazanias.

Gah.

Why is it on the days that I just want to upload a photo, say "I've got nothing", and prove it by posting very little that the photo thingy decides it doesn't like me?

I'm not sure that last sentence really qualifies as English, but I don't care.

It's a no-reason headache day today, apparently. No-reason as in I have no fricking idea why my head is pounding right now. I slept not too badly last night (for a change), there aren't any of my usual triggers around as far as I know, and (what pisses me off completely) I was feeling pretty good when I got in to work. The headache hit around nine o'clock, and it hasn't left since.

I'm not especially happy about that, if you hadn't noticed.

One more try at a photo, and then I'll go off and be not especially happy in real life...

Wasn't really worth the wait, I know, but it became a personal challenge to get a picture loaded up on this blog today. Me versus the photo thingy. Who has (is?) the biggest headache?

Yeah, whatever.

Going now.

Another pointless dragonfly

There are still so many more of these shots. I must have spent way too much time chasing down meadowhawks when they were in season.

They're not now, in case anyone wondered.

I'm not sure how much you're going to get out of me today. I've been working on newsletter stuff, and that's always a good excuse to say that my brain has turned to polenta.

Yes, polenta.

I'm feeling a bit corny, you see.

Actually, what I'm mostly feeling is tired. IS ANYONE SURPRISED AT THIS POINT? If you are, you haven't been paying attention.

Four o'clock this morning was a very nice hour, though.

----------

Wheat's been out of the office this morning, and there's been some serious chair dancing going on in his absence. Not that I don't do it when he's here (I'm kind of shameless that way), but when he's here I don't usually keep the 60s R&B going all morning.

I'm not saying that Wheat doesn't like 60s R&B. In fact, I'm pretty sure he does.

It's just that 60s R&B almost inevitably leads to chair dancing for me, and I imagine that it's incredibly difficult to try to get anything done when the idiot at the other desk is doing the mashed potato and the swivel chair twist.

Ok, so maybe I don't full-on mashed potato.

I have been known to do the swim, though.




I haven't been sleeping much lately. Did I mention?

Anyway, this brings us to the end of yet another pointless post. Fun, wasn't it? If nothing else, you have to agree that the blog's been living up to its title lately.

Hey, it's the Four Tops! Everybody dance!

I dunno... something about mustard?

This is the part where I'm supposed to pretend I have something to say after several days of insomnia. I don't, as you might suspect.

Yesterday there were, admittedly, several missing hours from my night. The Toronto office suspects alien abduction, but judging from the fact that I'm almost sort of functional today I'm thinking that I may possibly have been sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time. Weird, huh.

It still doesn't give me anything to blog about, however.

----------

Wheat managed to get himself fired from the t.v. club this morning. His excuse was something about baseball and reruns, but as there was no rerun I'm not sure I should accept it.

And there are no wine gums here.

A person could get a little cranky, really.

----------

I still have nothing, if you haven't figured that part out.

----------

Did you know that I've already written a post about mustard on this blog? That's sad, you know. I put mustard in the title thinking, "well, I don't have anything but I could at least talk about something stupid like mustard," and here I've already done it.

I must have a more obsessive brain than I realised.

There wasn't enough mustard on my ham and cheese sandwich (for sandwich read: stuff I put on a french bun because I'm out of pitas and the world would end if I actually ever made a sandwich with ordinary sliced bread like a normal person) today because my current mustard bottle is getting disturbingly empty. Disturbingly because I could swear that I bought mustard not all that long ago. How long should a bottle of mustard last, anyway? This was the strong deli-style mustard, by the way. It should have had enough flavour to go a fair long way.

Not at my house, I guess.

I'm out of dry mustard too, as of Monday.

I think that maybe I have a mustard problem.

Did you ever wonder what the first person to try eating mustard must have been thinking? The stuff's strong, and it burns. The plant does that on purpose, you know. It's trying to keep itself from being grazed by making sure it's unpalatable.

Unpalatable to everything but humans.

Homo sapiens (strictly, Homo sapiens sapiens. Because saying it twice is twice as nice) is a very strange animal that way.




And in many others.

I see there's a message on my phone because I decided I didn't have to answer it during my lunch break. My lunch break is pretty much over, so I'm either going to have to pick the voice mail up or pretend I've developed red-green colour blindness and can no longer see the little message light that's glaring away at me right now.

Either way, it seems that blatherage time is over for today.

Don't applaud too loudly, for heaven's sake. You might wake up the other voices. You know, the ones who wish I would talk about ketchup now and then instead of going on and on about mustard...

Pointless photo of the day:

Just to remind everyone that I still exist.

Or maybe just to remind me.

Sleep hasn't been going so well the past couple of days (Sunday night? No sleep. That's right, no sleep all effing night. I was thrilled). Yesterday I stayed home to avoid being a danger to the world at large. Today I managed to be semi-productive for the morning, but I've hit the point where I can feel the shutdown starting. I'm planning on taking the hint and heading home pretty soon.

With my luck, I'll fall asleep this afternoon and end up wide awake at three in the morning. Yay insomnia. You rock.

Or suck. I always get those two mixed up.

Anyway, I'll leave it to the t.v. club to get their wine gums in order for tomorrow. As for me, don't think that my current lack of functioning brain will result in the unforgivable missing of an episode. Ain't going to happen.

If nothing else, it's why god created pvrs.

I love my pvr, but that sounds like it might be a good subject for a day when my head is actually working. Later, all.

A relative thing

Well okay, it's not related to the skink in the least but it's early in the day, it's raining, the air is odd - so work with me here.

Besides, the real reason for the photo if you want to know - and even if you don't, apparently, as my fingers continue to type - is the grate in the background which off-sets the lines of the critter, don't you know. You're welcome, Alberta.


And once again, we praise digital photography where the photo is taken, seen, posted and no money was wasted in the making of this post. Remember the old days of film?

At the height of my photograph-taking days with film, it wouldn't have been at all unusual to go through many rolls just to capture that one particular angle. That's a lot of wasted resources, including disposeable income of the day.

Now there's not nearly as much disposeable income which is just fine with me as I'd rather be home typing this than out there, in the real world; there was just the outlay of the ridiculous price of the camera. Family members who know what pleases you are wonderful people, though, aren't they. Well, when they act on it, anyway. And obviously they did. Act on it. Erm, yes.

Hey, look! It's official. This is a completely blatherful ( is so a word) post. My job here is done.

So ... it's Fall and that usually makes me feel like running away

... so you get a photo of Alcatraz. I understand it's fairly remote and quiet. Oh and it's a real photo yes as the marital unit was just there. In the U.S. on business, that is; not actually being held there.

Anyway, it's Fall on the calendar but Summer in our hearts as the temperatures confirm an all-too-warm planet.

It's to go up to 25 C today and the bulbs in the garden out front are totally confused, what with the little purple things I can't think of the name of poking little shoots above ground.
Oh go back and read that again. I'm sure there's English in there somewhere.

I don't see any vegetation at Alcatraz, though. Maybe it's just too long a shot. I'm sure that's it, yeh.

Pointless photo of the day:

There's something wrong with a person who sees a moth sitting beside a kenilworth ivy tendril and automatically thinks "those lines would make a good photograph."

I know.

I still think it looks nice, though.

I have a weird thing for line and shape, I suppose. Three quarters of the time I don't really care what I'm taking photos of when I'm looking for things to post on the blog. I take photos of flowers because they have aesthetically pleasing lines. I take photos of insects in flowers because the shapes give added interest.

I take photos of spiders because I like spiders.

Incidentally, what do you people think of skinks?

No reason.






Ok, some reason. Not a terribly important one, however.

I don't have anything today. Can you tell?

I think I wasted too much time yesterday trying to choose a new colour scheme for the other place. Burned myself out a bit, maybe. I'm liking the new colours so far, if I do say so myself. Green makes more sense for "shrubbery" than purple ever did.

Might be time for this blog to have its colours done again as well, you know. How does blood red strike you?

It'll have to wait for another weekend at this point anyway.





Get a feeling I'm done with this post? Me too.

A kick in the pants

Today's pointless photo is for anyone who wondered what the subjects of yesterday's pointless photo became when they opened fully.

Or, you know... you can just look at it as pointless. It pretty much is.

----------

Lately I've been noticing that I'm not doing a lot of the things that I like to do. The artsy things, I mean. I'm choosing to blame work for this.

To be fair, there are other goings-on that have something to do with it as well, but for now work is going to act as the scapegoat.

The problem, you see, is that I'm not used to working full-time in October. This time of year I'm usually only doing the occasional program or maybe just dropping in to check my e-mail. The rest of my time is supposed to be for myself.

And what do I do with that time?

Generally nothing.

Attached to that nothing, though, are my hobbies. Generally nothing can include sitting down with the sketchbook to doodle for an evening, or twisting some poor unsuspecting words into a perfectly awful poem.

None of that's been happening lately because of stupid work.

I get home from work and I just don't feel like doing anything, really. I sit. I watch television (or at least the television's on. Most of the time it's on just to make noise while I sit. Ask me what I'm watching and I honestly couldn't tell you. I suppose it's my own peculiar form of meditation). I go to bed early, because I know I'll be waking up at five no matter what. The next day, I go to work.

Sucks to be an adult sometimes.

I can't honestly say that I don't have time to mess around with my hobbies these days; it's just that I don't seem to have the inclination. Why bother?

Well, because the pointless artsy stuff is something I enjoy, and lately I've been missing it.

So what does a hopelessly lazy (and, lately, far too sleepless) person do to jump-start the interests again?





You're about to find out. If you want to, that is.

I've mentioned before that I've been clearing the posts from the old blog. I didn't want to just delete the entire blog because I wanted to keep the domain name, but with four years of blogging to get rid of post-by-post it took a while. It was also quite the exercise in nostalgia. Lots of things happen in four years, even if you have as nondescript a life as I have.

And don't think I'm putting myself down by saying that. I could have had a more exciting life. It's entirely my choice that I'm comfortably boring instead.

I finally finished deleting the old posts last weekend.

This weekend I intend to start refilling the thing. Slowly. The blog you're reading now will still be the place for daily pointless blather, but the old blog is about to become the home of the pointless artsy archives.

Let me explain that a little better.

When I'm writing or doodling or whatever I rarely throw anything out. I'm not the type to do that (surprise! Or not-surprise. After all, I'm the one who still has every greeting card I've been given since high school. Do you think I'd throw out something I actually put effort into?). As a result, I have notebooks full of poems. Not quite as many doodles, true, but there's enough of them.

What I want to do (for now) with the old blog is to post a few of the collected mutterings. Mutterings, yes. Blather for this blog; mutterings for that one.

It'll help me keep them straight.

I'm only planning to post a handful of things each weekend, and if I find myself in the mood I may actually tell you what was going on in my brain at the time I wrote/drew whatever you're seeing. Yes, I keep notes.

OLF, remember?

Anyway, if any of my two fans actually miss the nonsense I used to post on the forum, some of it might end up on Shrubbery in the next while. A word of warning, though: the poems aren't necessarily good, and the doodles are a bit dodgy. Add that to the fact that I don't have a scanner so any of the visuals will be coming off of my camera instead, and you can imagine that this could very well end up to be a complete mess rather than a self-encouragement to get out and start creating again.

We'll see.

Check out the blog list on the sidebar for the link to the old blog if you're interested. I'll likely post a couple of things later today unless I get distracted by real life or something.

Pointless photo of the day:

That's all. I'm not even going to attempt to blather. It's not been a great week for sleep, and I can already feel the afternoon's headache coming on.

I'm thrilled, yes.

Especially thrilled because I'm apparently going out for supper tonight with some of my father's neighbours.

Oh, and the father figure as well.

I sort of assumed you'd get that part, though.



Sigh. Less than ten sentences and I'm already sounding snotty. Just ignore me. Or better yet, I'll stop typing.

Sounds like the easier option, really.

Subjects? We don't need no stinking subjects.

Or at least we don't have no stinking subjects.

And yes, I do misquoting just that well.

----------

On to the pointless photo, then. Honestly, the only reason I saved this fuzzy shot is that the water droplets being shaken off the chickadee look sooo much like the bird has turned into either a voodoo doll or a body piercing overenthusiast.

Erm... sorry for that last link. I just really don't get body piercing.




And yes, I do have two piercings in each earlobe.

They don't count, though. The first ones I got when I was very young, and the second ones happened sort of accidentally in high school.

Yeah, I had an accidental piercing.

Shut up.






Ok, so I had a friend who was too chicken to get her ears pierced unless I went with her, and when I went with her I found out that she'd made appointments for both of us and that I was apparently going first so she could she how high I jumped...

All right, all right. I could have said no. I should have said above that I don't get extreme body piercing, not body piercing in general. Will that make everyone happy?

Sheesh.

Just for that I'm not even going to try to come up with a decent post. Happy now?





Go back and play with your voodoo doll.

Ah, punctuation

Looking for something to do? Why not have a look at this "blog"?

Ointless photo of the day:

Yes, apparently today's photo is lacking oint.

I don't know either.

It's what my fingers wanted to type, though, so I figured I'd just let them have their way. It's easier than arguing.

Arguing with your own fingers is probably ointless too.

----------

My two fans will notice that today's ointlessness is a few hours late. That's because I'm also a few hours late, but very much on purpose. I'm acting as a cub wrangler of sorts tonight (read that as: I have an evening program), so I took the morning off to keep from working unnecessary overtime.

There are a few problems with taking the morning off if you're me.

If you do happen to be me, then we probably should have a serious talk at some point. It might be somewhat uncomfortable if you're me and I'm me and we accidentally end up in the same place at the same time one day.

The first problem is that when I have time off I enjoy it. It reminds me that I'm not usually working full-time in October. Enjoying a morning off makes it very very VERY hard to convince myself that I have to go in to work at all.

The second problem is that I'll be here as everyone else leaves. I hate that. It brings out the five-year-old in me.

Or on second thought, maybe it's the twelve-year-old that gets brought out. I feel like I'm being forced to stay after class when I'm here watching everyone else leave for the night. And it's the leaving part that does it. I have no trouble at all coming here for an evening program when everyone's already left, but if I'm here when the rest of the workforce is in the process of taking off then it's JUST NOT FAIR that I can't go as well.

It isn't fair, you know.

And it makes me want to pout instead of blogging.

Or at least have something to eat.




Hmm. Maybe I could pout AND have something to eat. Today's fare isn't exactly inspiring since I didn't feel like packing a lunch to eat as a supper, so that should add to the pout nicely.

I think I'll do that, then.

You can too, if you want. Ointless childishness loves company.

Hidden ham

As far as I know, there is no hidden ham in today's pointless photo. There was hidden ham in today's pointless pizza, however.

My brain decided that it was more important to watch the recording of last night's Letterman than to make lunch this morning. As a result, it was off to Pizza With a Tan (a.k.a. pizza by the slice which may or may not have been sitting under the heat lamp for a while, depending on how busy they've been) to get something to eat instead.

The place makes passable pizza overall, but I try to avoid things like the ham and pineapple. It's not because I have an aversion to ham and pineapple (I rather like it, actually, especially with lots of crushed chilies sprinkled on top), but because the Home of Tanned Pizza has somehow managed to find the world's blandest ham to use in their offerings. I don't know whether they're trying to save us all from sodium overload or what, but the stuff just has no discernible ham flavour as far as I can tell.

As a result, I try to choose something that doesn't have ham in it if I'm having a pizza day. Between that and avoiding green pepper (which is EVIL) at all costs it cuts down on my choices a bit, but I usually do ok.

Except when they pull a fast one and the innocent-looking pepperoni and mushroom turns out to be hiding ham instead.

Gotta watch that hidden ham.




This could have led to a long, extended rant about the fact that I also hide my share of ham (the performing variety this time) and, in turn, use my hammish nature to hide my true shyness whenever possible. It could have, but I've decided that I'm not in the mood now.

Bland ham on a pizza can do that to a person.

Besides, my two fans have heard variations on that theme often enough by now that I'm sure they can whistle the tune by heart. If you're missing reading the usual shyness blather, I strongly encourage you to write your own version. Feel free to e-mail it to me when you're done, and I promise it'll end up here on the blog with absolutely no credit given whatsoever.

Or something.

Honestly, I've lost all enthusiasm for this and anything else that might come out of the afternoon now.





Bland ham on a pizza can do that to a person. Did I mention?

----------

Just a reminder to the t.v. club that we've been preempted for baseball tonight, so there is no official wine gum requirement for Wednesday.

If you feel like bringing me wine gums anyway, you're always welcome to.

I'm good that way.

Pointless words of the day:

I'll try to keep this short because I've been up since the crack of you'vegottobekiddingme and I'm far less than functional in the brain department.

Yippee.

----------

I like this blog. Not a surprise, since I've been known to use nonce words now and then. I find it fun to see what other people are mucking about with as well when it comes to what some people would consider the total destruction (or at least deconstruction) of a perfectly respectable language.

My two fans already know that I don't agree with that particular tunnel-vision view of language. For the rest of you... well, I don't agree with that particular tunnel-vision view of language. Just for the record, you know.

Some of the most exciting periods in the history of English have been those where the writers weren't afraid to shoot the language through hoops Harlem Globetrotter style. Shakespeare, to use the easiest example (and, in fact, my only example today. Normally I'd come up with others, but I have the whole brain-problem thing going on at the moment) verbed his nouns without hesitation and rifled Latin and Greek for neologisms like a teenage boy leafing through his father's gun magazines looking for the hidden porn.

Or... erm... something. Thoughts aren't exactly connecting today, as you've no doubt noticed.

My point is that there have been periods in the life of the language where it was ok to play. People were inventive. Not all of the inventions worked, but the ones that didn't simply didn't last. I've said before that language is organic, and like other organisms it doesn't survive if it doesn't adapt. Constructs that screw up the evolution are cast off naturally.

In other words, they don't need language police.

I get a bit annoyed with pundits who look at language proscriptively, because to my mind they're so busy coming up with unnecessary rules that they're missing all of the fun that a language can provide. Language should be able to do tricks. Rules should be broken... maybe not all the time, although that does help prove that a rule really doesn't apply, but occasionally for effect. There's nothing wrong with it.

Right now the move to blogging and such has sent English into a period of instant invention. Words and usages spring up, become seemingly universal for a while, and then fade away again. The fuddyduddyish are probably looking at the whole thing like it's a disaster, but to me it's like watching evolution cranked up to eleven. I honestly have no idea what's going to come out of this age of instant self-publishing, but you can't deny that it has its excitement.

And did I already say that there's nothing wrong with it?

Oh, right. I did.




I'm thinking that this might be one of those days where a nap under the desk is in order. Any takers?

Yeah! Pick me! Pick me!

I can't even fathom how many times I'm going to have to edit this post just to get it to make some sense...

Bread

The pointless photo is, of course, not of bread. It's not much of anything, really, but since that fuzzy thing in the middle is likely going to be my last spider of the season I thought I'd may as well post it anyway.

We're going to be on to watches yet, you know.

----------

When I was a kid I really hated the fact that my mother always bought 60% whole wheat bread. I wished for white bread in all its gummy glory. It just didn't seem fair that while everyone else was jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge eating their peanut butter and jelly with lovely, soft white bread I was stuck with the grainy stuff. It could have something to do with the origins of my dislike of sandwiches, I suppose, but I'm not going to go quite that far.

I hated 60% whole wheat bread.

Now that I'm an adult I don't buy 60% whole wheat bread.






I don't buy white bread either, though.

I discovered something unexpected when I moved up to Edmonton to start university. I lived in rez my first year, and because rez students had to (HAD TO, yes) buy a university food services dining card I ate most of my meals in one or another of the campus cafeterias. I'm not going to say much about the food in general (maybe another time, because there are certainly things to say about the food in general), but as far as the bread went it became somewhat of an eye-opening experience. I had breads I never even knew existed before.

The green soda bread they made for St Patrick's Day was a particularly memorable experience, but the less said about that, the better (who the hell makes green soda bread?).

Green soda bread aside, the thing I learned from the various breads served in the cafeterias was that it wasn't the 60% whole wheat bread I disliked. Yeah, it surprised me too.

What I really hated was boring bread.

Having different kinds of bread available to me for the first time in my life showed me that there isn't much excuse for boring bread. The term white bread is used as an insult for a reason, after all. When there are so many ways to make bread interesting, why is it that so many intelligent people fall into the trap of the same old 60% whole wheat loaf over and over again?

Yes, before you say anything I do know that economics sometimes has more than a little to do with it.

Sad, that.

I'm the first to admit that I don't go through a lot of bread, but because of that I'm much more likely to give the more exotic styles a try. Well, exotic for a kid who grew up on 60% whole wheat, anyway. I tend to be a light rye bread fan these days, but I've been known to do black Russian on occasion. The closest I'll get to white bread is potato bread (the yeast kind, which I know purists will say isn't really potato bread) or oat bread, both of which have so much better texture than plain old wonder-what-that-famous-brand-might-be. My local corner grocery with its tiny hole-in-the-wall bakery makes really good multigrain bread, which ends up at my place fairly frequently...

I could go on, but it's easier just to say that I'm willing to try pretty much any kind of bread at least once.




Yep.

This post isn't leading to any kind of moral or anything, in case you were wondering. It's just that one of my father's neighbours brought over some home-baked buns yesterday, and I had one for breakfast this morning.

It was good.

And definitely not 60% whole wheat.






Ok, if this post does need a reason to exist, I'll just end by saying that if you're the white bread type you might want to shake things up now and then. It's not that you need to go completely crazy and exist on pumpernickel or anything like that. It's more that you'll never know what you might be missing if you never manage to get past the 60% whole wheat.

You know?

Yeah, whatever. I never said that I didn't suck at morals.

Pointless dragonfly of the day:

We haven't had one in a while.

I should warn you that we're getting into the season of recycled photos, or more accurately photos that have been sitting on the nerdstick for a while. It's getting too drab outside to be at all pointless photo inspiring, and I'm not desperate enough for new material yet that I've gone back to taking weird still lifes featuring my wristwatch.

It'll likely happen eventually.

Especially now that the previous series of watch photos is gone from the old blog. Some day I should really tell you what's up with the old blog. I do have a plan, you know.

Not an interesting plan, but a plan nonetheless.

----------

Sorry. I had to take a moment to sneeze.

That's been happening a lot lately, come to think of it. Yesterday I had a couple of sneezing fits that were bad enough to leave me feeling dizzy and headachey (one of which was at a restaurant, and I'm sure it was extremely pleasant for all of those in the immediate vicinity. I know it wasn't for me), and for no reason that I can discover. I haven't been feeling too badly (finally), and it's completely the wrong season for it to be allergy-related.

Unless I've developed a new allergy.






Great. I needed a new allergy. Now I'm all depressed just thinking about the possibility.

----------

I'd say at this point that I don't have anything today, but obviously if I'm still typing I must have something. I wonder what it might be?

Well, I suppose I could tell you that I slept until 6:30 this morning. That's big news for me, and the simple fact that it is big news leads me to a pretty particular source of frustration.

You see, for the past few years I've found myself incapable of sleeping in.

Big deal, right? Lots of people out there don't sleep in. My own mother was a morning person. I'm not, though.

Or I never used to be.

I used to be the type that (if I was off from work for any length of time, that is) would wake up at around ten in the morning but then be up until two. I loved it. Watching the late shows, staying up until all hours sketching or writing, baking cookies at midnight...

Yes, I've enjoyed my share of midnight baking. There's nothing wrong with that. And shut up, world.

All of that changed a while back when I had a pretty bad bout of insomnia. Regular readers (ha! My readers aren't regular) will know that I still go through periods of insomnia now and then, but this specific round of it was really hard to kick. I just couldn't manage to get more than a couple of hours of sleep a night despite all of the tricks they tell you to try. And believe me, I tried just about everything.

When things get that bad they either resolve themselves or you jump in front of a bus to resolve everything for good. The fact that I'm sitting here at the computer will likely show you that I didn't have to attempt the bus option.

Yeah, I thought that was a good thing too.

I started sleeping more, but I slept differently from the way I always had before. No more two in the morning for me, no sir. Ever since that bit of sleep weirdness I've found myself having to go to bed at ten or eleven, and I wake up at five.

Five.

Five freaking a.m. every damned day. Work or no work. Holiday or not.

I wake up at FIVE IN THE MORNING.

It sucks. I liked being a night owl. I miss it. Now, though, the only time I get to see those hours that I used to love is when I'm not sleeping at all.

Somehow it's just not as comforting to stay up late when you know that your brain's going to decide that it has to be up at five no matter what. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Ah well. Today it was 6:30, so I feel like I've had about three days' worth of sleep. I don't feel like that too often anymore, so I guess I should enjoy it while I can.

Maybe I should go take some pictures of my watch or something.




See you later, all.

Ich habe nichts

And no, I don't speak German. I just got tired of typing that phrase in English, that's all.

It's too much of a recurring theme around here.

I do have nothing, though. I've been a little wordy in the past couple of days (I really have no idea why), and I think that maybe my brain's wanting a break. My two fans know that I'm very bipolar when it comes to verbage (and yes, I do realise that verbage is a neologism and that the snootier fraction of my two fans won't be happy to see it here. Too bad. My house, my rules). Either the floodgates open and the nonsense comes pouring out to the point where it could knock down anything in its path, or I'm typing YET AGAIN that I've got nothing.

It wouldn't be so bad to have a middle ground, but apparently I'm too busy pushing that rock up the hill to notice if there even is any.

Ah well. There's a reason for the pointless in this blog's title.





I'm it.

And on that note... wait, no. Let's end on a nicer note. Or at least a more tuneful one.

Hey. You're one too.

No, not a hoverfly on a marigold. It'd be funny if you were a hoverfly on a marigold, though. Especially if you were a hoverfly reading a blog on a marigold.

Ok, so I mean it'd be funny to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be funny to you.

And shut up.

----------

The class I was teaching this morning happened to have three left-handed children in it (nearly 10% lefties. Interesting. Maybe we're finally taking over). I noticed.

At one point as I was printing something on the chalkboard I said I hoped that everyone could read my left-handed writing. More than one voice piped up with "I'm left-handed too."

We had something in common, you see.





And why is this important, Dee? Well, it isn't. It's just a fact.

I notice lefties. I've always been quick to notice lefties in groups or on television. I've also noticed that other lefties tend to notice lefties as well.

In other words, this isn't an OLF thing. It isn't just me (not that I'm the only OLF out there anyway... and didn't I already tell you to shut up?).

I was the only left-hander in my family. My extended family, even. My father's ambidextrous enough that you can understand where my left-handedness may have come from, but I was alone in being strongly left-handed.

I was the only left-hander in my elementary school class as well.

It's not a wonder, then, that a person would be quick to notice other left-handers when left-handers seemed to be a rarity. We all need to belong somehow, and to see that there were other lefties in the world made me a little bit less... well, let's be honest and say weird. I felt weird, being a left-handed child. Part of that, I think, is that I'm old enough to be in the first generation (around here, at least) that wasn't strongly encouraged to be right-handed. It may be that tying-the-left-hand-behind-the-back disappeared a while ago, but it hasn't really been all that long that children were allowed to choose their hand preference. There are a lot of not-so-very-old lefties out there who received little to no assistance when it came to being left-handed.

Me?

I was left to my leftiness, but I don't think my teachers really knew how to help me with it. How do you hold your pencil, or use your scissors? Sounds like a pretty brainless question, but if a child you're teaching does things backwards (and yet not really backwards. I don't write from right to left, after all. I can, but most people prefer to read things written in the normal direction) from the way you've been taught to do them, how do you deal with that? How do you teach the child to deal with that?

When I was in school, it was dealt with by hoping the child figured it out somehow.

I hope teachers have learned a bit more about it in the mumblemumble years since.

Left-handedness can be a bit like being in an odd little club. You face certain difficulties (which are NOT NEARLY AS BAD as the more militant among us might have you believe. Yes, it's a pain when the spout on a ladle faces the wrong direction. If you can't manage to handle that, then you're a moron maybe you should consider never leaving your house. I can't imagine what life in the real world must do to your psyche), and if you see another leftie you automatically know that they've faced the same difficulties.

It's an ice breaker, if nothing else.

Hey. I see you're one too.

In the case of my left-handed students today, I can't tell you if having a left-handed group leader made them feel more special. I can't tell you if they identified with me, or if they even really cared.

I can tell you that they noticed, however.





That's gotta count for something.

157 cm

This might be quick. I'm tired, and I seem to have pulled a muscle in my shoulder while table-wrestling this morning (read that as: trying to keep the improperly-stacked tables from killing me). Neither of the above makes me feel much like being witty, clever, &/or pointless.

Although... I can be pointless without feeling much like it. I'm just that good.

----------

Has anyone figured out what 157 cm has to do with anything yet? It's nothing about the pointless photo (which is, as advertised, pointless), if that's what you were thinking.

Any other guesses?

What if I said that 157 cm has a lot to do with pretty much everything in my life? Have you got it now?

Ok then, what if I tell you that it's a figure that you're likely to find somewhere in my purse, especially if I'm... oh, I don't know... let's say driving and make it completely obvious.




Please tell me I don't have to spell it out for you by also mentioning my weight and eye colour (which I haven't really ever identified anyway since it changes depending on the light. My eye colour, that is. Not my weight. That'd be a pretty neat trick, though).

Yep, 157 cm would be my height. A whopping 157 cm, give or take. For those of you not on the metric system you'll have to ask Google to translate because I'm not going to humour (with the extra u for emphasis, yes) your outmoded measurements in my current mood.

Something about being tired and achy makes me bitchy as well, I suppose.

Anyway. Height. Now that I've mentioned it, I guess I have to elaborate a little bit.

Have you ever considered how much your height affects your view? I imagine that it could literally (I've never been tall, so I don't know if tall people really do have a tendency to look down on people), but even if it doesn't it certainly changes how you operate within your world.

I'm short. I live an existence of step-stools. It's what I have to do, so I don't often think much about it when I'm in the middle of standing on tiptoe to get something down from a shelf, or (as happened this morning), reaching well above my head to write on a chalk board.

If you were to somehow suddenly add 20 cm to my height, I'd be completely disoriented. Things -- things in general -- would look wrong. I notice it on a small scale when I wear heels, but I can't really even imagine dealing with added height on a daily basis.

I don't wear heels on a daily basis, in case you wondered. They don't go so well with the whole nature thing. You tend to sink heel-first into the grass, and that defeats the whole purpose of using the silly impractcal footwear in the first place.

Erm... lost the thought there. Gimme a second.

Height. Right. I've been 157 cm since I was about 13 years old. I've gotten used to looking up peoples' nostrils.

If I starting seeing their bald spots instead I think I'd be a little uncomfortable.







I expect there are probably a lot more bald spots out there than I realise, come to think of it.





All right, that mental picture has completely preempted any chance of this becoming a serious post, so I'd better stop typing so all of you can go back to hiding your bald spots from me. We'll call it the Bald Spot Conspiracy: they're there, but you just can't see them.

If you're 157 cm tall, that is.

And I wish more of you would trim your nose hairs, to be honest.





Going now, yes.

I really have no idea

What kind of ladybird this is, I mean. I'll look it up in my ladybird book (yes, I have a ladybird book. And shut up, world. I'm a naturalist. I'm allowed to have a ladybird book) after I've posted this.

It looks pretty lonely, though. The ladybird. It wasn't lonely since the house was well decorated with them, but it looks it.

I also really have no idea what to post about today. I've had another one of those sleep-deprived nights, and while I managed to keep the energy level artificially up during my morning program, I seem to be sinking now. Quickly.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich? The whole tryptophan thing's a bit overblown, but if I can blame lunch for the fact that I'd like to do a faceplant on the desk and have a bit of a snore, then I'm all for it.






Sorry. I was just debating with myself as to whether anyone would notice if I did take a nap. It sounds awfully tempting.

It'll never happen, but it does sound tempting.

Anyway, I've pretty obviously got nothing. I suppose I'll just remind the t.v. club that even though it feels like Monday it's NOT, and that I bought the wine gums last week so it's not my turn tomorrow.





If anyone wants me, I'll be curled up in the corner over there.

Not even a topic

The fact that this is not cropped is not for the lack of motivation. No, sir. It's on purpose, even. You see, if I were to crop it, you wouldn't get the full impact of a bird in flight with apparently no wings, nor feet attached and looking completely fake.

It's just one of those shots that you don't know how it will look 'til you pitch it up on the screen. And as you can see it looks .. well, very odd, really.

Most things these days are looking a little on the odd side but I'm guessing that's the result of a gradual shortening of the daylight hours, Mother Nature thinking she's fooling us by easing into the darkness that is to become winter.

Mother Nature is a pain but there ya go; it's like Canadian weather, self-serving politicians and stupid drivers. Not a thing can be done.

And before I whine, I'll go eat my pie. I generally prefer cake, to be honest, but the pie is Smudgelette's creation. Clearly the domestic goddess gene skipped a generation. I'm thankful for that. Hey! I found something that came dangerously close to being a topic, considering the significance of the weekend and all.

I better scoot. Oh and it's apple, not even pumpkin. Phew!

Bonus pointless post of the day:

Yes, I see that the Toronto office beat me to it today, but since I likely won't be around the computer tomorrow (Thanksgiving, you know. And now you have something to be thankful for) and I didn't say much yesterday, I thought I'd better make an appearance.

The problem is, what to talk about.

Should we discuss the fact that my father had a couple of large trees removed from the back of the yard this week, and it'll be interesting to see what the added light and water does to the dynamics of the garden next year?

Hmmm. I think I just discussed that in one sentence.

That's no good.

Ok, what else?

Well, we could talk about the annual Bringing In Of The Fish. The fish were brought in yesterday, and as you can see they apparently don't care for flash photography.

The fish are getting fillet-worthy in size, you know. I wonder if koi is tasty?

Kidding. I wouldn't fillet the fish.

Hell, I wouldn't even touch the fish if it's at all avoidable.

This isn't much of a topic either, is it?






Seems we've got a puzzle on our hands, folks.

Oh, hey. That gives me an idea. Let's play Spot the Chickadee. All you have to do is spot the chickadee (thus the name of the game). Ready? Here we go:


Did you see it? Shall I make it easier?

In case you're wondering, the mountain ash tree doesn't naturally grow sunflowers. The sunflowers were, in fact, being knocked over by the tree guys, so the father figure thought he'd stick them in the mountain ash. The chickadees were pretty happy with this solution.

What they weren't happy with was the idiot standing there with the camera annoying them every time they came to visit the sunflower-bearing mountain ash.

Are you getting the feeling yet that I've got nothing but pointless photos today?

Yeah, me too. It gives me an excuse to end with yet another one, though. May as well use up all of my blog photo storage in one day. Chickadee action shot:



Later, all. And Happy Thanksgiving, too.

So pointless, it's ... well, pointless

We went to a Celtic festival a couple of weekends back and when I turned away from the action and toward the street .. ish ... there was this garden, you see.

Well, you do see because there's part of it off to your left.

And I liked the colours and I liked the flow.

And so you're stuck with pointless photography 2.1 as I have no clue at this moment what either of the live things are called.

This post brought to you by the letters L and H and the number 6.

Pointless photo of the day:

Busy at the moment.

Back later to post for real, maybe.

Pointless photo of the day:

I think we'll more or less skip the word portion today. Definitely not feeling well, and apparently pretty bitchy about it. And life in general.

Luckily, Wheat gave me a bitchiness pass.







Unluckily, I've already used it.

Guess that means I'll be keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the day. See you later, all.

Lunch

Lunch is a problem for me. I bring a bagged lunch nearly every damned day to work, and I really don't like bagged lunches all that much. I don't like cold sandwiches, I get tired of carrots (but that's what I buy because they keep well and travel well), and, no matter what the commercials tell you, there's only so much excitement a person can get from yoghurt.

I can usually get past the sandwich thing by making pitas or wraps (or going for cheese and crackers on my REALLY non-enthusiastic days), but every once in a while I find my limit there as well. Those are the mornings when I'll open the fridge to get started on the lunchification only to find myself staring at various fixings and thinking NO. No, I can't do this. Not again. Not today.

That's fun. I mean, I have enough trouble with breakfast. Not packing a lunch can be a problem, especially when there are days when I can't be sure I'll have time to leave the building to go and buy something.

Suddenly lunch becomes a granola bar. Mmm mmm good dissatisfying.

You've probably figured out by now that I couldn't make myself pack a lunch today.





Yep. Hit the wall. And then hit the road... down to the local pizza-by-the-slice place. Nothing says LUNCH!!! like heat-rack pizza, don't you think?

Well, ok, to be fair it's not really that bad. And I ended up going late enough (work kind of got in the way of my very important lunch schedule, and how dare it?) that I had to wait for the next pizza to come out of the oven rather than getting something that had been sitting and tanning for a while, so all in all it was reasonably edible.

Not as healthy as my usual, I suppose, but the usual is the usual for a reason. I'm allowed to be unusual now and again, I think.




Yeah, yeah, I know. Make your own joke here. I have to get back to work anyway.

Tiiired

Tired, and tired of being tired.

And my ankle hurts because I was traipsing through the forest with a Grade 6 class this morning and I accidentally sort of forgot that I should probably put my brace on before I do things like that.

And my feet are cold because my shoes are wet. My shoes are wet because we were out traipsing (weird word, that, so I thought I may just as well use it a second time. Emphasis, you know) through the forest when the frost was still in the process of melting.

Frost, yes.

I had to scrape my windshield this morning.

That sucks, don't you think?






The predicted high at the Toronto office is 26C today, if anyone wondered.

I, on the other hand, had to scrape my frigging windshield this morning. Did I mention the scraping of the windshield? Yes?

Did I mention the swelling of the fingers that occurs after the scraping of the windshield? How about the pain, or the fact that the reaction is always worse on the first few cold-ish days and that it, coupled with the fact that I'm still (!STILL!) not as well I'd like to be make me a lot of fun to be around and yet I had to go traipsing through the forest with a bunch of hormonal pre-teens who, as you might imagine, couldn't be bothered to dress for the weather and started whinging about it within about two minutes of actually being outside...

Um...?

Where exactly was that sentence going when it left home?

I can't remember now. I'm tired.

Not tired enough to be sleeping on a shuffleboard, but near as dammit. If any of my two fans think that they've seen today's pointless photo before, you're probably right. It's been hanging around on my nerdstick for a while now, and I couldn't remember if I'd ever used it.

Too tired to remember.

And my ankle hurts.



Did I mention?

You realise that most of this post could have been prevented if I'd only remembered to put on my gloves before I left home and put on my expletive brace before this morning's program, right?

Sometimes I'm such a five-year-old.

Good thing the blog isn't allergic to whinge, is all I can say.



Going now.

Pointless photo of the day:

Busy day today. I'm not going to have time to blog later.

The problem is that it's far too early in my day for me to have something to blog about yet.

I had something yesterday (sort of), but then these butterflies showed up unexpectedly and... and I'm so completely not going to whine about not having to post yesterday. I like not posting.

Kind of makes you wonder why I have a blog, doesn't it?

And here it is, Monday ... again ... already

So we're in the path of the southern-bound migration and what do I get? A photo of three when there were literally hundreds of the critters in the trees in the woods. The trick is to catch them when the sun decides to show itself jussssst so; otherwise, they just appear to be leaves having changed colour. And before you say anything (go ahead - say something - can't hear you anyhow) I'm not patient enough lately to wait for the sun to show itself at its own whim. I want things NOW. So YOU get three, yes.

Did I mention it's Monday? Today has become my come hell or high water the contents of my closets are going to be sorted and either tossed or put in their place day. Hey, wait. Wouldn't it be nice if all of life were like that - tossed or put in its place. But I dream.

Anyyyyway, since apparently I actually have to force myself into it, the closets have all been emptied and the mound placed on the love-seat behind me. Why, you may wonder. Even if you're not wondering, I have space to fill in this little box so you get an explanation: clutter drives me mad and if I pass the mound enough times, it will force me to actually do something about it. Sad, isn't it, when you have to trick yourself to act or be put in the corner for being naughty.

I wonder how long my Self would make me stand there. I'll let you know, if it comes to that.

Oh and the one label was chosen only to see if you ever pay attention to them.