February

2/26/98

It's a weird day in the military industrial entertainment complex that is America when I find myself rooting for Oprah. Her quote, after winning the crazy beef slander lawsuit was "My reaction is that free speech not only lives. It rocks."

2/25/98

Still writing... My house is falling into extreme disrepair and I feel a bit like one of those shut-ins who close up whole rooms of their house when they get too full of junk. Please come to my party to make sure I haven't gotten crushed by one of my own booby-traps or a falling pile of old Wired magazines.

2/24/98

Encyclopedia writing continues. I also made some cash [which was donated to The Foundry who I was representing in some capacity] yesterday giving a presentation on how to use the Internet for directors of volunteer organizations. Classic line of the day "oh you wanted a video display projector? I thought you wanted an overhead projector...". I was also asked what the e in email stood for. Being a presenter got me into the lunchtime burrito bar for free, but the whole event was somewhat of a hassle....

Not as much of a hassle, though, as trying to install a new modem which I have been engaged in hand-to-jumper combat with this week. If anyone has any useful strategies for getting a USR x2 modem to play nice with an HP scanner please let me know.

2/23/98

I have been busy this weekend writing articles for the Encyclopedia on Religion in American Politics. My articles are on, among other things, Sojourner Truth, Jim Jones, the Anti-Masonic Movement, Buddhism, theIllumniati Controversy and the religious rights of prisoners. The pay is fairly terrible, but the chance to influence a generation of encyclopedia is kinda cool. Kinda.

2/20/98

Saw The Tango Lesson tonight at the Crest. It was a kick ass movie, really wonderfully sensual, and lovely to look at. I went with a new friend of mine who I swap copious email with but rarely speak to. He doesn't read this journal but occasionally a woman he works with does and tells him about it. Or he is having me on.

Please come to my party.

2/18/98

Last night I fiddled around with images and webstuff with a friend of mine who is trying to reconceptualize time in a decimal framework: 100 unit days with 100 sub-units per unit. Apparently, the Chinese had thought of this a long time ago but it didn't catch on worldwide... This attempt will include more marketing and a possible wristwatch angle. You can see a prototype of how the thing will look.

This morning, I bleached out some more of my hair. If you are noticing parallels between my journal and Eric's journal, you are not alone.

2/16/98

2/14/98

I kicked off this holiday morning at 8 am with a date with the furnace repair guy. He's swell: comes when I call him, has a large variety of tools and boy can he make me hot! Yeah yeah, what really happened was I woke up at 8 to the Hounds of Hell howling in my ear [aka bad bushings on one of the furnace pumps]. I'm no genius about furnaces and I figured ours must be in a steel-reinforced room for a reason so I ran in, turned it off, ran back out and waited outside. Problem solved in under 3 hours and the Amalgamated Transit Union didn't even notice.

2/12/98

headline of the day:

Canadian vows to don gas mask near dope-smoking friends

2/11/98

Washed my hair today. This is noteworthy since I really only wash it a few times a year. For those of you recently joining us: I have dreadlocks and I am one of the dreads who believes you don't have to wash it. Doesn't smell, no bugs, stays looking fine, what else do you need? Today I washed it cuz I put henna in it and if you don't wash it out, your hair is green, not the desired red. Since I also have no shower here, washing my hair entails filling the tub up a bit and upending myself to slosh my hair around in the water. And buying shampoo. And letting it dry for nearly two days. So if you ever try to ask me to do something and I say "I've gotta wash my hair" it isn't a brush off.

2/10/98

It has been easier to keep up this journal lately. Perhaps my life is getting a wee bit more interesting. Yesterday I got up early to go to Sodo to help the Bungee Sexperience people update their web site. It's not done yet, but you can get the general idea. Then I opened the hall for the whirling dervishes and went off to a Board of Directors meeting where I volunteered to be on the recruitment comittee [or volunteered to be the committee, not sure which]. Do you also wish you were on a board of directors? Email me. Then I went to my local bar and rubbed shoulders with former members of Soundgarden. People make fun of Ballard, but all the rock stars are here. Then I got home, told the people playing music in my basement that I was going to sleep, and slept until the Rebekahs called.

It's not like anything in my life is so terribly interesting, but there are some good juxtapositions.

2/9/98

I bought beer for a minor yesterday. If you have ever had an axe to grind with me, you can now go turn me in.

Incidentally, this is not a minor I know or am planning to know. I would never mention this except for all the hysteria in the press lately.

2/7/98

Get out of your rut!!! Everyone feels the lure of the siren song of winter apathy. Today [at least in Seattle] the sun is out and the weather is balmy and there is [almost] no excuse for remaining indoors and/or doing that same thing you always do. I know that a rut is a tough thing to get out of but I have news for you: more coffee won't help! Here are some concrete suggestions for breaking out of the winter doldrums and into a more active approach to life. These may seem silly and/or too easy, but you'll be surprised how much difference doing one different thing can make. Trust me, I've been there.

1. sit the opposite direction in your bathtub. sit sideways even. if you are saying "I never take baths", take one.
2. go to a neighborhood you've never been to and eat somewhere that has a name you don't recognize. If you usually drive, go by bus.
3. buy a vegetable you've never had. i recommend jicamas as a good starter unfamiliar vegetable.
4. try to touch every baby you see. it's tougher than it looks.
5. play "locked out of the house" and stay out of your house for an arbitrarily determined [by roll of a single die] length of time. If you normally stay out, do this in reverse. If you don't have a die in your house, go out and buy some games fer chrissake.
6. take someone from off of your Acquaintances list and try to put them on your Friends list.
7. remove all numbers from your speed dialler and replace them with numbers that reflect your current calling habits.
8. pick a number from 1 to 1000. go to the library and take out a book that corresponds to that number in the dewey decimal system. This is easier at Seattle Public than at the UW.
9. paint something that doesn't need painting
10. find the thing in your closet you've worn least recently and put it on and leave the house in it.

2/5/98

My vacuum cleaner sucks by not sucking.

According to The Internet, vacuum cleaners used to be operated manually and it took two people, one to move the mouthpiece over the floor and another to operate the bellows. The dust just went into the air. Now, thanks to progress, my $500 Excalibur vacuum cleaner [the Odd Fellows paid for it, not me] gets hung up on lint. Here's what happened: the ceiling insulation guy came last week with a truck and a giant hose that went into our ceiling. It made a great rumbling and apparently was shooting space-age insulating schmutz into the crawl space. Now, nothing is perfect -- least of all machines -- and so instead of all the fuzz going into the ceiling, some of it floated, like a fine furze over every available surface of the hall. The Sufi fixit guy [whose name I can't spell] tried to do me a favor by vacuuming all this stuff up. What it wound up doing was backing up my whole vacuum hose so I had to run water through it and, yes, blow through it to disgorge foot-long cylinders of this alien crud lite. Bleah.

This concludes the household hattrick portion of this journal. Good night.

2/4/98

Today I finally got up the gumption to try out my new electric toothbrush. My dentist recommended it and also insinuated that I would have another root canal coming [or several] if I didn't get serious about oral hygeine. So, what better way for a gearhead like myself to get into toothbrushing than with another piece of equipment in my house that needs a charger [after my batteries, my dustbuster, my detail hand sander, my digital camera and my laptop]? So, my teeth are now clean and I can laugh about it, but here's how it went.

1st try: dampen brush, apply paste, turn on brush, paste goes flying everywhere, turn off brush

2nd try: consult manual, attempt to put pasted brush in mouth before turning on. turn brush on, brush hits teeth and makes head feel like it is vibrating quickly apart into its composite atoms

3rd try: consult manual, hold brush further from teeth, turn on brush, get some teeth brushed, brush hits resistance and stops brushing and begins to beep in pattern sounding suspiciously like self-destruct countdown, scaring cat.

4th try: move cat to living room, consult manual, replace brush in mouth, begin to brush, begin losing grip on slippery brush [even women's razors have grippers on them!] which falls into sink quivering madly in a puddle of vibrating spit

5th try: ignore manual, reassure cat, apply liberal amounts of duct tape, continue to brush, remember blonde joke about teeth chipping on vibrator, wonder if it is wise to have battery-powered appliance in my mouth, finish brushing, spit, rinse, smile!

2/3/98

2/1/98

Bingo Night! Here is an actual photo of tonights four-card bingo action. There were 30 people in the Odd Fellows Hall playing to win such [donated] prizes as: a chair, a chocolate bar, stuffed bears and a plant! Tensions ran high as Ken called numbers at a furious pace as we struggled to keep up. The food was good, too. Much thanks to everyone who showed up, I know it's got to be tough to get yourself out of the house on a Sunday evening for a quite-possibly-lame bingo game or two. I brought pierogies [sic?] which are now pretty much my favorite food. Next month, stay tuned for Odd Stock!