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August 17, 2003 Stuff and Miscellany First off, let me say "thanks" to all the folks who sent me an e-mail regarding my last entry. As you will read shortly, I have been legitimately delayed in responding to you. But I will! Suffice to say, Calvin and I have had several additional discussions, which may or may not have settled matters and opinions between us. Let's just say we've agreed to disagree, and leave it at that. Heh. The hard drive in our bedroom computer shit the bed (quaint expression, no?) on Friday night, which gave Calvin ample opportunity to thoroughly impress me with the sheer lack of anything that he doesn't know how to do. One hour after confirming that it was indeed the hard drive (which has really been threatening to go for the past few months), we were back up and running. Of course, I had to search high and low for all of the software disks to re-load (a co-worker has my Quicken, I recalled after a half-hour of searching, and my brother-in-law has my Office Suite CD). And I've mis-placed my CuteFTP serial number, so I may have to re-purchase it. And the sound drivers that worked when we had Windows 98 apparently don't work with the Windows 2000 OS that Calvin loaded. So no Kazaa for me, and I had to lug my old CD player out to have tunes in the bedroom. Well, I guess I could listen to the cable music stations, but sometimes I like to be in control of what I listen to. Our losses are pretty minimal - all of my website stuff is of course backed up over at Dreamhost (I am a Happy Dreamhost Customer!), all of the Hawaii pics and short movies are still on the disks, and I'd just done a backup CD about three months ago that grabbed most of the other stuff. Really, I can't think of too much I'll miss except for the HUNDREDS of songs I'd downloaded from Kazaa. I guess I should be grateful that The Man has nothing to bust me on, should the SWAT team hut-hut-hut into my house looking for illegal downloads. Plus, I'd moved all of the archived e-mails from my Hotmail account onto my hard drive, so I guess all the original e-mails back when I first started the website are gone. Which makes me kind of sad - it's fun to go back and read the first messages back and forth between me and Jill (poor thing, I used to torture her with the STUPIDEST HTML questions), Dawn, Shelley, Sarah, Anna, and oh, a whole slew of others. Shit. I just realized that I'll have to re-do the half-written Maui entry I'd been working on. Part three. Fuck a duck. It is just so pathetic how completely my life is tied to the computer. I was even completely geeked a week ago when I got my work laptop hooked up with wireless networking. I mean, should I be happy that I can sit in a conference room or in the cafeteria and still be able to answer my e-mail? Should it thrill me that I can be participating in a meeting, simultaneously putting together a flow diagram and putting out a capacity planning fire over e-mail? There is something seriously wrong with me. On a better note, though, I can surf the web while I'm in the process of being stood up for a meeting in the cafeteria. Like that doesn't happen to me about six times a week. Here's something strange. Today would have been my twelfth wedding anniversary with my ex. Brrrrrr. Twelve years with that guy? There's no way I could have done it. The proof of which would be that I did, indeed, divorce him after six. Speaking of sucky anniversaries, tomorrow is the second anniversary of my dearest Grammy's passing. That anniversary is in a whole different league than the aforementioned. I was looking at some of her pictures today, and that awful hollow feeling is still there, in the pit of my stomach. I hate that she's gone. And I hate that my stupid fucking poor excuse for a human "Uncle" still isn't parting with any of her paintings. She started taking oil painting lessons when I was little, and by the time I moved out she'd painted dozens. Including two of Tom Selleck - and she hung the life-sized headshot she did of him, with him holding a gun, RIGHT over her bed. She cracks my shit up. There are a few in particular that I specifically want, though. The one of the little boy with the torn hat, sunlight coming through to highlight his face. The mare and foal, and the purple lilies. One landscape of a stream wandering through a woods scene, the leaves bright green as if it's spring, and glinting with sunlit dew. I don't know what his basic bother is, but he just won't part with any of them. And my sister says that he's given a couple away to non-family members. Practically strangers! I don't know what's wrong with that man. I have a letter I want to send him. And I've sat on it. And I don't know why. He's been the family patriarch my whole life, he's a barely functioning alcoholic, I completely question how he handled my Grandmother's illness and subsequent hospitalization, and yet still I don't want to cross paths with him. And if there's anyone who deserves crossed paths, it's him. Some day, I will stop being a chicken shit and make myself proud. You know? That's my goal for this week. By the end of this week, I will be able to look myself in the mirror (and also tell you all that I did it), and feel much less of a coward. Tonight Marie and I saw Calvin off to the airport once again, for his week-long stay in Chicago. Then we went to see Bad Boys II (can I just say, Will Smith has come SUCH a long way since Fresh Prince?), and finished up with dinner at The Olive Garden. Where the pre-twenty year old host flirted with me and asked my age. "29." "Really? I would have said fifteen." Marie practically lost it. We got dessert, which is what we do when it's just the two of us going out to dinner. She got the white chocolate raspberry swirl cheesecake, and I got the chocolate lasagna. I took a bite of mine, and practically crossed my eyes. She took a bite of hers, and rolled her eyes dramatically. I took a bite of hers. She took a bite of mine. I declared, "Oh, my God. This is so damn good. I just HAVE to hug somebody." As it happened, the waitress came by at that moment to ask how we liked everything. I said, "I'm sorry, I just have to hug you." She laughed and stuck her arms out, and I gave her a chocolate-induced display, right in the middle of the restaurant. Marie was hysterical, and said, "I didn't think you were serious." Oh, but I was. It was that good. Right now she's upstairs listening to oldies music. Patsy Clyne (sp?). Frankie Avalon. Judy Garland. The Everly Brothers. The Righteous Brothers. Etta James. What other almost-fifteen year old do you know that does this? I ask you. This week I have an entrance exam to prep for going back to school - I'm going from a business degree to a technical degree, and switching schools. So I have to go through the whole damned testing thing again, which I hate. Marie's school open house is Monday night, and I'll be meeting all of her teachers. Calvin told me to take pictures of the hot ones - she's got all female teachers this year. Lilly's very close to her due date - within the next few weeks. After the baby is born (and at the moment, they're naming him after Daddy - and insist that they're not changing their minds again!), she and Michael will be coming out for a week or so. I'm planning on throwing a post-baby shower for her, and inviting all the girl relatives and my girlfriends from work. So! Nobody that she knows will be at her own shower, except for me and Marie. Fun times! Poor thing. We all can't wait to see them, though. We're suffering from this strange shifted relationship, which went from living in each other's pockets, to hearing from them sporadically. We e-mail quite a bit, though - still, it's not the same as hearing voices and seeing faces. Looks like Dad and Laura are going to have to pony up a digital camera if we want to keep up on baby happenings! Okay, I think I'm going to wrap this puppy up and hit the sack. I'm going to give myself hell if I don't get up EVERY MORNING this week and work out before work. Swear.

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2003.