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stones, prayers, stories
literaryquotes [ zigsternenstaub ] |
13th July, 2009. 11:51 pm. The Likeness, by Tana French More Tana French, since several of you expressed great appreciation for a quote from her first book, 'In the Woods.' 'The Likeness' uses some of the same characters as ItW, but is not a sequel. The writing, however, is just as magnificient. "I listened to the static echoing in my ears and thought of those herds of horses you get in the vast wild spaces of America and Australia, the ones running free, fighting off bobcats or dingoes and living lean on what they find, gold and tangled in the fierce sun. My friend Alan from when I was a kid, he worked on a ranch in Wyoming one year, on a J1 visa. He watched guys breaking those horses. He told me that every now and then there was one that couldn't be broken, one wild to the bone. Those horses fought the bridle and the fence till they were ripped up and streaming blood, till they smashed their legs or their necks to splinters, till they died of fighting to run." ~The Likeness, by Tana French Make Notes |
wyvren_song |
14th July, 2009. 12:17 am. More changes, more plans. . . I swear. I definitely WILL need that 1st week to rest when I am back at this rate. -_-; Ken stayed home the afternoon yesterday. In preparation of today, I took the dogs to Zhongshan park to scan for cameras and likely places that "Sonja got lost". Came home, had to deal with Mr. Ulrich on the phone (UHG!) and then I got an email from Clare (the woman from the agency handling Sonja's stuff). STUFF HAS CHANGED! AHG! Honestly though, in many way, especially for Sonja, this is better. They will pick her up on Thursday. They will take her right to customs, but they need my passport for this. Once she passes through, she will stay overnight and fly out on Friday. They still need to give me details yet though on when she will arrive in the US so I can let m'folks know. On Friday, after she has gotten on the flight and everything, they will give me back my passport. So what is happening is on Thursday, instead of me going straight to HK, will be going to my friends house now with BAGS and a DOG **groans**; hand Sonja and passport over to pet people; hide out at Phil's until Friday sometime. When the pet people come back with my passport, then I can go straight to HK. So until sometime on Friday afternoon, I am going to be hiding in Zhongshan and freaked out of my mind. The only thing I can think to do is at around 2-3ish on Thursday afternoon, get Snitch to call Ken and tell him she just took me to the airport and that I am on my way back to NY to be with my family; Phil and Sheena are going to act as if they had no idea I was leaving. So, like I said, this is a LOT better for Sonja. She only needs to go through roughly 2 days of stress, and then my family will take care of her until I arrive on Monday night, NY local time. On the other hand, this is a lot more juggling and stress and worrying on my end. I am still worried he will find SOME way to keep me from leaving the country if he finds out I am still in Zhongshan - but he can't right? There's no legal basis. . . I think? ~Shanny Current mood:  busy.Current music: RED. Make Notes |
politicartoons [ blueduck37 ] |
13th July, 2009. 11:47 pm. Markets are for commerce, not for public services.
Current mood:  sleepy.
Make Notes |
karnythia |
13th July, 2009. 10:28 pm. Pawn Stars may well be outside the limits of my love for the History channel. Maybe. Separately ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thewayoftheid and I need to raise some more cash in the next two weeks for WorldCon. Suggestions? I was thinking a writing contest with first prize being your story/poem featured on the site for a few weeks. Or is that not a good idea?
Current mood:  busy.
Make Notes |
polyamory [ daintynymph ] |
13th July, 2009. 10:36 pm. dilemmas of multiple loves ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) Current mood:  loved.
Make Notes |
landscape [ ekoh ] |
13th July, 2009. 9:21 pm. Glacier National Park @ 6646 ft ( +3 ) Read 1 Note -Make Notes |
semperfiona |
13th July, 2009. 9:50 pm. Ipodastrophe! For finishing out her school year with a solid month of good behavior, we rewarded Rosa with an Ipod. I received a new 8gb Nano as a service award from $COMPANY, and my old 2gb Nano went to her. She has enjoyed the heck out of it. This morning she left for a few days in Kansas City with Grandma, so yesterday I loaded up some new music for her and charged it up. She took it upstairs with her to listen while collecting her bits-n-bobs for the trip while I putzed around the internet. Suddenly, a distressed child appeared. "I dropped my ipod down the bed!" Befuddled mama is befuddled. Child explains that she had set it on one of the bedposts while doing whatever she was doing, and next thing she knew it had fallen into the hollow bedpost. (One should explain. She has a set of metal-framed bunkbeds which have for the last while been standing side by side instead of stacked. One of the post-connectors failed to come out right, so the post cover couldn't be placed on it. It's an open-mouthed metal tube.) Mommy to the rescue. I went upstairs with the thought that I'd just lift the bed up and take the bottom cover off the bedpost and get the ipod out that way. Unfortunately, that end turned out to be sealed. New plan: turn the bed upside down and dump it out. It was a good plan. We moved the mattress off, moved a half-dozen pillows and stuffies out of the way, moved the Barbie Dream House across the room, and levered the frame upside down. Noises of small object sliding down metal tube ensued. But the ipod did not come out. Puzzlement. Climb down on the floor under the half-supported upside-down bed frame. Discover that looking up a sealed black metal tube for anything, even a white ipod, is futile. Send the child for a flashlight. Aha! The way the bed is constructed, the large tube that forms the post has holes in it, through which pass the headboard tubes, and they cross nearly all the way to the other side. The ipod has got itself wedged between the end of a headboard tube and the side of the post tube. Rosa offered me a twistie-tie that happened to be lying around. Not nearly long enough. I pondered for a moment and requested a wire hanger. Bend, twist, poke poke, success! Little girl can go off on the train to her own choice of music. What Grandma will think of Voltaire remains to be seen. Make Notes |
cross_stitch [ meta4life ] |
13th July, 2009. 7:38 pm. ...that the season of giving be yours...* Or at least, so your inheritors know what to do with it when you can't, anymore. I've recently had occasion to sort through the bulk of a local needle-worker's estate. Well, at least the part of it that was what we would now call her "stash." What I'm finding delights me and saddens me by turns. I'm of course delighted to find patterns and materials and magazines and all the other errata that go along with our beloved hobby, stuff I had no idea ever existed and stuff to pass on to friends who knit, crochet, and do other kinds of crafting I don't. What saddens me is the sheer volume of projects she hadn't finished before she grew too feeble to run her own life anymore. It was left to her daughter and the estate handlers they hired to parcel out what was left of this woman's life. They weren't needle-workers, they didn't know what they were handling as they sorted and priced this stuff. Begun and/or half-finished projects were sorted out without patterns, flosses, or yarns attached. It's very much like finding an old chest of love letters in the attic of the house you just moved into. You don't know who wrote them, or the recipient, but they're so beautiful you just can't bear to throw them away.... I've now a small library of unfinished needlepoint, bargello, hardanger, blackwork, and cross stitch projects. I may someday find the charts for some of these, as I sort through the rest of this stuff... and my heart desperately wants to finish these in gratitude and admiration, but I know I'm fighting for time to finish my own projects. I don't know how I'd ever get to hers! All this is mostly preamble to the real point I wanted to make. Lots of us here are "serial starters" and I'll bet every one of us has ditched a project in mid-stitch and put it away as a "UFO." That's fine, it's human nature, we all do it. But for posterity's sake... or for your kids' sakes, or your spouse, or friends -- whoever is going to have to go through your stuff later if something happens to you! -- take time SOON to organize your projects. Put the charts WITH the pieces if you can, or at least copies. Sorted flosses would be even better, if you have them available. Label them clearly -- and talk to those closest to you and TELL THEM PLAINLY what you want done with your stash and your projects if something should happen to you. I know this is kinda morbid, and I don't really mean it to be. I guess I've been so close to tears so many times lately over this subject that I can't help but be a little morbid as I pass these thoughts along. I've seen your stitching, those of you who've posted -- your stitching legacies deserve better treatment than the one the woman got whose stuff I'm currently sorting through. Food for thought. . . *- From Gibran's The Prophet, the section on Giving. The full verse says: All that you have shall someday be given; Read 1 Note -Make Notes |
sf_drama [ owl_eyes_4ever ] |
13th July, 2009. 7:48 pm. chillaxinate maaaan - a small stupid ( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. ) Read 39 Notes -Make Notes |
sambear |
13th July, 2009. 11:00 pm. Is Twitter for old farts? Originally published at SambearPoet's Rambling + Podcast. You can comment here or there.
I suspect that Twitter is more for old farts than anyone else. I recently had the opportunity to meet about 80 newly minted college grads. These folks were close to the top of their class, and in the process of interviewing them about their IT needs, the session leader asked them about Facebook and Twitter. Apparently everyone in the audience "had a Facebook" in the parlance that was used, but when they were asked about Twitter, there was a lot of groaning and grimacing. I was quite amazed to see such a negative reaction. My expectation after listening to podcasts and reading LiveJournal was that nearly everybody loved Twitter, but apparently not among successful college graduates with Bachelors of Arts and Science degrees here in Georgia. Now I realize that Clay Shirky says that social innovation can only take place on technology that is so commonplace that it's boring. These days, that means blogs, email, forums, and the like. Getting into Facebook and Twitter is still such a weird thing for a lot of people. My mom's on Facebook, though. And, I wonder, how many of these students' parents are on Twitter? Older, hipper brothers and sisters? Of course, I realize that I am in the heart of Atlanta. So maybe this is just an East Coast - West Coast thing. I'm really sorry that this group of bright people have seemed to completely reject Twitter and I wonder what it is that drives them away. Perhaps it is that Britney, Oprah, and Fitty have arrived there before them? Perhaps they're just tired of hearing about it and they've never actually given it a try. I had a conversation with one of them, where they were talking about why they couldn't understand Twitter, couldn't get why people would want to talk about their lives 140 characters at a time. I asked her if she ever updated her status on Facebook, and she said, "Yeah, all the time. But that's different." There's no difference, really, between the two. In fact, the TweetDeck program allows one to post directly to both at the same time. I'm wondering now if we'll even have a Twitter this time next year. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll keep up my Friendfeed, my Tumblog, my Twitter, my Facebook, Goodreads and everything else. I love this stuff - don't plan to stop any time now. I'm sambearpoet most everywhere, if you want to follow / read me Read 1 Note -Make Notes |
