Beautiful People

I've been reflecting on how many lovely people I know. To all my friends: Thank you for your friendship! and patience! and encouragement!

This blog has been somewhat neglected of late.

We've been keeping up on World Cup soccer, and it's down to the final matches! Rooting for Italy, but that didn't last long. Cheering for the U.S. for a bit as well. Will it be Germany or Spain against the Netherlands? (you can tell we watch a re-casting of the game on the Mexican station...because otherwise I would know the result by now).

I've picked up another book, called Longing to Know. It's epistemology for regular people -- and I am a regular people. So far the chapters are only anticipatory. Haven't gotten into the real meat. I am reading it to catch up on the philosophy that I learned in college, and to address some basic struggles I've been having for the past year or so since graduation. Maybe more on that later. Maybe another post soon.

Teaching A Stone to Talk

I am reading a book by Annie Dillard called Teaching A Stone to Talk.

The title is catchy, and the book is catchy too.

She tells about various assorted Expeditions and Encounters:

There are some natives who live by the Amazon, who reportedly get up in the middle of the night, randomly. Since they are sleeping in the open, the cold wakes them up, and they shuffle off to the river to warm up. The river is apparently warmer than the air at night. Once they've warmed up, they go back to sleep.

As one might expect, there is a story about a man who is trying to teach a stone to talk. If you want to know what happens, you will have to read the book.

Dillard's writing is playful and imaginative. I like it because some of the most ordinary things are brought to life by the words she uses. I'm pretty sure she is a poet. I also can't help wondering about her worldview, which comes through very strongly in some places. There is sarcasm, and dark wit. One strategy she seems to like using is to juxtapose two threads; two stories are pulled into parallel, and compared on several points, until finally the two stories become one.

For instance, clowns leaping around on an Arctic iceberg. Strange. Very strange, but funny nonetheless.

Fluffy Fern

I finally broke down and bought a house plant. It's a cute little fern, and I hope it doesn't die.

$2.50 doesn't mean it will die...right?

It just needs a home. In a teal pot.

Living a Cartoon

Tonight I noticed as I prepared to brush my teeth that the toothpaste is oozing out the back of my tube of Arm 'n Hammer, Brilliant Sparkle.

There was this one-frame cartoon I saw a while back, where a husband and wife are standing next to each other. The wife is attempting to squeeze toothpaste onto her toothbrush. Her husband, standing near the non-cap end of her toothpaste tube, is covered in a mess of toothpaste that has splurted all over him.

The wife says, "Silly me, I forgot to remove the cap."

Funny Work Day

China forgot to put a certain lightbox on the last shipment to California. It's called an EdgeLyte Econo T5, and it missed the boat. Problem is, yesterday we got an order for one of them, but we are out of stock.

So this morning my job was to get the customer's modified order into production. They needed it this coming Monday, and the boxes take a couple days to build. The substitute is called a RigidLyte Performer Classic. In order to get it into production, I needed information from the shipping department. How much will it cost to ship (for Monday delivery) and will the customer approve the amount? This was my worry for the first few hours of my shift this morning.

Finally details fell into place. We had the customer's FedEx account number, so I could just skip that step that I was waiting on, and get the order going right away! Why hadn't I thought of that? So I charge the credit card, send the documents to production, and voila, the phone rings!

Here's the customer: Can we please cancel the order?

For some reason, not sure why, this struck me as awfully funny. I suppose it was just all my worrying, and hashing out details, suddenly lifted away. Will the shipment get there by Monday? Will it cost an arm and a leg? But the order is cancelled!

Nervous, giddy laugh.

I don't know what to say

Recently I was staring at my own blog page, wondering..."what to say?"

My brother, peeking over my shoulder, commented that "fresh start" is now "stale start."

Not sure I really know how to help it. I guess I always think blogging sounds fun, and I am delighted when I read blogs by other people. I like hearing about their lives, how they're doing, what they are thinking of, and so on. But when it comes down to it, to actually writing, I get stuck. I think that is what you call writer's block.

So here are a couple things that come to mind when I think, "what shall I put in my blog?"

1) I am waiting for my Mom to come home with pizza for dinner. That is quite ordinary and mostly boring. It only comes to mind because of my hungry tummy, telling me it wants pizza.

2) There is a container, what used to be a plastic salad container, outside my house which now is full of water. This spring some frog decided to make it a nursery for its little tadpoles. Exciting, right? But for a blog...I'm not so sure :)

There has been much advice written for those suffering from writers block. One old and moldy tip is: just start writing. Maybe it will work!

Fresh Start

well, this blog has been sitting untouched for a while. much has changed since then, so it feels better to just start from the beginning. whew. blogging is hard. we'll see how this goes.