Well, my favorite month of the year is over. I love October more than April (the month of my birthday) and WAY more than December with all its Xmas madness. When October is over, however, I’m grateful.
That’s what I get for celebrating a one-day holiday all month long.
My entry about writing with a pencil was quoted in the Erie Times:
They were nice enough to include the URL to my blog (if not a link). Thanks, Luka!
To read my full thoughts about thinking and pencils, read here:
I thought I might be showing up as the number one search for the phrase “No. 2 Pencil,” but I’m hidden all the way on page three. Thanks for noticing me, Luka!
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This entry from Wil Wheaton got me thinking.
“This was my first CD,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “You tell me that every time we hear a song from it.”
“And one day, you’ll hear it, and I won’t be here for some reason or another, and you’ll wish I was here to tell you.”
![The Hurting [UK Bonus Tracks] at Amazon.com](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rGlCIYy5L._AA240_.jpg "The Hurting [UK Bonus Tracks] at Amazon.com")
Mike and I don’t do too much explaining our previous selves. We’ve known each other since third grade. When we bought our first CD players, we were buddies. He got his first, but I wasn’t too far behind him. I don’t need to tell him that the first two CDs I bought were Tears for Fears’ The Hurting and The Book of Love’s self-titled album. He already knows. He was there.
I got the CD player for $99 at K-Mart on sale. I put it in layaway and it took me a month to pay it off. In the meantime, I bought my two CDs and waited to be able to play them on that slim CD player. I ended up giving that CD player to Dylan and Joan. They didn’t have one and he kept protesting that he wasn’t going to buy one, so I forced him to upgrade.
We hardly ever reminisce, Mike and I. Maybe I should start just reminiscing whenever I hear a song from The Hurting just to open the conversation about our shared history.
I couldn’t get into Buffy, but I LOVED Firefly. Joss Whedon just announced that Fox has given him the go ahead for seven episodes for a series. Not just a pilot, seven episodes.
Fanboys freak out now…
Via: Unshelved blog
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This postcard from PostSecret made me really sad and I thought I would write about it a little bit.
The last time we played pinochle, I won. It was the first time in years that I won and should have been an indication to me at how sick you were. I took the deck of cards from your house after you died. It was the only time I remember truly winning on my own.
I didn’t even consider letting you win. I wish I had.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
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Last month, with all the Halloween fun, I forgot to post about Night Flight Comics’ event, 24 Hour Comics Day. Jason Alderman, one of our CodeAway buddies, participated in the event and we were able to snap a few shots while he was there.
Sponsored by Night Flight in Salt Lake City, Utah. 15 participants strive to create an entire comic in 24 hours. We dropped Jason off at 10 am on 10-20-07 and picked him up at 10 am on 10-21-07. Are no sleep and lots of camaraderie conducive to creating a good comic?
You can see more here:
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The Ancient Ones used to sit on a scale on the the bureau in the foyer of my grandparent’s house. Grandma had it set so the woman outweighed the man. I never thought about that until I just wrote that sentence. Considering how many years she had to fend for herself and the men in her life let her down, it makes sense that she would consider the woman to be more important.
The Ancient Ones were incredibly important to my grandma and because of that, they became important to me as well. I suffer nagging guilt knowing that I am personally responsible for breaking the woman figurine three times. I know Stacey, my sister, broke one as well. I remember Grandma bending over the woman figurine with Superglue many times.
After Grandma died, Grandpa moved the scale to the piano, but it sat there empty and weighing only dust.
I didn’t get a good picture of the last remaining Ancient One. I snapped a photo of needlework that my grandma had created. It hung on the wall in the living room, 
and to the left of the needlework, there was a wall sconce. On it, sat the last remaining Ancient One. Just like my grandfather left alone after my grandma died, this half of a matched pair sat alone in the house in Billings. I only noticed him in the photo when I was home and transferring the pictures from my camera to the computer. I wish I had realized he was there when I was in Billings. I would have taken a better picture.
It kills me that I have no control over who will get the last Ancient One. It even scares me that he might end up in an estate sale. Since I have absolutely no say in what goes where, I am aching to know that he might be lost forever and I didn’t even get a good picture of him.
While I was writing the eulogy and preparing the photographs for the board at the funeral home, Stacey and my Uncle Danny slaved away cleaning my grandpa’s house. When Stacey cleaned out the basement, she found my grandma’s stash of McCall’s craft magazines and yarn patterns. I rescued them from the garbage bin and took them home to Salt Lake City. I looked through them last month and mixed in with them was this catalog from Home Interiors and Gift. It’s dated 1962, but amazingly, the company is still in business today.
On page 12, I sat on my couch amazed. Here is what I saw:
The ceramic pair are labeled “The Ancient Ones.” For less than five dollars a pair, my grandmother, bought The Ancient Ones from an interior decorating company that sold their products like Tupperware to women in the sixties.
It’s so strange to see what I consider a family heirloom in a catalog. It feels so very precious to me, yet back in 1962, you could just order as many of them as you wanted. In fact, my grandma must have ordered several sets because I KNOW I broke one beyond repair. My grandma was an antique collector, so I guess in my childish mind, I assumed EVERYTHING she owned was an antique. I guess not. Some of it was just tchotchke.
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Post an entry every day for a month? Heck, that’s not NaBloPoMo. That’s my life.
I have to admit that NaNoWriMo really ruined me for writing fiction for over a year, so I’ll probably never participate in that again. This, however, is what I do anyway.
In fact, I do this for several weblogs, it’s just that I get to write about whatever I want here, so I like it better than all the others.
Wanna come along? Click on the kitty…
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I love the feel of my MacBook keyboard. It’s quiet and feels so good to my fingers. I searched for years for keyboards like this for my PC. It’s just one of those details that Apple pays attention to that regular PC makers don’t. They just slap on any OEM market keyboard that’s cheapest because they know I’m going to replace it anyway. I wouldn’t HAVE to replace it if they hadn’t chosen the cheapest instead of the best. I’m still angry at PC manufacturers, apparently.
When we went off Daylight Savings last Sunday, my computer automatically adjusted itself. It didn’t ask me if it was alright and it didn’t pop up a window announcing what it had done. It just moved the time back one hour. As a former PC owner, I feel conflicted. I don’t like my computer to do things like change the time because I have never once trusted a computer to do anything right.
iPhoto is a really snazzy program that will just easily download your photos from your camera to your computer. You can do all sorts of great organizational things with the photos and name them. It’s still not as good as Flickr, but it’s getting there. The only problem is, I don’t trust it. Just like I don’t trust the time, I want to download my photos into a special folder and name the folder with the “event” name and date. I don’t want the computer to do it for me automatically because if I had trusted the PC to do that for me, I would have no pictures to show for the last few years. I developed habits to organize my photos for myself and now that I have software that can do it for me, I’m uncomfortable with it.
Well, that and the fact that iPhoto becomes unstable when you use it for the number of photos I have on the hard drive. And the fact that it stores TWO copies of every photo for me just in case I screw up. I’ve worked hard on habits to make sure that I don’t just save over my photos accidentally. I don’t NEED my software to make a backup copy. I do it myself and I trust my systems more than software.
I had to learn new keystrokes for cut, copy and paste because Apple exchanged the Control button for the Apple button. I don’t know who came first on those keystrokes, but it was the only irritating thing I had to learn in order to get used to the Mac. Now, when I switch back to the PC, I push the wrong keys.
The switch to Mac was far easier than I expected and easier than Mike expected. He thought he was going to have to talk me down over and over again, but I just learned the new keystrokes, refused to trust the software and moved on. Maybe someday, I will learn how to love iPhoto and trust it with my camera snaps, but until then, I’m a sort of PC/Mac hybrid. Enjoy the Mac, but trust it like a PC.
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A friend of mine asked me some questions about social networking sites. He wanted to know about validation:
I was eager to respond and after writing a huge email, I realized that I have been thinking about these sites for a long time. Here is my response:
I have an account on LinkedIn, FaceBook and MySpace. You didn’t include these, but I also consider them social networks and have accounts with them as well: LiveJournal, Flickr, Twitter, Classmates.com and Runner+.
I don’t believe there is much validation of who each person is. I know that FaceBook will delete people who obviously are not real, like they did with Jonathan Swift. I have never had any of them actually call me to verify that I’m an actual human being instead of a spam account. So many of the accounts are of the “spicychica2” variety that validation would be impossible.
I was able to sign up for all of those accounts on my own without an invitation. It seems that the sites that are invitation only are in the growing stages and they dole out invitations to prevent their servers from being overloaded.
If you are obviously just spamming, then your account will be deleted. Sites like MySpace and LiveJournal have a way to flag users as spammers if you get email from an offender.
Reputation is a funny thing. It seems that the young folks don’t care. I’ve seen them set up accounts, write tons of content and then just abandon the account with no remorse. Me? EVERYTHING I do is in my full name. I NEVER use a pseudonym, so the concept of setting up an anonymous account and abandoning it is foreign to me.
On LinkedIn, it seems that being a “friend whore” is looked down upon in some circles and seen as a badge of honor in others.
All of these social networking sites are missing a key factor. They treat all friends with the same weight. There are many people that I’ll call friends, but only a few I would tell personal secrets to and even fewer I would fully trust. This trust thing isn’t digital. It’s almost infinite in the differences and changes on a daily basis depending on how we interact with each other. It’s not an on/off type of thing, and that’s what a lot of these sites are missing.
My best advice to you is to set up an account in each network and play with them for a while. They are each quite different. Personally, I’m sick of them all. What’s the point of a social network if it isn’t focused around something that you do together. That’s why I am perfectly willing to edit my profile and gather friends on Runner+ or Flickr because we have a common love (running or photography). Sites like MySpace and FaceBook really haven’t been very useful to me and I just use them to point at my REAL blogs.
Here are some links to some people who have specialized in various social networks. Lindsey Pollak is a great person to talk to about FaceBook. She wrote a book about getting jobs after college and is an expert on Gen Y. Jason Alba is the person to talk to about LinkedIn. He just wrote a book about LinkedIn and how to use it for your career.
Wow, I didn’t realize that I had this many thoughts about social networking sites. I think I’ll post this on my blog.
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Moby is cool, but he just raised his coolness quotient:
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short. the music is free as long as it’s being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short. if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.
I have one question. If it’s free to use in your film, is it free for me to just download and listen to on my iPod?
This V for Vendetta stencil has shown up all over Sugarhouse. This is the one in front of the post office. A two-color stencil with the word “Remember” is painted on the boarding covering the windows of the old Sugarhouse Coffee building. The building is scheduled for demolition and Sugarhouse Coffee has moved down the street to another location, but it hasn’t recovered. It makes me sad to see it all boarded up.
I think I’ll go take pictures of it tomorrow.
I never even liked Sugarhouse Coffee. They were mean to me almost every time I went there. Their wireless was unreliable and their service was surly. Why am I so sad that they’re gone?
I guess I miss the scene. The place was always packed with pierced youth. They reminded me of myself when I was younger and it felt good to see them all together, talking and learning how to smoke. I didn’t want to participate, but I liked seeing them there.
I wonder where all those kids have gone…
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V for Vendetta is a primary theme for the building in Sugarhouse that has been boarded up and awaiting demolition. Where Sugarhouse Coffee, Pib’s Exchange, Orion Music and Artopia used to be, there are just boarded up windows. I took a walk yesterday and snapped a bunch of photos of the graffiti there. You can see all of the photos here.
I had no idea that I would be nostalgic from just a few months ago. Back in July of 2006, I filmed a walking video for Starling Fitness. It shows the Sugarhouse area in its prime. You can see a clip here:
Unfortunately, the most exciting parts of this area were most vibrant at night, when it’s MUCH harder to film, so you can’t see the huge crowds of kids hanging out in the area. It was just the early morning crowd that day, but you can see it all in full detail.
I still sell these DVDs, so if you are missing Sugarhouse or feeling nostalgic, you can buy one for five bucks here:
Two years ago is too short to feel nostalgic about and I feel a little like when KCGL went out of business. It’s like we have lost something cool and eclectic. I’m sure it will regrow somewhere else, but until then, we’re sad.
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Here is my new mascot, courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger:
Sometimes people ask me why my weblog is named Pick Me!
When I started my blog, I knew that there were lots of blogs out there and I imagined a huge list of them. I wanted people to read mine, so I decided to name it “Pick Me!” so people would read mine.
Back then, the top Google search for the phrase “Pick Me” was for a online dating service, but four years later, I’m on the top of Google for that phrase.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you a story about the girl in the header.
This is the original header for Pick Me! The current header is just a squashed version of it. I found it in a royalty-free collection of old illustrations. When I saw this drawing, I imagined myself as the little girl raising her hand.
I imagined the bored boy at the right to be Real Live Preacher. He was the first blog I ever read. He is an old pro at this blogging thing and I thought of him as a little bored with it all.
That boy in the red sweater is Hugh Elliott. He wrote a blog named Standing Room Only. He doesn’t write there anymore. Now he writes Bible Versus. He was the second blog I found, courtesy of Real Live Preacher.
I have no idea who the girl in the yellow dress is. I kind of feel like she represents the adoration that I want to achieve. She looks like she’s my one fan. Everybody has one fan. When I’m writing, I think about her most of all.
I wouldn’t be blogging if it hadn’t been for Real Live Preacher and Hugh Elliott. Thanks, guys!
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It’s November 15th and I already have six entries for next year’s Halloween. All throughout the year, I collect Halloween articles and post them in October. That’s great for me because during my busiest month of the year, I end up having to write less because I already have a huge list of entries just waiting. This is the first year where I have six entries written before I’m finished with November.
I’m beginning to think that I might be a little crazy.
This is also the first year where I have no idea what I’m going to be for next year’s Halloween before Thanksgiving. I am purposely putting off the costume decision. I’ll probably decide in January or maybe February. All last year, I was planning on being Rogue, but it was going to be yet ANOTHER costume I would have had to explain all night long, so I opted for the easy way out: Mrs. Incredible.
Maybe next year I’ll be the girl in the pink wig or something simple like that.
Nah…
Here’s a collection of the costumes from the last few years:
I never had to explain that I was Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
Vampire is another costume that just doesn’t need explaining.
Tippi Heddren from The Birds, however, was a never-ending barrage of “What are you?” all night long. I even had the movie playing on the television and people kept asking me what I was.
I didn’t expect anyone to know that I was “The Homecoming Queen Has Got A Gun.” They just kept calling me a dead prom queen. The gory head wound was enough for everyone.
No one asked me what I was this year. It was a refreshing change.
If you’re going to dress up like a Star Trek character, you better go with Original Series. Deep Space Nine and Trills was just too much of a stretch.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jedzia Dax.”
“…”
Despite her popularity, Mother Nature is another costume where everyone asks, “What are you?”
I wish I had photos from parties before then, but this as far back as it goes…
My life has gone all pear-shaped lately. Too much stuff to talk about and I don’t even think I can talk about it here.
“Oh by the way, I told the entire Internet about this…”
“Thanks, that’s just what I needed a little privacy…”
Yeah, so all I can think about is that and I’m spending far too much time in Merriton right now. If you haven’t been reading there, you really should. I have 2007 in the box and a book ready to release in a couple of weeks, so get caught up and keep reading.
Funny how much easier it is to lose myself in my imaginary world when the real world is so painful right now.
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My photo of Linda with the kitty litter on her nose showed up on this website:
This is what they did to her:
After having to have her put to sleep back in September, I’m still a little touchy about it. I left his comment on the site:
Actually, Linda died of kidney failure.
Funny thing is, the person who made this didn’t notice that Linda had a piece of kitty litter stuck to her nose.
There was so much more potential for funny and it was just lost on this one…
Since they didn’t ask permission to use my picture AND they made a joke about her being sick, I’m trying really hard not to be bugged by this.
I’m reluctant to see what kind of LOL they’ll give her with this photo…
I’ve received a lot of joy from LOLCats. I realize LOLSecretz is a different website than LOLCats, but they used the LOLCatBuilder to put it there. I never uploaded Linda’s picture to their website and it is freakin’ impossible to find it in their collection. Do I call our lawyer to have them remove it?
My daily dose of funny cats has kept me happy despite this hell of a year.
I’m trying really hard not to be bugged by this…
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I thought it was just Utah, you know? I thought that all those billboards all over the city telling people to spend a boatload of money on their wedding was a Utah thing.
Apparently not.
According to One Perfect Day by Rebecca Mead, the wedding industry has grown to be a 161 Billion dollar industry.
That’s $161,000,000,000 for people like me who have a hard time imagining what one billion is, much less 161 of them.
I feel guilty for blaming the Mormons for all of this. I thought that it was a conspicuous religiousity that was like an announcement to the world, “Look at me! Not only am I getting married in the temple, I’m spending a lot of money to do it!”
Man, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
All of it just seems wasteful to me. Mike and I didn’t even want a wedding and our parents forced us to have a small ceremony in the backyard. It cost about $2000 and I still feel guilty for it. I remember how proud my mom was that we had a wedding for “only” $2000.
After spending all that time the last two months scanning every photo we found in my grandpa’s house, I’ve see a LOT of wedding photos from the twenties until present time. Most of them were very quiet ceremonies with parents for witnesses.
The most endearing was my great-aunt Dixie’s wedding. There were no photos in the collection, but my grandmother had saved a newspaper clipping from the announcement.
In a church ceremony, Sunday, August 23, at 7:00 pm in the Salmon Medthodist Church, Miss Dixielou Lipe, daughter of Laurence Lipe of Salmon, exchanged wedding vows with James C. Allen, son of Morgan Allen of Salmon and Florence Thurber of Montpelier.
The Rev. Don I. Smith performed the single ring ceremony against a background of baskets of gladioli.
Miss Lipe was beautiful in a gown of white taffeta with a white satin cummerbund. Her finger-tip veil was held by a white cap. She carried a corsage of white roses and carnations.
White taffeta and a satin cummerbund is a far cry from the gowns of extreme now.
More importantly, the wedding is just one day. After scanning all those photos, the wedding photos are just a very small percentage of the whole life that was my grandmother’s life. I have a hard time with the “Your Day, Your Way” idea. It’s just one day. Is it really worth $30K?
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I’m feeling so tired right now. We had a really busy weekend with CodeAway and an early Thanksgiving with my family. I still haven’t finished taking the folding chairs down to the basement. I’ve got one more to go and I’ll take it down next time. For now, it’s just sitting in the living room.
We are at a turning point with CodeAway. It’s getting too big for our tiny house. We are continually tempted to upgrade to a bigger house and this might be the impetus to get us to do it. Voluntary Simplicity is something I have to focus on to achieve. The idea of just getting a bigger place is so tempting right now.
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I am working on Merriton to get it proof-read and corrected and pretty and looking good so it can go to the printer. Mike has done this many times, but I never have. It’s pretty much to the point where I can think about sending it out. After looking at Lulu, it looks like they can print them up for as cheap as I can, so I’m tempted to just use them instead of trying to do it myself.
I really like the idea of hand-publishing my book until I actually do it. I’ve been hand-publishing my Starling Fitness Yearly Journals and they take a long time to put together. The idea of doing it for Merriton is daunting.
Plus, I want it to look GOOD. With Lulu, I only have to pay for one book to get set up with them and then they’ll do all the hard parts.
I still haven’t decided yet.
Over on Starling Fitness, I talked about Dear Abby’s photograph:
The only problem is that Dear Abby wasn’t real. Sure, there was a real person, Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips, who was the writer until Alzheimer’s took her abilities away from her. But the woman behind that never-aging face wasn’t real.
I’m real. My face changes. When I’ve been bingeing, my face changes dramatically.
I started posting a self portrait on each entry. It actually gives me a reason to get up and get showered every morning.
Do I really need a reason to get up and get showered? Yeah…
I have that photo that I took in April and played with until it looks “cool,” but I really like posting a new photo every time I post. Even if I’m ugly or unhappy, I think it’s a good idea. It gives a face to what I’m talking about every day.
I realized that I really liked the idea when I saw my photo on some RSS aggregator today. It was an excerpt from my Starling Fitness entry and my photo. For some reason, I just liked seeing a face to go with what was being said. It was strange when I realized that it was MY face, but it showed me how important it is to have a face attached to my words.
I think I’ll post my byline photo for every entry here as well.
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