Microsoft BashingYesterday I was helping a coworker with something in MSWord. When it came time to save the file, his system defaulted to C:/Windows/Personal. Which was empty. I asked my coworker if he ever used that directory and he said no, so I showed him how to change the default file location, to one of the server drives where we keep all our shared files. He suggested I tell the rest of my department how to do that, so I just emailed everyone the steps to follow:
But I cut the following from my email:
lisa rant: Trust Microsoft not to make procedures consistent among applications.
Maternal Progenitor BashingThis morning I called CLH because she called this weekend to tell me she'd bought me a Christmas present already. I beat her, having bought something this summer, but as usual and of course, hers to me will be superior in appropriateness and desirability than mine to her. Before that I'd called my mother, who called a while ago asking what RDC might want for his birthday. Knowing that I would continue to fail to write anything to her in the week remaining, I decided to call. No answer, so I left a message, but I suppose the primary reason I called CLH was to discuss the greeting currently on BJWL's machine.
Several months ago I called CLH and recited our mother's then-greeting on her machine. She was completely taken in at first, wondering what telephonic romance her machine and BJWL's were getting on, until I resumed my usual voice at the end. At which time she nearly peed with laughter, which was the effect I intended. "And as always, have a great day."
Anyway, I told her why I'd called BJWL, that she'd wanted to know what RDC wanted for his birthday. Naturally, I told her everything I'd said, inside and out. I love making CLH laugh.
CLH just sent me a postcard in which she said I was right (about our mother's complete and man-inspired self-, or duo-, absorption), that in her last call to BJWL, she prattled on for a half hour straight, and when CLH attempted to say something herself, BJWL cut her off after ten seconds by double-pneumonia-ing her.
But this morning she told me she wrote and told our mother about this problem, that she was hurt by her constantly ignoring her and not letting her get a word in edgewise. In addition to a whole bunch of other stuff, she mentioned that. How brave. Brave to say, brave to willing take on another inevitable tooth-gnasher (BJWL's ignoring you in writing as well as on the phone). My sister, how do I love thee.
I asked who placed the call, because of course BJWL's other concern is whose "nickel" the call is on. CLH said she did herself, which might help our mother see CLH's point. BJWL doesn't see a phone conversation as a dialogue, but as the boughten right of the call-placer to conduct a monologue. Except for when someone calls her and she wants her monologue anyway.
Sororial Mind-losingCLH told me about the three Heathers she works with and how she confused one of them for the other two on the phone last week. Glad that such stupidity is clearly genetic and therefore not my fault, I told her about mistaking K. for Sabrina. Speaking of which, the K. in my class told our professor about the incident, because K.'s taken a few classes from her and they're pals, and our professor mentioned it to me in class: "Oh by the way, Ms. Houlihan, K. told me you forgot who I was the other day." K. and I looked at each other then I looked at the professor. "I forgot who K. is, not who you are. Actually I mistook her for someone else." Anyway. I wonder in what spirit K. told the tale, either to laugh about it or to laugh at me, but I know that hardly matters. I also wonder why the prof brought it up in class, when to do so can only have alienated the rest of class more. Anyway, of CLH's three Heathers, I asked if there was a Veronica. Just an Ashley, she replied. Yeah, Veronica and Ashley, those names go. What?
Sororial Self-bashingCeej seems like such a strong, independent, disciplined person to me. Besides doing work she loves, that she uses her brain and gets paid well for; and setting her mind to losing several extra pounds and then doing so; and through discipline or proximity or working fewer hours, gymming early and often; besides all that, she communicates such confidence in her journal and doesn't seem to hesitate to say what she thinks. Whereas what I write for myself is much different than what, of all that I write, I choose to post.
I swear more, I'm much more merciless in my discussions of my daily life and its staff, and, in the contrast between all that I write and what I post, I see that I'm not doing what I should.
I have already decided not to take a class next semester. I can buy into the DU gym, and will. The main purpose for which I took the class, to prevent my brain atrophying, can be otherwise achieved.
I shall tie the two ends of following tangent, just let me play out the line:
Talking with CLH this morning, I asked her if she minded the Bioré picture being on-line. She cracked up: that photograph? does it have a caption? I said yes, the whole story's there. "You'll put that on line but you won't try to publish the teddy bear story?" And she's right. That's the kind of discipline I need. I did want the class, to take up more time because there are so many people who seem to accomplish so much more than I, work and school and gym and even children, to see if I could do it. But the only kind of discipline that matters is internally, not externally, imposed.
If I don't take a class, I'll still walk--something I only started with the class--and I'll still go to the gym. And I have learned that I can tuck myself into a cranny, a mental one if necessary as I haven't a physical one, and work there. Internal, not external discipline is the key. I can still write. And research an agent.
That's how to stop my brain atrophying: from the inside.
See how neatly--and relatively quickly?--I steered the tangent back to its beginning?
I pro'ly wouldn't've remembered to ask her if she minded the photograph being posted if she hadn't brought up the internet already. She said I'd pro'ly find out what the judge decided in the Louise Woodward case before she did. (The judge is going to post his decision on line instead of with another, traditional means.) "Yeah, like I care. Besides, CNN'll announce it three seconds after the judge posts it anyway." So I remembered to ask.
Sororial HumorAfter I'd been at work for a while, I checked the voicemail. CLH'd seen a movie advertised on Prevue Guide, "The Forbidden Dance": "'A Brazilian princess uses her talent in the Lambada to send an environmental message.' Now this I have to watch." I am so grateful we have each other. Who else would laugh at all of our jokes?
Strictly lisa Self-bashingI should at least walk during lunch if it's too cold to read outside, especially now that it's too dark to walk after work, especially along the arroyo of the canal that would be such a good place for a lurker to lurk. Lately, when I haven't walked to the library I have read at my desk, schoolwork or another book. Today I decided to catch up on some news, so I attempted the CNN site. It wouldn't load and wouldn't load, and I wondered if this was because I removed my Favorites file from my C:/ drive in preparation for a system overhaul tomorrow? Surely not. Then I wondered if even Dot Org's T1 line couldn't access CNN because the decision was in? Surely not; that only happens on Election Night, and when the State of the Union coincides with an O.J. Simpson verdict, and when there's a Mars landing? Then I learned--whew!--that it wasn't another nosedive in the U.S. public taste but only that Dot Org had lost its internet connection.
To workI am listening to Bach's Art of Fugue in my old SSP-taped Canadian Brass version. RDC has it played on organ, but I don't like it, partly because I don't like organ and partly because it's different, I expect. After eight years it's still the best studying music I know. Five days to paper deadline.
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Last modified 18 November 1997
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