Norwegian Wood

Sometimes I wonder, am I the only person in the world who thinks the Beatles' song, "Norwegian Wood," is about the main character setting the poor girl's apartment on fire?

Lights

Every time I drive somewhere at night, street lights go off around me. I've noticed this phenomenon for the last year or so; lately it seems to have become increasingly pronounced. I probably am noticing it more because I'm paying attention to it more.

I find the fact of it puzzling. I've asked other people and nobody else notices street lights going off whenever they drive under them. I have this theory that maybe it happens all the time, like maybe the lights are designed to turn on and off periodically (maybe if they get too hot or something?) and just I'm the only person that notices it. I can't tell, because I haven't been able to get anyone else to start really consciously paying attention to watch for it.

My friend Colette said she saw this thing on TV one time about people who have a lot of problems with electronics and stuff because supposedly they have some kind of electromagnetic field that surrounds them. Sounded like one of those sketchy pseudo-science programs when she told me about it. I have a lot of problems with stuff malfunctioning, or crashing, but I always thought it was just because I'm a non-typical user. Maybe I do generate some kind of electromagnetic rays or something, and it's causing the street lights to go out. I dunno. Anyways, it's weird. I can't remember the last time I drove 20 minutes in the dark and didn't see at least 1 street light go out as I drove under it. Oftentimes it happens more than once just on the same stretch of Mopac or 183.

Weird.

Me vs. the Candy

So there's this guy Ken who is the PM for the group I'm working with out here in RTP. and he used to sit with Paul, across the hall, when I was in my swanky office that I inherited from a STSM (or some other acronym that stands for somebody more important than me). Anyways, Ken always has a plastic jar fully of candy in his office, specifically the chocolate variety.

When we sat in the offices, occasionally I would stop by and chit-chat w/ Paul, who's my friend and mentor, but in reality the reason I was there was so I could gank a piece of candy.

So about a week or 2 ago we all moved into cubicles, and in the 4-plex of cubes where I am are Paul and Ken. Ken has taken to placing his jar of candy on a table in the middle of our area. Buried within are numerous mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups, and they are calling out my name so loudly as to almost drown out everything else. It's really very distracting. "Laura," they cry, "eat us! Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase eat us!"

Paul tried several different methods to try to stop me from eating the candy. He even put some earplugs in a plastic bag with a note "In case of candy" nearby, in case the ear plugs would block out the sound of the candy screaming at me. It was to no avail. But then he stumbled upon a brilliant solution! Paul flipped the candy jar so that the opening was underneath.

The comparative silence was deafening. Not only was the candy made inaccessible due to it being trapped under the jar, but it didn't even seem as appealing. A yucky half-melted piece slid disconsolately down the side of the interior. Not a sound was heard emerging from the bottom of the jar. For at least half an hour, I had peace, until Ken came along and flipped it back over.

*sigh*

Oh well, I guess I'll just tack another half hour of running into the week's schedule...

A Dream

There's this friend that I'm estranged from. I feel weird saying that, because I'm not the type of person that is typically estranged from anyone. But, anyways, I am estranged from her. It wasn't my choice, it was hers. I tried unsuccessfully for a while to get her to talk to me again but then I figured maybe I was doing more harm than good, so I let her go, thinking eventually it would sort itself out. But it hasn't so far. The way she treated me really hurt for a long time, but it doesn't hurt anymore.

Anyways, so I hadn't really thought about her for awhile. I guess I thought I had more or less written her off. Last night I dreamed I saw her again, and she was bald. She had no eyebrows or lashes. She had gone through chemo. It turns out, she hadn't stopped talking to me because she hated me or anything, it was because she found out she had cancer and she just couldn't deal w/ me. I guess she thought I was too high-maintenance of a friend. Looking back, I think maybe I was. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was pretty depressed during the whole time we were friends. Partly it was due to physiological reasons, which are perfectly evident now, but which at the time, I was totally unaware of. For some reason it seems like we're never aware of these things at the time.

So in this dream, realizing what had happened, I felt pretty terrible. But not so much out of guilt, because I knew it was her choice to push me away, and she realized it, too. Mostly I just felt awful because of knowing that she had gone through so much suffering. And wishing I could have been there to help out in some way. Even if I was a "high-maintenance" friend, no matter how down you are, when somebody else needs help you get over your own issues to come through for them.

In the dream, my mom was with me. This girl asked "How do I look?" and I was about to say "awful" and my mom said "You look GREAT!" in this really sincere, enthusiastic tone, and I realized that she _did_ look great, in spite of it all. And I was like "wow, I'm so glad my mom said that." So I made a mental note when I woke up if anyone who's just been through chemo asks how do I look, I will tell them that they look great, no matter how awful they really look. Because being alive does look great, when you put things in perspective.

I also realized when I woke up how much I still care about this person. I am really worried about her and I hope she's ok. I know it's just a dream, but I can't help worrying somewhat. I'd much rather she stopped talking to me because she does hate me, and not because she has cancer. I want to call her but I don't know if I should. It would probably sound weird to call up and be like "are you ok?... I just wanted to make sure..." I don't know if I'll call her or not. I don't know if the phone number I have for her is even correct anymore. There's a lot of stuff I don't know.

I do know that dreams can have meaning. I don't think this one came out of nowhere.
###

FOLLOWUP:
I did call her. It was a really difficult thing for me to do, I don't know why. But I did call her, and I'm glad I did. I keep thinking about a line from a Kingdom Melody that says something about when difficult problems arise, you often find, the answer lies, in simply being kind. You can't wait for other people to take the initiative. Kindness is proactive. I think this whole thing has been a lesson in humility for me.

Unusual occurrences

1. While walking at the greenbelt the other day with my friend Jonathan, we saw 4 snakes. One of them was a python (escaped pet?). Tonight I watched several episodes of Monty Python.

2. When I was at DTW on Sunday, at the Ghetto terminal (aka the Smith terminal), I saw my friend James. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!

3. There was this guy we saw at Potrero last November when we were climbing- a Mexican dude that had these CrAzY zebra-print action pants (capri-length, mind you) and cRaZy hair (almost a pompadour- only it was kind of all-over big, rather than just on top alone). WELL TODAY I SAW HIM AGAIN!!!! in a climbing gym in North Carolina!!! It was HIM, i tell you! I heard his accent and everything- definitely a Mexican. Come on what are the odds there are TWO Mexican dudes w/ the same hair and the same action pants who are both climbers? It's statistically highly unprobable, if not impossible.

What does it all mean?

My guess would be: absolutely nothing.

Of doctors and dreams

So, the other day I went to the doctor for a checkup (haven't had one in years). Although I was pleased to find out that I'm taller than I realized (5'5 1/2", w00t!) I also weigh as much as I ever have. So, apparently I'm fat. Well, not really. I just need to keep an eye on it, I guess. *sigh* but I'm hungry all the time!!

=)

In other news, last night I had a dream that the city of Ann Arbor, MI, had created a "virtual overlay" of itself. What they did was digitize a huge amount of photographic data to create a sort of "background" image. Then they took these crazy floating cameras and created a ginormous grid. Thousands of cameras covered the city, capturing real-time info and constantly updating the virtual city.

For people who had an account (I had one), you could basically log into the system and using some kind of direct-neural interface, step inside of the virtual overlay. You could think of a certain place and wah-la, there you were, in the virtual version of the city. The weird thing is, being in the virtual world, it was possible to see the real people in the real city, because of the real-time updates from the cameras. But they couldn't see you. You could also find other people easily in both the real and virtual cities by simply thinking of the person you wanted to find. If the person was in the network, you would instantly be transported to his/her location, in the grid. The stalking possibilities were endless.

So I was floating around in Virtual Ann Arbor and big-brother concerns aside, it was kinda neat.

desideratum

a kind word, at the right time
a brother
born for times of distress

so many people i've missed through the years
i still think of them often

i knew one once who could read my mind
but now we never talk

sometimes i wonder
does he remember my name?

Dreams

About 3 or 4 nights ago I had a dream that I went back to Michigan in the fall. I was riding in a car in the back seat and when we arrived we were at my aunt's old house, the one that's next door to my family's old house. When we got there, I looked around and all the trees were red, and covered with red berries. The sunlight streamed down and all I saw around me was the dark bark of the trees, almost black, covered with brilliant red leaves and fruit. It was so beautiful that I started crying. Everybody was trying to get me to stop and saying "what's wrong?" but nothing was wrong and I cried for like 5 minutes straight because it was too beautiful.

On a less poetic note, last night I had a dream that I got my phone bill and I had used 1100 in-network text messages and 200 out-of-network. I have this bad feeling that when I look at this month's bill, it's not going to be far off.

Google's Most Advanced Relevance Algorithm Yet

PigeonRank.

This is just too freakin' awesome.

On Being Evil

Today I laughed at my office mate's hair for like 5 minutes. It was out of hand. I mean, not only was his hair out of hand, but my reaction to it was way out of hand as well. But I just couldn't help myself. The more I laughed about it, the funnier it seemed.

I can be so mean sometimes.

Love

We think we love people because they're so great. But lately I've been struck by the thought that, maybe it's actually the other way around. People seem great to us because we love them.

In unrelated news, I found an interesting fragment in my notebook the other day. I didn't remember the dream referred to until I read the excerpt.

1/15/06-

Lost fragments
of memories
stay in my mind
frozen in time
they never leave me
but for a moment

Last night I dreamed of my house in flames
And all I could think of was "grab the camera"
to try to get a good shot of it going down
I probably would have blogged it.

###

Adventures in Dorkdom

So today my officemate noticed on Slashdot that somebody had found a prime number of 10 million digits. We were thinking "that's a lot of digits." and we wondered, just how big IS that number? so we decided to see if we could possibly post such a number in newsprint on our walls.

Dave posted the details of our calculations (and a link to the aforementioned Slashdot article) on his blog, here: Empirically Proven.

It turns out that, wrapping the number around our office using all available space (ignoring the presense of doors and other objects in the way) we would be short about 4 feet of room height to fit the entire number. Wow!

Joe, the awesomest Stylist, Ever

I would just like to share the fact that my hair stylist, Joe, is totally awesome. I went in with a picture that I'm pretty sure wouldn't work on my hair length anyways, and only the vaguest idea of what I actually wanted. I told him I was trying to grow it out but that I couldn't stand the way it was. Basically, it was a plea for him to "just fix it."


And Joe went to work. I have to confess, I was doubtful. As I watched my hair gradually become transformed, I must admit, I was dubious. I thought "For the first time, Joe is going to disappoint me." I am sorry; I repent my lack of faith. For lo, by the time Joe was finished, my hair had been saved. From the depths of nappiness and breakage (likely resulting from my questionable foray into the realms of black hair styling- aka cornrows) my hair was recovered. Joe did not let me down.


Somehow, my hair doesn't look exactly shorter. He preserved the length I had been working at growing for months. Yet my hair was exactly how I wanted it to look. Yet again, he had read my mind- giving me the exact style I liked- maybe not what I'd pictured, but better- even though I hadn't really even known what I'd wanted. As Joe twirled me in the chair so I could admire the haircut from various angles, he reminded me "this is a wash-and-go cut." I could have kissed him. Joe knows I'm not going to make anything beyond the most rudimentary efforts at styling my hair each day. Joe recognizes this fact. He doesn't fight with me about it- he works with me. He cuts my hair in such a way that it doesn't need to be styled each day. And for this, I am grateful.


If my mom and my friend Alissa ever read this, I hope they know that they should be thanking Joe. Everyone who's ever criticized my hair or encouraged me to "fix yourself up a little- why don't you ever do anything with your hair" I invite you to congratulate Joe. He has enabled me to have decent-looking hair without spending more than 1 or 2 minutes on it.


Joe is not cheap. He's the 2nd most expensive stylist ever to cut my hair, but he's worth every penny. In short, Joe is totally awesome.

Express your "hoodz" feelings in a card

I know a lot of people have been looking for this:
Official Street Cards

Ghosts, etc

earlier this afternoon, i saw a ghost. i was walking with a friend, chatting and planning to go get some coffee in the brief window of time i had before needing to catch a flight, when i glimpsed him out of the corner of my eye.

a jolt of electric shocks reverberated through my whole body. of course, i looked away instantly. i even kept on talking, as if nothing had happened. my mind was reeling. i was totally unprepared. despite my prior history of feeling haunted by visiting certain places, on this particular occasion my mind had entertained no thoughts of ghosts at all that day. in fact, i probably hadn't thought of said ghost in at least a week.

a few minutes later, my feeble attempts to sip a chai latte were revealed to be sorely inadequate at masking my discomfort. i was forced to admit that the sighting had shaken me, and, even more surprisingly, that i was filled with a strong and dreadful desire to try to catch another glimpse.

i realized later that the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was fear. evidently, i have a penchant for facing my fears. this feature of my personality has presented itself in the past through a variety of bizarre, entertaining, and sometimes dangerous escapades. you know, stuff like exploring abandoned houses by myself after dark, jumping off 60+ foot cliffs into water, making eye contact with people that are obviously crazy, etc. (aside: this is one of those "don't tell Mom" blog entries.)

at any rate, the fear was for naught, as there was no longer any sign of the ghost. i sighed in relief, but not without a twinge of disappointment.

later tonight, as i was sitting on the plane, listening to music and pretending to sleep, a stray thought crossed my mind as i fiddled with the celtic ring on my right hand. the ring i wear most of the time, which i've lost numerous times yet it keeps coming back to me. i suddenly remembered that it was not the original. i used to have a similar, but slightly different ring. i think somewhere in the back of my mind i'd gotten the idea that i'd lost the original ring, but that's false. i didn't lose it.

i sat and wondered about the ghost, and pretended to sleep.

Technology Sucks

I would like to take this opportunity to discuss (ok, rant about) a few things. Why do I spend everyday surrounded by mostly non-functioning technology? I live in a veritable graveyard of good ideas gone bad.

Case in Point:
My wireless HP color printer.

I know what you are thinking. You're thinking, "Laura, why did you buy an HP printer? What were you THINKING?!"

True, and I'll admit I really can't argue that point. HP printers are known worldwide for their suckiness. I've had an HP printer before, and it sucked. Nevertheless, it was such a good idea. A wireless networked printer! I could print to it from my laptop, from anywhere in the apartment! And it had a higher resolution than my old craptastic HP printer, so I could use it to print out my digital photos.

But the real reason why I bought THIS printer was because of the great deal. Since I was already buying a laptop from Apple, they had this deal where you could get the printer for just $49 after the hundred dollar mail-in rebate. I figure even if it sucked, I'd only be out 50 bucks and could probably resell it for close to that.

Well, as it turns out, I never got that $100 rebate. Why not, you ask? Because I sent the form in a day or 2 too late. Why was I too late? Did I forget about the rebate? No, my dear friend, I did not forget. I was hesitating because during the 30 day period I STILL HADN'T GOTTEN THE STUPID PRINTER TO WORK CORRECTLY. I finally got it working, cut out the UPCs and mailed in the rebate form. Apple sent me a sickenly polite letter informing me that they could not process the rebate. Meanwhile, I'm stuck w/ a lame-@$$ printer that I now CANNOT RETURN because I already cut out the UPC symbols. You can imagine how thrilled I was with that.

I'd like to give the printer a little bit of credit at this point. It did in fact, join up with my wireless network the first time I tried to get it to right away, with no problem. The only thing wrong with it at the time was that it printed photos with nasty black streaks in them. It was fine for my usual printing needs (e.g. boarding passes, directions to a restaurant, etc).

Well, after fruitless efforts to get tech support from their online chat (a friendly but totally unhelpful HP representative whom I was certain was a robot until she mispelled something... then again, that might've just been a clever little twist in the algorithm used...) I finally found time to call up HP tech support during the brief window of time after work during which Mac support is available. THe lucky thing about Mac support is I'm pretty sure it starts at Level 2. Ie, the person on the other end of the phone line not only had a pulse, but there was actual brain wave activity as well.

After an hour and a half of jumping through hoops to reinstall the drivers (incidentally, removing the bad drivers required an arcane sequence of file removals from odd hidden places, since the uninstaller apparently doesn't do ANYTHING), I finally had the printer correctly printing out pictures. I was overjoyed! I was still reasonably upset about getting screwed out of the rebate, but at least I now had a printer that didn't suck.

Well, in the time since then I've been in and out of some other wireless networks. In the in-between time, the printer has somehow managed to get itself into a totally fubar'd state, wherein it insists its IP address is something ridiculous (think 179.13.1.666). (Ok, I know that's not really a possible IPv4 address). The printer refuses adamantly to join my home network. A while ago, before I had the wifi set up, I had managed to get the printer to work for me by hooking it directly to my laptop via crossover ethernet. (Of course, it behaved suckily- I was attempting to print some nice classy invitations to a wedding shower but the printer flat-out refused. In the end I had to make an extra trip to another store to buy regular-sized paper, not as classy, and YET ANOTHER trip to the original store to return the nice invitations. I just love paying all this gas money, ya know?).

Anyways, now that I have the wifi setup, it would be kind of nice to actually get the printer on there. after all, that is the WHOLE POINT of owning a wireless networked printer. But no, it insists on its ridiculous IP address. So I finally found a USB cable and hooked it up w/ that. I had discovered from my lengthy tutorial with tech support that most of the printer's configuration utilities can only be accessed when you're connected via USB. However, at some point, the drivers must have become screwed up again because I couldn't talk to it over USB at all. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, but since I dont' remember the voodoo-like rituals which the Tech support person had walked me through, there's little chance I'll ever succeed with that.

So my only hope of ever getting this thing working again is another long phone conversation with HP tech support. However, I have to be at home, with the printer and the computer right there to talk to them. And wouldn't ya know it- my piece of junk LG mobile phone doesn't work at the house I just moved into. In fact, the phone is getting more and more finicky each day about whether it will work ANYWHERE.

Anyone know of any Amish farms looking for another pair of hands?

I wish I could summon Tupperware the way Ludo, the giant but friendly monster from the 80s movie Labyrinth (starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly), summoned rocks. I would cry out my clarion call, and from the homes of my friends fair and wide, and probably some of my friends' friends' homes, my Tupperware would return to me. I've started writing my name on it but so far it hasn't helped.

In an unrelated sidenote, Gmail is being really retarded today. Their stinkin' servers have been down all morning.

Ok i'm about to reveal the extent of my dorkdom. Today's big excitement was discovering that typing "240 in hex" into Google search returned the value in hex!!! w00t! (fyi for those of you who are as bad as i am at converting anything over 128 into hex mentally, it's the nice clean value of 0xF0).

wow, today i have 3 gray hairs.

At first, i was alarmed. because starting today, i seem to adding a gray hair per day. However, with some research (aka a google search) i discovered that the human head, on average, has 100,000 hairs- then i realized that at the current rate, my hair won't go completely gray for about another 274 years. Which i guess i can live with.

This all just goes to show it's true- stress really DOES give you gray hairs.

i've been too sick to do much of anything. But i wanted to share a haiku I made up at work today, inspired by some code, the authors of which will go unmentioned (for now)

You drive me crazy
with your crappy, crappy code
I'll do it myself.

In other news, I now have 2 gray hairs.