For the last time, I’m not in the “recycled computers” business

Interesting discussion at my work: re advertising. People wonder what it is we “do” even when we stand in front of a sign explicity stating “We buy used I.T./We sell used I.T.”

Then, if they do “get it” they still misunderstand the “sell” part and think we are in the used Pentium II computer disposal business. “How nice, do you donate those to schools?” they will say.

No. We do not. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Try “Emergency Procurement.” Try “mission critical.” Think “warrantied refurbished” and out of production but still in use. We provide that “one missing part” to keep your legacy system alive. We help recoup your costs for that shiny new promising piece of equipment still in the box that your I.T. department decided against after all of that planning.

Any questions?

Here’s some of the stuff we do sell…

At the Safeway Deli, where choice is not king…

Me: I want a two piece chicken with potato salad for one of my sides and…
Safeway Clerk: No! You can only get the sides that go with the chicken!
Me: Ok, which sides go with the chicken then?
Safeway Clerk:You can only have the JoJo potatoes
Me: Then why does it say I have a “choice” of two sides?
Safeway Clerk: (Stares Blankly)
Me: Well, those don’t look very good. Could I get just the chicken?
Safeway Clerk: You could get an 8 piece of just chicken for $6.99
Me: No thanks. Um, can I have one of the “meals to go” maybe? The pot roast looks good.
Safeway Clerk: Those are cold, though, ma’am.
Me: Um, anyway you can heat them?
Safeway Clerk #2:I think we could use the microwave…
Safeway Clerk #!: No, those are supposed to be cold.
Safeway Clerk #2: You could always have the chicken meal, it’s hot and it’s really good. It comes with the JoJo potatoes.
Me: Never mind…

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Memento Mori

Here’s a link to the story about my father in theTucson Citizen. He would have written a better story, but the state of journalism being what it is…

Schroedinger’s Waiting Room…

My dad passed away thursday afternoon at about 2 o’clock. it was sort of unexpectedly expected. We knew it was a looming possibility but not an immediate or inevitable certainty. It took me by surprise, but not shock. In the car ride on the way over, I didn’t know yet if he had died or if he would live. I couldn’t fully simultaneously contemplate the dual possibilities . So I just drove. I was fairly calm and peace when I heard the news, officially. I sat at the edge of the bed and patted my dad’s foot in its black sock for a while when they let us stay with the body. It felt sort of normal that way. More like a hospital visit and less like a goodbye. I am okay. I am fine right now. I am with my family. When I am done with that I’ll have time to think about how I actually feel. For right now, there is no feeling there is just doing. That is maybe as it should be. Love and peace. Corbid.

the opening and closing of various gates…

…and so another year ends, in sickness and in health…good fortunes to perfectly balance the bad…a year that canceled itself out, more or less…I let it go out quietly, hoping for a louder season, a much much brighter, louder season this next circling of the sun…sometimes we relish the quiet…but may we not go gently this time around…life being for the living and all of that…Happy Janus’ Day…

Gwenhwyfar lived to be old, Elaine did not…

…and the girls we once were float down the River to time and go under. Drowned, we all assume.

But then again…lots of unexplained, feminine looking, sword brandishing hands emerging from the misty waters in these stories…had to have come from somewhere, originally…it’s not as though they ever found the bodies…dead is not always so very dead in faery tales…

Strange dreams and disrupted R.E.M. Sleep as a direct result of bizarre Jungian reading material…

Found a copy of a book I read when I was 17 or thereabouts. I remember the gist of it, but none of the actual story.

Forgot what an esoteric MythoLiterary Geek I used to be…

I asked for an Oxford Unabridged dictionary for Christmas when I was 15 and improvised a TV Tray podium for it and the purloined single volume patent leather bound Complete Works of Shakespeare that I had snuck off the family reference shelf to read for fun in moments of idle brooding.

I used to keep a photocopied black and white portrait of Percy Shelley in my notebook the way most teenage girls pin up bubblegum idols. Ask Lizzie. Lizzie was way more Lord Byron. Coincidentally, or maybe notsomuch, Bowie around that time did a short film for the “Blue Jean” extended video in which he played a character called “Screaming Lord Byron.”

The fish ate Shelley’s face. That’s how he died, or rather he drowned in Italy, but by the time they found his body the fish had eaten his face. It seemed important to us at the time, but of course by then he’d have been long dead anyway…

Gratefulness: 7 things on a Sunday Morning

epona1)Listening to our local “pirate” radio station run by baby Anarchists:www.freeradiochukshon.org

2)Breakfast is hostess cupcakes and mexican dark coffee with cream on the porch with candles and incense and the Sunday paper. Dishes can wait…

3)We won, we won, we fucking won…I volunteered my time and $5 I couldn’t afford to a candidate that actually won! I kind of feel like a Timequake has occurred (apologies to K. Vonnegut) and the spiritual resurgence of Clinton era ideals actually makes me 19 again somehow. I feel like it’s finally safe to start my life over again and do things right this time.

4)Time is tight and money’s even tighter, but I am getting more resourceful by the minute. This morning, for instance, I have thrown a pot of beef stew in the oven for lunch,simultaneously lowering our heating bill and preventing wasteful takeout food spending. If it ever came down to it, I know how to make vinegar out of raw apple cider, for fuck’s sake, I got pioneer survival skills, I can certainly live without ordering pizza on a Friday night or two…

5)Spent this Friday night watching Jimmy Stewart movies with my 6 year old and eating white cheddar popcorn and leftover Halloween candy while my 11 year old wrote “littlest pet shop” screenplays in MS Notepad to be acted out with her sister later.

6)Got enough sleep for a change. I could have slept for years. I love it when the seasons change because in summer the daylight and the heat start seeping in early in the morning on weekends and you can never get back to sleep. The downside of our Arizona existence.

7)The depression I didn’t know I was in is slowly lifting. My mind is not blocked and I can write again. I feel like I can stand the company of other people again. My thoughts have time to drift again and it feels like the world will not suffer and drown for their drifting.

Election MySpace digest…

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

We can be Heroes (forever and ever)
Current mood: luminous
Category: Life

I watched the race called for Obama at 9pm last night on CNN at the Red Garter – somebody had put “Heroes” on the jukebox. It could not have been more perfect. I feel joy. Pure and simple joy. Maybe, just maybe, the world will be a better place again.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, by the way. And Happy Birthday to Tina, could you ask for a better present?

Peace.

Currently listening :
Imagine
By John Lennon
Release date: 2000-04-11

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Kilgore Trout Said It Best…
Current mood: anxious

“You were sick, but now you are well again. And there’s work to be done.”

Happy Election Day. Do The Right Thing. You know what it is…

Currently listening :
The Clash (U.S. Version)
By The Clash
Release date: 2000-01-25

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The “Autism Vote” is not up for grabs…
Category: News and Politics

I am offended at John McCain’s attempts to use his VP pick as a basis to court the “autism vote” throughout the debate tonight.

My very bright but autistic child needs healthcare and educational opportunities and a brighter economic future, not just sympathy. Do not insult me by courting me as part of a demographic but failing to address the actual needs of that demographic.

How are you going to help children with autism? By nominating a woman with an autistic niece? Well, if that’s your plan you have still not answered my question.

If your really want to court my vote as an “autism mom” either offer up actual policies that give me hope or nominate a neuroscientist but don’t insult me with vague intimations that I will have some sort of “friend in the White House” because your running mate has a disabled child.

Being related to an autistic child does not make you an autism expert. And while choosing to have a Down’s Syndrome child may be as hard or harder than raising an autistic child, this is again not a qualification to influence public policy.This does not make her any more of an expert on childhood disability than I am. Hell, my kid is older than hers, so I have seniority in that regard, frankly…

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