Had nice fish 'n' chips at the place down the way, then went out to see some music, sold out, so we sat around outside the Bookmill chatting & snacking. Got home to find two dead bats at the top of the stairs. Dogs are very proud of themselves.

Weird tropical weather today, hot, muggy, sudden heavy downpours. At the show, Steve told me of driving his milk truck through the sunshower to end all sunshowers, fox's wedding, devil beating his wife & how.

Finding the blackberry bushes that have sprung up behind the paper very cheering.

Otherwise a pretty dull & dismal day.

Working for the weekend & c.

Showing people how to load sticker paper so printer won't jam, how not to kick their electrical cord out of socket, information professional!

Slept very poorly, suppose stuff like this is mostly what I'm fit for today.

Last night, another Brain Exchange, didn't stay too long, was just as glad to get home & try to sleep. Old man.

Thinking about how hemmed in many seem, it's hard to understand how they stand it.

"And so generally, the things which are agreeable to some are to others disagreeable, distasteful, and deadly. Thus, quails are fattened by hemlock, and pigs by henbane; and pigs also enjoy eating salamanders, just as deer enjoy poisonous creatures, and swallows gnats. So ants and wood lice, when swallowed by men, cause distress and gripings, whereas the bear, whenever she falls sick, cures herself by licking them up. The mere touch of an oak twig paralyses the viper, and that of a plane leaf the bat. The elephant flees from the ram, the lion from the cock, sea monsters from the crackle of bursting beans, and the tiger from the sound of a drum."

"Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
Or the glist'ning Eye to the poison of a smile?
Why are Eyelids stor'd with arrows ready drawn,
Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie?
Or an Eye of gifts & graces, show'ring fruits and coined gold?
Why a Tongue impress'd with honey from every wind?
Why an Ear a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?
Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling & affright?"

Etc., etc.

Oh, dear me, such dull days.

Oh, bother.

Tried reading the Hypostasis of the Archons to see if it would perk me up, didn't work any better than the coffee I keep drinking.

Think whiskey & Sextus Empiricus might really be called for, I should probably stash some of both in my desk.

Peretz's cat-obsessed ways are beginning to wear thin.

Wondering if a time will come when I won't have cuts on my hands.

Want more sleep.

Wish I knew more German.

Another Tuesday, another night of John Hodgman, in a surprise turn, the man gave the Zune a ringing endorsement, pretty shocking and, dare I say, reckless for one in his position:



Mr. Hodgman also displayed an alarming ignorance of parasitology. Disappointing.

Slow day at work, should be a relief, is actually painfully boring.

Going to head home shortly, try to take in secret entertainment.

Took the kid for waffles, heard about his musical doings.

He's in town now, hanging with his local celebrity pal.

Me, I'm reading logs, hurrah!

Slept pretty well, things are looking up.

L. got back with S. pretty late, she seemed pretty exhausted, full of diffuse worries. Poor dear. Sounds like he's having a nice summer. Excited to be a sophomore, of all things.

Dogs are roaming about the house, so many people to visit, so little time.

Extreme honesty, is, mostly, just another form of misdirection.

Did that laundry without causing any further damage.

Feeling pretty sleep deprived, wish I'd noticed that before playing with air conditioners.

Must've slept more poorly than I thought I did last night, did keep waking up, had some pretty vividly unpleasant dreams, guess it all adds up.

Had a strange discourse on indifference developing in my head, it drifted off, the way of things.

Managed to drop an air conditioner from a third floor window, hurray for me.

Big dope.

Might be less dopey if work were less excessive, might not.

Trying to do laundry, hopefully won't rip any pipes from the ceiling or anything.

Work's turning out easier than expected, but still have a splitting headache.

At lunch, went & purchased a functioning ac adapter & a burrito.

Wishing I were home with the pups.

Just captured & released a bat which somehow found its way into the house.

In the initial excitement caused by the bat's appearance, Pickles kicked me in the testicles very hard.

Lying down now.

Earlier, my laptop's ac adapter developed a short, will replace it tomorrow, I guess.

So, to sum up Yankee Doodle Days in three words: NO FRIED DOUGH!

Seriously, folks, if you can't even get it together enough for that, I'd say it's time to stick a feather in your hat & hang it the fuck up.

So- pretty feeble, still, L. got to see her first demolition derby, there were some cute animals, had a clam boat & a pineapple shake, took photos.

The fried dough thing just leaves me shaking my head, though, and don't even get me started on the 'crafts'. Gund scarves, just horrible.

After we were there for a bit, thunderstorm started, at home listening to that now.

Just watched a hummingbird check out the orange flowers in the yard, thinking we should get a feeder.

Gray skies again today.

Fried dough, civil war re-enactors, demolition derby here we come.

Should probably shower first.

Went down to Northampton area to do some work, do some small, entertaining activities, stopped by Tom's Long Dogs on the way home, got messy hot dogs.

Did a little weed whacking.

Off to perform in Leverett shortly.

Made my first scape pesto the summer, had some on toast with tomato, may toss the rest with pasta at some point.

Have a bunch of stuff to do, head hurts.

Went & saw The Dark Knight, pretty entertaining, but not dark enough by half, honestly.

Did reinforce my impression that summer blockbusters are steadily improving from the nadir established by Con Air, wonder what that means for the culture generally, probably nothing much.

Hurt all over, hoping for a fun weekend.

Another SysAdmin Day comes & go without remark, sigh.

At least I got out early, had a tasty sandwich.

Workweek winding to a close, feeling a little shaky, could use a snack.

Snack, snack, snack.

Brr, it's cold in here.

More H & O for K.'s prebirthday dinner, delightful assortment of bar snacks & c. Busy, busy.

Got home & realized I'd forgotten to restock on kibble, so out we went to the Big Y. Special on Friendly's, two half gallons for the price of one. How'd we get so lucky.

Seemed pleasant enough most of the time we were out, feel hot & sweaty now.

Work today was dominated by user helpfully installing very nasty trojan on her workstation.

Sick of it.

Sick of it.

Car's transmission is behaving oddly when wet.

Circle the wagons, there are savages about.

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one there should be a reference to Chekov.

Just saying.

Raining hard.

Last night was cool enough that I could turn off the fan & fall asleep listening to the rain.

Have to take Peretz in for his annual shots, how he hates it, makes for a slow, lazy morning for me, though.

Still raining.

Was just sitting out on back porch, at little marble cafe table I bought in Amherst many years ago, watching the rain, drinking coffee, trying to formulate guest list in my head, feeling a little glum about needing to omit people from it I'd really rather not. Oh, well. Sad world.

Just back from walking through another muggy night with dogs, how they love it.

Earlier, driving home from work, passed an abandoned replica of my car on the side of the road. Made me feel a bit like my own ghost. Feel that way a lot.

Another taco night. Puttin' on the Ritz & c.

Breeze from high speed fan is very pleasant.

Last night, dreamt of accidentally poking myself in the eye with a fork, over & over again.

Another gray & rainy day, carry an arid & warlike microclimate around with me, of course.

Red planet, take me home.

Thinking I should read some Cordwainer Smith tonight.

Spending a couple weeks solely responsible for the IT infrastructure of a medium-sized business organization is a bit of a drag, a bit of a vacation from the self.

Shave & a haircut, could use a shave & a haircut.

Just back from seeing John Hodgman perform secretly, was quite fun, especially as a nervous L. insisted we go very early. We got excellent seats & she got a great opportunity to indulge in her heckling proclivities.

Anyway, all pretty fun & funny, but the day was just too darn long, feeling a bit stretched out, keep realizing it's only Tuesday, agh.

The half-promised Melville:

"True, it may be urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable enough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it couple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that, while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact, that, in real life, a consistent character is a rara avis? Which being so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, can hardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be from perplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often at his wits' ends to understand living character, shall those who are not sages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flit along a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where every character can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at a glance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appear for wholes, or else is very untrue to reality; while, on the other hand, that author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at different periods, as much at variance with itself as the butterfly is with the caterpillar into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of conception and those of life as elsewhere. Experience is the only guide here; but as no one man can be coextensive with what is, it may be unwise in every ease to rest upon it. When the duck-billed beaver of Australia was first brought stuffed to England, the naturalists, appealing to their classifications, maintained that there was, in reality, no such creature; the bill in the specimen must needs be, in some way, artificially stuck on."

OK, back to work- quack, quack, chew, chew.

Ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling, Phil Ochs calling for lost Lenore, sorry, Lenore's not available to take your call, but if you'd like to leave a message...

Etc., etc.

Old black crow, high in his tree, laughing at me.

Yesterday, bought a Poe bobblehead. In many ways, a perfect image.

Big morning for pastiche, in too much of a rush to carry it off with panache, or even aplomb.

Would enjoy a plum.

Later, long quotes from The Confidence Man, maybe.

Woke far too early, didn't want to get up, lay in a hazy daze, Peretz barking occasionally. Someone walking on my grave.

Gray skies, singing 'Pale Blue Eyes' quietly to myself, truly, truly a sin. Never enough time.

Tell someone all the truth before it kills you.

What is Truth? said jesting Pilate.

Do love me some Bacon, truly, I do.

If today is any indication of what my 2 weeks with the boss away is going to be like, I should really be looking for a different job.

First thing was, one server was dead & another had a horrible screeching fan. While I was figuring out which one was screeching, it shut itself off. So, replaced ram/cpu module in dead one & it came back up, replaced fan in other & likewise.

It kind of went on like that most of the day apart from the delightful lull while I was on hold waiting to arrange exchange of dead tape drive with Sony.

Kids, if you have a choice, don't ever work for anybody too cheap to replace equipment.

All kinds of software, user, file problems too.

When I finally got home, Peretz was so excited he threw up.

Emerged from funk sufficiently to begin laundry, make a peppery basil cream sauce for some fancy German egg noodles I bought from Russian store earlier. Muggy enough that this small spurt of activity left me bathed in sweat, drying under fan now, will shower once laundry is done.

Bring on the fall.

Went to work to do a few routine things, on arrival found tape drive with broken load/eject mechanism, while messing about with that, something went awry with my own mechanism, left me feeling blue & out of sorts, tape drive is, at least, under warranty.

Tried to cheer myself up with exploratory trip to Honey Bee Farms in W. Springfield after, didn't really work, but pretty neat Russian grocery, got some pickles, cream filled cakes, etc. Also picked up some nice coffee & beer at the Table & Vine, could probably use something stronger.

Really need to do laundry at some point, going to lie still for a while first.

More seaside excursion details:

L. & I got yelled at by lifeguard for going out too far, water wasn't even over my head, weird.

Good Harbor Beach snack bar offers sweet potato fries which, while quite tasty, take them longer to make than regular fries.

Happy to report Salem Willows has gone back to using the wooden skee balls, still a quarter a game. Kick ass.

In other news, Peretz now provides a routine 7 AM wakeup call, yikes.

Brunch, maybe?

Celebrated newly repaired car with drive to North Shore, diving through waves in Gloucester, Salem skee ball, etc. Dead beat, sunburned, cheerful. Enjoy the seaside.

Just rinsed off the salt, lying in the cool breeze of a high powered fan with Peretz.

Walked the dogs, a good deal damper for my trouble.

Treasury Dept. was nice enough to send me some money to cover my car repairs. Pleasure universe.

Funny that anybody still bothers to read this, well, hope you're enjoying yourselves, anyway. Greetings from sunny Greenfield.



Had some pizza with bacon & hot peppers for lunch, more pizza on tap for later.

Pizza, pizza.

Should really walk dogs, too darn hot.

Car's finally getting fixed, need to get tires, too. Maybe a trip to Gloucester tomorrow for swimming, maybe Salem Willows for skee ball after. Whoop, whoop!

Maybe real cream bismarks?

Have I mentioned that I enjoy skee ball?

Dull, dull, dull here at work, dismally, dreadfully dull. Could use a snack.

Turns out, this is one of those summers that I rediscover that iced tea is my favorite cold drink.

Was just sitting out on the porch drinking some, eating peanut butter filled pretzels, sharing some of those with the pups.

Thinking about observing slightly drunk, slightly belligerent socialist holding forth at the H & O last night, those people are always a kick, I find their anger lacking appropriate depth, I guess.

Having some more tea.

Sitting drinking coffee, waiting for the support requests to roll in, half asleep.

Supposed to be a scorcher.

So much tedium, thinking about ways to avoid it, seems a little daunting.

Big week for naps for me.

After that, more tasty items from the H & O bar menu, delightful, cheap.

Watching Terminator 2.

Mysteriously released from work early when I said to my boss I'd rather be outside, went & bought some iced tea & lemon cake, home now, watching Beneath the Planet of the Apes enjoying the breezes coming through the windows.

Oh, my, the time-traveling astronaut is being telepathically compelled to attack his mute girlfriend.

Nice to have something on TV I can relate to.

Right knee is bothering me, gets stiff after I sit at desk for about thirty minutes, walk around a little & it improves a bit, over & over. Sad old man.

Not actually particularly sad, on one of these repeated walks, went across the street for a hot dog with kraut. Lovely.

Wish it were Friday already, were it, among other things, maybe I could get that strut fixed.

Had fun trying to estimate what proportion of the audience was old guys in Hawaiian shirts.

Brian was pretty intense.

Back feels funny from sitting in tiny chair.

Just went across the street to get a cup of coffee, poured myself a big cup of what was putatively some sort of dark roast blend. Tastes like fucking hazelnut.

Job seems to be slipping inexorably to a helpdesk position, ridiculous.

Lovely outside, anyway.

Having trouble waking up, pet care responsibilities somehow seem more onerous than usual, after I fed the dogs, they decided to raise a ruckus while I tried to shower, after that had to drag Peretz outside so I could feed Harriet. He's searching the kitchen for her now.

Feeling lately like there's never enough time for anything, days are a bit packed, last night, for instance, got home, started prepping vegetables for fried rice, walked Pickles, walked Peretz, got on with making fried rice, L. got home from yoga, ate fried rice, watched High Society, in the middle of that walked dogs again, by the time the movie was done, ready to collapse in a heap & did just that.

Tonight, it's Brian Wilson, who I fully expect to be fabulous, but one of these days, really need to spend some time just staring into space, thinking.

I'm such an unholy mess of a girl.

Walked dogs in the rain, we all got good & wet, then rolled around in my bed growling. Was pretty fun.

Slow morning at work. Nice little old lady had moved her taskbar to the side of the screen & I moved it back to the bottom for her.

Lots of phony news headlines as spam subjects lately, thinking I should maybe start believing them.

Woke quite early, but didn't get up, sleepyhead, slugabed.

Rainy morning, dogs don't want to go out in the yard, seems like they would appreciate me staying in bed even longer. Nice to be appreciated.

Work is seeming increasingly pointless lately, keep telling myself, with absurdity comes freedom.

Just back from a trip to Nap City. May go back there.

Work's done, restocked on coffee, had a nice brunch.

Planning a lazy afternoon.

No nightmares, but some very strange dreams, mostly pretty abstract.

Have once again allowed us to run out of coffee. Absent-minded professor.

Summer makes me tired.

Tried to watch North By Northwest, dvd fell over midway through the auction scene. Frustrating.

Need to reboot a mess of servers early in the morning, should really be asleep. Relax & find myself in a vaguely distressed state, assume I'll have nightmares. Crap.

Have turned on anime in the hope that it will interfere with this process.

Slept in, lovely that, and things were proceeding along swimmingly after, until I decided to finally do some weed whacking. Weed whacker won't start, just removed some skin from a finger trying, fucker.

Have given up on that particular chore for the moment.

Sweaty.

Some dried up, bitter soul has written a vitriolic Chowhound screed attacking the H & O, apparently she didn't enjoy her pork chop, would rather make a scene than ask for another cooked more to her liking, oh hell, people make me depressed.

Not as depressing as having to be that sort of person anyway.

Had so many pleasant times at the place over the past several months, an easy place to have pleasant times.

Fucking Internet.

For want of some obscure part, struts remain unreplaced. Will try again next week.

Went & did preliminary reception planning, makes me nervous, I'm sure it'll end up being fun.

Hanging out on the porch with dogs.

Car's still in shop, walked home from work, stopped for a burrito en route.

Feeling like I should make an effort to walk to work Fridays, the getting out of the house sooner part seems a challenge.

Going to walk back to town shortly, miss walking around town.

Trying to get through the last of the week's work routine with itchy, sleepy eyes. Making plans via email for weekend getaway to Lake Ontario at end of month, really looking forward to it.

Could use some lunch.

Woke in the middle of the night feeling cold, a refreshing change.

Finally going to get my car's rear struts replaced today.

This afternoon, reception planning.

My mom called while I was eating my lunch, they're back rolling.

Wish I were out taking a walk. Maybe I'll go take a walk.

Air quality has greatly improved, lolling about in bed, enjoying cool breezes.

Driving over to Amherst yesterday, was thinking about things probably best left unthought- the way stresses, even very slight ones as stresses go, can turn intelligent, empathetic people into monsters; the dispersed quality of my energies, rarely forming enough to do something as trivial as writing a sonnet; that it might be better if they stayed dispersed, aimless, hopeless.

Anyway, as I say, probably best left unthought. Probably best left unsaid.

Lovely cool breezes.

Long but easy day at work, after did a brief vocal performance I wasn't particularly happy with, ate some tea rolls, then drove home through the breaking humidity. Hard to see.

Parents still stuck in Salem, VA awaiting parts.

Pickles is looking out the window, strange gurgling protobarks.

Pretty stifling in here.

A thick haze has settled on the valley, making of the mountains strange, low clouds.

Summer without a farm share hardly seems worth it, should make an effort to check out more farm stands, probably, though mostly the heat's been making me feel too bleh to want to cook.

Did very much enjoy handfuls of local blueberries as a late night snack.

Dwelling this morning on Law, Mistress of Tyrants; the angry, craven multitudes.

I suppose stupid & crazy is just how we roll, mostly.

It's straight to Northampton for work today as the boss is on holiday. Maybe a burrito for lunch.

My folks are stuck in Virginia awaiting break repairs.

One big board game.

Knee hurts again.

I'm a very silly person.

On with the hot & muggy.

Trying to do a job involving looking at large numbers of lists with impaired vision, it's a blast, everything's taking about twice as long as normal.

Having some more coffee, hoping it helps.

More soup & games.

Muggy, groggy.

Ugh.

Just watched Stage Door, nice little bit of melodrama, that woman hurls self from window to imagined theater sounds bit. Should make a note of it.

Shoulda woulda coulda.

Slowly emerging from migraine fog, should really take Peretz for a walk.

Welcome, Alice.

Early morning haze resolved into a migraine, made for an interesting experience of the always loud garbage collection, on to the groggy, impaired vision stage now, resting with dogs.

L. is being very nice, brought Vitamin Water, sandwich makings, etc. to me on her lunch break. Takes some getting used to.

Did end up watching that Bond movie last night, pretty enjoyable, definitely closer in spirit to the books, not sure if that's really a good thing, those are some pretty creepy books. Vicious, empty shell. Bang, bang.

Joe's Pizza for dinner, yum yum.

Picked up the last Bond flick on the way home, torn between watching it & falling asleep.

Peretz is watching the sunset out my bedroom window.

Happy trails, folks.

Another fun filled day- tasty brunch, riverside dog frolic, superhero movie. Trying to formulate some dinner plans.

Muscle spasm in my lower back, not too bad as those go.

Thirsty.

Nice Chinese was very nice indeed, dragon skin, pea greens, roasted chicken, stuffed eggplant.

After that, fireworks from the roof of the H & O, strange climb to the roof, many tiny holes, harder backwards.

After that, more Singstar.

Now, anime, blogging, sleep.

Going to go for nice Chinese with my mom shortly, she's brought us sticky buns.

Dogs are raising a ruckus.

First time in weeks I've woken up not horribly congested, makes a refreshing change. Trying to decide whether to get weekend work out of the way today or wait until tomorrow morning.

Folks are returning from Maine today, may watch fireworks from roof of H & O later if they actually happen, raining now.

Voicemail from high school chum gloating over the death of Jesse Helms, the poor old bastard. Not that I don't know how he feels- sick, rotten old bastard.

Could use a shower.

Made chili, made chili cheese chimichangas, showered, dressed in all near white, cloud in trousers.

Dog walk, then off to see another movie, Get Smart.

No, really, get smart.

Sleep, glorious sleep.

Could use some coffee, glorious coffee, maybe some food, glorious food.

L. said, as I was finally waking up, "Aren't you glad we aren't moving you out of that basement?" I am.

Got out of work early, had some nice Thai, then came home & took the longest nap I've taken in living memory. There had been some talk of going to see Wall-E at a 3:30 matinee, but L. didn't get off early enough. We went & saw a later one after I finally woke up. Rather enjoyed it, sort of made me want to rewatch Trigun.

Dogs seemed to enjoy my company for afternoon nap.

Catching up on archiving ads to DVD, wishing I had a little server room nap map.

Going to a house show in Gill later, wondering how late Wagon Wheel is open.

Lingering cold symptoms made it difficult to get up, dogs helped with timely alarm clock supplementation.

Last night, watched Pat & Mike, Revenge of the Sith, had dreams confusing the two.

Feeding the dogs, making coffee, thinking about all the stuff I'm not getting done, not much caring.

Beautiful view out the window.

Stormy weather has brought with it renewed sinus discomfort.

Paper looks pretty off new press, still working out kinks, sounds like.

Messing about with antivirus software.

Sleep, always a delicious luxury, seems more so nowadays, should get more of it.

Lazy morning.

Wish Peretz would calm down about the cat.