Little Notebooks

In the movies, little palm-sized notebooks are carried around by journalists, detectives and the victims of head trauma. They pull them out of pockets and purses and take random notes or refer back to them for information they're just sure they wrote down. Sometimes all it takes to throw the hero off balance is to take a page from the notebook. These little notebooks are amazing things. Always with plenty of paper left for notes and yet they're simultaneously filled with all sorts of useful information already.
The thing is, I've seen these little notebooks in the store while shopping for real notebooks. You know the ones, their cardboard covers in primary colors, white paper with blue lines, spiral-bound along the top. Or maybe, if the user is a veteran detective or journalist then the notebook is the slightly more respectable flip-top refillable style or the Moleskine "Journalist" edition. No matter the cover though the little notebooks are never new. They always appear to have been loved worn abused for years. But when seen on the shelf they only come with somewhere around fifty pages.
Bearing all this information in mind, I've always wondered about their usefulness. I have to imagine a journalist takes a lot of notes and although I have heard stories concerning good reporters and systems of coded short-hand lest some aspiring Wolf Blitzer wannabe snags their notes and scoops them on the story of the minute. Even still, if they take notes (and by "they" I mean journalists as characters not as people. I don't know any journalists as people.) as copiously as depicted then the effective usefulness of a notebook is two, maybe three, stories.
As for police work, I think the distribution would be a little different. Were I a movie detective, or better yet a television detective as they handle a lot more cases, I think I would want notes for each case in its own notebook. That way I could toss the notebook(s) into the case file when everything was all wrapped up. Realistically though, this would mean that a detective in a respectably-sized city would probably at any given time have somewhere between two and six notebooks to keep track of, with at least a couple freshies ready to go for new case assignments.
But the biggest mystery is the note-taking of the walking wounded. In the movies your average head case stops to take notes at least four times a day. That's an average trauma, not a far-fetched and unrealistic injury like the guy in "Memento". Four times a day, fifty sheets per book. And they never use the back side of the paper. Plus everything is printed in large letters with plenty of space between notations, either because they have reverted back to fourth grade handwriting or for our benefit as observers. Four times a day, fifty sheets per book, and we'll figure an average of two notations per page. So lets think of a character as an actual person with a whole life to live, not just the few days weeks months of a movie, which means maybe they go through one a month. And they're constantly flipping through them, checking for a bit of wisdom that they wrote down god knows when. (We won't even address the fact that the information they need is always accessible and in order, despite having gathered it at different times.)
So my question is this: What happens when the little notebook is full? Do they toss it onto a shelf in the closet and grab a new one and start over? Do they write dates on them so that maybe they can piece their year decade life together some rainy Tuesday evening? Do they take the time to copy truly useful information into the new book before storing the old one? Or do they just chuck it out and start anew?
Without some sort of organization and retrieval system information loses its value. If you can't recall it, you don't have it. Regular people would know to get on the number six bus to downtown to go to work, but the trauma victim would have to write that down and if it's not in the notebook where they expect to find it then they effectively don't know it. So when a new notebook becomes necessary, are the first few pages dedicated to necessary knowledge like the number six bus and their mother's new husband's name? What if they forgot to write that down in the new book? What sort of havoc would that wreak onto their lives?
I am constantly confused by little notebooks.

Have you ever checked your email so frequently that you felt unpopular?

Lately I don't have a lot to do during the day. I can't just take off and do something fun because if something does come up at work and I'm not available to take care of it, well, there could be some rather uncomfortable questions about how I spend my time. So I'm semi-tied to my computer between at least nine in the morning to three in the afternoon. When not actually working I generally spend this time doing household chores, reading, watching movies, or playing with the dog. Six hours can be a lot of time to kill when you can't really go any where day after day.

Even still, like most people who have face-to-face social interactions, I have better things to do with my time than wait for email. And yet I sometimes fall prey to the emotional pitfalls of an email conversation.

You check your email in the morning, maybe dash off a message or two to friends. One of your friends happens to be online and responds immediately. You shoot a message back and that's how it starts. You've just gone from exchanging messages to having an interactive conversation. But the reality is that you're trading mail. You're not chatting on the phone. You're not even short-handing a conversation through IM. It's mail. Mail gets put on hold for pretty much everything else in your life. Which is exactly what happens, except you're the one who got put on hold.

One minute you're tapping out a witty retort involving a reference to "Knight's Tale 2: Chaucer's Revenge" as you wonder briefly if IMDB has updated Heath Ledger's profile page yet, and the next you're making sure you didn't lose your Internet connection. You can logically deduce what happened on the other end - life intervened. A job had to be done, a kid needed tending to, bran muffins kicked in, whatever. But that doesn't stop you from hitting refresh again.

Still nothing. You walk away for a bit and tend to your own life, but in the back of your mind you're listening for the tell-tale "ding" of your mail program.

You don't hear it. After a while you go back to your computer; maybe you missed it while you were in the bathroom. Still nothing. To top it off (or maybe it's actually the root cause of this little emotional fiesta) you have nothing really going on on this particular day. Your phone isn't ringing and you have nothing but busy work to do. You know you're being silly but you can't help it. You have sunk into the cycle of "e-pression". Regardless of how you feel about your social "status" on any given day you are suddenly shuttled back to middle school and you're convinced that you just wore the wrong pair of shoes to a new school. No amount of logic can overcome your growing feeling of unpopularity.

So you check your email one more time...

Being single only really sucks when you need something fixed

I'm single. And no, that's not something that needs "fixing". I like being single. I've always liked being single. Sure I occasionally cave to the constant and daily pressures of coupledom and agree (a couple of times even actively sought out) to become half of two. This always makes me a little sad, to be half of two rather than the whole of one, but in the beginning that is completely overshadowed by that "new boyfriend smell". The promise of frequent sexual escapades, the fun of discovering diet preferences and degrees of alcohol tolerances (both personally ingested and as observed in your partner).

After a while though the shiny starts to wear off and then the slow slide starts. One of you begins to think your sexual escapades are too frequent, or discovers that what was fun in the beginning is getting tiresome to keep up with. Then it really starts to irk her that he calls twice a day and seems really put out if she doesn't have anything new to say; and he's stewing up a little resentment because she didn't like his mother's chicken. He won't wipe his shoes and she decides to go vegan and the whole thing goes to hell in a hand basket.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not at all advocating singleness as a lifestyle for everyone, and I'm not saying that all relationships are doomed to eventual failure, and I'm not talking about love because love is something completely different. (However I have met more than a few couples who don't need to be together. Maybe they've run their course or maybe they never should have made the commitment in the first place. Whatever the case they're fun to watch when you're not sitting at the same table.)

I thoroughly enjoy being single most of the time. I loved shopping for a house with only my needs in mind. I honestly love hanging out with myself. I love doing stuff with my friends and not having to worry about how good a time my boyfriend is having. I love planning things for myself. Most of all though, I love sleeping alone. Not even the promise of frequent sexual escapades can make me share my bed for very long. I love sprawling across the bed and taking all of the covers and pillows. There is absolutely nothing about sleeping alone that I don't love.

But every once in a while... once in a blue moon I find myself pondering the what ifs and thinking, however briefly, that it might be nice to have someone around. When I returned from Costa Rica I had such a thought. I had been travelling for roughly twenty hours. I showered in a blissfully warm shower and crawled between my exquisitely cool 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and arranged my six goose down pillows and settled in for a peaceful sleep. Just as I was drifting off I thought "wouldn't it be nice to have someone to come home to, I could use a foot rub."

Did you catch that? I had just returned from a tropical vacation with my friend and at no time did I ever think I would like to share that vacation with a boy. Nope. Not me. I wanted some one at home, eager to rub my feet.

Today my neck hurts. It would be really nice to have someone to rub it. When I'm sick or injured and in need of a caretaker, that's when I really think it would be good to be half of two.

Maybe that's kinda fucked up.

What's next...famine?

It was high noon on January 22nd.

Oh, wait. Maybe there should be a little back-story here. I haven't been to the office in nearly five weeks. The first three were spent on vacation. It's amazing how quickly you can eat up three weeks of vacation time. A little better than a week in Costa Rica, a week or so in Bend, and voila! you're barely acclimated back to your own bed before you're staring at an email from your boss. Also, I'm lucky enough to have the freedom to work from home most of the time., and since I'm in the process of transitioning to a new position (currently one without a supervisor!) my calendar is, to say the least, barren. So the last two weeks, well, week and a half really, have been spent at home.

Which brings me back to noon on January 22nd, at which time I was gathering towels to wash. I paused in the kitchen to pick up the few that were dirty in there. While I was putting the dishes on the drainboard away I heard the unmistakable sound of a lot of water gushing over round rocks. Crap. It was twenty two degrees (Less than any degrees if you use the Centigrade scale!) this morning and there's only one thing that sound could mean. Slipping on some waterproof garden shoes and fighting my way past the dogs who should have been enjoying the sunshine I expelled a huge breath and prepared for what a lot of expensive water/ice damage looked like.

Stepping around the corner I immediately saw that it wasn't as bad as I had feared. The pipes that run to the outside of the house are all mostly indoors so I don't get too worried about pipe bursts. It's not like it ever drops below zero here. Ice storms sometimes cause me a little concern, but they generally only happen once a year and are never a complete surprise. What I see is the complete failure of the insulation on the insulated (and "guaranteed" not to freeze) timer/splitter thingy. It had frozen and was spewing water all over the side yard (and by yard I mean the river-rock covered area on the side of the house). No big deal. Remove the broken piece, turn off the water, bada bing bada boom and it's back to the kitchen where I left off.

Towels gathered once more I set off for the laundry room downstairs. When I got near the bottom of the stairs I realize that my adventure is far from over. Flowing from the laundry room and pooling at the bottom of the steps before making a meandering journey into Tiff's room is what appears to be the Willamette river. Back up the stairs for waterproof shoes again.

First things first. I step into Tiff's room to see what damage has been done to stuff I don't own. This goes against every grain of my being as I have some fairly deep-seated privacy issues. Not just about my own space, but about protecting the privacy of other peoples' space as well. But Tiffany just bought a new laptop and I need to know if I can save it, not to mention my obligation to clean up the water. Of course the water has followed the wall across the room and started edging under the bed. I am just lucky enough that it hasn't crested the little island where her laptop is perched on its edge.

On an aside: People always ask me why my laptops are stored on their edges rather than what would seem to be the more correct (and certainly more conventional) position of flat, as if in use, with the lid closed. The reason is that I never turn them off and my work one doesn't have a sleep mode because it has to work with a docking station, which means that it needs to run its fans periodically. Laying it flat on a carpet means it's trying to suck clean, fresh, cool air through dirty, warm carpet fibers. Standing it on its edge makes sense, and has become a habit for me. Apparently I've passed it on to others which is, ultimately, what saved Tiff's laptop.

So I picked up her computer, checked it for damage (whew! none) and put it safely on the bed. I checked under the bed to see how far it had seeped, removed her backpack from a small puddle, put up a towel barrier and returned to the laundry room to deal with the larger problem.

What does one use to clean up gallons (about fifteen or so, as measured by the bucket I used) of water spread out over an uneven floor? Towels get very heavy and the cold water makes them difficult to wring out more than a few times. A few months ago I fell for the ZORBEES! (annoying little bearded fucker) commercial. They actually do work, just like the loudmouthed little shit Billy Mays yelled that they would. But still, fifteen gallons is a lot of water and fingers get stiff and cold, and sure they hold a lot of water, but that's still only a couple pints or so, which adds up to a lot of bending and wringing so the only real solution is the sponge mop. Sure it only absorbs half (or less) of the big ZORBEES! rag thing, but your fingers stay warm and dry and your back doesn't acquire any unnecessary aches or pains.

How long does it take to pick up fifteen gallons of water with a sponge mop? Just under ninety minutes and then my day was back o track. Laundry, check. Herbal conditioning pack for my abused hair, check. A well earned cup of tea and a couple chapters of a good book, check.

Tiff came home and we blah blahed for a bit and then she started cooking dinner while chatting with her grandma. I went back to the living room to read and idly poke at the plastic covered mud on my head when suddenly I hear "WHOOMP!" and a surprised scream. I looked up just in time to see a flash of orange emanating from the kitchen. Never a good thing.

She had been heating oil to fry something and splashed some water into the pan and it flared up into a fireball that left soot in surprising places.

No one was hurt and, again, all the stuff survived, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the fridge doesn't go out or we'll be looking at famine next.

I am in love with Chuck Klosterman

Ben gave me Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs *a low culture manifesto (now with a new middle) for Christmas.

I must say I love that tag line too, "now with a new middle". I'm working on one of those myself. Unfortunately I appear to be sculpting it with chocolate and cheeseburgers rather than the much better tools of salads and free weights. But I digress.

Anyway, Ben gave me the book for Christmas. I had never heard of Klosterman, but since I don't read SPIN or browse the rock and roll section of Powell's I don't think it particularly strange. So here I am with this book that I desperately want to read right away, (I love getting books as gifts. They say so much about the relationship between the gift-er and the gift-ee.) but I had a long trip coming up and I felt I should save it for the twenty some odd hours of travel time I had in store.

I resisted the urge to indulge in instant gratification and saved my new book for the last leg of my journey. I had by then exhausted all of the other books that were tucked here and there in my carry-on, plus the one that I purchased in the Mexico City airport. So with seven hours to go I got onto the last plane and pulled out the Klosterman book.

I was laughing out loud and, most likely, annoying my seat-mates (a cute indie couple about my age, so typically Portland that they made me achingly homesick) by the end of "This is Emo". Upon finishing the next essay, "Billy Sim" the woman next to me gave up on trying to sleep and started a crossword while I had to check the "About the Author" blurb on the back jacket. I had to know something about this genius writer.

I was surprised to find that Chuck Klosterman looks like a middle-aged lesbian gym teacher. And not in a good way, not that there is a good way to look like a lesbian gym teacher when you're a straight man, but I feel that description also insults lesbian gym teachers. The problem is, that's precisely the description that comes to mind when I see his photo. I can easily picture, just out of frame, a metal whistle, a clipboard, and unshaven legs ending in flat feet shoved into a pair of crew socks and cross trainers, all ready to wrangle the standard Real World selection of high school girls and force them to play field hockey or dodge ball.

It just this moment occurs to me that should he Google (is it still capitalized when used as a verb?) himself - and who doesn't? - and stumbles across this blog then the previous paragraph may cause him to laugh uproariously, but it won't exactly endear me to him, thus ruining my shot at a torrid cross-country affair. But isn't that the way of things when you get right down to it? It is eventually your own words, the truth that is you-of-the-moment, that brings down your own happiness.

Whatever. Google or no Google; Chuck Klosterman looks like a middle-aged lesbian gym teacher, and I love him. Despite his looks, that are so far out of my norm that were I to show up with someone who looked just like him (but wasn't him) my friends would politely pick their eyeballs up off the floor and put them back into their heads then quietly and one by one pull me aside to ask, again politely and gently, if he was hung like a horse or unreasonably intelligent or could possibly fly. And despite the fact that he spends an inordinate amount of time talking about sports. Of course I consider more than a passing interest to be "inordinate", so I'm biased there. And despite the numerous mentions to a desire to be married in the early parts of the book. (I said I loved him, not that I was willing to permanently not be single for him.) Despite all of that, I still love him.

He made me laugh out loud on a sold-out flight. He made me think a time or two, even if it was just to wonder at what point one would consider the word "seminal" to be overused. And at times it was a bit like reading passages from my own twisted mind, and who doesn't like that?

My favorite section was the untitled inset beginning with, "The twenty-three questions I ask everybody I meet in order to decide if I can really love them."

What makes this my favorite part is not the questions, although they are (with the exception of question 23, which has been posed in several movies and, theoretically more accurately but somehow less conclusively, on television) some of the most obscure and thought-provoking questions I've ever read. (To answer number 19, I would probably say something like, "You snore like a room full of lumberjacks and I've got a mean streak. It's why you love me.") Each question could easily spark a hypothetical discussion that, given the correct participants, could go on for years, proving to be a never-ending supply of road-trip conversation. I suspect they were born out of long periods of time spent traveling with (or without) people who may or may not be interesting. One's mind goes to some very strange places when left to its own devices.

What makes this my favorite part is simply its existence. It just seems so in line with the infamous five pages of "requirements for dating me" that I once put together. What it really comes down to is standards. Not just for those you date, buy for those you let into your life on any level. It's good to have standards; as well as standard conversation starters.

My nose just spewed water everywhere

Nope, that wasn't a figurative thing; it was quite literal. I use a neti pot, and in case you don't know what that is it's a teapot sort of thing that you fill with a warm saline solution then stick up your nose and run the solution through your nasal passages. Once you've rinsed you have to expel the rest of the solution, along with any mucus, by blowing vigorously over the sink and then, as flow slows down, into a tissue. Usually it doesn't take that long. A few blows, a wipe, a few more blows and voila! clear nasal passages. (Amazingly clear. If you don't use one I highly recommend that you at least give it a shot.) So I finish up blowing and wiping and breathing and wiping and one last blow just to be sure. I then made myself a cup of tea and went back into the living room. As I sat down in my chair, leaning to the left to set down my tea, my nose drained at least an ounce of fluid out. So here I am, tea still in one hand, half poised over the chair, and trying not to drop myself or my tea as I desperately try to cup my other hand under my nose before saline and snot not only puddle on the arm of my chair, but dribble destructively into the vents of my laptop.

Well, I guess I didn't say I had important things to say.

I know I haven't been writing much lately

According to my new acupuncturist (although I suspect any acupuncturist, naturopath, herbalist, practitioner of any sort of spiritual healing, anyone with any sort of intuition, my own intuition, or me had someone else asked would say the same thing) the itch in my throat and the block I have with writing and meaningful conversations lately is caused solely by the need to say something specific that for some reason I haven't been saying. Well, I finally said it. The what was said and who it was said to aren't important here, what's important is that it's been said and I am finally free to move on with my life.

So get ready, readers, because I've got a lot to say.

Oh, and sorry for the absence.