Today was my second physical therapy visit. It was hard, but not too hard. I'm sore, but not too sore. I think that's about where I'm supposed to be at this point. The best part was at the end, when I got to just lay there for about fifteen minutes with an ice pack on my ankle. I love the moments in a day where you get to just close your eyes and be where you are and that's what you're supposed to be doing.

In my creative writing class last night, we started by just breathing deeply with the lights out and closing our eyes and imagining we were wherever we wanted to be. I had a hard time choosing a place. For awhile, I imagined myself on an airplane because it's another one of those situations where you're doing something (going somewhere), but you don't have to actively be doing anything. It's free time. It's off the radar. It makes me wish I got stuck in traffic more often, but somehow I don't think I'd find that as relaxing. I ended up being happy to be where I was, with a few extra moments that were all mine to do with as I pleased.

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My friends are all rockstars

Last night, I went and laughed at Yolanda. It's okay, I was supposed to laugh. It's not like when I laughed at Jessie because she got hit by a truck. Yolanda was doing improv comedy and she was hilarious. She seemed a little nervous at first, it being her first show and all, but she warmed right up and had us all laughing as she portrayed a Solid Gold Dancer, singing sensation Britney Spears, and a ditzy interviewer.

Yesterday, Sam, who moved to NYC to work for The New York Times, was published in the Sunday New York Times. She wrote a rather interesting story on sticker grafitti. How cool is that?

Also, Darby took some time off from doing Jane Pauley's hair and wound up in Rolling Stone. They asked her opinion of the Cure concert she'd just attended. She was misquoted, but not too badly.

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As Yolanda pointed out last week, there's rockstar parking, and then there's the spaces nobody else parked in because they didn't want 1000 tons of crap dumped on their cars.

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In Mr. Thompson's sixth grade class, we learned that a science teacher would be coming in over the course of a few weeks to teach us some things about electronics. I was very excited about this until I realized that the electronics lessons happened on the same day and time as some other kids and I were pulled out of class for G.A.T.E. (Gifted and Talented Education) with, coincidentally, Mrs. Thompson.

I've always been bummed about this. I wish I had a better understanding of electronics, and I've secretly blamed the G.A.T.E. program all these years. I would have way rather played with electronics than go make up a fake society as we were doing in G.A.T.E., so I felt a little bit persecuted for being one of the "smart kids." It was actually a cool project -- we split into two teams, developed our ancient societies, and then buried our artifacts in the sand pit out by the swing set. We then switched areas and did an archeological dig on the other team's stuff. I learned then that I have nowhere near enough patience to be an archeologist. All that not moving things and measuring where they were, the brushing off the dirt and marking things down before you get to pick the thing up and turn it around and figure it out... It's enough to drive an impatient 12-year-old crazy.

But I digress. The other night, I mentioned to Ransom that I thought it would be neat to make a motor of some kind. What I am envisioning is a wall hanging that has a bunch of gears that rotate around and maybe there's even a belt of some kind that moves a gear farther down the wall. Sort of a machine-as-art kind of thing. I started asking him how motors work and how one would accomplish such a thing. We pulled out the How Stuff Works book he got me for my birthday and read up a bit on electric motors (or I read while he noodled around on the guitar).

The next day, he sent me a link that has instructions for creating a little motor. I stopped in at Radio Shack this morning, picked up some magnets and magnet wire, and presto! Almost instant motor! You can't tell from the photos, but the green coil of wire actually spins pretty darned fast. I made a few changes to the instructions on Chris Palmer's site: I only had a C battery and forgot to get a D battery while at Radio Shack. Also, my toilet paper tube was weak and not holding its shape, so I used a film canister instead. It's lots sturdier, if a little smaller, but that worked out well since I used a smaller battery.

       

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As you can tell from yesterday's post, my brain isn't holding still very well. I'm jumping from topic to topic without making a sensible transition. I blame this brain-deadedness on two things: work, which has been taking up too many extra hours (including weekend (including holiday weekend) hours) and a lack of exercise which has been necessitated by the stupid broken ankle of doom.

A speech pattern that has re-emerged recently (dormant for a few years), is that everything bad is a thing "of doom." A writing habit that has never gone dormant is a tendency to overdo it on the parentheses.

At any rate, and to jump topics wildly once again, I feel a list coming on.

A mostly chronological list of careers I've aspired to, from as far back as I can remember:

• Firewoman
• Olympic gymnast
• Secretary
• Solid Gold Dancer
• First woman president
• Advertising executive (thanks, Who's the Boss)
• Pro volleyball player
• Teacher
• Mechanical engineer
• Full-time student
• Travel book writer
• Librarian
• Math professor
• Novelist

You'll notice that computer programmer doesn't appear anywhere in that list. I suppose I did want to be a computer programmer at some point, or I wouldn't have tried hard and gotten the job I have, but it never occurred to me when I was a kid because it didn't really exist as a job back then. It didn't occur to me when I was older because, let's face it, it sounds boring. I just sort of fell into it and ran with it. Most days, I like it.

Anyhow, this doesn't strike me as a comprehensive list. I'm going to have to flesh it out over the next few days.

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Are you feeling the love?

Politics are a nasty business, and should therefore be tempered with humor. For the benefit of those who haven't met Dana, he's a great guy (misguided though his political opinions may seem to those of us who really, really dislike Bush).

Dana used to be my boss. One day at work, we were talking through a problem -- I think it was with the database. I was sitting at my desk facing Dana, who had his back to the window.

"Blah blah, stored procedure, blah blah blah," Dana was saying.

"Wait!" I shouted, excited. A plane had just flown into Dana's left ear. "Pow!" I exclaimed excitedly, as it exited his right ear.

I finally stopped giggling enough to explain to him that an airplane outside the window was perfectly lined up to fly right through his head. Maybe the story doesn't translate well, but we got a good laugh out of that one.

My point here is that you're all intelligent, good-humored, generally worthwhile people. Of course, I can only vouch for the commenters who I personally know, but that's the majority of you. If you knew each other, you'd probably get along well, even if you disagree politically.

So I'm going to ask you to limit the degree to which you abuse one another in the comments. Don't make me get my mom voice on. Cherz has heard it before, and it's a little bit frightening.

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Yes, it's true, G.W. Our gynecologists are in danger. You are oh so presidential.

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Ah well, nothing gold can stay (or so says S.E. Hinton).

Vernon, the laptop, is on his way back to Dell, just as soon as I get the return packing slip. He works just fine -- wonderfully, as a matter of fact. Alas, it was discovered that he had been dropped at some point (before I took possession) and has a cracked case. You can even see the smunching of the left front corner in that photo I posted. Alas.

Dell, by the way, has a super sucky website. The ordering process went smoothly, but evreything after that has been frustrating. They sent an email confirming my order, and it had a bunch of dead links in it. I couldn't get tracking information from their website -- had to email them for that (although at one point I ended up on a page showing the FedEx shipping information for two packages that were signed for in Monument, CO). Their customer service representatives are helpful, but they are required to ask you about six or seven questions before you get off the phone. "You may get a survey about this call, please say I'm doing a good job or they'll fire me and my children will starve," they practically beg. And you don't want to cost anybody their job, but what if you weren't exactly sure they understood what you were saying?

Grr.

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For all you Mac users who are sitting around chanting, "One of us... One of us..." I'm sorry to disappoint.

Listen up: it's not a Mac.

I may have made the switch if I didn't want to use my laptop for work, but the truth is, I like PCs. I like Macs just fine, too. In fact, I may not even have a preference overall. For graphics and whatnot, Macs are better. For software availability, Macs are catching up, but PCs are generally better. For writing novels, surfing the internet, burning CDs, sending email, it totally doesn't matter. Both will work fine. For the times when I want to be able to work from home, it's all PC, baby.

Just so we're clear: it's a PC, and it's lovely.

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It's official. I'm in love. He's sleek and fast and doesn't just stop in the middle of things like the last one. He can go for hours (days, presumably). He can keep up with me, too, take what I dish out. And he does it all with a certain air of nonchalance, as if to say, "That's all you've got?"

Is there anything more dreamy than a new laptop?

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The swifts are back at Chapman school. Every night for a week or two, these birds swirl around and eventually stay the night in the school's chimney. If you've never seen it before, go. Word has it that there were more last night than on Monday, so they're likely just ramping up. It's seriously an amazing thing to see. Also, I heard that there were a couple of drag queen Tippi Hedrens (of The Birds fame) who put on a show last year. Maybe they'll be back, too.

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Were it but for two wishes, which did not come true, I would have had absolutely no complaints about The Pixies show. Indeed, it was great to see them and overall, I can't really complain, but that's not as much fun.

1. I would have liked to stand up the whole time. Alas, the broken ankle of doom did not allow for such luxuries. Instead, I sat part of the time, staring at people's butts, making snap judgements. Especially about the guy with the oddly disturbing way of wiggling his butt and his high-maintenance girlfriend who kept coyly turning her face up to his and puckering her lips, then waiting stupidly for him to look at her and complete the kiss.

2. "KIM DEAL ROCKS" girl, and a few others, would have kept their mouths closed for the bulk of the show. It's neat to have a little fan crush on someone and then to see them on stage. It's another thing to yell over and over that KIM DEAL ROCKS when there's no way in hell, hades, or even heaven that Kim Deal can hear you.

Look at me, I'm not even 30 yet and I'm turning into grumpy old lady. Woo hoo! I need to start carrying around an umbrella so I can hit people. Either that, or I should drink more.

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Okay, another Jessie update and then I'm off to see The Pixies. Woo hoo!

She's still in the hospital, probably until Saturday. She's already doing physical therapy, and will have to continue to do so for the next six weeks.

It hurts to laugh, but she does it anyway. Then she says, "Don't make me laugh." Then she shuts her eyes and says, "Dead puppy, dead puppy, dead puppy" which is, I think, an attempt to make herself think of something sad and terrible so she'll stop laughing. Unfortunately, it's hilarious and makes me giggle.

Her mom is here -- she herself just had surgery. While she and I were out in the hall talking (I had to leave the room during the dead puppy incident so I didn't make Jessie laugh more), one of the nurses asked if we were also patients in the hospital, she with her neck brace and me with my RoboCop walking boot.

Now for the answers to the Jessie Jessie Party Girl FAQ: she was in a crosswalk. The woman who hit her was insured. It takes about six weeks for bone to heal (which means mine will be all better next Tuesday at about 6:45pm). She won't be able to sit in a regular sitting position for awhile, but she can lie on her right side now. And, most importantly, they were cheap PayLess shoes, so no big loss there.

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Quick Jessie update: some of you know, and some probably don't that she was hit by a truck yesterday while crossing Powell Blvd. She's going to be fine, but her pelvis is broken on both sides -- worse on the left because that's where she was hit. So she's in for some terminal suckage for awhile and she's in a lot of pain.

But here's the rockstar part: She landed on her feet. According to the woman who hit her (who was reportedly "a total bitch"), Jessie hit her head on the truck's windshield and she still landed on her feet (sans shoes by this point because they'd flown off).

We figured it out one time, me and Jessie. We're clumsy and we get hurt a lot, but not ever in the obvious ways. I can climb ladders alone at night in the rain to string up Christmas lights, we can plummet down the side of Mt. Tabor in a big boat we made, and we'll come out of it just fine. It's when we let down our guard, when we're doing things we've done a million times before, like walking across the street or playing volleyball -- that's when we're at our most vulnerable and that's when stuff like this happens.

I thought having a broken ankle was bad news, but at least I could use one leg. Damn.

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