::GINGER SPICE::

A little red-haired girl walks up to the booth at ArtFest where I was selling science, wanting to make some bubble art (which I referred to as "pop art" - tee hee!) with water, soap, food coloring, paper, and a straw.

"Look, Evie, she has beautiful hair just like yours!" her mom says, referring to me. Yeah. We redheads. We've got to represent.

 
::G'MORNING::

This is how my day starts.

I'm taking a shower, I pour an amount of shampoo in my hand, and I proceed to rub it on my body as though it was shower gel. Not in my hair.

In other news, the report from yesterday's workers at the festival I'm working today is that "it's terrible." Great.

 
::NOT-SO-RANDOM QUOTE::

"If Mozart had patented the symphony, what would Beethoven have done?"
— A software exec decries looming European legislation that would grant broad patents on code.

(via Wired News)

 
::PUT OFF::

Grrrr.

My promotion is still unofficial. Still forthcoming, but not yet.

This carrot has been dangling in front of me for over a year, and now it's so close I can feel the beta carotene seeping into my system.

 
::CONDO-ALISA, RICE::

I just got home from my friend Alisa's newly-purchased condo, where, in exchange for dinner (and the fact that she swept for me the last time I had a party), I helped her clean up the place before she unpacks. My job ended up being the sanitization of her refrigerator and freezer.

I have never cleaned a refrigerator that thoroughly before. I was amazed at the number of tiny crevices, removable parts, and stains underneath the shelves on the door there were. It was really satisfying to orchestrate a move from slightly-grimy fridge interior to sparkle-white Refrigerator Walls of the Future!

The freezer was an interesting exercise in quickness -- the solvent would freeze if I didn't wipe it up expediently.

Her condo has character. And tons of closet space!

And dinner? Fresh shrimp in sweet, sweet peanut sauce over rice. Dee-lish.

All that said, please take a moment to revere the title of this entry.

 
::WHY I MAY OR MAY NOT BE ON CRACK::

Today, I had two interviews to conduct. My Outlook Calendar told me they were at 11:00 AM and 12:00 noon.

My first interviewee called me at 9:45 AM to let me know that he was on his way via DART, but that he'd missed a bus and would be late for his interview. "That's all right," I tell him, "you have over an hour."

"Ma'am, my appointment was at ten o'clock, I thought."

"Oh. Well, I have you down at eleven, so don't worry about it." (I looked up my confirmation email; I was indeed wrong. I told him to arrive at 10:00 AM.)

He arrived at 11:04 AM, and I bid him farewell at about 11:55 AM.

My second interviewee, scheduled for noon, sent me an email at 12:20 PM: "Just a quick note to let you know that I'm on my way, but that my car isn't functioning properly and I'm going to take DART, so I may be late for my 1pm appointment." What? I checked my confirmation email; I was again wrong. His appointment was for 1:00 PM.

He has yet to arrive.

But my schedule-keeping sucks.

 
::OUTPOUR::

One of our Development directors has a granddaughter. She's under a year old, with big blue eyes, dark curly hair, and an indelible smile.

She sat on the floor at her grandmother's feet, and I bent down to peek between her grandmother's legs and giggle along with her. She brightened when she saw me, made a smart coo, and patted the ground to say, "Hey, yeah, you're cool, come hang with me!"

I straightened, watching her flail her legs around fetchingly, as only baby girls in purple harem pants can do. She gazed up at me -- "Okay, be a grown-up, then!" -- and stuck out her tongue.

It may have been the glass of wine I'd just sipped, but I started to weep. I teared up, for nothing but the sheer beauty of this child. I immediately began to laugh through my tears, and as I smeared the saline off my cheeks, the world felt its most sublime to date.

 
::WILL THE REAL SUMMER SMITH PLEASE STAND UP? ::

I opened my Gmail Inbox this morning to find an email from Summer Smith called "Silly Question."

"Hm!" I think, "I haven't sent myself email..."

It turns out the message is from another Summer Smith, who's interested in finding out my middle name. I write back to her, telling her, "Noelle." I also mentioned my collection of young adult fiction featuring girls named Summer (two of which feature Summer Smiths!), the porn star Summer Smith, and the fact that there were three Summer Smiths (middle names Lee, Louise, and Noelle) at SMU. I asked her what her middle name was.

It's Dawn, and she writes on behalf of herself and two other Summer Smiths, both of whom share that middle name.

I prefer being an oxymoron (though not in the southern hemisphere!), myself.

 
::SWANK::

I had to run errands for work this morning, and one part required me to go to Office Max. I went to the copy area to ask for some narrow double-sided tape, and while the woman at the register couldn't help me (save for ringing up the wide double-sided tape I decided to buy, because people can cut it to be narrow, right?), a teenage guy behind her said, "I really like the outfit you're wearing, ma'am."

Though I bristle at being called "ma'am" (ooh, a palindrome!), I was genuinely flattered.

I'm wearing a new suit I call my Tron suit (not to be confused with Jay Maynard's) -- it's a black jacket and skirt, with off-white piping. If I stepped under a black light, I'd glow along my sides, shoulders, wrists, neck, and back. And my shirt underneath is one of my favorites -- an off-white Paul Frank tank top, with the phrase I AM YOUR COMPUTER AND I LOVE YOU iterated all over it in black, old-school computer terminal font.

Add black heels, red hair, and my black plastic glasses, and yep, I'm pretty hot.

 
::HEADER OR FOOTER::

If I ever own a business, I would have to incorporate the following into my letterhead, business cards, etc.:


The emission spectrum for Argon. 

It's what happens when the light from electrified Argon gas is passed through a spectroscope. Each line corresponds to a distinct quantum of energy (seen as a frequency of light) given off when an electron falls a certain distance towards the nucleus. Every gas's emission spectrum is different, due to differing electron configurations, so it's like a fingerprint. Unique, rainbowy, and beautiful.

 
::DIRTY TYPERS::

More scatological typo fun: Today, I was writing in an email about a girl named Sharon with whom I have several mutual friends (she knows my brother, an ex, and one of my best friends in the world, Mike, who lives in Japan and to whom the email was directed). Instead of writing "Sharon," I wrote "Shat on."

What's my problem? I think Sharon's awesome -- shut up, Freud -- so why are my hands being so anal-expulsive? Maybe I'm getting less fastidious, and the first step is typing that way.

 
::YES, ACTUALLY, THE LITTLE CUBES YOU PUT IN HOT WATER TO MAKE SOUP::


The consummate photograph.

See below for what this is.

 

 
::HOLY STUFF! ::

Okay, I just made the weirdest typo.

Instead of the word "stuff," as in "let us know if you've mailed the stuff already," my fingers spewed forth the following string of letters: s, h, i, and t.

Wow. I'm apparently subconsciously bitter about as-yet-unreceived parking and event passes for a booth I'm working this weekend.

 
::MMM, MMM GOOD! ::

Apparently, my thoughtfully twisted friend Jeff thought that the purchase of this product was meant to be the beginning of a "smuttily-named soup" collection. I received from him, in the mail, and empty packet of "Cons-mate" Tomato and Chicken Flavor Concentrate.

It's soup in tablet form! It's just 14 calories a serving! And it graces the palate with 1510 mg of sodium!

Thanks, Jeff, for not including the tablets themselves. I will indeed pass.

 
::BITCH SLAP! ::

Okay, so I should've cached this while it was "active," but I find this hilarious. A girl ran into a guy's truck at a party and didn't leave any information behind. So, he put up a website to find her (or at least information about her). Her picture and personal information aren't there anymore, but the resolution (including site stats!) is blogged. My favorite part? The comments in the right sidebar.

Ladies and gentlemen, BitchHitMyTruck.Com: Link.

And! Anybody who finds a screenshot of its earlier incarnation, let me know.

 
::WAY FREE::

Yesterday, I drove home from my parents' house in Cedar Hill on Highway 67 North. It took an hour to do (usually I clock in at just under 25 minutes on a weekend). Just before it merged with I-35E North, the traffic had smoothed to a standstill.

And I mean, it was a literal. Stand. Still.

I turned off Anderson's engine, rolled down the windows, and listened to music. I read the Sunday paper, and I munched on some Honey Nut Cheerios (both of which were given to me by my parents just before I left). I watched people. Some bailed off the highway via the on ramp. Some stewed in the heat radiation from the pavement. Girls in flirtyskirts got out of their Sentra to hobnob with some guys who'd deserted their truck's cab and jumped into its cargo bed, where they lorded over the road (which, now that I think of it, was less a "road" than a "lot"). Gradually, brake lights darkened as their cars' drivers realized they were better off not using their gas. 'Twas an odd dynamic, the "freeway's not moving" syndrome.

It was like the evacuation scene in Deep Impact -- without the urgency. It was like a slumbering string of rollercoaster cars -- without the rollercoaster. It was like a block party -- without the beer.

It turns out the police had blocked both lanes off for a while (I saw the expired flares, their lives lived with purpose but their deaths unceremonied and grey). I was parked a mere 50 yards from the wreck.

 
::2:30, AM::

"This place needs a trampoline."

 
::DUSK::

"I don't know where the sunbeams end
And the starlight begins
It's all a mystery..."

-The Flaming Lips, "Fight Test"

 
::STAY ON TARGET::

Target's summer in-store marketing campaign astounds me in the best of ways. Last year, the logo for their seasonal products was a soft-serve ice cream cone with the phrase "I Scream for Summer!" next to it.

This year, they've branched out with three separate themes!

.: "Aloha Summer" - Hawaiian lounge supplies, such as cups, placemats, hula skirts, etc.

.: "This way to Summerville!" - A huge display headlines the department, in old-school motel/drive-in style.

.: "United States of Summer" - All the registers are bannered with this phrase. I so want the t-shirt.

I've already given my contact info to the store manager. "Summerville" is totally going in my bedroom.

 
::ACCELERATION::

The roof of Richardson's City Hall includes a wall of glass -- an upward scale of windows, back-lit at night by a row of incandescent light bulbs.

When driving south on Central, you can see the bulbs as a long line of lit points, but as you pass, the vertical window frames interfere with the points, making them appear to blink in an illusion-of-motion pattern. One long line turns into two shorter ones moving to the right, turning into three shorter ones, and so on. The number of nodes increases, as does the apparent "speed." Try it for yourself!

 
::SUMMER AND-HER-SON::

My car belongs to me, and only me. My credit union actually called me to ask if I wanted them to just apply the check I was depositing towards my loan balance (they differed by less than $100). Woo hoo!

You and me, Anderson, baby! We shall drive off into the sunset together. Over and over again. You, with your modular seating, and me, with my pulse and heart beating.

 
::CREATIONAL USES? ::

I bought a baseball yesterday. There's a sticker on it that reads: FOR RECREATIONAL USE ONLY.

I guess I can't use it to demonstrate Bernoulli's principle or energy transfer this weekend. Crap.

 
::WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK::

Chronotopic lamination refers to... Well, I don't know exactly what, but it sure sounds cool, doesn't it? It has something to do with the activities we intersperse within our work-flow processes. (Like blogging at work, perhaps?) This article is an interesting read, if not a chronotopic laminate itself!

So. Procrastination or writing-process tool? You be the judge: Link.

(via Mimi Smartypants)

 
::SORRY CHARLEY::

It's 6:38 AM. I wake up and think, "Ah, seven minutes until my alarm..."

And then it hits: A muscle spasm seizes my left calf. The pain helixes around my muscles like a boa constrictor, and I can't move my foot (which is stuck in a bent-upwards, flexed position). I manually move my foot back and forth, trying to dislodge the pain, and I massage my calf, hoping I'll disrupt whatever resonant frequency is causing its collapse. Eventually, I focus all my attention on the pain and it's alleviated a bit. (Try that the next time you have a headache or itch; thinking about the pain tends to dissipate it, at least for me.) And after a few torturous minutes, the constrictor lets go, and I'm free.

Then the alarm goes off.

I haven't had a charley horse since high school. I remember thinking then that childbirth must feel like that, only with a different pain locus -- time shall tell on that one.

I can still feel a ghost of the pain, a reminder of an unpleasant aubade.

 
::FAITH AND TRUTH::

Talking about non-absolutes in absolutes is like trying to dissolve sugar in vodka.

 
::GEE, GNOME::

From my trip to Disney World, here I am, getting caught molesting a gnome: Link.

I assure you -- he was liking it!

 
::LIKE DAUGHTER, LIKE MOTHER::

My mom calls me this week and asks me to "describe the suit [I] bought at Stein Mart last weekend."

"Okay, it's striped, with a pale yellow background. The stripes are multicolored, pink and khaki and red and a little bit of blue. There's red piping on the waistband, pant pockets, lapels, and sleeve cuffs. The collar isn't turned down; it's upright, styled minimalistically, with two hook-and-eye closures in the front. And there's a narrow red ribbon that ties around the waist."

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"I just bought the same suit for myself!"

 
::UM, MR. DEMILLE? ::

Along with Blogger's redesign, they've introduced free photoblogging. And this. This is what will finally turn me into a photographer.

I've never been one to take pictures of my life; I remember moments instead, as images on a vast lifescape far under my feet. (I think this is why I like balconies so much; they remind me of the way I see my past. And perhaps the sky is my future.) I've rediscovered, with my recent wearing of spectacles, why I didn't like wearing them. Sure, they add several asterisks of cuteness next to my name, but they act as a visible, almost palpable, frame through which the world makes its way into my mind. (Windshields do the same thing.) Only with my hair pulled back and my eyes wide open does the world display itself. The world's frame should be perception, if even that.

For that "framing" reason, I've been reticent to be a "photog." To paraphrase Neal Stephenson in In the Beginning Was the Command Line, taking pictures behind a camera means that I would be looking at reality, mediated, like a GUI presents a system through organized pixels. I want to keep living life like it's source code.

But now, if I can pair an image with my words, I can pare an image with my words -- cut through its not-in-focus, poorly-composed, not-particularly-worth-a-thousand-words amateurism -- and give it new life. I'm unsure whether this would diminish my descriptive prowess, though.

So. Now I need a cheap digital camera.

 
::TO BURY SECRETS IN::

I love this idea. Shelley Jackson has a work called "Skin," for which 2095 people will each have a single word tattooed onto themselves:

"The text will be published nowhere else, and the author will not permit it to be summarized, quoted, described, set to music, or adapted for film, theater, television or any other medium. The full text will be known only to participants, who may, but need not choose to establish communication with one another... From this time on, participants will be known as 'words'... As words die the story will change; when the last word dies the story will also have died. The author will make every effort to attend the funerals of her words."

My favorite of the few restrictions is that the word must be in a "classic book font," such as Caslon, Baskerville, Garamond, Times Roman, Futura, or Gill Sans.

(I need to see The Pillow Book.)

I admire this grandiose, human-meets-text art piece: Link.

(via BoingBoing)

 
::MY FAVORITE LOVE SONG RIGHT NOW::

It's called "Brand New Colony." The Postal Service is its progenitor.

It starts out with 8-bit music, then blooms into layers of sound that crinkle and flake gently apart like Phyllo dough when you get too close. Some of the lyrics get me every time:

"I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day...
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as your lying there drifting off to sleep...

I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene
Start a brand new colony..."

That image of sincerely-built structure and balconic mindfulness.
That lull of a slightly-skipping needle through a record's groove.
That escape, that freedom, that utter, two-person joy... away from it all.

 
::METAL AND GLASS AND READ ALL OVER::

The new Seattle Central Library, designed by Koolhaas, is astoundingly pretty. The red meeting floor reminds me of a Ring Pop I once wore and ate. I love their liberal, bolded use of the font Tw Cen MT. And what an amazing place it must be to sit and listen to the rain: Link.

(via Kottke.org)

 
::COLD HARD KASHI::

I'm puzzled by the pairings on Kashi's Good Friends cereal boxes. They're always very... United Colors of Bennetton (well, before UCB started printing ads featuring black and white horses fucking).

Andrea Seigel, blogger of This Afternoon in Drama, is similarly puzzled. She uses them for story prompts.

There's a twisted version of the middle-aged-man-and-woman box: Link.

She also has crafted a dark account of the little-boy-and-old-lady box: Link.

 
::STATUS QUOTE::

This morning, I had the hail damage on Anderson (my car, a 2001 PT Cruiser in Deep Cranberry Pearlcoat) estimated.

The total, minus the deductible, is $200 shy of paying off my car. I am mulling, in ascending order of probability, whether to take the check and a) buy a new wardrobe; b) get the damage repaired (I'll have a free rental car, which is so fun); c) pay off my car, sell it, and look for a new one; or d) pay off my car and keep it.

I'm ultimately very happy with my car; it has a few things wrong with it (the rear right window makes a thumpthump sound and jostles on its way down or up, the digital clock loses time, the body is pocked with hail and various dings, and the radio display has just this weekend decided to display "0" instead of "9" for the tens position in the 90.1-99.9 megahertz range), but I'm not very affected by these things. It's still functional, funky, purple, and mine. I don't think I could give it up.

 
::EXACTING EMPATHY::

Read this.

I very much agree with those women. I haven't hung out at airports to cathect the desire, but when I have the chance to watch a belt removal, I will. The mere sound of a belt being whipped out of the loops of an old, ripped pair of jeans is enough to quicken my blood.

Right... So... Um, as the woman in the post says, "Ok, we need to get out of here, tee hee hee. Now."

 
::OVER CAST::

This weekend, I re-redded my hair, using Herbal Essences "Spiced Chestnut" (for intensely spiced color!) permanent hair dye. Like last time, the process's results are striking. In the light through the low clouds of this morning, my hair is fluorescent. I wore red pants to offset it, but all they do is make me think, "Oh, look, my hair matches my pants." It still looks nifty, though. And.

You know what they say about redheads.

 
::BRUJO::

My nova swirling
With a dying pulse reborn
Soul without a trace

 
::THE ART OF MOTION CONTROL::

Bruce Shapiro is my new hero. (That rhymed; whee!) He's the artist in residence at the Science Museum of Minnesota (a museum to which I'm going in mid-June for a workshop), and he does incredible things with steel, aluminum, sand, and bubbles. His main site is here. My favorite works include:

.: Interference - the appeal of wavy metal is undeniable.

.: Pipedream II - because rasterized bubbles are the pinnacle of smiley geekdom.

.: Sisyphus - dazzlingly unfrustrating sand patterns made with rolling spheres (see video here).

This kind of thing pops my neurons like sparklers.

(via Jeff, whose astro-logic astounds)

UPDATE::

Google has elucidated things; Sisyphus works with magnets. The Sand as Medium page has me buried. Time-warped photography, theory, and beauty abound. Plus, Zen!

Don't miss "Well Tempered." I'm amazed that the wide furrows caused by the sphere end up looking aligned you'd think they were drawn with a paintbrush.

There's a Ulysses, another "robotic Zen garden," but it's not as tranquil or - cycloidial! - as Sisyphus.

Here's a beautiful, up-close image of a Sisyphus "travail."

And, think about the methods with which one could record the Sisyphus' patterns! I use the word "record" because I'm thinking about the laser phonograph recordings from this post.

 
::PUTTING THE "ETCH" IN BLETCHLEY::

Maybe it's just that I loved Cryptonomicon, or that I heard Neal Stephenson just won the Clarke award for best novel published in Britain, or that he reminds me of Paul Rudd, but the cryptologist/-ographer/-ophant pictured in this article? He's hot!

Link.

(via Ian, who provides that he's "hotter, and British")

 
::WALKIN' IN A WINNER WONDERLAND::

Ladies and gents, the winner of the Gmail Invitation Contest is...

Ian, who answered both tines of the "application question" fork: Why a) he reads this blog and b) he'd like to try Gmail. Plus, he threatened to rescind his toaster, which currently -- and very necessarily -- browns my bread each morning.

Expect your invitation via email shortly. Congrats.

 
::ASTROMETRY::

I love the Hubble Space Telescope. I love it for many reasons -- its testament to humanity's curiousity, its fantastically huge and assumedly beautiful lens, its having flourished despite an aberration on its reflective null corrector -- but as of today, this reason is the foremost: The Red Rectangle Nebula and my ensuing geometrical delight.

Keep lookin' up, 'cuz that's where it all is: Link.

 
::HAIKEYBOARD::

Next I return shift
Delete & mark the lock code
Can you go finish?

-Chad Banks, using only the buttons-cum-magnets from an old-school keyboard (given to me by Jason Wells, a.k.a. GoodJason)

 
::THE LIGHT CRYSTAL::

Nifty new product alert! It's called Crystal Light On The Go. It's a little packet of drink mix that you add to a 20-ounce bottle of water. It comes in Lemonade, Peach Tea, and Raspberry Ice flavors.

I'm puzzled, though. The Raspberry Ice one has 0.08 ounces of powder, but the Lemonade weighs in at 0.17 ounces, more than double. WTF?

 
::PO BOX 533 MT MORRIS IL 61054-7854::

I found a couple of business reply subscription cards to Playgirl in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. (?!?)

One features a blonde, whose starred groin says, "Take off 67% of the cover price!" Its tagline is "A hard man is good to find."

The other asks, "Do you WANT IT or do you NEED IT?" It also lets me know that the price is "hard to beat."

Yeah, sure.

 
::SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR::

From four separate people, I've gotten nonspecific "You look cute today!" comments. Not "Those are cute shoes," "I love your shirt," "Your hair is flippy today," or "Embroidered capri pants rock!" Just "You look cute."

I know from what the can't-put-their-fingers-on-it cuteness stems.

I'm wearing my glasses today.

 
::OUT AND ABOUT::

There's an About Me link over there on the left! Click it!

 
::BEING A RIGHTER::

I will probably never devote my life to Writing. I enjoy it, living with words -- wining and dining them, going on weekend walks with them, babysitting their kids, and getting caught up in ragingly passionate late nights with them -- but I could never devote myself wholeheartedly. They're my hobby, not my vocation.

Still, a journal entry from Nathalie Chicha gave me a burst of identification. "I Married Language (And Now She Doesn't Want to Fuck Me)" includes the following passage:

"'She' abandons me, loves me, locks me out, lets me in, soothes me, keeps me up too late too often, ignores me after fights -- and the more I need her, the more aware I am of her fickleness and faults. Why become a writer when it means marrying her? From a spouse, I want consistency, fidelity, and compassion. I can't will that from language. But, it's not just that I love her; it's that I don't know if I can love myself without her."

Link.

(via Cup of Chicha)

 
::NEPTUNE AND MARS::

Long John Silver's announced in January that if NASA were to find evidence of oceans on Mars (see here for original press release), they'd give every person in America a free giant shrimp. Despite the tardiness of NASA's announcement, LJS retroactively extended the deadline, and today's the day! Hurry; you've only an hour left! Link.

(via Making Light)

 
::CONUNDRUM::

CWRU researchers have determined that a limit in technological development is necessitated by the expansion of the universe. Funny that the universe's ever-quickening expansion makes it to where processing information will not always ever-quicken: Link.

 
::THEN WHY THE LITTLES? ::

Morning kids' TV on channel 27 includes the top-left banner "Wonderful World of DIC."

I remember being vaguely giggly about the company DIC when I was young, but age, "wisdom," and the addition of "Wonderful World of" made me laugh aloud today.

 
::RANDOM QUOTE::

"This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
- Dorothy Parker

(via Slashdot's bottom-of-the-page quote generator)

 
::AND THE AWARD FOR BEST WAY TO WASTE TIME TONIGHT GOES TO... ::

Musicplasma.

Enter the name of a music artist, and they'll give you a web of related artists: Link.

(via, of course, BoingBoing)

 
::COMMENTALITY::

Have you ever wanted to comment specifically on a blog post on Iridesce Sent? Well now, faithful -- or, perhaps, faithless -- readers, you can! From this moment onward, thanks to a lovely change of interface at Blogger, I've made it so that each post is followed by a "Comments" link.

Go for it!

 
::SPINNING MY WHEELS::

Today I walked up to my car and found its rear left tire flat.

My first thought was, "Damn that I don't have a boy around to do this for me."

After I got over that, I amassed the requisite materials and got started. It was a strange flow-inducing exercise; the sun was hot on my neck, the jack was nimble in my swirling arms, and the lug nuts plopped pleasantly into my hands after I used the T-bar to loosen them. I uncradled the spare tire from its under-car rack, and I employed the "skip every other lug" method of tightening. I left, half an hour late, but oddly proud of my accomplishment. It's not that I didn't know how to change a tire, I'd just never done it entirely by myself before.

I felt like Austin, the son of a coworker of my mom, to whom I gave an IQ test as part of an assignment in my Assessment of Children psychology course. At the age of four, he mastered the block designs quickly, and after each one, he'd exclaim, "I did it! Allbymyself!"

The most proud fact, though? That I'd changed out of my yellow capri pants and into dirty jeans before I started the process.

And God, it was difficult to go 55 on the freeway. I never realized how heavy it hangs on the brain to have everyone lapping you.

 
::MORNING RITUALISM::

I woke up this morning very excited about breakfast. I was going to take the leftover banana half I had in my refrigerator, cut it into slices, put it in a bowl with (new!) Corn Flakes with Bananas, and use vanilla yogurt in lieu of milk, of which I'm depleted.

Five paces from my refrigerator, I realize that I don't have a leftover banana or vanilla yogurt. I had dreamed my breakfast plans -- and man, what a letdown my toast-'n'-oatmeal is gonna be.

 
::BANNER AD::

Great stuff from the Afterschool Alliance:

"When kids think Man Ray is a kind of jellyfish, there's clearly not enough art in our schools."

 
::REPRISE::

"...Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart..."

 
::I SAW IT WRITTEN AND I SAW IT SAY::

A low smear of cloud passed beneath the moon, and the waning orb's light reflected from it. Someone had erased their sketch of the moon and had re-drawn it, ten degrees up.

 
::OOOH AAAAAH::

I accompanied a friend on a mattress-shopping trip today. (She wanted to have some moral and decision-making support in addition to shoulder, back, and hip.)

It was an odd experience. The culture of mattress salesmanship shunts aggressive commission sales within conversation about one's sleep habits and preferences -- an altogether unsavory combination. Insert a lack of salesperson intelligence and you get some funniness:

Mattress Giant Salesguy: This particular brand has a little more posturizing than the others.
Me: Define "posturizing."
MGS: Well, it's when there's more support there, to support the back and increase posture.

Right. Then:

MGS: This one has a layer of TempurPedic foam that warms to your body temperature; lie there for ten minutes to really let the bed adjust to you.
Me (to my friend): I don't think the adjustment has anything to do with temperature. I think it's just heat-responsive, insofar as your being on it warms it or cools it, that's all.
MGS: Actually, the special foam chambers react to your body heat to provide better posturizing.
Me: Do you have any literature on this? I'm curious how that works.
MGS: Literature? You mean, like, a book?

And my favorite:

MGS: What will it take for me to get you in this bed tonight? (My friend and I laugh uproariously.) What, did I say something funny or something?

 
::CINCO::

Stars are biding time
Distant spark - yes! - finally
Quintessential glow

 
::RESONATING::

I struggled a long time to find an analogy for the sound of Four Tet's amazing music, and an apt image finally hit me this weekend: If a phonograph stylus were light, Four Tet would be the sound of a plane of light sweeping over the universe's record, turning its textures into vibrating air.

My challenge was then to listen to the songs and figure out what the light-stylus was "reading" -- roofs of houses interspersed with freshly-shorn grass? Coral under water followed by sandcastles? Europa?

Leave it to life's timing (which has acquired a grand synchronicity of late) to place this information in my lap today. Physicists at the Berkeley National Laboratory have figured out a way to record sound by taking pictures of phonograph grooves instead of dragging a stylus through them, and as it's a preservation tool, it's funded by the Library of Congress. I blogged about the video of such a trip through a groove here. Light as stylus, indeed: Link (use "iridescesent" as username and password).

(via BoingBoing)

UPDATE: I just found out that laser phonograph readers are commercially available. Rad. (Thanks, Ian!)

 
::MERIT- AND NEED-BASED::

I have one Gmail invitation to give. All it needs is a recipient.

If you read this weblog, and you'd like to try Gmail, submit your reasons why to the email address in the sidebar.

Applications are due by Wednesday, May 12. The winning entry will be chosen based on creativity, spelling ability, and telepathicity.

 
::LANDSCAPE OPTHAMOLOGY::

The flood light, aimed down from the top of a tree in a Swiss Avenue palace's front yard, cast shadows on the late-night green lawn. The trunks and branches spread at my feet like blood vessels on a retina.

The grass would become a different kind of photoreceptor when the sun morned.

 
::REASON #237 I LOVE MY JOB::

I just got to buy fifteen sets of Magnetoids.

As Chad would say, "Busta sweet!"

 
::STATION OFF THE WAGON::

Vinyl letters adhered to the back of an old station wagon read, "I live to drink and smoke." And, almost as if the driver feels me judging him, underneath those letters, another smaller set state: "To each his own."

Okay, then.

 
::OPIO::

Eve of ancient light
Distant, in the dark he moves
He, smooth slow nova

 
::CHILLOUT WARMS ME UP::

My musical obsessions lately have shifted to mellower, slower, more melodical artists. BBC's Radio 2 has shown me that my new aural genre-world has a name: Chillout. In "Moments in Love: The History of Chillout Music," they chronicle the family tree of many of my favo(u)rite bands.

Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie" is featured -- a track I've always adored, especially after hearing it played by The Kurstins on the theremin -- along with songs from Air, Moby, and The Flaming Lips.

Here's the hour-long story: Link.

(via BoingBoing)

 
::FEELING SINK KING::

I stopped by my apartment after delivering a speech to an AARP group today, and one of my landlord's maintenance guys was stretched out on my kitchen floor, fiddling with the undersink.

"How's it going?"

"Well, I've done this many times, but I'm having problems with this one."

Okay. Not so good to hear.

I ask, "Was there any overflow when you got here today?"

"No, actually -- I like the way you built the thing with the bag and the can. Tracey (my landlady) said you were smart."

Yay!

I repeat: D. I. Y. Uh-huh!

 
::TOWERED::

In the window of Zoo Music on Garland Rd., there are dozens of drum sets, stacked in rows for space efficiency. They look like candy-colored, glitter-flecked Towers of Babel, just begging to be ascended.

 
::SINKING FEELING::

Last night around 9pm, I noticed that the floor mat under my kitchen sink was wet in one corner. I'm no stranger to spilling things, so my initial thoughts were not of catastrophe, but of klutzitude. But on closer inspection, the inside of my under-sink cabinet was wet, and as I began pulling objects out [garbage bags and cleaning supplies and paper towels (very fotunately still in plastic wrappers) and candles and toolboxes], the culprit reared its wet head. A valve was dripping.

I called my landlord, and they told me to shut off the valve. That done, the drips didn't stop (they were coming from before the valve), so they said, "Put a bowl under it until the morning, and we'll come by to fix it then."

"Um, it's dripping at a rate of, like, four per second."

"What?"

"It's dripping pretty fast; I don't know if my biggest bowl will hold it all night. But I'll try something. See you in the morning."

So, after an idea-volley with a non-plumber (thanks, Austin), I jimmied a larger-than-a-bowl water collection unit. With twist ties, I affixed the mouth of a 13-gallon trash bag in a triangle: One corner behind the leak, and the other two held out to various pipes to encourage water flow to the bottom of the bag. The issue of bag shape-shift and weight-increase was tackled by putting the garbage bag in its can, and I assured the can wouldn't move as it filled by shoring it up with heavy glassware and a non-slip floor mat.

Six in the morning rolled around, and the bag was half full. Sheesh! But it held, and I'm hoping my landlord's addressing the problem right now.

I'm proud, though, that I figured out a way to not have to check a drip-bowl every hour or so.

D. I. Y. Uh-huh!

 
::THOSE LITTLE THINGS::

On my way to work, there's a 20-mph school zone. I noticed that if I start out at 22 mph at its inception, there's just enough downward slope to propel me through the entire zone at 20 mph without touching my gas pedal.

I am so in love with life right now.

 
::PASSED::

A funeral home's billboard reads, "In Proud Memory of Those We Serve" and then lists the names of the people who have died to give them business.

I wonder if people consider it a value added to have their deceased loved one's name on a billboard for a year. The 2003 list went up to replace the previous year's recently, and while their 2002 billboard featured several columns of readable names, this year's clientele are much greater in number, and I can't read the names at a distance.

Their billboard must have been successful.

 
::THE END OF A QUEST::

I got glasses when I was in fourth grade.

I got contacts when I was in seventh grade.

I got pannus (blood vessel growth onto the cornea) in tenth grade, and I was relegated to glasses again for my junior year of high school.

I got hard contacts in twelfth grade (the pannus had become inactive).

I got soft contacts again my freshman year of college.

I got LASIK my first year of grad school. Goodbye, vision in need of correction!

A few months ago, though, I became enamoured of glasses. And I began looking for some "cosmetic glasses" -- without functioning lenses -- preferably of black plastic. I've looked at several stores, trying a new retail outlet every week or so. I resorted to trying on low-magnification reading glasses (what's a little dizzification?), but none looked right.

Until today. I walked into The Icing at Collin Creek Mall and perused their wares. The top row held -- hooray! -- about 8 styles of non-shaded spectacles. I walked out with the seminal pair of black plastic, plus a couple of metal-framed ones: a maroon pair and a black pair.

So if you see me, and I look a tad smarter, that's why. I completed my quest.

 
::SPRUNG::

The Container Store's "Spring Organization Sale" is going on now.

I wish I owned enough springs to warrant organization.

 
::I THINK WE'RE CRAZY, MAYBE::

You haven't heard Radiohead until you've heard The Section quartet play it.