More random tippity-typage

This time the laptop is on the kitchen table, and I'm sitting in semidarkness composing on the fly and enjoying the rich, seductive smell of kalua pork wafting out from the kitchen.

A few days ago I went with the rest of the family to visit a monastery, set way out in the beautiful boonies. The monastery was founded in the 1940s, and all the outbuildings -- including the church -- are made up of old war-era Quonset huts. We happened to get there just before Nones, so we went into the church to listen to the monks chant. I may not be Catholic, but it was still a bit dispiriting to see how few monks there were (there were about nine, including one who is probably considering becoming a monk); it was also rather sad to see no young men among their number. Belief in God, much more dedicating one's life to the service of God, seems to be on the wane throughout the Western world, and I think we lose something precious as a result.

Anyway, while the rest of the family were watching a short film about life in the monastery, I went into the gift shop and talked to the monk on duty, Brother Patrick -- an elderly man with the sweetest, most twinkly demeanor. He asked me my name, asked if I knew whether it was in the Bible (I said I did, though I wasn't as familiar with the Apocrypha as I'd like) and was generally genial and outgoing. CM and I bought a few things (including some maple walnut penuche made by some Trappistine sisters in Massachusetts -- mmm, Catholicious) and when we left, he cheerily declared, "See you all in heaven!"

It's a deal. Heaven wouldn't be much fun without people like Brother Patrick in it.

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, tonight I've been reading aloud He's Just Not That Into You to an appreciative audience. For a self-help title, it's pretty funny, though you have to read around the proofreading errors. (Don't get me started about the sad state of modern publishing. Really.) Reading books like this is a bit like eating Twinkies -- a guilty pleasure -- but the basic concept (a man who is into a woman will do a lot to be with her and make her as happy as he can; if he doesn't try to do this, he isn't really interested) needs to be taught to teenagers and reiterated frequently. I know it would've helped me.

From high school on, I fell stupidly for guys who had little interest in me and who regularly, cavalierly sliced open my heart because they wouldn't do the manly thing and tell me honestly that they didn't like me that much. (Want examples? Let's see... Guy who flirts constantly and turns out to be gay. Guy who turns you down for a date, but promises he'll ask you out another time, and then turns you down AGAIN, but finally goes on a date with you two years later when his own social life is on the skids. Guy who dates you obsessively over the summer and dumps you immediately in a letter after he starts college. Guy who pursues you like mad until he manages to get you, and then loses all interest except for the occasional NCMO session -- and who callously wounds you on a weekly basis, even going so far as to make out with one of your close friends. Guy whose profession will always be the most important thing in his life. Guy who sees you as "one of the guys," getting you to give him advice and cheer him up and take him on long car rides so he feels better about himself. Feh.) I was languishing over that last one when I met Captain Midnight. He showed me pretty quickly the way a man treats a woman when he really, really likes and cares about her. What a difference. None of the earlier crap ever obtained when we were dating -- one thing led to another, and then another, and then another and another, and pretty soon we were talking naturally and casually about where we'd both like to set up house and how many children we'd want to have. I think he'd sooner slice off his own arm than hurt me deliberately.

My two cents: nobody should settle for less than that.

The Great Whosit? Competition

I wonder if anyone else has ever played the deduction game Whosit?. Hubby's family are big fans of this board/card game, and they introduced it to me a few years ago. Based on the artwork and fonts, I'd guess their copy of the game dates from the mid-1970s.

Image evilly stolen from Darwin's Game Closet

If you enjoy games such as Clue or Mastermind, you'd probably enjoy Whosit?, since it works on the same basic principles. Each player picks a secret card that determines the person's identity (Rock Star, Dancer, Judge, Waiter, Singer, Detective, etc.), and the object of the game is to guess correctly the identity of all the other players. This is done by playing question cards, which allow each player to ask any one of the other players basic questions about their identity (sex, race, adult or child, certain articles of clothing or jewelry, whether the person smokes, and the color of the room he or she is in). You are required to tell the truth when someone asks you a question unless you happen to have drawn one of four wild-card identities: the Gangster, the Censor, the Director or the Spy. The Gangster and the Spy never tell the truth, the Director may attempt to convince others he is some other identity, and the Censor always answers "no" to any question. The other twist is that you may only ask the questions that appear on your question cards -- so if you really want to determine whether some other character is in a red room and your cards don't include that question, you can't ask.

It's pretty fun, although it can be hard to keep track of all the clues if there are more than four players in a game. (A notepad would be a handy addition for those of us who don't have kung-fu memory skills.) It's also easy enough to learn that children can be taught to play, but it's still fun for the adults. I'm not sure why the game went out of print, unless it's that some of the questions (Are you white? Are you black? Are you Oriental? Do you smoke?) are considered too politically incorrect for our time. It could probably be updated successfully with animals instead of people. In any case, Whosit? has become a family game, and I've seen (and participated in) quite a few games played over the last few days.

Mah jongg is another slightly obscure game we tend to play as a family; we don't play for cash or even for points, just to win, and each of the boys in hubby's family has a mah jongg set, to be dragged out during every family reunion or gathering of at least four people. I'm glad there's nobody staying underneath our rooms at night, because the process of "tile washing" before the next game setup can get pretty clattery.

Laptopping it

HY do they call it a laptop, anyway? The way I use it, the thing never stays in my lap. Sooner or later it ends up on the floor with me spread out before it, tippity-typing away. Maybe it should be called a floortop.

I find myself wanting to write, but I don't have a specific topic in mind. Since free-writing is usually blog poison as far as I'm concerned, I won't subject you to that... but definitely feeling the itch to come up with something.

OK, not quite true. I have quite a few topics in mind, as it turns out. There are all sorts of bits and pieces of story ideas on my hard drive and scattered throughout several manila folders in my house. My problem isn't coming up with ideas for stories, it's following up on those ideas and writing them through to completion. I am a lazy butt when it comes to following through. Plus, I think, at least a few of my unfinished ideas remain unfinished because I fear they're too weird and that the people who know me in person will read these stories and decide I'm crazy. I guess that's a cop-out, though. That's what a nom de plume is for.

I know I fear failure too much. But how do you push through the fear to create anyway?

The trouble with Twitter

I suppose Twitter has its uses. But I've identified a personal problem with using it, which is of course that when I'm posting tweets, I'm not being productive elsewhere (including here). I once described Twitter as ADHD blogging, but I think it bears closer resemblance to an old-style telephone party line -- it's easy to get sucked into the chattering and lose all track of time.

Which reminds me: I'm sure someone else has already identified this particular metaphor, since I always seem to come late to the cognitive party, but I'm pretty sure the Internet is actually the modern realm of Faerie. Think about it. You have mortals who stray within its boundaries (often in the dead of night) who are never -- well, OK, rarely ever -- seen again in the light of day, and if they do appear, they're weak pale things who can't wait to get back to the magical domains they visit at night. There are enchanting and dangerous things to see and do, beings who often appear in strange fey forms, and a stretched sense of time where hours go by like minutes (has anyone written "Rip van WWWinkle" yet?). It is easy for the weak-minded to be ensorcelled by such a place.

Not really sure how all the "free ringtones" advertising fits the template, though.

mutta mutta post office rassnfrassn grr.

The USPS has recently lost about $50 worth of my crafty goodness in the mail. Delivery Confirmation? It is to laugh. They didn't bother scanning the package when it was first put into the mail, so now nobody knows where it is. Response has essentially been *shrug* "Them's the breaks. Too bad you didn't spring for insurance. Where else you gonna go, sucker?"

Grr. If there were even ONE company in the U.S. that offered cheap shipping services for parcels less than a pound, I would be ON IT so fast your heads would spin. The Post Office needs a little more competition. And from now on I'm insuring my little parcels for at least $50 so that if the jolly postal workers at the USPS lose them, they end up paying me and not the other way around.

But there is one nice thing about the Postal Service: they brought me this today.
Thank you, dear Gretel! Lovely holiday greetings from far away over the sea. *sigh*

Yes, some day the Laundry Fairy will visit England. (It will probably happen just shortly before the Last Trump, but it will happen.)