and the regular weekly crap I almost never do on weeknights.
Since posting initially:
Here, the part of speech "fucking" assumes is more obvious. Otherwise, ow.
Yesterday after my computer ate my book, full of tables and formatting (mine) and three months late (not mine), for the fourth fucking time, the computer folks deigned to give me a new CPU. It's damn loud. While someone was hooking it up, the monitor blinked in its annoying way, and he asked, "What's that?" I said, "That's my monitor blinking in its annoying (and loud, when I have the speakers on) way; sometimes it flips out entirely so that you can see the shape of the tube."
"Oh. I can get you a new monitor too." So he did.
"While you're here, can I ask you why my taskbar's autohide function never works?" I have it set to hide, and I expect it to display when I mouse to the bottom of the screen. It doesn't.
He told me it's because I have my windows maximized, so the taskbar shows up but behind the windows. I should have realized that myself, I know, but for fuck's sake. That's what the autohide is for, no? So I can use the piddly 17" screen to its capacity, and waste space for the task bar only when I want to use it? The same way I keep my email program, my web browser, my word-processing software, etc. all open at the same time but only display when I want? If I have to size a window to accommodate the taskbar, what is the point of autohide?
I love Macintosh.
I love iTunes, I love my iPod, despite their deranged use of capital letters. I just ripped The White Album without "Back in the U.S.S.R."
I am so absolved from reading this book. Not only p. 82's passive "compose" thing and UberBoss's dominus-nabiscoing yesterday but today on p. 289: "You look like one of the Odum's to me."
RDC suggested this is meant to be possessive. Nah. We know Mrs. Odum is dead, and even the redneck speaker wouldn't say "the Odum" to refer to a single person, the father.
However, I am more than halfway through.
I did ask UberBoss what he is reading these days. Twentieth-century political history and commentary as usual, and he didn't like Summerland, which I lent him. But no good new novels.
I feel like I'm in the long dark tea-time of the soul here. Barbie was on the (local, daytime) news Thursday promoting Good Books Lately, discussing spring's new paperbacks. Even she was fishing, naming We Talk Pretty One Day (which I read in paperback in Haitch's pool in the summer of 2001 and Four Corners, which on her recommendation RDC gave me for Christmas 2001 (in hardcover)). One sounded good, a memoir of a white African growing up in Rhodesia. I forget the fourth. But I did remember to record the 11 a.m. hour.
Later. I remember the fourth: Atonement, which I read in paperback in September and which was wonderful but which isn't a new book for spring.
Torn Shapes of Desire, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Seamus Haney's Beowulf, two M.F.K. Fishers (Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me and Last House), Peter Ackroyd's English Music, the His Dark Materials trilogy next to Paradise Lost, House of Leaves, Don Quijote, The Lecturer's Tale, the King James Bible, Madeleine L'Engle Herself, The Name of the Rose, Jeff Noon's Vurt and Automated Alice, my Alice in Wonderland coloring book, an Annotated Alice, and Alice herself; and Mad Madge (the first woman to publish in English, from Molly). This is PLT's suggestion of high-end porn, books that I haven't read yet or need to reread or that (like Pullman) go with books I haven't read yet (Milton). In the oversized bottom shelf, the oversized books previously in the Pooh bookends downstairs: The Music Pack, The Art Pack, The Arthurian Book of Days, Sisters, Meetings with Remarkable Trees, Oh the Places You'll Go! The Father Christmas Letters, Granddaughters of Corn, Good Morning Captain! a pop-up Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a lavish Kings and Queens of England and another less lavish, and Geoffrey Ashe's Mythology of the British Isles; plus three unread books large enough not to look dwarfed among such tall companions, Infinite Jest, PrairyErth, and a book of 20th century short stories by women.
And I guess I do consider "that I haven't read yet" to be a valid sort criterion. "That don't look dwarfed among tall skinny companions" is less valid but I'm going with it. Unfortunately, those three also happen to be predominantly blue, which could seem like a cover rather than a content choice--as if size were okay but color were too base. Oh, The Places You'll Go! doesn't belong among the picture books, not being a children's book; and Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters might really belong among the Christmas books but it's too delightful a volume to be only seasonal.
Yeah. Four blathery entries since I made the list of the weekend's chores. This would be why I seldom finish a weekend's tasks. Away with me.
RDC made us mocha lattes in the middle of the afternoon. I took a break and drank mine, reading The Little Friend and blathering, then returned to the front garden. My main project over the next few weeks (or sooner) is to plan my plantings this year, so I abandoned the grooming and consulted my gardening books and High Country Gardens catalogs. Gradually I noticed how badly my hands were shaking and connected that with an inability to concentrate and mild paranoia. It was 3:30, and I hadn't eaten since my morning cereal nor drunk very much. But I had had a powerfully chocolatey coffeey latte an hour before.
I dove for the kitchen and made myself peanut butter toast. It was medicinal, really!
I hadn't felt paranoia like that since I had Percocet four years ago after my wisdom-tooth extraction.
I took two quarts of sour cherries out of the freezer today. We were planning to snowshoe tomorrow but RDC isn't feeling well. He says he's feeling up to helping me make a pie crust, though. Sometimes I think he wakes up with a stranger every morning, because how after ten years he can continue to hope that teaching me anything kitcheny would require any less than his full strength I don't know.
So tomorrow, after pie- and maybe bread-baking, I'll clean the oven and fridge. Before, I'll upgrade my kitchen applet.