Some people keep telling me that computers and technology will make my life easier. While this may be the case in some instances, I will agree with the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, who said that technology is not the problem nor is it the solution. Technology is a tool that, when we know how to use it and maintain the appropriate attitude towards it, could enhance certain part of our lives. Just my thought for the moment.

I walked half a mile to work today in -30 degree weather (and yes, that includes windchill). I'm getting a kind of masochistic/testosterone-driven pride out of that fact. Of course, it's easier to be gloaty once you can feel your legs again.

Sporks are plastic. Plastic doesn't rust.

I think I will be running for office someday on a platform of sex and chocolate. Sex, like technology, is not the solution or even a solution. The premise of the platform will be a revisitation of the pleasure principle: if one can figure out how to be happy, while still be responsible and not hurting anyone or anything with your actions, the world will eventually benefit from your choices. I don't have Kerry's ultra-carvable in a Mt. Rushmore kind of way face, but I think it could work. Have to go pull out that seminar paper on "The Architecture of Free Love". Oh, and I do mean architecture as in buildings, not as in social structure.

ARGH. It has been a week. And actually, it’s only been 3 days. Ugh.

This week at work, I have been doing a combination of two things: preparing for a big quarterly meeting, to be held on Friday, and working on end-of-the-year reports for our federal funding. The former is the job I was hired to do. The latter is an additional responsibility that involves digging through disorganized files trying to sort out 2 years worth of mess related to money, which I hate dealing with, and which comes with very little compensation for the extra workload. I have to say that I enjoyed my job more before this addition to my schedule. It is supposed to be only temporary, but I don’t know what the plan is to fix the HR problem.

Also, politics have again become a focus of my time and energy. Our caucus is one of the Super Tuesday ones next week, so I’ve been trying to pay attention and be a good informed citizen. I don’t like or fully believe in any of them. Even if I like what one of them has to say on paper (or on his website), when they debate, it’s just platform stumping. None of them can answer a question – they all give policy speeches instead. I still like the idealism of Kucinich. I realize that he’s been called a tree-hugger, but then, so have I, by the other correspondent on this board. I care more about my environment than I do about getting the cheapest product. I try to be an informed consumer and wield what little power I have that way. So I will try to do the same with my political power. But the whole thing tends to get me down. Politics comes to play in my work life far too often, where my office compromises on what is right in regards to the cultural resources we have in this state because otherwise we might lose the political support which may keep us financially afloat in the next legislative session. How is that for messed up? I do like this site, though: http://news.mpr.org/features/2004/01/01_newsroom_selectapres/ . You take a little quiz on your views, and they tell you how you match up with the candidates’ views on issues. Good stuff.

On other fronts, I don’t know. I’m again on the up and down roller coaster of being in love. Yep, said in a public forum, I am in love. Alright, I admit is isn’t a public forum. Susan isn’t “public” for me, and the only person who seems to regularly read is Daniel, seer of Jimmy Hoffa. I don’t think that I ever reported on the lingerie experience, as I was asked to. It was good. I think the power of good lingerie is twofold. One, you find something in which you are comfortable because it displays your body in a light you can appreciate, even if you feel a little silly. That in and of itself is empowering – to feel sexy. Two, the response you get should be favorable, which reflects back your own feelings of sexiness, becoming doubly or more so empowering. Part of this may be buying into the male-dominated world view, which posits the female body as a passive object to be gazed upon and acted upon. But as I am a fully-engaged participant in my sexual being and in my sex life, I use that gaze to my advantage. I display myself to gain a reaction, and I can, to some degree, control that reaction and use it. It’s like using my body as a canvas, I guess. It isn’t on display for everyone, but the one I choose to share it with. And with as little cleavage as I have, the push-up bra makes me more aware of my breasts and him more aware of them, and I liked that feeling, dominant paradigm or no.

Okay, one more letter to write and then I can go and brave the icy snow and frozen tundra of my town. Brrrrr.

Oh, and daniel, our erstwhile reader? Jimmy Hoffa is so many places at once, like god. I personally think he's in a building that had a cold storage basement in Minot, North Dakota, when the railroad was still the main form of transportation. It's now a copy shop.

It's pretty cool that he's mafia-interested, as your cats have vaguely true crime linked names...

I feel like such a working stiff, but can I say how much I’m looking forward to a three-day weekend? Ugh. I’m so fucking burnt out!

There’s a woman I work with – okay, don’t so much work with, as she’s never here and doesn’t work, but you get what I mean. Anyway, she has a job that involves our financial appropriation from the feds, and as far as I can tell from her files, we’re like two years behind. Anyway, she’s always out sick. I don’t think she’s ever been at work for two entire consecutive weeks since I’ve been here. She was out for like 6 weeks, and then spent her first day back making plans with a friend for a long weekend! And now she’s got a serious heart problem, had a heart attack or something, and hasn’t been in two consecutive days in 3 months. Fine, I understand health issues (sort of) but her files are in such disarray that none of the rest of us can do her job without tearing our hair out for stress. And I’ve been assigned to the case, which is flattering, as my boss thinks I can handle it, and it sucks. I HATE her job. I understand now why I changed my major from economics to art history (with a few other choices in between. I don’t enjoy dealing with money!

So I’ve been dealing with her bullshit job, working on my own deadlines all week (big meeting in two weeks, all the deadlines are this week), and trying to figure out why I was dumb enough to join a social committee organizing the holiday event here at work. Yes, I know the holidays are over, but everyone’s busy during and that’s why the event is held after the holidays. Made sense to someone. But I’ve been on this dumb committee, where the chair keeps making all the decisions herself and I wonder what the meetings are for. Ugh. Regardless, I have new fancy underwear I will be wearing under my dress tonight, and I plan on having a damn good time with the s.o. Leopard print push-up bra (believe me, I need it), garter belt, and lacy black underwear.... Hey, I’m going on the premise of fun. I’ve not done this “Surprise! Lingerie!” thing before. We’ll see how it goes. Reports later.

The only useful euphemism for masturbation is “rearranging your sock drawer” which comes out of a night that ended with me, susan, and an art student dancing around a statue of the founder of the city of Athens with bottles of Orangina. And at least susan and I had not been drinking; I don’t testify for the art student. Oh, and I don’t think it makes any sense, so don’t even try. I personally go through phases of desire – I really, really want to, or eh, whatever. Depends on mood, stress, and a billion other things. This applies to sex for one as well as partner-oriented experiences. But that’s just me. I like the testosterone theory, but I didn’t realize that exercise could suppress it. I was under the impression that exercise was good because it increased the blood flow – everywhere....

Musings on the Morning

It’s Friday. I’ve spent the last two days in GIS training, learning to become a techno map geek, so it’s my first real day at work since Tuesday. I walk about half a mile to work, which I enjoy as it allows my mind to wander before getting to work and having to concentrate. We have snow and fog. Have you ever seen fog on top of snow? It’s amazing, in a bleak world sort of post-apocalyptic silence sort of way. Who knew so little color could exist?

My favorite thing about snow (and I should mention that I haven’t been in a snowy climate since I was 8 years old) is the footprints. When someone shovels their sidewalk, but we get a dusting after that, all the footprints compact the snow and freeze over night. So you have people-shoe footprint, and occasionally doggie footprints. And outside my house today, bird prints. And I know what they’re from. There’s a guy who lives somewhere nearby who owns, as a pet, a Hungarian pheasant. I forget his name right now – the bird’s, not the guy’s, which I never knew. But he walks the bird on a leash. Pheasant on a leash. How bizarre is that? It makes me smile.

The worst thing about being away from work is the amount of correspondence you get to do when you get back. 2 days, and I have 65 email messages and 7 phone messages. Woo-hoo. And it’s Friday, which means that one of my main task is getting everything somewhat organized, in some way. Even if it’s just piles. I hate the “to read” pile, a stack of things that I should look at, but bear no immediate need or relationship to projects on which I am working. I rarely get that one entirely moved. Oh well. I think I’m adjusting to what can and can’t be finished in a given amount of time. Some things just don’t get done when you would like them to!

Well, while you're saying good-bye, Things are still going remarkably well for me. Sometimes I don't bother sharing some of this because it seems mean or gloaty to talk about my new and good relationship while Susan's falls apart. But frankly, that's stupid reasoning. It isn't much good to hide half of the good stuff, just because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. There's a thin line between being honest about good fortune and rubbing it in someone's face. So, apologies to your broken heart. I hate that it didn't work out for you, but I can see why his life wasn't particularly conducive to new love right now. And at least, when you were together, he was good to you. That's a significant start.

On the flip side of the coin, where the winters are long and you need something to keep you warm, my frozen tundra romance blazes merrily along. I discussed the phone thing with my s.o., who agreed that guys suck on the phone, but also seemed to understand why, if you say you are going to call, you HAVE to call. He is amazing to me. He has his own issues and baggage, and he is not a perfect human being, but I think certain past experiences, including a failed marriage, have led him to an understanding unusual to modern society: it is important to treat others as you would like to be treated.

Norah Jones, without a doubt, is the sexiest album on the planet. Without cowtowing to the mainstream media, by following her own heart and natural inclinations, she has done amazingly well. Long, languid tango-like dances (by people who know the language of the dance), warm liquid kisses, lingering glances, the soft caress of a hand along the neck. Fuck yeah!

I've had a long and fantastic phone conversation with g. I'm so googly, head-over-heels, weak-kneed, and sappy. I can have my romantic moments, believe it or not. After spending the week (or most of it) here for Christmas, he bought me two roses which he left, with a note, on my dining room table (he left after I went to work for the day). I still have the flowers, although they are drooping a little. Susan will tell you that I hate roses, which is mostly, but not entirely, true. I hate the cliche of the dozen red roses. I don't love hot-house roses, but partly because my mom grows rose bushes in her garden and always has -- hot-house roses aren't the right shape or smell. But I got two -- one an unusual violet color, and one red. And he acknowledged that roses were cliche in the note, but said that he thought they were pretty. Points for that. They make me smile every time I look across the room to them.