Entries this day: clearing silly spot

clearing

9:28pm CDT Sunday 9 April 2000

Tonight I'm packing a lot of stuff and Wende had an outburst of sorts. I feel like I'm blaming her here, but this is my story. She said she was scared that our new house would be all junky like my apartment. I've lived like a sloppy bachelor for 10.5 years, not counting the short periods when one of my girlfriends lived with me. My apartment is junky. Clothes are on the floor in the bathroom and bedroom. There's a torn sheet covering the recliner. Dust bunnies the size of elephants are under most immobile furniture.

I got angry and thought about angry things I could do like throw my couch out the window (CRASH!!), or stab the screwdriver into the wall multiple times, or just start throwing away boxes that I've packed... I stuffed my feelings instead of being angry at Wende. I curled up in the corner and cried for a bit then made myself get up to pack more.

Wende said it wasn't fair for me to stuff my feelings after she had expressed hers. True enough.

In telling her my anger I figured out a big reason of why I'm attached to all this stuff. A lot stems from my dad - he keeps tons of shit. He's not the ultimate pack rat, but he's a good pack rat.

I'm afraid if I throw something out, the person who gave it to me will be mad that I threw it away. Or worse yet, that I would forget that person - that I would forget the story behind the gift.

- - - - True Stories - - - -

1. See this phone? Panasonic Easa-Phone model KX-T2130. Has speaker phone and 28 number memory. This phone cost me ten cents. Ten. It works fine. The speakerphone is kinda squeaky, and the ringer doesn't ring, and the memory redials don't work, but I can call people and talk on it just fine.

   You know why it cost ten cents? Cause in 1994 I bought it and an answering machine for five cents each at a church auction thing. The answering machine never worked worth crap. The phone worked fine at the time and now it works as well as it does now. Threw the answering machine away and the phone has definitely been worth ten cents.

2. See these two passes to an AMC movie? I got them a couple years ago at a Christmas party that Sara invited me to for her American Humanics organization party thing. The party was small, starring a bunch of people I didn't know, all winning awards for achievements that didn't really mean anything to me. But after all the awards stuff, we turned on the party music and had a dance contest.

   Sara and I won not for style, not for grace, but for dancing the damn longest with the most energy out of anyone else there.

   The passes are still good. They expire 31 December 2000. I intend to go to a movie with Sara using those passes.

3. See this box of Craft Sticks? They're just like popsicle sticks, but they've never been used as such. My mom bought them for me in the mid 1980s. Actually this is probably the second box that I had. I have built so much stuff with these Craft Sticks.

   Letter holders, CD holders, floppy disk holders, desktop paper/pen/scissors/tape/glue holders, candle holders, ... all custom made for whatever purpose I needed at the time.

   Most impressive is my coveted marble track. Over a period of essentially 10 years I worked on it. It guides marbles down tracks according to their size. And big marbles flip this little switch causing little marbles to go down a different track on subsequent runs.

   The marble track is up in the top of my closet, officially unfinished, but I probably won't really work on it more. I can't bear to dispose of it. I've decided I would sell it for no less than $5000. And only then to a home that intends to keep it properly archived or running.

Thanks for listening to my stories. I intend to give away or probably throw away the phone when we move in a week. The passes I will use. The marble track stays. Maybe I'll have more stories soon.

Back to packing.

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silly

9:38am CDT Sunday 9 April 2000

Doh! One of my website clients, www.blanketstoyou.com, emailed me describing a problem with the front page of her website. When she views the front page from some search engines, it's different than when she views from other search engines.

What? I'm thinking... That makes no sense. Complex scenarios ran through my head - maybe these search engines have cached old versions of the site and are showing it.

Turns out I had made a silly error. There were two versions of the front page on her site, in two different directories. I deleted the old version and created a symbolic link from it to the new one.

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spot

9:53am CDT Sunday 9 April 2000

I have a new theory about cats. I have very(!) few data points on which to base this theory, but here the data:

Wende's cats are little meowing maniacs whenever anyone walks into her apartment, or even near her apartment. We walk in and they are at our feet and on the desk, telling us all kinds of things. Wende can understand them. She answers with "really?" a lot. I'm guessing that Tinkerbell says, "I shedded on your pillows and bedspread for you!" and Peter says, "I'm hungry!"

Spot, my indoor/outdoor cat is mostly silent. He comes home (jumping four feet from tree limb to my bedroom window) walks over the bed (and anyone who may be in it) to his food dish. If there is no food, he'll sit there watching the dish until food appears. If no food appears by 3am, he'll jump into bed and ram his head into my face to let me know about it.

The '/outdoor' part of the description of Spot has recently been removed. We have decided to make him an indoor cat when we move to our new house, instead of letting him in and out, but not Peter or Tinkerbell. I figure Peter and Tinkerbell can just get over it, but we'll see how this new plan goes for a while.

When I came home this morning, Spot was meowing, just like Wende's cats.

So the theory is either:

1. Outdoor cats maintain vows of silence and indoor cats don't know about this vow.
2. Outdoor cats might become hoarse from fighting other outdoor cats.
3. Indoor cats are just bored and want someone to talk to!

I think the last one is most likely, and I feel bad converting my dear Spot to a bored indoor cat. :(

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