Back to Diaryland the latest waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04	2005-08-06 ... 2:52 p.m. I have this very clear scene in my head of a bunch of MRI technicians ordering one of those big stuffed pizzas, and then their shift ends before they get to eat it, or maybe they are called away to some other MRI facility for some kind of MRI emergency. Or whatever. Anyway, the new shift of MRI technicians has been bequeathed* (if you will) this big stuffed pizza, and they really need to know what's in it. Because maybe one of them keeps kosher, or is deathly allergic to mushrooms, I don't know. So do they slice it and look inside? No! They put the stuffed pizza in the MRI machine! The only problem with this is that they would have to know the specific density of sausage, green peppers, etc, in order to have a benchmark. *Ha ha ha ha ha! Here is a prominent Google result for "bequeathed!" Oh goths, what the hell are you talking about? And could you please use the spellchecker next time? Thanks. LET'S GET META! OR: WHY DON'T I HAVE A GUESTBOOK OR A COMMENTS SECTION OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? 1. They encourage assholish behavior. It takes nothing to double-click a window and anonymously type "YOUR [sic] STUPID," whereas most people will slow down a bit when they compose an email, take some time to organize their thoughts on exactly why I am so stupid, and then often (this is important) re-think whether they really want to send that to me. Whether it's worth it. Whether they are overreacting. In comments sections, everyone else is overreacting too, so it is far too easy for chronic overreactors to join the overreacting party. 2. They also encourage a mob mentality, in response to the assholes. One person will post a comment about how stupid I am, eight other people will rush to post about how I'm not stupid, that person is, and on and on and on until we are no longer even talking about what I actually wrote. 2a. In that sense, they actually discourage debate. I almost never write anything of substance that could inspire debate (unless you have strong feelings about the use of an MRI machine to deduce hidden pizza toppings), but some people do, and comments sections on personal sites usually end up being all about "support" and whatnot. There is a certain journal mainly focusing on international adoption that is a good case in point---the comments there tend to be such a cheering section that posting anything even mildly dissenting, anything other than a steadfast "you go girl" or "you're such a strong woman" can result in a virtual evisceration. Once, the author of this site even wrote me an email to say that she understood what I was trying to say, and she thought it was valid even if she didn't agree, and she was sorry about the nature of some of the comments. Something about that feels kind of sad to me. 2b. So, in a case like that, as an author you can either step in and tell people to lay off, you can delete hurtful comments, or whatever, but either way you've got to be playground monitor to a bunch of strangers and there is just no way I have time for that shit. Nor do I care much about what I post after I post it. I don't feel like hanging around and seeing the response to my diary entry. I am usually already off thinking stuff that will lead to the next one. 3. Not that I'm even remotely as Internet-"famous" as Dooce, but her comments section got very chatty and personalized and all the commenters knew each other and fuck, I'm writing a personal site, not administering a messageboard; if you have something to say, please say it to me. Me me me. Remember me? It's all about me. 3a. Corny as it may sound, I really do think of my diary entries as emails to you. You over there, in the shirt. Consequently, I want you to write back to me. I don't want you to publish your comment to the world (unless it's on your own site). I would rather just the two of us email each other, and I would rather giggle and chat and order another and make little sculptures out of the bar mats and I seriously do try to write back to almost everyone who writes me, even if it takes weeks or months. WHY DON'T I HAVE AN RSS FEED? I get asked this a lot. I would have an RSS feed, if I could be arsed to figure out how to add it to the site. I think Diaryland can do this now, and I will figure it out as soon as I can manage to care. I understand these things are very useful, and if I used one I would probably care a lot more. But I don't, so. There you have it. FORCE, GREEN FUSE, FLOWER, ETC Get ready to skip this part, because I am about to be insufferable. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. She is wicked awesome right now. She says "sure!" when you ask her to do something. She goes to sushi restaurants with us and drinks bowl after bowl of miso soup and eats lots of tamago, after frowning earnestly at each piece and saying "I don't like this strap" and proceeding to dismantle the chef�s creation. She pretends with her whole body: time after time when we play together I am left sitting there, unsure of my lines, as she goes off on a tangent and mimes some complicated actions in space. She always knows exactly what she's doing. She is starting to be able to play by herself a little, and sometimes I can read a whole ten pages until she cracks my shit up by suddenly putting on an old pith helmet and announcing, "Today I am a man! And I will go very fast in a car!" (Nora, that's a nice, if unconventional, start to your bar mitzvah speech. However, there are a few problems with the very idea of you having a bar mitzvah speech...) She's articulate and funny and young enough to be completely unselfconscious and heartbreakingly earnest every time she speaks. Two-and-a-half is perfection. Of course, it is incredibly stupid of me to be posting happy sappy claptrap like this, because then karma will dictate that by October I will be weeping onto my keyboard while I type, "Oh my god! 2.75 is the worst age ever! Why didn't anyone tell me my beautiful daughter would suddenly turn into Satan's cupcake?" And remembering this really awesome couple of months, which I am determined to do, will probably just make it all the more painful the first time she rolls her eyes or won't let me hug her or writes "my mom is so LAME" on her LiveJournal. So I am kind of torn between the desire to drink heavily and chill out about Nora being extra-fun right now, accepting that to everything there is a season, blah blah etc, and the desire to stuff her in my mouth RIGHT NOW and keep her at this age inside my cheek pouch. Or at the very least to write down everything I can and take really obscene numbers of pictures and record her scratchy little voice singing her Sesame Street songs. While also drinking heavily. ---mimi smartypants broke on through to the other side. back/forward