Hmm. Yesterday was about 2200 words; this will be under 600 . . . evens out, in the long run. Typical Monday, but more so, and more work on the paying side means duller, shorter Bleats. Let me prove the point, then.
I’m still in a bit of an email conundrum – I’ve saved the email to my email program, but cannot trash the copies on the server to free up space. Why? Because I don’t have enough disk space to move them. Odd. I ran into this yesterday while uploading some stuff: out of space. I thought I had loads. Have to buy more, I guess. Storage: the great ongoing annoyance.
And by “ongoing” and “great,” well, you have no idea. I mentioned I’m cleaning out the area below the stairs to make room for permanent storage – stuff I’ll never use but cannot bear to toss. This means I have to get rid of ancient tapes – cassettes, 8mm from the 90s camera. But that means digitizing everything. Right now I have the old camcorder going on the laptop, and a cassette player working on the mainframe upstairs. One of the tapes I saved from the 80s, so help me God, was an answering machine tape. Think of it: don’t you wish you had an old answering machine tape? It’s a parade of the lost and the dead and the near and dear, a slice of life I couldn’t possibly have reconstructed. The voices are all familiar, too. They all speak to matters obscure or forgotten, but they do so with assurance and urgency. Everyone on the tape assumes I know what they’re talking about. Not any more. But I remember them.
It’s a bit odd to hear your wife say she’ll stop by your place later.
I also found a tape I made in the spring of 1978, one of those “I must document my fascinating day” things you do when you’re 19. Why, I was podcasting decades in advance. It wasn’t a surprise discovery, since I’ve been carting it around for years. Couldn’t bear to listen to it, but couldn’t bear to throw it. I knew it contained a walkthrough of the old Valli, as well as dramatic reading of the Valli bathroom hand- blower instructions with Wesley. (Push butt! Stops Automatically! Wipe hands on pants!)
I listened to a few minutes, and it took a while for the entire horror to sink in. I was speaking with a slight English accent. I should note that I am not from England. I like England; I admire much about the British; I regard the opening notes of Arnold’s “English Dances” suites as both early and sublime in a pastoral way only the English seemed to have mastered. But I am from Fargo. The English accent was not used ironically, or as part of some mocking Pythonesque routine. I was actually addressing myself in a bad English accent. When you combine this with the other affectations I recall, with shame, you have someone so puffed up and self-important I’m amazed I didn’t have to drag my ego around in a wheelbarrow. Well, it’s saved, converted to MP3, burned, and buried with the rest of the stuff. At least I’m not that self-important and pretentious now. It’s not like I’m saving teenage monologues for history, or –
Ah, crap.
I stand before you as the Prince of Zinc – the cold’s almost entirely gone, and never had a full day in which the symptoms had free rein. Good thing too, since the day contained much writing. Worked until about three, played some Max Payne 2 on the Xbox to get my console skills back, then picked up Gnat from school. She was in a wonderful mood, silly and cheerful; nothing gladdens my heart like walking through the halls and seeing all the kids she knows. Amend that: the happy kids seem to like her.
The rest of the day unfolded with no surprises. A dinner, a dog-walk in the early snow, and back to the machinery. I still have three things to complete tonight, so this is the usual Monday. I’ll leave you with this:
A Japanese commercial starring Arnold. I love Japanese commercials. No other culture can pack so much infantile, surreal exuberance into 30 seconds. Every American ad looks like an hour of Woody Allen’s “Interiors” compared to these things. (Via Fark.)
And now to work. Powered by Yosh! HAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA! HAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA! HAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA! YOSH!
New Quirk and Match, and if you missed yesterday's bleat, give it a look. It's certainly one of my longer efforts. See you tomorrow.
