MLK Jr. Day = Day Off Work

Gotta go back to work tomorrow. Don’t want to.

Spent today chillin’, cleaning the bedroom, French-braiding my hair (Go me! I done it!), watching TV, and making a Spearmint candle for myself. Did not spend today reflecting on the life of the country’s greatest Civil Rights leader. That’s OK, though, because when I get Presidents’ Day off next month, I don’t intend to reflect on the lives and achievements of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, either. I’ll probably do pretty much what I did today.

John from NOIC also had the day off, so he wasn’t there when I tried to give him a buzz. Hopefully I’ll get some news at work tomorrow about the mortgage. Gah. We need to get going on this shit so we can find a damn house and close on it before March 31st.

My boss has this week off. So, it’s entirely possible that my e-mails and phone calls will increase exponentially starting tomorrow, since he left contact information in his voicemail and e-mail for each division of Quality Control specifically. He oversees not only the Patriot Act issues that I work with, but also Bounce accounts, Deposit Verifications, Kiting, and some other stuff I’m not sure what is. I hope this week doesn’t suck. At least it’ll be short.

Saturday is Ohayocon in Columbus. This year, unfortunately, I won’t have a point-and-shoot camera to bring along, but there were plenty of people last year who posted pics online after the fact. So, I will once again be able to post about the weirdness that ensues.

You know, if I weren’t on the Atkins Diet, not yet to the point of adding alcohol back into my diet, I might have given this a go tomorrow night.

Thanks! I’m listed!

Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me that the link would a.) only link to blog.htm, and b.) be titled with the lame-o title I gave the page, "ye blogs!" Ah, well, I’ve got a link off of Bob’s blog. And I’ve changed the title of this page to "dianaschnuth: ye blogs!"

Hey, random surfers? (I doubt I’ll get any hits, but hey.) You should really check out the full iFramed site β€” you may currently be missing some vital navigation and design elements. πŸ™‚

I’ve got a lot of random shit to unload again. You should see all the little scraps of paper with snippets of blog ideas scattered on my desk.

I told Deb, my co-worker, that I’d finished a website for selling my soy candles. She’d seen and smelled one of the Chocolate Java Bean candles I’d made, and I’d told her how fragrant it was while burning β€” a little three-ounce candle filled my whole living room. So, when I told her I was selling them online, she asked how much I was asking. When I told her about five bucks, she said she might be interested in buying one of those. I ended up showing her my webpage (which was the whole reason I told her in the first place: to get some feedback), and she browsed my list of fragrances, asking how certain things smelled. She was also amazed at the copy I wrote, describing my candles. "Enjoy the rich, sweet fragrance of amaretto," and crap like that.

When she found out I had designed the entire page myself, she was duly impressed, and wanted to see everything else I’d put online. So, I figured, WTF, and I surfed off my directory page, showing her all the stuff I’ve got online. It really surprized me how excited she was to see my work. It was like I was some sort of hero or miracle worker. Seriously! She even told me how cool it was to know someone who actually could do all this.

I recall telling her, "This is what I do. I work at Sky to make money, but this is what I do." And it made me feel good to say that and mean it. For once, I really felt like a Web Designer, instead of a hack Photoshop twiddler who makes web pages, or an amateur photographer who puts stuff on the web, or any number of other jacks-of-all-media I’ve felt like lately.

Moving on with more randomness from work… One of the ladies who works in the same room with me got in a car accident last week. She’s OK, but since the airbags deployed, the car is considered totaled. That’s not the best part, though. The best part is that it’s her fault, because she took her eyes off the road to answer her cellphone. A truck had made a right turn to pull in front of her, and was about to make an immediate left, and due to her distraction, she only had time to slam on the brakes and swerve into the ditch. Now everyone she knows is forcing her to use a hands-free headset when she drives. πŸ™‚

Amusing stuff I find while researching clients’ bank accounts for my work: There’s a place in each account where the teller can post notes or warnings on an account, for multiple signers or legal issues or whatnot. One I came across said, "customer has medical condition that may cause mood swings." Wow.

More about my co-workers: Deb’s daughter (one of four children) is in the first grade, and is having trouble with her reading. Turns out that she can write and recognize certain words, but doesn’t know all her letters. The kid’s learning backwards somehow, learning shapes of words by rote without knowing the letters that make them. How bizarre. I don’t remember learning how to read, so I can’t even comprehend that. Once Aaron and I have kids, we’ll have to read to them constantly like our mothers read to us, so our kids will learn to read like we did. πŸ™‚

I’ve got plenty more randomness to report, but I’ll save some for later.

Do me a favor

Hey. If enough people click through my site to Bob’s site, I might show up on his SiteMeter stats, and not have to beg him for a link. After all, I already begged him for a new album and a trip to Detroit.

later…
I was going to go to bed early, for once. Instead, I got it in my head to try to write what I’ve been thinking for the past week or so.

I’m not usually one to go on "life’s not fair" rants, but I’ve really been feeling cheated. Not by what you might think. I’m not upset that I’m not using my degree in my job, or any of the other myriad of things I’ve bitched about in the past. No, this is deeper than that.

I feel cheated out of time I should have had with people who are now dead. Not so much Memaw, because she was older β€” 70 isn’t exactly ripe old age, but not so young that I feel cheated out of quality years. Although I do wish she could have lived to see her great-grandbabies (though heaven knows when that will ever happen, anyway. I’m in no hurry).

No, I feel cheated that my stepdad, Tom, never got to meet Aaron. I feel cheated that I never got to meet Aaron’s Mom, especially since it really sounds like we would have gotten along. Plus, we share a birthday. How cool is that?

But, on top of all of this, I feel cheated by my lack of faith. After watching Memaw deteriorate like she did, I’ve come to realize how connected the mind and body are. I used to think that once the body died, the soul/consciousness would ooze out into whatever Tao or Force or Heaven or Collective Consciousness that exists, and perhaps retain some of the personality that person had developed during their life, depending upon how strong that personality was. But now… I don’t know. Memaw just wasn’t there. It was some fragmented, decrepit bastardization of who she used to be. The person she was, wasn’t really there anymore β€” only in brief sparks and flashes of wit and that occasional look in her eyes.

My step-Gary believes that, when you die, your soul simply sleeps until the Resurrection. You don’t know anything until you rise again, and it will be like no time has passed. While I don’t believe in the Second Coming or the Resurrection or any of that anymore, I do wonder if death is like sleep. Except… if you never wake, what do you have to compare your sleep against? If your consciousness never manifests again after your body dies… then how do you know you’re dead?

Weird stuff. At any rate, I’ve been having what Mom would call "Memaw moments," where I just sit at work and faze out for a few seconds, just thinking about herβ€”except I think about Memaw, and Granny, and Tom, and Aaron’s Mom, who I never met. And I reflect on how unfair it is that all they were, and all they knew, is gone.

Curious about loose ends?

Curious about the rest of my personality quiz? Here ya go:

Enneagram Test Results

Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||| 64%
Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||| 62%
Type 3 Image Awareness |||||||||||| 46%
Type 4 Sensitivity |||||||||||| 44%
Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||| 70%
Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||| 45%
Type 7 Adventurousness |||||| 21%
Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||| 26%
Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||| 58%

Your Conscious-Surface type is 5w6
Your Unconscious-Overall type is 3w2

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Curious about how my fan mail to Bob Mould was received? (Hell, most of you probably don’t even know who Bob Mould is.) Anyway, here ya go:

Diana,

Thanks for the kind words. The next record will more than satisfy the older fans – it’s a guitar record.

I hope to be back in Detroit later this year. New album will probably be in August, with a Fall ’04 tour to follow.

Regards,
Bob Mould

*keeping my ear to the ground*

Just a Quick Note

If you thought dissecting fetal pigs in High School was gross, be glad this guy didn’t come to Show And Tell.

later: another note
I’m not going to read any more of the Xangas that Garza is subscribed to. That much God makes me violently ill. Case in point:

I was blessed enough to attend a wedding in which two people not only loved each other, but loved God so much that you could feel His very annointing in the room. It really touched me to see that in a world for material love, that true love still exists–and it can easily be found through Christ.

I’m sorry, but… *yarf*

I’m insensitive, I know… and I’m sure I must have been like that when I was a teen… I remember feeling like that at times… but, well… I’ll just shut up about it now, I guess, before I get myself in trouble.

By the way, this couple’s first kiss ever was at the altar. I’m still trying to decide whether the wedding night was:

 a.) make-out time and too scared/apprehensive for actual sex,
 b.) super-horny pent-up sex, or
 c.) makin’-babies-like-the-bible-says sex. Or possibly:
 d.) beautiful, non-conception-related married sex… which, FYI, is pretty damn cool. πŸ™‚

One more thing. Can I state for the record, please, that Aaron has been my ONLY sexual partner. Despite what Brother Jed might say (where’s he been, anyway?), if there is a hell, I am not destined for it solely because my ONE lifetime partner and I deflowered one another several years before our wedding night.

So there. I’m done being righteously indignant… for now.

still later…
I just found Bob Mould’s blog. And wrote him an e-mail:

 

I’m always afraid that a letter from me, as a fan, to one of my favorite artists will come off as hero worship. That’s why I usually don’t take advantage of all those little e-mail links on their pages, when I do find them. But tonight I figured, what the heck. I just found your blog, and you seem pretty accessible after such a read. I don’t really have much to say, I thought, and it won’t take long for Bob to hit delete… πŸ™‚

First… please, come back to Detroit. (I live in Toledo, but no one wants to come here, and I don’t blame them.) I and those who first introduced me to your music would love to hear you play an acoustic set at St. Andrew’s. We saw you there back in… 1998? …with the Last Dog and Pony Band, and have wished for another show ever since. We’d probably even take a day off of work to drive up for a weeknight show, if we had to.

Second… although I am not a fan of your new musical stylings, I respect the fact that you’re trying new genres that you enjoy. A lot of artists wouldn’t (and don’t) have the balls to try something new, but you did, and gained a new fan base at that. And you’re having fun with it, and that’s all that really matters.

That’s it. Nothing you haven’t heard before, I’m sure.

Thanks for listening.

P.S. – wasn’t there another, less techno, more acoustic album planned for release? We’ve been waiting for that for some time now… we hanker for some new, non-techno Bob.

I feel like a little bit of a dork, but WTF. It’s sent now. I’m curious as to whether I’ll actually get a reply. He seems like the kind that just might.