/ Normlife

I will be absent for the indefinite future.

I’ve been blogging since…middle school. I started on Tripod, moved to host.sk—surprised it’s still around, then got this domain and started at Yupapa, and am now at Dreamhost.

I haven’t always used blog software. I originally updated by hand. I did this even up to having this domain. My first platform was Movable Type—I even paid for it—and now use Wordpress. (WP is better as individual blogs, and MT for managing multiple blogs.)

I’m going to leave a few posts up.

I ordered some journaling tools today. Six notebooks and five pens.

I have been into my forum’s statistics. Perhaps too much. And my other websites’ statistics. Gooooo Google Analytics, Reinvigorate, and Tumblr.

I can post to Twitter and change my away status with Quicksilver. Here’s how to do twitter and how to change away status (using Adium).

Journaling will probably increase my post count here and on the forum. I’ve been posting at some other forums more recently too, trying to find things out mostly. My forum’s slowed down this week. Oh wells…

The Black Sessions are live music broadcasts on France Inter. Many, many artists have done Black Sessions, however they are a rare find on the internet. Maybe a year ago, I found the Black Session performed by Feist. For the rest of the world, I have posted it here.

• Gatekeeper
• Leisure Suite
• Mushaboom
• One Evening
• Lover’s Spit
• Let it Die
• When I was a Young Girl
• Lonely Lonely
• Fool Proof
• That Girl
• Intuition
• Now at Last

I use Firefox and many of the people who read this blog do too. (about 30%) I am using Firefox 3 RC1 and there are many extensions that have been updated to work with this version. You can get most of these from Firefox Addons.

Better Gmail 2 uses a few Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail to increase Gmail’s usability. One of the coolest things it does is make all mailto: links open up in Gmail. (it is possible to use Gmail for mailto: links without the extension)

Firegestures is what it sounds like—mouse gestures for Firefox. This isn’t that useful on laptops—unless you use an external mouse. But it’s brilliant for desktops. Right click and drag back or forward to go back or forward in history. And the gestures are easily editable.

BBCodeXtra puts some options in your right click menu. What options? BBCode, HTML, and XHTML shortcuts for text, link, and miscilaneous maniuplation. Very useful for posting on forums.

Extended Cookie Manager allows easy cookie management from a status bar icon. Just click it and select one of three options for the current website. Very useful if you browse around with all cookies disabled.

Google Reader Watcher updates when Google Reader has new feeds for you to read.

TwitterBar allows posting from your location-bar. There is an option to post by clicking a button, or by typing space and --post. Hovering over the posting button displays how many characters you have left. (this has greatly increased my Twitter post count)

Foxmarks syncrhonizes bookmarks across multiple computers. There is a beta version available that works with Firefox 3.

NoScript disables JavaScript, Java, and other executable content on all websites. There is a whitelist for trusted websites; it also comes with some default allowed sites like Google and Yahoo.

I generally carry around a pen in my pocket. A cheap, reliable pen. I can whip it out of my pocket, take the top off, and easily write. I have been told that it’s dangerous to keep a pen in my pocket. If I am running or just walking and stumble and the pen is at a certain angle it could puncture my skin. That would not be pretty. There’s also the possibility that I could leave the pen in my pants when I do laundry and mess up a bunch of good clothes.

I use a sharpie to draw on post-its sometimes. It gets smelly. I like to draw city-scapes or mountains with trees on them and other types of landscapes. Not really oceans though. I misplaced my black sharpie recently and have replaced it with an orange one. It works just as well for writing on cds, but I think black is the color for post-its. Green is pretty good for graffiti.

There is a stairway at UCSD that is called The Stairway to Heaven. It usually has a lot of writing and graffiti on the walls. One day sophomore year it was painted over. One of my friends found out about this and we decided to get a bunch of people together to repopulate the stairway with our musings. So we took our sharpies to the stairway and went to town. I remember starting a section of the wall intended for drawing the outline of your hand. There was another place where I drew city-scapes and mountains and coastline. (that’s the only part of the ocean I draw—coastline) It was a fun time, but I think it might have been painted over again since then.

When I do journaling I usually write three pages on a yellow legal pad. I find the yellow much easier to look at and work on than plain white paper. Most of my sophomore year I wrote everyday—at least the first quarter—and I have probably over 100 pages. I’m usually bad about keeping things from my past (blog posts and forum data for example).

Anyway, pens are good.

“We think here,” she said, berating the young student. “We don’t do these brash things. Hitting is not allowed.”

“Yes ma’m.”

“Look. You’ve done great things so far at school, I just don’t want to see you a washed up punk like so many other kids these days.”

“Yes.”

“Now go off and play with the others.”

Every afternoon he would play with his fellow classmates—few that there were. And even fewer which were his true friends. As was the case with his studies—and his temper—he played hard and fast.

“Hey Jim, what do you say about going into the woods?”

“Alright. I’m in. Who else is going?” he replied.

“Me. Molly. Jessica. Um…and…Roger…”

“Roger, great.”

“I never knew it would come to blows!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know me that well Jenny.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m getting a head start.”

Jim started down the path to the cottage they would sometimes slip off to during play time. He began to wonder of the outside world. Of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China. Of Chile, Argentina, Zimbabwe. There were probably kids just like him in these other places who have gone off or will go off to their own little cottage.

He thought well enough.

As I said before, it’s happened to me.

My family is gone. A house abandoned.

What puzzles me is the abruptness. —gone… Just a flick of the switch.

I’ve never experienced such binary activity. True, life and death…but…not actions. Shades of gray, as they say.

My grandfather said in the time before his, people became distressed. Fed up. Their natures were suppressed. Whether by themselves or others, he never said. I’m not sure it matters. A constant tension between desire and reality.

He likened it to making a tree be a dog. Or a bison be a jackrabbit. Unnatural. Inhumane. Not human.

Culture in this village these days…not conducive to just being. To awareness and congruence with our natures. Seamless in the environment.

And that’s what happened. They’ve gone to the Forest.

It is where I must go.