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Sat | July 30, 2005
internet cafe
found the best internet place, on eldridge between, i guess, broome and grand streets. there's another one a bit further down also. $5 gets you 4 hrs. there's some younger kids here which shows how affordable it is. and there's a few private rooms/ chambers too, which are kind of questionable, maybe, but not really. i'd move because one just opened up a few minutes ago but i don't feel like it. i'm just killing time, i suppose, and burning cash before going to my writing club "party." I kind of just want to go to sleep at this point, but it's already all decided and I should go, and at 9 pm, even. the funny thing is i think people might actually be there at 9. it is at a bar which happens to be about two blocks away from here.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 07:49 PM | comment
Fri | July 29, 2005
murakami
Japan Society, New York - Film, Lecture, Performance Events
oops, missed this. it's japanese post-atomic bomb art. from the little I've seen, it's ironically cheerful. happy, cute cartoon characters reminiscent of mushroom clouds.
the exhibition was also a study in cultural psychology, a cultural psychoanalysis of a nation dealing with enormous trauma.
| Posted by Lily at 02:27 PM | comment
road trip
so someone I just met last Saturday told me today that he is quitting his job-- where he has been for the past seven years since he graduated-- tomorrow, and he isn't sure what he's going to do, but he might go on a road trip in september, do I want to go with him? we talked for about forty minutes and the crazy thing is not so much that he's quitting a perfectly good job, or that he's going on a road trip, but that he's inviting me and that I might very well go with him. I mean, why not? I think it would not be right for some people, but I have a pretty good idea of what he's like just from hanging out with him on Saturday and talking to him tonight. Besides, I think it might all be just talk. something we talk about but not do. so we can just talk about the places we'd like to see or visit (I have none, but I think he has some). I would actually like to see some of America besides NJ, NYC, Disneyland, and parts of New England, so if we do go then all the better. But talking about it is pretty good as well.
We'll see if he actually quits tomorrow. He says he's been talking about it all year and that no one else would believe him if he said he was going to do it because he's said it before and not done it. But that he's really going to quit tomorrow.
I also wonder who else he has in mind for this trip. I suppose, his friends, whom I also hung out with last Saturday.
journal | Posted by Lily at 12:09 AM | comment
Wed | July 27, 2005
Sake
so I am still not posting the dialogue I wrote for the 'breakup' exercise/ homework, but I wrote another breakup-related dialogue, that may as well go up here. I told myself I'd post the exercise each week and I'd better try, if at all possible, to keep my word.
the assignment was to write out a dialogue between two people, using only the dialogues, and no tags.
"I'm so annoyed at Max. I called him-- no, he called me-- yesterday and it took me an hour and twenty minutes to call him back, and he didn't pick up, but took the exact same amount of time to call me back."
"I don't think people are that calculating, Kat."
"No, he is."
"I met him. He seems like a straightforward guy."
"No, he does all these little things. When we're getting ready to leave he'll always take just a little bit longer than me, so that I have to wait for him."
"I hate it when people do that."
"The other day we went to this sushi place that I wanted to try, and I said I'd pay for it because it was my idea. But he didn't even argue or offer to split it. Oh and when we ordered the sake I wanted it warm and he ordered it cold."
"Just tell him you wanted it warm."
"He knew I wanted it warm but he wanted it cold so he ordered cold."
"You guys were sharing?"
"Yeah."
"I think I'm going to break up with him."
"You're breaking up with him over sake?"
"No, over all these little things. It's all these little things adding up and driving me nuts."
"Kat, you need to just let it go. Just don't keep track of those things."
"They're important. They're small but they mean something."
"I think they don't have to mean anything unless you let them. I think they probably don't mean as much to Max as they do to you. He's not doing it to annoy you."
"No, he is. It's a power struggle. I can't win and I'm sick of losing. So I'm just going to leave."
"If you say so, Kat. But I think it's not the right answer."
Histoires | Posted by Lily at 03:44 PM | comment
Tue | July 26, 2005
Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling
Amazon.com: Books: Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling : Career Strategies for Asians
The bn.com listing for the same book
there's an event today at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble, 7 pm.
liens | Posted by Lily at 01:48 PM | comment
Mon | July 25, 2005
favicon
Well, I made a favicon/ bookmark icon. It was fun. It doesn't quite do everything I want it to. Like, appear on the tabs.
I am glad I named this "invisible cube" because it was pretty easy to draw.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 11:29 PM | comment
Sun | July 24, 2005
discovered for the hundredth time
discovered for the hundredth time that I am so so far away from where I want to be, writing-wise (and otherwise, I suppose, but that doesn't bother me, for whatever reason). I want to be James Joyce. But I am a nine-year old in penmanship class.
I don't know if I should post the writing exercise from this week because the assignment was to write a breakup scene, using only dialogue, not even dialogue tags (he said, she said). Naturally I wrote out my most vivid, and really, the only breakup scene in my memory. I think that most of the people in class just write directly from their lives, like exactly what happened, exactly their thoughts. I'm not saying I'm better for trying to actually invent things, and actually I think I'm going to write more straight from experience, because it's easier, and I might come up with more cohesive stories that way.
Maybe I will write the homework exercise over again, but not have it be a breakup scene, and have it be entirely fictional. Which contradicts what I just typed about just taking things more directly from my life. Oh well. I don't like to write directly from my life because it's too personal. Reading the stories that people submit in class I'm like, I don't want to know this. This so obviously is just your romantic history.
Last night I went to a baseball game at Coney Island. Then I hung out with a few people from the group, and we went to an arty party. I even crashed at their place, even though I barely knew them. And now I'm burning cash at Net Zone in K-town.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:28 AM | comment
Fri | July 22, 2005
literary panhandling
I think my desk needs a My Little Pony on it to keep me going. However, I do not have enough funds in my paypal account ($6) to buy one from ebay. So I thought I'd see if I could take this my little pony picture and make it into a donate button.
nonsense | Posted by Lily at 12:05 AM | comment
Thu | July 21, 2005
noise-blocking headphones
HeadWize - Project: Revisiting Koss "The Plug" Headphones by Chu Moy
I can't believe there are people who do stuff like this. Not just alter the headphones but make a website about it. I mean I think it's cool. I think I might do this. Not the website but this little project. In the meantime my current traveling headphones pretty much suffice, but I'd like to get some big headphones for in the house.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 07:42 PM | comment
Wed | July 20, 2005
a day at galaxy design
Jen works at Galaxy Graphic Design, a graphic design company that produces websites. Today she begins a project with Mira.
Mira isn’t even in yet, even though it’s 9:30 am. Jen wishes she had the audacity to stroll in at 9:36, as Mira does, wearing flip flops and a wrinkled shirt. It is part of the look, Mira would say.
Jen has the project outlined by the time Mira gets in— images need to be replaced, info needs to be updated, style sheet needs to be updated— which does Mira want to do?
Update the style sheet, says Mira.
OK, says Jen, I’ll work on the images.
Jen gets herself a cup of coffee from the break room and gets right to work.
Mira gets herself a cup of coffee from the break room and gets right to emailing. She tells the manager and every other manager that she’s working on the style sheet for the Gateaux Café project. Then she turns around and tells Marjorie, Justin, and Vanessa in the next set of cubicles that she’s working on the style sheet. She gets up, walks to her friend Brian’s cubicle three hallways over— and talks to him about the new furniture she wants to get for her living room.
At 11 am Jen has finished replacing the new images on gateauxcafe.com. Mira is just getting back to her cubicle. She looks at the clock on her computer and thinks, it’s almost time for lunch. And begins to plot this event. Her reverie is interrupted when Jen comes over to see how Mira’s doing.
“Fine,” she says, “I’m working on the style sheet.” She says a bunch of other things which amount to about nothing in Jen’s mind, and Jen cannot quite figure out what Mira has accomplished in the past hour. She notices that at 11:45 Mira goes out for lunch. When Jen goes out at 1 pm, Mira is not back yet.
At 1:30 pm Mira gets back from lunch and is ready to take a look at that style sheet. She realizes that—oh yeah, she doesn’t know anything about style sheets. She chose that part of the project because it had the coolest name. Style. She stares at it for three minutes and decides she needs help. She walks over to Jen’s desk but Jen is out. So she sits around until Jen gets back.
“I think we need to communicate more about what this project entails,” says Mira.
So Jen teaches Mira how to look at the revision sheet and find the matching code on the current sheet, and make the alterations.
“Ok,” says Mira. And she then goes and changes all the wrong things.
At the end of the day Jen has done the entire project, plus undone and redone the twenty five minutes of damage Mira contributed. Mira has become best friends with everyone in the office and six months later is promoted to management. She still knows nothing about style sheets. And Jen is furious, but screaming is not allowed in the office.
---notes---
what I wrote tonight at asian writing club.
Histoires | Posted by Lily at 09:52 PM | comment
Tue | July 19, 2005
about me
I like psychological novels-- Henry James is my favorite.(1) My specialties are psychology and hopefully, one day, writing. I want to write about Asian culture and American culture and what happens when they mix. The equation as it has been sketched so far doesn't quite seem to get at it. The product and the process have been mis-described; the existing literature (or what I have read) misses the point.(2) When I get at it, or when someone gets at it, it will be like E=mc2. Once you see it, it's simple and beautiful and immediately true. And everything in the universe will make sense in a way that it didn't before.
When people say wrong stuff to me it sticks in my mind. I file these things away and sort them out later. I took a writing class in February and I have a list of the lies that were spoken in that class. Mostly by the teacher.(3) The last lie was when he asked me why I described the waiting room at the train station in that way, and I said, "I don't know," because I didn't want to explain it.
"You've got to know, because every word you write has an effect on the reader," he informed me.
"Okay," I said.
This wasn't really a lie, but a misunderstanding, but I remember it.
Enough about writing. Something about me: I yield to cars. In New York the cars are aggressive and unrelenting but in suburban New Jersey it is not too difficult to heel a car. Yet I let them all go before me. I let dogs boss me around too. When I was a kid walking home from school I would run away when dogs barked. Or I would cross the street when I knew a house with a dog was coming up.(4)
I throw a lot of the stuff I write away. I write stuff and then look at it another day and it seems hopeless so I trash it. This is ironic because in everything else, I tend to save it. I have socks from when I was in middle school. I don't throw physical objects away, I save everything. I save pieces of paper and jars and folders.
-----notes------------
this was written, mostly, for a writing class I'm in. the assignment was to do a one-page character profile/ self-portrait/ of yourself. I wouldn't really call this a profile and certainly not a "portrait" but the fact that it exists at all is actually a step up for me.
(1) however, I have only read two of his novels, Washington Square and Portrait of a Lady. Also-- "Henry James is my favorite"--is that metonymy or a grammatical error?
(2) semicolons are kind of pretentious aren't they. and I mean so are footnotes. I don't know why I'm doing this. but what I want to note is that I have not read much Asian literature, especially not anything new. What I have read is the stuff that has reached the mainstream. Perhaps it's already out there and I just don't know it. I kind of hope that someone else will do it, and at the same time I hope they don't, because then what would I write about?
(3) You haven't committed any yet. Though that woman with the ratty hair said something like, "the writer is just supposed to let it flow. And the editor will take care of it," towards the end of class on the first day.
(4) I mean they were not just barking dogs- they were dogs on leashes that would come rushing up to you and their leashes were literally exactly the distance to the sidewalk. I really believe, still believe, that if the stake had come loose the dog would have had my throat, and that I was right to run. They sense your weakness though, and would not be as quick to challenge me today. Nowadays they may bark but they don't run at me. I am not sure what I would do if a dog rushed at me with barking hostility today.
-----
there is nothing unified or cohesive about this and it degrades noticeably at the end but you know what? it's done. and i'm relieved.
| Posted by Lily at 11:57 PM | comment
Sun | July 17, 2005
best place
CNN/Money: Best places to live
Chatham, where I live, made this list of best places to live. Pretty amazing.
They are talking, of course, more about places to live out your life-- settle down, and raise children, etc, i.e., not about me, where I am now.
But I have, for awhile, felt that living here has its merits. As compared to living in the city, that is. Though mostly I have felt I was just rationalizing it, because it is where I live, and you've got to try to like where you live, if you are going to be happy. I think of it as getting the best of, or at least some of, both worlds-- being able to participate in the life of the city in some ways, and then getting the down time and alone time of getting away from it.
Money magazine says Chatham "feels more like a small New England town than a bustling Big Apple burb." True, more or less. It's a little New Englandy, though I think the name 'chatham' kind of makes you think that, mostly. It's a direct line to the city but it's not like some towns closer to the state line which seem to be more defined by new york, that are just more urban.
It even feels a bit countryish. Just the way the cicadas (or whatever they are) are humming away right now in crescendos and decrescendos. It's mostly quiet, except for the sound of landscapers' machines on certain mornings. And clean, and not polluted like new york, and not a strip mall, or with a Rte 10ish highway cutting through it, like other parts of nj.
I don't see how it's different, however, from any of the other towns along the train line, like Millburn or Short Hills. Speaking of which, I live two minutes away from the Short Hills mall, which, sorry to sound like such a consumer, but it is the best mall, ever. I try not to go too often because it sucks money out of you faster than Manhattan. But it's nice to know it's right there.
I don't participate in some of the benefits of living here. Apparently there are 5825 restaurants and 416 bars within a 15-mile radius, and 86 golf courses within a 30 mile radius. Also, Chatham was noted for its sense of community, according to an article about the ranking in the local paper. Ok, if you say so. I don't get any of that either. I talk to Phil who runs the Okinawan Karate place, but that's about all the community there is for me. I feel very isolated here, actually. But I stopped hoping to be connected with anyone around here years ago. They seem really irrelevant to me now and I would probably even be a little bothered if they talked to me.
liens | Posted by Lily at 12:01 PM | comment
Sat | July 16, 2005
Virgin of Loneliness
thought I'd post my crappy exercises from writing class. or shouldn't I? I still have no idea what I'm doing with this blog. but I did resolve to stop having so many reservations and just do anything I felt like, even if it's inconsistent or doesn't make sense as a whole. this blog will just be, "stuff I wrote." it fits because I wrote it.
-----
Annie Lin had ready eyes, a seemingly infinite amount of coursework and an incipient affection for Henry Marsh. Their paths had coincided several times at the university computer lab, and they had begun to say hello, and then they had begun to talk. She did not remember when he first started coming to the lab. Perhaps he had always been there, like her, but she had not noticed. Now she would always notice if Henry walked into the room. She was always ready for it. She had started to hope that he was going purposely to run into her.
She didn't hope for a relationship. It did not occur to her. She was surrounded by friends and classmates she could talk to and busy with deadlines. In a real sense she did not know loneliness.
Though she didn't want a relationship the roots of one grew naturally between her and Henry. It was the best kind of relationship—one germinated by affinity and affection rather than one planted in fear of age and to plug a hole left by an unsatisfactory life.
Henry drew a comic strip for the college paper. They hardly ever talked about it though. One day Annie said, "Your comic was funny today."
"Oh yeah?" he said.
"Yeah."
"It isn't always funny?" he asked.
"It was particularly funny today."
Another day she told him that she had rearranged all the furniture around in her room for no reason. "Where do you live?" he asked.
"Anderson Hall. Where do you live?" she asked.
"McKinley."
"My friend Kris lives there," she said.
"Is he a good friend of yours?"
"She--" she corrected, "is a pretty good friend."
After that Kris became a better friend, since visiting her brought Annie geographically closer to Henry. She looked his room number up in the directory and walked past sometimes even though it was not on the way. Sometimes the door was not quite shut. It just touched the frame and music could be heard from within.
One night on her way out of the dormitory she ran into Henry.
"Come see my room," he said.
His room was pleasantly neat.
"Do you want to see some drawings?" he asked.
Henry brought a large tablet and they sat on the bed, their backs to the wall. They put the tablet on their laps. He told her about some of the characters and where he got ideas for some of the strips. After awhile he stopped talking and put his arm around her and she flipped through the rest of the pages.
"I have to finish this up now," he said, showing her an incomplete strip he wanted to submit the next day.
"Good night," she said and waved goodbye.
Histoires | Posted by Lily at 08:10 PM | comment
Fri | July 15, 2005
charlie and the chocolate factory
The Official Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Film Site
I keep seeing advertising for this movie. which probably means I'm watching too much tv. Johnny Depp's pasty Michael Jackson complexion is kind of off-putting. And reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands?
I have no desire to see it, though I am aligned with or interested in its so-called politics- attitudes against greed and excess, and perhaps some of the class sympathies. though I'm not sure if the movie/ book is quite right about its depictions. it seems to correlate being rich with being spoiled, acquisitive, self-centered and being poor with being humble, kind, good. which is a pretty common association in film and literature, very disney. yet materialism almost seems lower to middle class to me, or not correlated with class, but culture. it is the well-off who have the time and space to consider other things. sort of a room of one's own ethos.
and the oompa loompas I am not sure what I think about them-- whether they get a fair deal out of working in the factory. anyway I do not have a desire to see this movie but I do have a desire to reread the book and find out if Willy Wonka is described as having a very pale face. and to sit around thinking about some other stuff connected to this movie.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 01:17 PM | comment
Thu | July 14, 2005
various thoughts
spent most of yesterday overanalyzing a story and then abandoning it and starting a new one, only to begin overanalyzing that one. today am at K developing product for BMAT, a british biomedical college placement exam. I find I am so much better at moving forward with other people's projects, than my own. when it's my own project, I try to do too much, or I just have loftier aspirations, and I end up going around in circles until I have no more energy left. when it's someone else's project it's easier to tell what's important and what's dismissable, what you need to figure out and what you need to just let go.
i've decided to try to make this blog feel more like my old xanga, where I would really just type whatever, without worrying too much what category or importance it was (because there were no categories). I've been too selective about what I post, which defeats the purpose of the blog, which is simply to be a little daily outlet, and to keep me flowing, in a sense. i think one of the reasons I got kind of bogged down yesterday (and the day before that, and many days besides that...) is that I've been censoring myself here, and trying to be too important. there is an amount of pompousness and false confidence here that is not really true of me. it actually stems from unsureness as to what I'm doing with this just yet, and being overwhelmed that this blog is more powerful than I am and that I will have to grow into it.
I want to finish that book, the whole equation, which I've been reading forever. not actually reading, but in the midst of reading, and only reading occasionally, before bed, or during random expanses of time. then I want to write a quick little review. really quick. like a paragraph. and then I think I"ll stop reading nonfiction because I really don't like it too much. and then that will be over, finally. nonfiction is so cumbersome. it doesn't propel itself forward the way a novel does. even this book, which is is the story of film, the history, of sorts, of film, sort of has a progression but there's just no momentum. so after the initial few chapters you're just dragging yourself through it. I suppose I should try to be more interested. because I am interested. but it's just a different state of mind than a novel.
finally, i have noticed that the cube flash file I installed doesn't come up on this computer, which is so sad. because seeing that little cube makes me happy. i suppose i will have to learn a little javascript (finally) to troubleshoot it. but it may just be missing plugins or something or other on this end. but theoretically, if the flashfile doesn't work, it should load a static image of a cube.
also I am going to surf the web and find a cube favicon, because I don't know how to make one, quite. or I dont' remember. I think I know how to make ones that work in mozilla but not ie. because i don't have the software downloaded that makes the .ico file. i could just find it and get it. but taking an existing icon is prolly faster. we'll see what i feel like doing. probably sometime next week.
this blog really appeals to my technophilic tendencies. or there's just this world of blogs that i never looked into, even as i was 'blogging' on xanga for a year. 'blogging' in quotations because xanga blogs are so much more journalistic than blogger blogs or movable type blogs, which are more article-istic.
journal | Posted by Lily at 05:41 PM | comment
firefox
So I thought of putting a link to firefox the other day after someone asked me about it, but it seemed like everyone must know about firefox. and yet not one, but two people have asked me about it this week.
Firefox is better than explorer because it has these tabs that enable you to surf many webpages at once. The bookmarks toolbar is also really useful, as you can save a whole set of pages in a folder and go back to them later (select 'open in tabs' in the dropdown menu).
Try it, you will like it. You will like it so much you will get annoyed when you have to use explorer.
p.s. another cool feature of firefox: if you push F11 you can fill the whole screen with the website. it's so liberating to look at a site sans title bar and taskbar. it's like the view> full screen feature in word.
oh wait, actually I tried it just now in explorer and it works there too.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 01:27 AM | comment
Mon | July 11, 2005
evil mockingbird
my father used to be a farmer-- or a farm boy, as he calls himself. he says they used buffalo to plow the fields. I think it was not the american buffalo but a buffalo of a different sort. after school he would take the buffalo out to graze and then sit under the shade of a tree to study.
it is a remnant of my father's agrarian past that he spends much of his spare time surveying our small plot of lawn. he walks around with his hands in his pockets and looks at the grass and the woodchips and the trees. sometimes I join him and he will point at certain tree branches and tell me they are dying. he will show me where he has dug out the edges of the landscaping.
on saturday we were thus engaged in this activity when we heard a squirrel fall out of a tree. or specifically, we heard the slapping sound when he hit the pavement at the end of his twenty-something foot fall. by the time we turned around to look the squirrel was walking away. not limping, or moving irregularly, but walking. squirrels, you know, usually hop and bound their way along, unless they are feeling cautious, or I suppose in this case, a little woozy.
overhead we saw the mockingbird flying away. I am not sure if this is the proper name for the bird but it's what we call it. it is a small grey bird with a white stripe on its tail.
it's the only animal I have actively disliked, besides perhaps rats and mice, which just about everyone dislikes, for being dirty house and apartment infestations. but I mean disliked for its personality, for just the way they are. oh wait there are oblivious pigeons-- the way they just walk around without seeming to know where they're going. they can be mildly infuriating. they are like tourists that walk in weird directions and disrupt pedestrian traffic flow.
anyway it is kind of interesting that the mockingbird seems to have a personality (as opposed to say, the robins or the bluejays). but it is unfortunate that it is such a rotten one. it is very territorial and it will take on anyone. it literally attacks other animals for no reason. I have actually found dead birds next to the mockingbird's favorite tree, which I suspect were killed by the mockingbird. and I have seen it chasing squirrels across the lawn. when sharif amin came to my house he called the bird by a different name, and said that it takes on dogs. which just seems so crazy to me, because some dogs can catch birds.
anyway the mockingbird is just really mean. that squirrel that fell out of the tree-- taking a bunch of leaves and twigs with it-- amazingly, walked away, but was probably bleeding internally and walked into some bushes somewhere to die.
nonfiction | Posted by Lily at 01:46 AM | comment
Fri | July 08, 2005
watching baseball
New York Yankees : The Official Site
I am watching sports this here friday night. It's pouring rain. It is the yankees vs. the indians.
I am actually not very sporty, though I have started to like sports more in the past year or so. I think I realized at some point that what people are saying, when they say they are going to watch sports, is that they are going to sit around doing basically nothing. Which I do very well. So I guess I do like sports.
I would like to go see a baseball game. I think I am going to one, in fact, on the 23rd. brooklyn cyclones. I would like to go just to sit in a stadium. There is something fun, and refreshing, about sitting in a stadium.
Jeux | Posted by Lily at 07:45 PM | comment
Thu | July 07, 2005
london
BBC NEWS | UK | More than 30 die in London blasts
see, because I'm at home all day today I don't find out about this til now. there is nothing more humbling than finding out that while you have been squabbling with phone-answerers...
ok no more posting.
liens | Posted by Lily at 01:08 PM | comment
boots n all
so the reason I keep adding links to this blog is I am using something called quickpost, which creates a link to whatever site you were on. You write a little post in a popup window, instead of leaving what you were doing entirely to post through the movable type interface.
this site (bootsnall.com) has a lot of blogs on it. I learned about it through an avuncular, generous fellow named Larry Habegger, who spoke at a free Gotham Writer's workshop at Coliseum books.
I decidedly don't like Gotham Writer's workshop, though. The people who answer the phone are petty and difficult to deal with. Every phone call I've had with them (there have been three) has left me thirsty for vengeance.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 11:46 AM | comment
Wed | July 06, 2005
chess puzzles
I'm not at all good at chess, but I still like it. The trick is to not play people who rank too far above you, on yahoo games. Always losing and never ever winning, or even coming close, is not encouraging. or fun.
Jeux | Posted by Lily at 01:43 PM | comment
Mon | July 04, 2005
about
This is my new blog. It's a departure from a year-long residency at xanga and from a very brief stint on friendster blogs. It doesn't aim to be anything but a repository for some thoughts, and perhaps some storyish things.
I think it will be a little better than my xanga. I think the format encourages better (more focused, substantial, developed) posts. It's lithe, whereas blogger is clunky; clean, where xanga (and live journal) are messy.
Note-- anything titled "today" or "this morning," or "bleh" or "erghhh" is probably a random and xangish post about nothing. Old habits die hard... if ever.
| Posted by Lily at 02:27 PM | comment
Sun | July 03, 2005
I think I killed a sparrow
on friday I was walking home, and as I got to the driveway I noticed a sparrow standing on the ground in the middle of the road. I noticed it didn't fly away even though I passed within a few feet of it. So I turned around and took another look. It didn't look injured or anything, but it still didn't fly away-- it just hopped. it spread its wings a little in an attempt to fly but it just hopped. it was really cute so I followed it a little more. it was just so cute as it hopped and chirped. then suddenly it hopped into a drain. I hadn't watched where I was going and I was just like OMG.
I felt so guilty. in retrospect I realize it was a fuzzy chick. it wasn't really fuzzy persay, but its feathers weren't as neatly patted down as an adult sparrow's. it was kind of fluffy. That was one thing I noticed during those few seconds that I menaced the poor thing. and it had started to chirp because it was scared. I thought it was cute but it was actually terror.
I told my dad about it and we got to talking about how he used to eat sparrows in taiwan. His uncle would put up a net maybe fourty feet wide. He would tie the nearly transparent net between two trees in the area where the sparrows were hanging out. Then he'd blow an eagle whistle. The sparrows would fly into the net.
My dad also used to catch frogs. The way he caught them is kind of neat. but I'll save that for another day. or perhaps never. I think any chinese person who knows how to do it would tell it freely, but I like to keep a few things to myself.
There is something nice about living in an environment/lifestyle where you catch your own food, and sort of find your way about using what is around you. It's like you have a real relationship with the world instead of this completely manufactured one. Or I guess it's just being connected with the natural environment, actually participating in this predator-prey relationship that all other animals do.
My dad has mentioned more than once that you can't eat anything in taiwan anymore (that is, you can't just go out and catch something to eat) because it is all polluted. When he went back for his father's funeral the river where he used to catch frogs was polluted and had no more frogs. His neighbor had a fish farm and now it is filled in and is a car dealership. My dad's farm grew rice and a bunch of other stuff. He says everyone grew everything, a few different things, whatever they felt like. And then they'd share with their neighbors.
nonfiction | Posted by Lily at 09:26 AM | comment
Fri | July 01, 2005
things I'd like to do with this blog
consider changing the color scheme-- it's currently the default, which means many people have blogs that look exactly the same as mine.
except, of course, my blog has a lot of little customizations and tweaks, and this amazing rotating-cube flash file
which happens to match the current color scheme.
so I think this blog looks perfect the way it is, and yet I don't want it to look exactly the same as the default-- what to do?
to do
[ ] search for color schemes already done, for ideas
[ ] try new colors and stare at them, decide if they are better
[ ] figure out how approval works on comments (and how to alter it)
[ ] make a bookmark icon
[ ] back up files
[ ] consider using a diff font for the banner
hmmm... that's it for now. I already spent like two hours the other day (seriously) just trying to modify the unordered list type (<ul type="square"> wasn't working) for one particular list (my new sticky posts list) in the sidebar. finally, I tested the square shape in the style sheet and realized I didn't really want a square anyway (it was too bold and dark) and manually typed in an ◊ (which is the little diamond shape ◊) which is much better.
so I might experiment with the color scheme on some day when no one will be surfing the web, like July 4th. it's either that or go experience suburban/ modern-american quiet desperation in full force at the neighborhood bbq. actually I happen to really like the neighbors. a few of them happen to be very intelligent. but I never talk to them/ they never talk to me/ we never talk to each other. I feel it even more acutely when (if) I convene with them annually. it's like, what do I say to you? I can't even talk to you. I know nothing about you. I know you're much more than this recitation of news headlines but there's no way to get there.
I might create a new blog and just experiment there. it's kind of an out of the way way of doing things, but the thing i've realized about movable type is that you can't work on the files, preview them on your computer and upload them when you're done and ready; you pretty much have to get to an internet connection and edit through a browser. people who've been checking in on this site over the past week might have noticed little changes/ signs of construction while I worked. or not. (who am I kidding, no one was reading, and anyone who was wouldn't have noticed. and I know that no one wants to know about how I decided between a square bullet and a ◊)
once everything's all set up and decided of course I won't have to make any more changes to the templates. actually I think I'm pretty much done customizing this blog. there's other stuff I want to do with it (see list of 3 above) but I think I should try NOT to do them. I've put a lot of time into it over the past couple of weeks and I need to stop.
revisions I've made*:
- entry footers-- modified posted by, comment link, everything really. added category link to footer.
- modified order of elements in sidebar; probably deleted some elements I didn't like; added sticky posts
- modified style sheet to include <h4> for motto quote; familiarized self with style sheet
- made comments visible on same page as the entries
- revised comment fields
- set up quickpost on laptop, desktop, and at K
- found this super-cool cube swf (shockwave flash), used my incredible cut and paste skills to install it on all my template pages.
*not necessarily listed in order they were done, though at times roughly so
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 03:10 PM | comment
perhaps this should be the site motto
If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.
Katharine Hepburn
(1907 - 2003)