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Tue | February 28, 2006
mt notification
The Movable Type (3.17) notifications feature doesn't send out an email every time someone posts, which is what I initially thought it did.
It gives the poster the option to send out an email containing the post and/or a message and/or an excerpt of the post to everyone on the list.
MT comes with a CGI script by which people can add themselves to the list. The user manual contains HTML for a form using this script. You paste the form into your template, probably in the side menu. (QED- do the MT tags work in an entry/ post?)
Then the manual mentions that you have to define a verification phrase in your mt.cfg file, but doesn't really explain what the hell that means. Generally, movable type gives you the information but doesn't always tell you what to do with it. Or actually I find this is true with most computer/ tech stuff. It's just the way it's written.
1. Download your mt.cfg file (I transferred in binary mode, which I think is correct, but I have trouble remembering the difference between binary and ASCII because I don't actually know the reason behind it)
2. Open with Wordpad.
- At the end, put the line
EmailVerificationSecret putwordhere
where "putwordhere" is your hard to guess verification phrase.
Notes:
No quotes are needed.
Don't misspell "verification," as I did and then spent about an hour trying to figure out what might be wrong.
- Uncomment the line
# EmailAddressMain name@domain.com
Put whatever address you want people to see the verification email coming from. Mine is from postmaster@asianwriting.org
3. Upload the file.
Web/Tech | Posted by Lily at 07:48 PM
Fri | February 24, 2006
love is simple
you make a list.
actually, a set of lists.
he wants:
I want:
he has:
I have:
he gives-- whether consciously, or unknowingly:
I give-- always conscious of everything, of everything that is going on, all of the above, because I know nothing else:
If it doesn't match up or add up, it isn't going to work. It just isn't.
Then I try really, really, really hard to stop.
That is the hard part.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:17 AM
Thu | February 23, 2006
new clothes
I got some clothes today at anthropologie. They actually had some clothes I liked and I tried them on. That floral orange skirt is too salmony, and the waist is cut too large. The top is ok but I decided to hold off on it for now.
This skirt I got is kind of poofy, but I more or less like it. It matches the lime-yellow sweater I got at free people the other day. I also got a matching top, even though it was super over-priced. I didn't want to think about whether I had anything that would go with the skirt. That is how they get you-- they put stuff that matches nearby, so you buy two or three things instead of just one. I like it though, because then I know I have an outfit. And I know that I don't have a ton of neutral tops, even though it seems like something I would have. It will be useful for other outfits.
I think if you like the same colors, at least for a period, like recently I've liked yellow and turquoisey colors, rather than, say, navy, or red, which I don't know if I have ever liked, on myself, but just as an example-- then stuff will tend to come together.
I also got some drawer pulls which I tried on my drawers, and didn't like. I am glad I tried because now I know. I have been looking at those for a long time.
journal | Posted by Lily at 04:44 PM
Wed | February 22, 2006
chekhov
I am going to read all of Anton Chekhov's stories, for no particularly well-thought-out reason. I started to, last Friday, and forgot about it already, until today. There are about two hundred of them, at online-literature.com. They go by fast, like epigrams. If I read five a day I'll be done in a month. More likely I will read one or two, on most days, and be done eventually.
I am also going to read the literary journals at Coliseum. I was doing that for awhile and then stopped. I went in yesterday during lunch and realized that I hadn't been there in a long time.
Last but not least, I am going to finish reading the Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. I am not going to read every poem but I am going to read most of them, or a lot of them. Then I am going to write clumsy versions of at least a few of those forms. I am pretty bad at poetry and I figure it's the least I could do.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 09:40 AM
Tue | February 21, 2006
bassist wanted
Last week or so, I emailed the guy who makes this comic strip, even though I barely know him. He emailed me back. I emailed him just now to tell him his name (Porter Mason) is made of trochees. Then I thought, he probably already knows that. I often think people probably already know things, when really they don't.
Also, that is a really odd thing to say. I don't know why I said something so obscure.
journal | Posted by Lily at 12:22 PM
Mon | February 20, 2006
aujourd'hui
A somewhat ineffectual day. I didn't have a plan, but I had a long list, I always have a long list, ongoing. I guess I never zeroed in on an important thing from the list and focused on doing it. I did a lot of small things. I did my laundry. I poured detergent on the mud stains from recent rainy and slushy days in the city. Then I forgot to put more detergent in the wash for the rest of the clothes. By the time I realized, the clothes were in the dryer and I sat on the floor with my back to the dryer for ten minutes trying to decide whether or not to start over. I decided to just forget it. So basically my clothes have been rinsed with warm water and a little bit of detergent and dried.
What else. Just now I couldn't find my big headphones. I don't know how I lost track of something so big. At any rate, all is well. I borrowed my brother's. I still want to get another pair to keep at 1440.
I went to circuit city with my brother and father in an attempt by my bro to get a 250 gig hard drive for free, using a combination of price matching and rebates. An idea he got on some forum. I wonder if I could have pulled it off if it had been left exclusively to me. Then we went to Applebee's for the first time. on route 10. By the time we got home it was around 3 and there was talk of going to the mall, but I couldn't decide, and I was supposed to call J, but I couldn't decide, and I just typed in my journal until I eventually fell asleep.
Anyway, now I feel confused, and still indecisive, and I should just go.
journal | Posted by Lily at 09:27 PM
Fri | February 17, 2006
softball
I am going to hit the batting cages at Chelsea Piers. I have until next Friday to decide whether to join the Kaplan softball team. That is, I have to figure out if I am good enough. I am pretty bad at all sports, softball not being the worst, but that isn't saying much.
The last time I played softball was when I was in fifth grade on the town softball team. There was only person worse than I was-- Emma, this British girl who wasn't even trying. So basically I have worse softball skills than the average ten year old. Plus, I don't even know the rules. I don't even watch baseball. I wouldn't know what to do even if I could hit the ball.
I often say that I would rather exercise by playing sports than by going to the gym (which I don't even do anymore because I dropped my membership over a year ago). Not that softball is much exercise. But I like the concept of sports, I like the idea of it, hanging out and having fun. At the same time I don't think it will be much fun if I am the worst player, or even one of the worst players.
Jeux | Posted by Lily at 04:49 PM | comment
Lily said on Dec 29, 06 02:22 PM:
I went on Friday night with Janica, forgetting all about Zack's writing group.
I think I will not join the team. As much as I want to, I'm obviously not good enough right now, since it took me several swings even to start making contact with the ball, and even after I got used to it, I wasn't consistent. I think there is too much I'd need to do to get up to speed, and I don't have that much time.
Wed | February 15, 2006
valentine's day
Valentine's Day is not my favorite holiday. It has a lot of potential, but it never lives up to it. I feel like it's the only holiday that actively makes people miserable. It captures the imagination, which is bad, because the stuff you imagine is not as nice as the real. It is a nice holiday in theory, but in practice, it's awful. It's a miserable, awful, holiday. And you can't really participate in it unless you're dating someone or have a boyfriend. Even then chances are you will be at least a little disappointed. Christmas, I can benefit from the sales, and the decorations are pretty. I can be a little happy even though it is this behemoth of a holiday which actually has very little to do with me and represents all these hegemonic ideologies (christianity, CAPITALISM, consumerism)-- ideologies which are at root responsible for a lot of my general, daily, miserable existence. Valentine's day represents nice things (love, connection, affection) and yet it just doesn't work.
journal | Posted by Lily at 06:42 PM
Tue | February 14, 2006
clothes
I suppose it's just as well that my local anthropologie doesn't carry the clothes I'd like to try on... I'd go broke. I did go to free people yesterday, and without much thought got a sweater I don't really need, but that I liked. It is a yellow-green reverse stitch hooded sweater with a turqoise-blue and daisy-patterned lining that extends into the hood. Then I realized looking at their website that their market is teenagers. They are a teenage anthropologie.
Yesterday I took all the boxes of papers and books out of my closet, in response to the inspiration that my closet should be exclusively for clothes. Now the boxes are sitting in the middle of the room, with the other boxes that were already there. In my closet are some plastic drawers that I got from target, which weren't that expensive but which added up to sixty-something dollars, more than I thought they should cost, but not so much that I would shop around to save ten to fifteen bucks.
Now I must resist buying clothes and filling up the drawers. Next I must:
[ ] reorganize all the things in my drawers and closet
[ ] clean out my desk drawers
[ ] figure out where to put the nine or ten boxes of papers and books
I have been reorganizing a lot recently. The closet was the most recent project. Before that I took all the stuff off my bureau and left only the essentials-- cd's, newly organized; discman & speaker; lamp, alarm clocks (2), perfumes, incense, box of buttons and size tags. Sounds like a lot but it's not. I also cleared out a drawer in my other bureau and put all the stuff I had been keeping on top, away in the drawer. That led to my thinking about the closet because the clothes that had been in the drawer didn't have any place to go. And before that I got bead boxes from a crafts store to use as jewelry boxes and organized all my jewelry. And before that I organized the top of my desk.
journal | Posted by Lily at 03:17 PM
Sun | February 12, 2006
voice mail
I haven't checked my voice mail in a few days. I think I have ten or eleven messages now. I generally have a habit of not checking, but I check even less often now because the voice on the voicemail reminds me of robot woman at kaps.
There is no reason to listen most messages anyway. I leave information in voice mail but most people don't. Looking at the call log provides about the same information as dialing up my voicemailbox.
journal | Posted by Lily at 09:48 AM
Fri | February 10, 2006
mon problème du moment
My problem of the moment is how to NOT go insane from listening to the person two spots away from me. She is probably a perfectly fine person. I don't know her. What I know is that she answers some sort of 1-800 line. She says the same handful of things all day. If you wrote down all the words she said in a day and graphed them, you'd find a very limited lexicon. If you wrote down all the sentences and phrases you'd find many of the same thing.
She sounds like a robot. She sounds like the space-age voice on my voicemail. It has this soothing quality that paradoxically makes me angry. It is soothing and yet disembodied and mechanical. Now when I call my voicemailbox I feel angry.
I think I would be annoyed at whoever sits next to me. It comes from the proximity and the repetition of it all.
I don't know what to do. I want to punch her to bits. Every time her phone rings I die a small writhing death. I have headphones but I can't listen to music all day. Besides, I can hear her voice underneath the music. I need to get noise-blocking headphones, the huge padded ones.
journal | Posted by Lily at 04:11 PM
Thu | February 09, 2006
match point
I saw Match Point last night, and loved it. It was so well put together. The dialogue was occasionally painful, and yet somehow acceptable. I have no idea how that happened-- good acting or delivery I guess. The thing is, sometimes people do drop trite lines like that, but you would never put it in a movie, unless ironically. Perhaps it was ironic. I can't even remember what the lines were. They were like, bad wit. The wit of people of mild intelligence. Perhaps it was simply accurate.
J. liked this one a lot better than Brokeback. I liked it because it turned out to be based on Crime and Punishment. Certain plot points were, anyway. That was so satisfying because I adore that book. And even better, it didn't have the stupid ending of Crime and Punishment. That was the best part-- it had the proper ending. The ending of C&P always seemed a big backout on the part of the author. This one holds out through the end.
Most of all I am amazed that Woody Allen pulled this together at whatever age he is, like eighty something. It somehow tempers the sickening fact that he married his adopted Korean daughter.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 12:56 PM
Wed | February 08, 2006
brokeback mountain
I saw Brokeback Mountain, finally, on Monday night. I was surprised it was paced so slowly and deliberately. Hollywood is usually accelerated and abbreviated. I think Brokeback was conceived and produced as a smaller film that got distributed widely. Or something.
I was surprised it was so mellow. It was like the story I wrote recently that everyone said was flat, that it did not arc, where it should have. I am aware that my story does not have a high sense of conflict. I don't know what to do about it.
Brokeback was okay. I wasn't expecting anything in particular, though I thought it would be better, more intense, more insightful, than it was. It wasn't bad but it wasn't sooo great either. All in all, though, I liked it, and thought it was good.
It isn't good to read reviews before you go to the movie, which I couldn't help but do for Brokeback. It ruins some of the experience because you've seen it before in your head. You know what's going to happen. And in Brokeback, not a lot happens, and so there is even less left after you already know the plot points.
I can't help but wonder if a resistance to conflict and preference for an even keel is cultural. Maybe conventions like "protagonist vs. antagonist" and "rising action --> climax --> falling action" are advantageous to a type of mind that I simply don't have. Then again, they say you must learn the rules before you can break them, so I suppose I must try. I am trying.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 03:54 PM
Mon | February 06, 2006
moby and opium
On Saturday night I went to the release party for opium .print #2. Moby was there. I have no idea how Todd got him there, or if it was just coincidental. I doubt it was coincidental.
I was standing with Curtis and Tao and Curtis said, "he could walk out with any woman in this room." I think the topic of discussion was whether Moby was cool, and this was Curtis's reasoning.
"He couldn't walk out with me," I said.
But a few seconds later Moby looked at me (and I of course looked at him, though I have no idea what expression was in my eyes when mine met his). Thereafter he seemed to be keeping track of where I was. Then, at the break in the reading when I left the people I was with and made my way through the crowd and down the stairs to the bathroom, he appeared a half-minute after me at the bottom of the stairs. There was one person between us on line. The guy two people ahead of me had started a conversation with the girl behind me because she was wearing some Seattle-connected t-shirt. We were not standing front to back, but side to side, and it would have been easy to say something to Moby.
I really wanted to. I wondered what the etiquette was-- whether it was rude to talk to a celebrity. Everyone else was letting him be. I wondered if he would react negatively. If I should know more about him first. I have some of his music but I'm not sooo familiar with it. And I wondered what the point was, really. What could I possibly accomplish with a few seconds of chit chat. Then I went back to wondering whether he would be happy if I said something to him. I tried to think, if I were a celebrity, or if I were Moby, whether I would want to be bothered. Whether he would think I was pretty or intelligent or both. Whether he thinks anyone is pretty or intelligent, after all the women he undoubtedly sees. What his motivation was, what he could possibly get out of it. My motivation was clear. But I did not know what I could possibly give him. Certainly not insight on his career, since I had not followed it. There are very few, if any, celebrities to whom I could give informed advice to, or even make an intelligent comment about something they did.
Nigrash. My word for the mess of doubts and thoughts and what if's that jumble up inside my brain when I am considering some hypothetical action-- a maby bubble. Usually the maby bubble is something that I on some level know that I would be much better doing poorly than not at all.
This was definitely such a case. It had been awhile since I was ever in such a situation-- I did not recognize it at the time. And yet that's another excuse. I should have swept my doubts aside and just said something. Anything. I totally could have.
The question I never considered before last Saturday and that I am now turning over in my mind is, Would I sleep with a celebrity?
Whoa, how do I get from talk to sex? Partly that's Curtis fault for putting it in my head at the beginning. But I like to think all the possibilities through to the end. It informs how I am. I would say how I act, but I don't really act. I just am one way or another or another.
So I have been thinking, would I talk to a celebrity, would I talk to Moby. And if he said come hang out at this other place, would I go. And if he said come back to my place, would I go, and then if... I suppose the ultimate answer is yeah, if I wanted to. It all goes back to whether you're attracted to the person or not. At the end of the day (or night) it's a question of person, and not of celebrity.
journal | Posted by Lily at 12:00 AM
Thu | February 02, 2006
immigration anniversary
Today is the anniversary of my family's immigration to the U.S. We came on February 2nd, 1979, about two months after I was born. My parents always know how long they've been here because it's how old I am.
I like my family and don't mind living with them. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, either. It's not the norm in the U.S. to live with your family after 18, but it is in plenty of other countries.
It took me a long time to come to terms with living in NJ with my family, but I have learned to focus on all the positives of situation. Now, I think, I even prefer it. The people who disapprove or think it is weird are annoying and wrong.