Getting the Visor back up

As many of you may remember, I had a Visor up and going once upon a time, but when I was pregnant with Maggie and leaving work, it went long enough with a dead battery to lose everything - and then with the move I had to totally redo the computer as the O/S died on moving to Texas. Since then I've moved to a new computer.

bkseiver gave me her old cradle, and I got the software back on the computer for the Visor, in plans for wanting to use it again once the Readerware library cataloging project was complete. That's on hold due to surgery recovery (although with my friends' help we made a good start on it.) But I'm starting to want to get the Visor stuff back up and ready.

And one of the big things will be reassembling one single address book. What info I have now is scattered here and there in odd places.

Friends who are reading this, help me out? If you think I might have had your info once and not now - if you think I didn't have it but you're willing for me to - even if you think certainly I must have it - please give it to me? Name, address, home phone, cell phone, email, birthday, whatever you're willing. I've set all comments to screen. Admittedly, I do most of my communication by email and LJ, but not all, and it certainly would be nice to have an address book that could travel with me again.

Pinball!

We went to take the kids upstairs to bed, but didn't proceed into the bathroom to brush their teeth immediately, because the two kids went into a chase-each-other-up-and-down-the-hall game, using the nook and our closed bedroom door as bases, I think, involving lots of screeching and giggling and lots of running. And hey, when they're tiring themselves out and we just have to stand there, that's worthwhile. We stood there as they brushed past us and bumped into us and we chatted some. Karl said we didn't so much need the Cedarworks backyard playset that we've coveted for the kids as we need a big kid-life-sized pinball machine that they can be in. I looked at him and said "We are a big pinball machine for them.

I was then visualizing and describing a kid play center where you could go pay for your kids to have playtime inside a big pinball machine type set up - padded floors, padded bumpers and obstacles and such. And ideally you'd have the parents sitting in a relaxed elevated cafe setup where they could have nice drinks and snacks and watch the kids. And hey, do something where you pay some extra and you can control the lever for one of the flippers! Okay, sure, it'd have to be really padded, and it would probably have to move slowly, but it sounds fun. Karl didn't think they could possibly make it safe enough. But I was amused.

Dorothy Parker

I was discussing with Karl last night how very fond I am of the poetry of Dorothy Parker, and he suggested I ought to write about it. We were on our way home from our date, and I can't remember just how I got started on describing her work. One of the things I am fond of in her work is the invariable kicker - that her poetry will be flowing in what seems one direction, and as you reach the end there's a kick back in a different direction. That twist and kick is so characteristic of her work and something I like very much.

This had come to mind recently when I was mentioning her work in an IM chat with someone else, and lazy creature that I am, rather than getting up and going into our library to find the book I have of her poetry and typing in some piquant bits to share, I had googled the poem I wanted, pulled up various pages, and copied and pasted. Some of these pages had several of her poems, and during pauses in the IM conversation I was idly reading through various examples. It had been quite a while since I'd read her work, so I had forgotten some of the details. I started reading through "Symptom Recital", with it only partially scrolled up the page. I was reading it, nodding to myself, agreeing, oh yes, yes I know that feeling, uh-huh, yes, me too. Then I scrolled the page down farther and hit the kicker. Ooh, ow. Yeah, I'd forgotten that one.

I enjoy her rhythm and scansion - something I tend to take for granted when it's done well and only notice in poetry when it's done badly, as was recently brought to my attention indirectly. I like her wit and attitude, her mockery, of herself more than anything. I like how quick her wit was - not just in the poetry, but some of the marvelously cutting things she's quoted as having said. I greedily read the poems in which she expresses biting wit that I know I couldn't get away with in this day and age.

I told Karl I do have to be a bit careful in reading her, as she is so very cynical and it does end up being rather catching. But I talked about how her cynicism is surface level, not all that it seems. I feel that she was cynical for the same reason that I'm pessimistic. I'm pessimistic because inside I have an utter wild optimist just screaming to be let out to run amuck. That inner optimist would like to get me in as much trouble as possible. (Why yes, Parker's poem "A Portrait of the Artist" is one of my very favorites.) Reading her poetry leaves me with the feeling that she was cynical in an attempt to defend herself from tendencies toward sentimentality and romanticism that she found to be dangerous.

So, are any of you also fond of Dorothy Parker's poetry? Anyone like to share some of their favorites?