change or die

That is what my ex boyfriend said. Millions of years ago.

He recently passed away.

Did he say it - or was it understood?

Was it understood - or was it on spelled out on some small item on his desk? On a bookshelf?

The mystery that is my real life experience - that is now so long ago that I'm left wondering.

I love mysteries.

And common place mysteries rank pretty high. As this one. And it's so simple and small.

Anyone who has ever read me knows that I can access my memory given enough time and concentration. I can.

But this. It seems I have some kind of block when it comes to certain things.

Certain things.

I simply turn my head. I can't look. It's too final.

Mark is dead.

For how long have I been saying those words?

change or die

I assign them to Mark.

I mean them when I say them. I always have.

change or die..

a mirror held up to another mirror

Blogging about my blog again:

I thought about changing the appearance of my blog. Back when I originally changed it, it was by manually changing the html code.

The new Blogger has New Templates! that are actually the same ones Blogger provided four years ago.

These new templates do provide a new way of changing one's template, however. And that sounded easy and intriguing.

But the new method is very limited with only about thirty colors, and the same six fonts as before.

I changed the whole thing, anyway.

When I was done I was nauseated by the result.

Then I had a moment of panic when it seemed I had changed my blog permanently.

Even though I saved my original template, I had no idea how to access it.

I completely freaked out. The thought of starting from scratch and tweaking my blog to get it back to square one - was daunting.

I just threw up my hands and considered walking away from this blog forever. Finally!

But then I found it. Actually, the default button. It was right there the whole time.

Another reason I can't use Blogger's new templates is that they all (that's all of them - all, every single one) contain these crazy, useless arrows.

Just arrows for no reason. Pointing in every direction. Arrows made bolder than anything else on the page - with no way to remove them.

I don't get it.

I thought about it for a few hours, too. What am I missing here? Why all the arrows?

What is the benefit of all of those arrows?

At what meeting did the idea of "millions of arrows" beat out "no arrows"?

Those arrows look insane.

I might start a completely new blog simply to change the appearance of this one.

The question is: does posting about the appearance of one's blog at all justify having a blog?

Back to html..

just let me know if you get this

Hey google, remember me?

About fifteen minutes ago I wrote you a post. Here in this blog.

I keep checking, but I haven't heard back from you yet.

What is up with that?

Maybe it's time that I finally apologize.

I realize our relationship is totally one sided, with you knowing everything about me and me knowing nothing about you.

I'd like to change that. Right now, if I could.

Maybe I should apologize for all of my abuse of google.

Like, I didn't mean to make my own algorithm that one time.

That was purely an experiment. The kind of thing that happens when one - when I become bored. I was just trying to figure out how the whole thing worked.

It backfired. And I'm sorry. Really.

And, the other day, when I googled myself - I just hope that didn't throw anything off.

I know that your history of me is detailed. I use both gmail and blogger so - that's not good. Not to mention (I really do hate mentioning it) that you've kept all of my queries.

That's years of queries.

I can already hear the snickering:

quit smoking
withdrawal from smoking
healthy eating
nutrition
recipes
raw foods
sprouts
salads
green tea
turmoil
benefits of chocolate
chocolate cake
double chocolate cake explosion
weight gain
metabolism
mystery of metabolism
exercise
health
healthy attitudes
non smoker
calorie counter
lentils
wheat grass
spiralina
cleansing
fasting
benefits of olive oil
relapse
butter
quit smoking
recovery from addiction
bad dreams
detox
support
non smoking forum
whole foods
love
healthy food
self forgiveness
self respect
healthy foods
french food
foodie
why cheese is ok
history of cheese
four cheese potatoes
cheese for breakfast
exercise
start jogging today
the joy of jogging
stiffness
pain
sharp pain
sharp knee pain
jogging through the pain
local hospitals
knee braces
low impact exercise
walking
yogurt
greens
benefits of omega 3
how to drive traffic to your blog
five reasons no one reads your blog
frankenmonsterblog
frankenmonsterblog sucks

etc.

I have to wonder if making google my home page was a mistake - like the final piece of the puzzle, or something.

And maybe banking with google (google is now my bank) - maybe that was a bad idea, too.

And now that I'm working for google, I can only imagine how this post might reflect on my performance. At google.

I am happy, though, that if anyone googles me - they get hundreds of pages of a new age author.

No. No one can google me.

ha ha

I enjoy that fact. It makes me laugh. I laugh about it all the time.

New age.

Easily digested (like cream cheese). Totally non-threatening.

Such a pretty theory (that goes so great with all of those new candles).

Something for women who - simply by virtue of being fat; simply by virtue of buying new age books - learns that she (and she suspected such!) is already wonderful, worthy, unique, and beautiful - just the way she is.

Really? No kidding.

Because that's all any woman wants to hear, anyway: that she is entitled. To be happy. Even though the evidence to the contrary keeps stacking up and knocking against her psyche.

Constantly.

Relentlessly.

Let us begin the new age lesson on quieting the truth, right now, shall we?

And, what if I want to be an author one day?

Will I - in order to have any google results of my own, need to employ my middle intial or use a different name?

Have you ever thought of that, google? Because, right now, it's all I can think about.

I'll go by frankenmonsterblog, I guess. That's how google knows me, anyway.

A woman named frankenmonsterblog.

People will love that..

searching for the past - could it be the future of search?

I'm sad to see that google's 2001 archive has been taken down.

I found important things in that archive - via what became my personal habit of cross searching in both googles.

In particular, a couple of interviews of a friend who recently passed away.

Interviews, I might add, that were nowhere to be found in the current, all too vast google.

Because - believe me, I tried.

It was with a mixture of dread and incredulousness (realizing the preciousness of these particular interviews) that I wanted nothing more than to be wrong.

I wanted to find the same interviews in the current google.

I really wanted to.

But, no. Even while employing the advanced feature, these things were nowhere to be found.

I only hope that by bookmarking these sites - I can still access them. I didn't print anything out right away.

Now with the archive down, I'm afraid that that window might be closed.

Silly me, I didn't realize that the archive was finite.

Because it seemed plain that such an archive would be a permanent. It added a strange new layer to search.

I thought google was testing something out.

As nothing more than a snapshot of history - it was unique. That alone. But then you add the fact that it was interactive.

Not that everything was available. But at least half the pages I tried to access were.

Shouldn't search be as multifaceted as possible?

Even if the 2001 archive was only a self generated history (or, maybe, specifically because it was a self generated history) it added something valuable to search.

And isn't that what google has been talking about forever: the future of search?

Google? Are you out there?

-just sayin'

coffee stain = no longer my problem

Sometimes when I look across the street at my old apartment building I miss something.

I don't know what.

Certainly not the space. That apartment was small.

I don't miss the luxuries - there were no luxuries. Just a scrub brush and big cake of soap (for cleaning the floors, the dishes, me - everything), and a window.

That one window. What a window.

And there was a bathtub - that, when you put a plank of wood across it (which, believe me, was already chained to the tub anyway) doubled as a table - if not and a bed (guest bed).

Yes.

I mean, no. It was not a great apartment. Not by any standard.

Though, as small as it was, it did have more closet space than I have here, currently, at my supposedly better, bigger apartment. But that's typical (nothing architecturally making any sense ever).

And I really don't miss the coffee stain (bad, grim, incredibly foretelling coffee stain) that - near the end of my experience at that worse, smaller apartment (across the street) - rolled down my east wall (my one east wall) and part of the ceiling, thereof.

That coffee stain (stain: millions of vertical lines saturating a ten by twelve foot wall) being the artwork of a one very special guest - was scrubbed off by me on a Sunday - only to return that very Monday (only slightly deterred).

There it was. The coffee stain - it was still there.

It turns out that, sometimes - paint has a memory.

Sometimes you can scrub and scrub - but a stain will keep coming back.

That, clearly, only paint would suffice - but at that point I didn't want to paint. Not anymore. Not there. Not at that apartment. Because I was moving.

So I washed it off. Or so I thought.

And it's funny because it was only one cup of coffee. If that. Probably not even that. I had been drinking from it (that particular cup of coffee) before my guest took it and, without any regard for anything - flung it (the cup with its hot contents) across the room (at my computer for some reason) and created the coffee stain (that I dealt with and lived with - for seven months) that is probably there still, to this very day.

It was a mess.

A real mess. A mess that reminded me - not daily (I didn't worry about it every day), but at least every few days - that some people may at any point fling anything across the room - at any time.

No, I don't miss the coffee stains streaking down my east wall - like so many candle wax (or is it blood) dripping type Halloween fonts (you know the ones) - employed by the covers of so many horror/monster magazines. A font that I always loved.

Just not as a stain. In my house.

Victoria works and occasionally blogs in Chicago..

seriously

Tell me this isn't scary.
It reminds me of the last time I went camping.

It was years ago. In the middle of October.

We had been hiking for hours.

This was a huge national park. The goal was to relax. To overwrite stress.

No billboards. No signage. Just the sound of birds and the wind through the trees.

A time when spiders were "ok"; dirt welcome.

And there weren't any other humans beings anywhere. It was off season.

But suddenly it became unseasonably cold. We knew the temperature would drop - but this wasn't what the weather channel predicted.

We went camping twice a year.

This time we got lost. It was five pm. The sun was going down.

We didn't panic - not out loud. Not to each other. But internally, quietly, and eventually - jokingly.
It was thirty degrees in the middle of a forest. Animals were starting to come around - and moan and howl.
I was cold.
Neither of our cell phone would work. A Freezing rain had begun to become more like snow.
It had been 65 degrees just a few hours earlier. More than that - we knew where we were a few hours earlier.
We just kept going in circles.
And what I saw was a wonderful sunset - strained through stained glass autumn trees - all beautiful and foreboding and cruel: the realization that five pm in real life wasn't five pm in this place.
Compelling as this sight was - perhaps this is what the end looks like for the unfortunate few. Those that get themselves lost. In a forest that is too big to deal with when you have no way of making a fire in the rainy, wet freezing cold..
Anyway, it's fall - there are so many things to do!
There are pumpkins to carve, apples to bake - sweaters to pick up from the dry cleaners.
I love this time of year.

situations like these

It all happened so fast.

Never before had he encountered three more incredulous individuals.

Despite their ability to rhyme and their somewhat hip posturing, their intolerance of him was clear.

In retrospect, it probably was his enthusiasm that put them off.

trick or treat

In Our Next Issue:

They arrive at your door dressed in a strange manner. Sometimes in a frightening manner.

And the question is always the same:

Trick Or Treat?

But is it a question - or is it an ultimatum, with neither the trick nor the treat benefiting you?

James C. said, "..Yeah, I've been trick or treating for many years. Now, with the economy the way it is, I trick or treat about once a week.."

Angela T. added, "Trick or treating? Please, it's a way of life around here!"

Many people weighed in on the subject:

"We started out by going through people's dumpsters.", Jon J. told us with a shrug, "At least with trick or treating we can wear our favorite disguises. It's all about 'maintaining dignity'.."

Community leaders agree, "The instance of trick or treating is up 8% and it doesn't look like it's slowing down any time soon.."

Taking a closer look at: Trick Or Treating

- On News Stands -

there's definitely a ghost in my machine

The computer I'm utilizing at the moment is indeed a machine.

A big fat piece of machinery. It's so ready to go - and I am so ready to make it go the way of old machines.

I can't wait. Then I'll get a new (probably refurbished), computer. A better, smaller, lighter, faster, happier computer.

I'll call it a devise. It will shine and be cool to the touch.

I will provide it with a soul - much as I did this one. This machine. So long ago.

As I sit here typing, taking bites of chocolate cake* - I realize how ridiculous that sounds. So long ago.

It was about seven years ago that I got this computer.

And then, about four years ago I started this blog.

Why is it that I have jeans that are fours years old that are still "new" - but this almost four year old blog started on this almost seven year old computer seem ancient?

Same goes for the experience I had recently while visiting
this site.

The Way Back Machine. I was impressed with how unlikely it all felt - as close to actual time travel I've ever come - this trip taken back in time via the internet.

Why is that?

A trip that took me back as many as five years (in some cases). Though The Way Back Machine has archives that go back as far back as 1996, most of my favorite websites were created within the last five years.

five whole years..

What the Internet Archive is doing is very cool. And will be as meaningful as time progresses as it is fascinating right now.

2004. A look back..

Seriously. Things have really changed.


*Cake, ineffective as a replacement for cigarettes.

I gave up the internet

So, I gave up the internet.

I know, I know.

But it's been great.

And easy. I was just sitting here in front of my computer thinking about how easy it was.

Last night I googled:

what + did + we + do + before + the + internet

Wow.

I found hundreds of personal accounts, sometimes whole blogs devoted to the topic of living internet free.

I even got into a flame war with another commenter.

It turns out that there are two distinct camps on the matter:

Those who have been successful at returning to an internet-free lifestyle - versus those who not only have no memory of life before the internet, but maintain that there is no evidence of an internet-free people on the internet.

No evidence of an internet-free people on the internet?!

Did they even bother to read the blogs before commenting on them?

Probably not.

And that's the thing about the internet. Right there. In a nut shell.

In more than one forum, the first camp waxed nostalgic about how they used to get their information (mostly stuff about listening, paying attention, pretending to know thngs, and paging through phone books).

Personally, I remember searching my own mind for answers. Sometimes for hours (though, I didn't share this with anyone at any blogs - nor would I, ever).

And what about shrugs? Remember shrugging?

A shrug meant that one accepted not knowing the answer to something.

A shrug meant that it was ok to not know anything.

"Before the internet", I fed back, "people got outside; they made phone calls..!"

And now?

Now that I'm internet free, I feel safe in the fact that I'll never go back.

I say this with conviction.

I mean it. I feel good.

I feel sharp.

My ability to think abstractly is coming back (though, admittedly, I didn't even know it was gone).

And my attention span? It's through the roof.

I dare say, as recently as fifteen years ago (perhaps as many as twenty-five) mine would've been considered an extreme attention span.

Seriously.

This is great.

So far so good. Wait.

hold on a sec..

Sorry about that *laughing* I just had to post a rave about this and many other things on craigslist.

Anyway..

I'll continue to chart my progress here.

In the meantime?

Frankenmonsterblog: Now Internet Free!