Feeling very nondescript and unmotivated today.

Got up early to shower before the bathroom-installing guys returned. Is your soapdish just supposed to fall of the wall? Or does that suggest the tile guys might have missed something? Granted I was piling stuff on it. Like one morning there was a new bar of soap, an old sliver AND a razor.

I guess before I got up and showered, I should have looked out the window (assuming that my semi-clad form should be sticking itself in the vicinity of a window). Houses should have one-way glass or tinted windows.

Had I looked out the window, maybe I would have noticed the fresh buttload of snow that is no doubt preventing the now bathroom-fixing guys from visiting.

I have mixed feelings about this artihttps://dee-rob.com/wp/wp-admin/edit.php
Editcle. (Sorry for the link to a place where you got to register, but it’s the fucking Times, what can you do?)

Germaine Greer was always one of my favorite of the old-school feminists. Probably because she had a sense of humor and a sense of outrageous, which sometimes are the same thing. Someone needed to have a little fun among all the hand-wringing, empowerment bullshit.

On the one hand, I hate to see her fading into awkward, B-list celebrity. But on the other hand, if she’s doing it to fuck with a TV show, power to the people, right on.

Other than that, I have been fucking lazy about getting dates to perform, but last night headed up to a groovy, little place in Lowell. It was fun.

I went up first and did adequately, I think. One of those sets where I left the stage thinking, “Huh, that should have worked better,” but not really beating myself up. Like a dumb shit, I forgot to set up my recorder (probably because I was more interested in eating), so I will never really have any idea of how sucky or not I may have done.

(And, yes, for anyone who read that last paragraph who has given me shit about self-deprecation, it was deliberate to put “sucky” first and “not” second. I’m fully aware of my shitty self. Does that sound like a joke, because it is. Aww, man, I suck at this.)

It was a fun night, though, with an interesting line up of “ladies.” When I got there, I looked around the room and realized that (a) I knew all but one or two of the performers and the host (I don’t really know him) and (b) I pretty much liked everyone in the room. Another of the chicks present mentions the show here.

(Hmm, maybe in lieu of a recording I should ask her how much I sucked, or didn’t…)

It’s noteable that it was fun, because I personally liked the other people. Sadly, after going to a million and a half comedy shows, it seems like it’s harder to say that I like everyone there. I guess the more people you meet, you up the chances of finding ones you hate. (OK, or love, I’ll concede that.)

I do want to point out to a certain West Coast resident, if he happens to read this post, he should re-read that last little bit. I just wrote that I liked a roomful of women. See, I don’t hate all women, just some of them. Like the dumb, young ones.

My next public appearance, as if anyone cares, is the Boston Comedy Connection on January 30, 2005. It’s a Sunday, and the show’s at 7 p.m.

I’m becoming mildly obsessive about job searching. I’ve been reading a career advice book that I picked up for about $1.50 at B&N’s post-holiday clearance.

Most of what the book says (and I suspect all career guides) is to be brutally honest with yourself in self-evaluation. Here’s the thing, though, I’m my own worst critic. Thanks to a fucked up ratio of self-awareness, self-esteem and ego, I spend a lot of time thinking worse of my performance than my peers or superiors ever would.

As a purely hypothetical example, say I were to get into an issue about work and felt it necessary to retain counsel and a vignette were to be written. One could conceive of a universe in which the advice-giver would remark, after reading through my personnel file, “Hmm. I’ve been doing this a long time and met a lot of different people on both sides of the negotiation table. I can tell you in all that time, I have never seen as an exemplary a work history as this one. It’s confusing that you are even here.” End scene.

One thing that I’ve been obsessing on is how at my last gig, if memory serves, it felt like a lot of people saw me as angry. Maybe I was. But, it was an anger-inducing environment for me, I think in retrospect, because there was always an undercurrent of my not being respected.

That sounds so juvenile written out, but I mean it more in a reality check kind of way not a whiney, teenage, mall rat screaming on her cell phone, “don’t you disrespect me” way.

A scenario comes to mind that might serve to illustrate the playing out respect thing. First, I’m a right tool for the right job kind of person and, especially when it’s office dough not my own, I don’t balk at spending on the right software. But, I ain’t no chump, and if I’m supposed to watch the budget, I don’t want no white elephants on my watch.

So, if you are trying to figure out how to pay all your staff ‘cuz the budget’s tight, and I mention an open-source solution for saving documents as PDF on your desktop, because for some reason you don’t want to ask your secretary using a licensed copy of Adobe Acrobat to hit save, please, oh fucking please, don’t reply “Open source? Oh, right, that’s because your new boyfriend works in open source. So now we have to choose software based on who you’re sleeping with?” and then accuse me of being controlling.

Something about rolling my private life and knowledge of software into a negative, while trying to keep up with conflicting desires on your part, makes me a tad edgy. How odd of me.

I’m thinking of other situations in which my information, like on opening every jpg from your husband could be a source of a virus, ColdFusion not being the next wave of web serving over Apache or even what Catholics believe as church doctrine, was ridiculed or somehow attributed to belief, stubborness or some other emotional state. In that time and place, it was as though it were impossible that I may know or understand more than was assumed.

Since in all other aspects of my life, I have friends, I’m pretty much liked and I’m rarely startled into a provocative dispute unwittingly (I mean, I do get into the ocassional scrape, but apart from my old job, I’m well-aware of what got me there), I have to believe it ain’t all me.

I think maybe it’s like shoes. Some shoes are going to give me a blister or otherwise hurt, no matter how long I try to break them in. But, on someone else, they may be magic slippers.

I wore the wrong pair of shoes for a long fucking time, and my dogs are begging for some comfortable dancing shoes.

I generally limit daytime TV watching, because frankly my pea-sized brain can’t afford too much more atrophy.

Today was the exception (maybe because I skipped a big pot of tea when I got up to see if lowering caffeine will become a more conventional bedtime).

Dr. Phil is featuring loveable educator Dr. Bill Cosby exhorting parents to not fuck up and kids to do something.

I know if I was a chubby white girl (and don’t get me wrong, I am) with no friends and a serious TV jones, the Cos’ kissing away my tears and telling me to change would be the juice for my new and improved life. Dr. Phil had some good advice for the parents, um, turn off the fucking TV. He is sporting for a personal trainer and, I think, is going to help her make friends or something, which is fun.

Now they are profiling a Black kid with a hard-working mom and jailed dad, who has stayed in school and not joined a gang. News at 11.

Seriously, and I know I might be veering from the liberal left party line I generally choose, what the fuck are Phil and Bill selling by suggesting there are almost no good kids growing up in Black families. (But, lowermybills.com is ponying up some cake for his college tuition, ’cause he’s “a Cosby kid.”)

I like Bill Cosby, I think he’s funny and I respect that he is educated and speaks out in the community from whence he came.

But, maybe the cynic in me is feeling cranky today. They’re alternating the inspiring change your life rhetoric aimed at the kids, the children, our kids, with plugs for the Fat Albert movie, now out on DVD. Hmmm, perhaps the Cos’ is multitasking. Afterall, he’s quite educated.

Oh, fuck. The show’s over, and underneath the chair of everyone in the audience is a copy of the Fat Albert DVD and Dr. Phil’s book.

I went for a pretty long walk yesterday. I like it when the town shuts down, and the streets look all old-timey from only having bundled up clusters of people and almost no cars.

Cambridge Street (which is most often gridlocked) looking west toward Inman Square and the sunset

No “Live Poultry Fresh Killed” yesterday

I put all my pictures from the snowy weekend in an album. You can either go to photos.dee-rob.com and choose the first album (with a catch name like “Snow, January 2005) or you can go just directly to that album here.

There’s a couple of the surreal, moonscape, artsy, bullshit view I like, too.

By the way, the shit that was open by 4 p.m. yesterday when I was strolling I think gives a little insight into the world. Throughout East Cambridge, the one constant in emporia open for business was liquor stores and/or quickie marts that sell beer and wine. Maybe it was the Pats-Steelers game or maybe it was what began completely clear during the years I spent in Syracuse, NY. There ain’t nothing to do in that much snow except drink away the boredom.

Socio-economically speaking and without picking out any one group, along Cambridge Street it also seemed like the non-European, ethnic restaurants were pulling to get there sidewalks and doors cleared for dinner. Thinner margins or more industrious?

Then I got to Inman Square, and a lot of stuff was open there, the S&S Deli, Bukowski’s, Inman Hardware, 1369 Cofffehouse, all the liquor stores and a few of the other markets. I figure that’s ’cause dirty hippies don’t know any better than to stay home and drink. Besides, it’s probably warmer at the 1369 than their bohemian, art and grafitti-soaked, patchouli-stinking lairs.

I gots myself a latte, surrounded by my people.

Remember this picture of the car across the street from my door?

Well, here it is almost eight hours later:

Almost gone.

Here’s the front yard (and I use the term “yard” loosely in describing the foot-wide space). The drifts almost are up to the normal height (like waist-high or something) fence.

My street:

It’s still snowing, so maybe I’ll get the three feet that would make it interesting.

(By the way, I probably should have brightened or color-corrected or something today’s pictures. But, it’s a snow day, and I haven’t had my tea.)

Maybe this time the snow hype is catching up to reality (or vice versa).

I took these pictures at about 11:30 p.m.

You get a sense of a pretty good storm, but it’s still your basic January in New England.

Now, at about 4 a.m. (Don’t ask why I’m up. Among other things, I got caught up in a stupid movie on cable.) Anyway, the white shit is still flying and we got these pics.

Going to be a fun time first finding your car and then digging out the right one.

Here’s what I faced when I opened the front door. I’m guessing over a foot right there on the porch.

Since I don’t really have any where to go, provided I buy some food shortly, I will be excited to see the possible 30 inches predicated. Almost three feet is cool, no matter what you are measuring.

So I got up this morning and read a few news things on-line and noted some shows being cancelled and thought, “hmmm, better look out the window.” I thought that, because everything I read seemed to evoke snow armeggedon.

I look out the goddamned window, and nothing. NOTHING. Not even a flake yet in front of my house.

It drives me nuts when there is full on weather hype for something that hasn’t hit us yet.

The worst of it is, I have no food in the house, because I ate it all. Meaning, through bad planning on my part, I will be going to the store when the snow starts and all of the folks heeding the blizzard warning will be buying toilet paper and powdered milk and other items for those under siege.

The toilet paper hording always cracks me up this time of year. It always makes me wonder if the beleaguered purchasers usually like to keep themselves on a short leash and only buy a roll at a time during fine weather. Or, maybe they expect bad results from the bunker-type food they are buying for an emergency.

All I know is if they are shopping in a Cambridge grocery store, they probably live in the city. And, spending most winters out of 40 in New England have taught me something. That Charmin double roll out a last you through most situations, you ain’t got to stock up.

I’ll be shocked beyond belief if there isn’t a store open by Monday where you can stock up on all your butt wipe needs.

This house was the one in which Pat and the rest of her family grew up many moons ago.

This morning the Boston Globehad a picture. But, I missed it for the link.