From the latest LiveJournal news release:

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

I don't know how delighted you are to hear this, but I'd be happy to send a coupon to any of my LJ Friends who want one. Just let me know (in comments or as a message) and I'll send it off.

Also, a new feature lets me see who has been reading my journal. (With limitations.) So... welcome lurkers! I don't know if you're visiting from a FriendsFriends page or come by from Facebook, but feel free to comment. Or even Friend me.

I took the Census Bureau's test this afternoon at the St Paul Public Library. Just getting there was a minor adventure. I had to play around with the MTC's route planner to find a route that didn't take me miles out of the way. I'm not at all familiar with downtown St. Paul, but having looked at MapQuest beforehand I chose the right place to exit the bus - Rice Park - and then mistook the building because the only sign I saw at first was for the attached James J Hill Reference Library. I wandered down 4th Street past Sakura before asking for directions, and finally made my way back to the building, still in good time for the test. At least I got to do some reading during the bus rides there and home again - something I've missed when driving. Today's reading was in Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith.

There were eight applicants in all. We had a nice conference room on the 4th floor of the library, where we were seated around an open square of tables laminated in that fake dark wood. I was the only one of us with anything like Nordic looks, but there was an even mix of males and females. I was a little concerned because someone I know from Sunday's Rise Up Singing circle was supposed to be there too and never showed up.

The whole event took about an hour of sitting around taking care of forms and instructions and a half hour for actual testing. (Interrupted occasionally by very distracting comments on time remaining.)

A passing score would have been 10 out of the 28 questions; I got 26 out of the 28 and don't know where I went wrong. A few of the questions were what I'd call ambiguous and those are the sorts that tend to throw me. Although, I was flustered enough over my math problems to momentarily forget what nine times seven is. At least I passed. :)

When I told her that I had no car and was particularly interested in a clerical position, the lady conducting the test was nice enough to give me not one, but two email addresses to which I could direct my resume. I sent that off a little while ago now.

Supper: lentils in olive oil with garlic and marjoram; cocoa with a shot of cinammon Schnapps.

Hmm... I better write this down before it goes away.

I will often have dreams that are sequels of previous dreams. I'll have some sort of dream, forget it during the conscious phase of existence, then sometime later have a dream which is a continuation of a previous dream. The sequel can be fairly soon afterward or much later.

But this time, I had a dream which must have been just a few days ago. I was at a large sf convention. A group of us were headed toward a panel. On Being Weird, or somesuch. I was on the panel, as were several of the people I was with. We had a great time beforehand, after a long night of partying (or something), and everyone was in a boisterous mood, including the other panelists and audience (when we got to the programming room). We started way late, and finished early. In fact, we started so late that I could have taken a shower before the panel.

Last night, I started to have the same dream, but remembered that we had started late. So I excused myself to head to my room to take a shower. In my room, as in the first dream, was another party (I detect a bit of a theme here, actually). I successfully took a shower and changed clothes... and got caught up in the party in my room. Never made it to the panel.

Later, I met people who had been at the panel. From their comments, it was clear the panel had gone basically the same way as the one from the earlier dream. Which I had been to. I felt like I had some sort of secret knowledge. More importantly, I felt like I had been on the panel and could just continue as if I'd been there. Hey, it was my dream, twice. The second was not a sequel, but alternate history. I don't recall that happening in quite the same way.

I seem to be remembering dreams more, or at least remembering interesting ones long enough to make LJ entries. Perhaps it's the energy drinks I've been using instead of coffee, which have caffeine plus taurine and ginkgo biloba and such.

Today I'm thankful for money. What a wonderful thing: to have a unit of exchange so I don't have to barter my artwork directly for groceries or pay rent with indentured servitude. I'm for it, and the more of it I have the more thankful I am. :)

Today I applied for three admin assistant positions and two graphic design positions, submitted a query, checked in with my temp agencies and updated the craigslist ads.

Now there's snow longing for the keen blade of a shovel.

Those of us who know Emma, or have read her work, or heard her sing, think this is a very, very fine day, because we are all ecstatic to know there is a her in the world.

I can think of many national holidays that could be replaced by a celebration of the existence of Emma Bull.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

Not terribly proud of this one, but here it is.  I think the formatting is a bit screwy, so the changes don’t actually go where they appear to.

Never Trust A Bureaucrat

E                A
Negotiations broke down over benefits and pay.
B7                 E
We put it to a vote and went out the sixth of May.
F#
On the ninth our union president presented his advice:
B7                      E
He stood before the local, said, “Why can’t you guys be nice?
C#m                G#m
I understand your grevances, I sympathize and all,
A                     B7
But keep your tempers down and we’ll negotiate next fall.”
E              F#
I turned to my buddy, and said, “I smell a rat,”
B7                 E
He said, “It’s the same old story: Never trust a bureaucrat.”

All through the long hot summer we walked the picket line
The company got injunctions, they threatened us with fines.
They brought in scabs and thugs, called in the guard and then,
Our president said, “Have no fear I’ll write my congressman.”
We said we’d fight it out right here until we took the prize,
That’s when we got the news that said, “Your strike’s not authorized.”
The minute we began to fight, that’s when they dumped us flat.
We learned our lesson well: never trust a bureaucrat.

They sell out the boys at Boise, just like they did P9.
They call us wildcatters and kiss management’s behind
In Northern Minnesota, at Greyhound or the mines,
You know we’ve been through all of this a hundred thousand times,
The rank and file want to fight, the leadership says nix,
Kind of makes you think that they’re a bunch of lousy people.
Every chance they get they’re going to stab you in the back,
Well, the lesson’s pretty simple: never trust a bureaucrat.

They got me so confused I don’t know who to hate
The boss wants war in the Middle-East, the bureaucrats say Great.
When it seems like our lives are on a slow boat to Hell,
All they try to tell us is, “Please vote DFL.”
But an injury to one is still an injury to all,
The trumpet is still sounding, and we still hear the call.
They’re wretched, sneaking little mice, and we are all the cats;
The power’s in our hands, we don’t need the bureaucrats.

18-Nov-90

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

Today I'm thankful for the creative arts: the visual arts that help us to see with fresh eyes, the musical arts that give voice to our souls, the story-telling arts that give us frameworks for understanding our lives.

I don’t know why I feel like telling this story now, but I do; it’s the story of a moment–an instant–in my life that I look back on with intense pleasure.

It was the winter of 1990, and I had left the Party some years before, but still considered myself a sympathizer.  In International Falls, there was a wildcat strike against Boise-Cascade, which had brought in non-union workers to build a new paper mill.  For those who don’t know, a wildcat strike is one where the officials of the union say no to the strike, and the workers tell the officials to bugger off.

One of the leaders of the strike was a guy named Dan; a big guy, with a good voice and clear eyes and an easy smile.  Though no longer involved with the movement, I of course saw my parents a great deal, and they were working closely with Dan, so I got to know him.  The greatest bitterness was directed against the leadership of the union, which was leaving them on their own, and in fact actively working against them.  For whatever reason, I got inspired to write a song, and I did.  It was called, “Never Trust a Bureaucrat,” and, really, from a songwriting standpoint, it isn’t one of my best efforts, but it made it’s point.  I played it for Dan, and he loved it.

There was a rally to be held in support of the strike.  The UAW workers at the Ford Plant in St. Paul donated the space for the meeting, and ran the concessions (beer and potato chips, as I recall).  Dan told me to show up, and to bring my guitar.

The speakers were pretty awful.  One was a leader (read: bureaucrat) of the pilot’s union, then striking against Eastern Airlines, and he bragged (bragged!) that they had pioneered the policy of givebacks–that is, offering to the company to reduce wages and benefits.  The other speakers weren’t much better.

Finally, Dan had had enough.  As some other bureaucrat was about to speak, he stood up, walked up to the mic like an army, and started talking.  There was more passion than science in his speech, but there was a lot of passion.  He was mad, fed up, disgusted.  He spoke of the need for a labor party, and he spoke of the need for revolutionary leadership in the unions.  He mentioned my parents by name, and then mentioned me–asking me to come up and sing my song.

I made a decent job of it; there was a line of bureaucrats–the speakers–against one wall, but I focused on the rows of construction workers from International Falls in front of me, and the Ford workers in back of them.  I have no memory of how much or how little applause I got, but as I went to put my guitar away, Dan gave me a nod, and that meant a great deal.

All I was sure of, as I packed up the guitar, was that I really, really wanted a beer.

I walked back to the concession stand.  The guy behind the counter, a Ford worker, gave me a nod and a beer.  I put a dollar on the counter, but he pushed it back at me.  “Your money’s no good here,” he said.

I walked out of the place feeling ten feet tall.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

Happy birthday to davidwilford! Long may you uke!

I've been posting these pretty regularly on my FaceBook page, but have been neglecting to post them here. For the record:
I'm thankful for reading, for electricity, for synchronicity, for shoveled walks, for curtains and the hands that make them, for transportation including rides with friends, on buses, in the Hour Car and for the feet that have carried me so far over the years.

Swiped from brithistorian who got it from Shayne at No, Not You:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.
2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!
3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!
4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.
5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!
6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.
8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.
9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!
10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are committing a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.

You can start your link hunt here if you haven’t seen this yet.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

Happy birthday, cowfan!

Reesa and Nathan have been watching re-runs of the old Addams Family TV show.  I approve of this, in part because it’s refreshing to see a 60’s sitcom where one can believe the couple actually had sex.  But it produced a question which has been bothering me, lo, these many days, even to interfering with my sleep.  So, weary and desperate, I turn to the internet as my last hope.

Can someone tell me what “ooky” means?

Thank you.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

I just spent the whole afternoon making and hanging curtains. I started by insulating the windows near my computer desk with plastic sheeting, but it still seemed chillier there than the rest of the room.

Then I remembered some fabric I bought five or six years ago to make curtains when I lived at my old place on Cedar Avenue. The making didn't happen before I had to move, but I brought the fabric along to the new place and its been languishing in the back bedroom ever since. It's a nice heavy damask-type fabric with a beautiful pattern in colors that complement my apartment perfectly.



Making the curtains was not the hard part. The curtains themselves are lovely and I have no complaints of them. Hanging them involved moving all the stuff that's been sitting in front of the windows for ages, and shifting it around while I went up and down the step ladder installing hardware that's designed to make an electric drill virtually unusable for the purpose. The wood was too hard for my hands with screwdriver alone to get the screws in very deeply, so the hardware is installed only loosely and shoddily, but it's enough to hold the curtains up across the window so it will have to do.

When Cory Doctorow and Neil Gaiman both say to sign it, I’m inclined to sign it, so I did.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

It looks like the auto repair place around the corner and down Pascal has used their truck with plow attachment to shovel both sides of Pascal, including the stretch I would've had to shovel. Yay! Now my main concern is shoveling what the wind didn't sweep off the Sherburne side of the lot, and from street to both doors - before the mailman comes. I want nothing to delay delivery of the next DVD in 'The Dresden Files' series.