Did I finally get Facebook to stop importing my LJ entries as Notes?! Here's another test!

I am trying to disable a Facebook feature that is automatically creating notes out of the entries I post on LJ.

If you see this and you have advice, please let me know.

I was thinking about recycling the other day, and how there doesn't seem to be any way to recycle at the apartments where we live. There's a big ole dumpster where people put their bags of trash, but no recycling bins. So I emailed the landlady, all like "What's up landlady? Let's save the planet, woddya think."

And it turns out, they can't get a recycling program going this summer, but they'll have one starting in the fall. All because I had a little idea, because I wrote a quick email, because I brought something to someone's attention that they hadn't thought of before.

Something is going to change because I had an idea!

That is, perhaps, the most powerful idea of all...

So far, the action is not living up to the intention. Will someone please come to my house, disable Netflix (actually, how about just ALL of the Internet) and give me a swift kick in the rear end? And then duct tape a pen in my hand?

What's this—am I actually (gasp) writing something in my journal?!

In point of fact, I am.

And purposefully so!

In an effort to keep my summer from becoming one long Doctor Who marathon (tempting, oh tempting as that sounds......sigh.....) I am attempting to write a book.

What is this book about, you ask? Well, I'm going to take the archive of the blog I kept while on my exchange trip in Germany in 2004-05 (still available here, if you go back far enough) and edit, finesse, expand and rearrange it such that it resembles a sensible narrative. I see it as being part-memoir, part-diary, with a dash of poetry. Right now I'm calling it Roots & Wings. And I intend to use this journal to track my progress and record the process of writing this book.

I have a head start in that I already have a short novel's worth of writing—just over 60,000 words, in fact—from the blog to use as raw material. So a lot of what I'll be doing is editing, in some cases heavily, what I wrote back then; I'll also be writing new material, which will fill in some blanks and provide some context and reflection on the events of that year.

I'm trying to be as earnest about this as I can. I hope I can get my butt in gear for this undertaking, because it's something I'd truly like to do—I just hope my own distractibility doesn't get in my way.

I'm not trying to set myself a deadline to finish this project (neither of word count nor of time); I just want to get as much done as I can in the next three months. Then it will be September, and a new semester will be beginning at a new school, and I imagine I won't have much time to tackle writing a book. So I am carpeing the diem.

Within the next day or two, I'll be posting this project on a website called Kickstarter to see if any kind souls are willing to help me out in the attempt (I'll let you know when my project goes live). I hope that if I can raise a bit of money, it will make me feel better about quitting my coffee shop job—and provide me with the motivation that comes with promising other people that you won't let them down after they've put faith in you.

Wish me luck. I'm nervous about this—nervous about keeping myself on track—but I hope that by making these intentions public I will encourage myself to follow through on this commitment. It's not a terribly difficult one, just something that will require consistent effort. Historically speaking I am not the greatest at consistent effort. So any encouragement you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

Drop me a note if you want to be added to a mailing list for updates :)

I learned today that "garden level" is the term for my apartment: half underground, half above ground. It makes it sound so much nicer than it is. The bottom of our windows is exactly level with the ground outside.

But that is not the point.

The point is: there are ants in my garden level apartment. I don't know where they came from, but I know where they're going: HADES.

Here is my method for dealing with ants.

1) Spray them liberally with window cleaning solution. (I would say Windex, but I buy off-brand, because I am POOR.)

2) Wipe up their corpses with paper towel and/or toilet paper.

3) Throw corpse-containing paper product into toilet.

4) POOP on them and flush them away.

THAT is what I think of you, ANTS. I poop on you and flush you away, because you are not welcome in my apartment. If, as Jake says, your ant comrades will come to find your bodies, thus increasing the infestation—guess what? I WILL KILL THEM TOO. And I am bigger than you, and smarter than you, and I will live longer than you. (Mostly because I will kill you.)

So by all means, keep sending your little ant comrades into my apartment. YOU SEND THEM TO THEIR DOOM.

Poopy doom.

Since I wrote on the subject of Anne Frank while I lived in Holland, and visited the museum located in the "Secret Annex" where she and her family hid, I thought I'd share this piece of news.

Miep Gies was one of the brave souls who helped hide the Franks and the other Jews who hid in the Annex for 25 months between 1942 and 1944. She procured extra groceries for them and kept up their spirits by bringing books and newspapers. It was a dangerous activity, but when Otto Frank asked if she'd be willing to help them, she didn't hesitate.

"I answered, 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn," she said of the conversation years later.

I remember seeing a video interview of her when I visited the Anne Frank Museum in the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. It was one of the most touching moments of the visit. The idea that this woman, a non-Jew, would so readily and naturally help people in need—despite the fact that it meant danger for herself—floors me and makes me tear up to this day.

After the Annex was betrayed (The police received an anonymous tip that Jews were hiding at that address. To this day, nobody has been able to discover who gave the police that information), Miep retrieved Anne's now-famous diary from the rooms. It was in pieces. She never read it, but kept it safe against the Franks' return. Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen camp, but when Otto returned alive, Miep gave him the diary—still unread.

For the rest of her life she worked for causes of tolerance and justice, and spoke against Holocaust deniers and accusations that the diary was a forgery. She always maintained that she didn't deserve special praise for her actions during the war.

But I believe she does. Anne and her family wouldn't have survived for as long as they did if it wasn't for Miep's bravery and selflessness, and we would never have been able to read the diary, that clear and honest picture of life as a Jew during World War II, if it hadn't been for her thoughtfulness.

I'm writing about her now because Miep Gies died today. She was 100 years old. I just want to make sure that a few more people know her story and honor her life.



Read about Miep Gies at npr.org.

I stole this idea from many other fine people who do the same thing: keeping track of the books I read (in order) throughout an entire year. Here is the list from 2009. I am very disappointed in it. There is practically nothing on there that was read later than November, because I got so busy, and the content of the list is, in my opinion, less than impressive (with a few exceptions). I'm hoping that 2010 will feature better books—although the first week has not resulted in anything more fruitful than a lot of articles on NYTimes.com, and texts from last night.

Despite the growing popularity of e-readers and e-books, and despite the fact that a very large proportion of my day-to-day reading is conducted on a computer rather than a page, I still firmly believe in the magic and importance of ink-and-paper books. I love their smell, their weight, their design, and the way the look lined up haphazardly on my shelf. A Firefox bookmarks folder will never give the same satisfaction. I hope to keep reminding myself of that by making an effort to read more this year; to go to the library more; to live up to my self-expressed dedication to books.

( The list, under the cut )

I intend to keep the same list this year, although I think I'll add the date of completion to better track my reading.

There was this tape that we listened to over and over when I was a little kid. In the manner of children, I didn't know what the name of the tape was, or who was on it, or even the names of the songs, really; I just knew that I loved it.

The subject of this tape recently came up in conversation with my mom, and I remembered how awesome this music was, and how much I enjoyed listening to it as a kid. So Mom went to the library and found a copy on CD.

It is actually a Disney CD, recorded to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. It is called "For Our Children." This is the track list.

01. Give a Little Love – Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers
02. This Old Man – Bob Dylan
03. Cushie Butterfield – Sting
04. Mary Had a Little Lamb – Paul McCartney
05. The Ballad of Davy Crockett – Stephen Bishop
06. Itsy Bitsy Spider – Little Richard
07. Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips – Bruce Springsteen
08. Country Feelin's – Brian Wilson
09. Blueberry Pie – Bette Midler
10. The Pacifier – Elton John
11. Getting to Know You – James Taylor
12. Autumn to May – Ann & Nancy Wilson
13. Child of Mine – Carole King
14. Tell Me Why – Pat Benetar
15. A Medley of Rhymes – Debbie Gibson
16. Blanket for a Sail – Harry Nilsson
17. Good Night, My Love (Pleasant Dreams) – Paula Abdul
18. Gartan Mother's Lullaby – Meryl Streep
19. Golden Slumbers – Jackson Browne & Jennifer Warnes
20. A Child is Born – Barbra Streisand

This album just blows my mind. Look at those artists! I mean HELLO—I grew up listening to Bob Dylan, Little Richard, James Taylor, Barbra Streisand, and The Boss sing kids' songs while riding around in my mom's old grey Chevy Caprice?! Elton John? Bette Midler? Carole King? Ziggy Marley? Paul McCartney? Meryl Streep?!

These were the voices of my childhood, and I had no idea how cool that tape was until just recently. I'm listening to it right now, for the first time in years, and it's like I'm six years old again...... I can smell graham crackers, I see the big front window of the apartment we used to live in on 6th St., the drive back and forth from Mom's house to Dad's house. I know every inch of that drive, I could do it in my sleep.

Somewhere in my subconscious I know every note of this album. Some of the songs sound slightly unfamiliar—I remember them differently after not hearing them for ten years. I recognize the voices now, which is strange. It's not just some guy singing "This Old Man;" I know it's Dylan, and I have very different associations with Dylan now. I don't connect him to my childhood, I connect him to my adolescence. But here is his voice, singing this song from when I was a little kid.

But I know this album. I might not remember every word, but I feel these songs. They're physically a part of me, they grew into me as I was growing up. My brain might not recognize the song title "Country Feelin's," but something else in me remembers how the song goes on its most basic level, when the chord changes, when the key changes.

Because it's just an awesome song, under the cut is the text to Bruce Springsteen's "Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips." Words and music by John & Nancy Cassidy.



( click here for good music )

I've been reading xkcd for a long time, and I love it. But it was not until tonight that I discovered the cherry on the webcomic cake—the reason why this comic is so damn good.

http://xkcd.com/404