the sound of me going mental

Remember when I said I would go mental if I ever found one of the cats curled up in the wash basin I use to hold dirty dishes?

'Nuff said.

(Because, you know - LITTER BOXES. And little cat paws carrying E.COLI AND PARASITES.)



For added entertainment value, above is Guy on the other end of the counter, glaring at me as if to say, "Oh yeah, punk? We OWN this counter."

how i spent my morning

I've been waking up nastily early, lately. Like 4AM. And subsequently going to bed at ridiculously early hours like 9 or 10PM. Sigh.

Anyhow, this morning when I crawled out of bed around 5 (after lying awake for an hour pretending I was a guest on David Letterman (which is one of my favorite passtimes)), I honestly meant to do some yoga. I did my morning incense ritual (which I'll probably write about sometime), made myself my morning ginger tea (in an awesome new/used mug, above, that I got from Value Village the day I got the trench coat), and turned on my computer "just to check" what was going on online.

10 movie trailers later, I ended up on Facebook and then Twitter and now I'm on my blog and honestly, I don't know where two hours have gone. I just tweeted that I'm going to try to spin online surfing into some kind of spiritual practice. True.

I love this mug. It's currently second-favorite to the one that Mac gave me, that says "Do what you like, like what you do" on one side, and "Life is good" on the other.

Added later: I also ate some almond butter out of the jar again, so I could take some more Advil. Didn't want to eat much, so I could still do my yoga. So now I'm also yoga-deprived AND starving...

tumblr and whrrl

Apparently the new social media are not allowed access to sufficient vowels when choosing their names. Not quite sure why old people like me should put up with this this should be. Anyhow, I saw a blog on Tumblr a couple of weeks ago and got the bright idea to start my own Tumblog. Or whatever they call it. The time-wasting black hole endeavor kind of engaged me for a few days, but basically the only thing that's on my Tumblog now is a bunch of my imported Twitter tweets. Which begs the question: Why not just use Twitter?

I thought the Tumblr blog looked cool, for sure. Very minimalist, very clean. Plus I liked the fact that I could upload photos from my mobile device, which I HAVEN'T QUITE FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO YET ON BLOGGER. Not that I'm bitter bitter, or anything.

Then I saw a photo story on Whrrl. Which also seemed very cool. Except after I created a Whrrl account, I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how to create an actual photo story. It was one of those "just kill me now" scenarios. Kept clicking on the various hyperlinks on my "home" page, and kept NOT FINDING THE INFORMATION I WANTED. And their "help" page was no help at all. You can't even delete your account all by yourself - you have to WRITE THEM AN E-MAIL and ask if they'll be so good as to delete your account for you. Whatever.

Hence I am blogging a lot more on Blogger again. Which is as it should be. Except for the f*cking nagging mobile uploads issue.

My Tumblr feed
My Twitter feed

A few hours after I posted the above rant, a lovely (I'm extrapolating here) woman named Heather Meeker - the Director of Corporate and Marketing Communications at Pelago (the makes of Whrrl) - sent me a very helpful e-mail:

Hi Michelle,

I just read your blog post about frustrations with Tumblr and our service, Whrrl. I found you via your tweet (@emelgy Aimless kvetching about Tumblr and Whrrl: http://tinyurl.com/dd3gw6) and hope you don’t mind me reaching out to you.

I wanted to apologize that your experience with Whrrl has been less than fantastic. You are right - at this time, you are not able to start a story from the Whrrl.com website. However, you can start a story through our iPhone application or via any phone with SMS text capabilities. If you’re interested to learn how, I’d be happy to walk you through it.

Here’s the good news - we are working to enable anyone to start a story from the Web. That feature is coming soon, and we’ll be sure to tweet and blog about it, once it’s completed.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Again, sorry to hear your about your experience with Whrrl.

Best,

Heather

OMG! I don't know why I am continually surprised to discover that people actually READ my blog posts. In this case, I felt compelled to send Ms. Meeker an even lovelier response:

Heather,

Thanks for your e-mail. Good to know that there are real people out there to take care of your Whrrlers. Too bad the same can't be said about Twitter - I have submitted help tickets to them several times, and have never once heard back from a real person. Whrrl wins the service game this time around.

I appreciate your offer to help me learn to use Whrrl from my mobile device, but (being that I am living in Canada, with a dubious mobile service provider) I suspect that the whole mobile uploading thing would be a bit of a challenge for me, and possibly beyond Whrrl's technical support skills. Once you begin to offer the web service thingy, I may revisit the whole Whrrl thingy.

Until then, cheers and good luck with your other customers. I'll be posting your offer of aid as an addendum to my blog post, so that people will know what nice guys you are over there at Whrrl. Er, Pelago.

Best,

MLG

So there you have it. My work here is done.

i killed my basting brush

For everyone who wants to know what I did to my basting brush (an explanation assembled from a number of tweets on Twitter):

I have a cast iron frying pan. Old-fashioned things appeal to me. Plus it adds iron to my food, and heaven knows I need iron.

What with all the blood I lose every month.

The thing about cast iron frying pans is, things tend to stick to them. (In this particular equation, "things" = "food.")

And to prevent "things" from sticking to cast iron pans, you need to occasionally "season" them.

And to "season" cast iron pans, you basically need to burn oil in them. Until the burnt oil creates a coating that keeps food from sticking.

In theory, if not in practice.

Mom, you'll be happy to know that my smoke alarm is still working.

twitter

So, I've jumped on the bandwagon. Not that I had any real purpose in mind when I did so - mostly I was just curious about what happened on Twitter, and wanted to check it out for myself.

I have contacts who are really into the social media marketing scene, and they'd been recommending Twitter for a year or two. I've got a bit of time on my hands right now, and was looking for some online entertainment... so...

What I'm finding is that Twitter is like one of those crazy midway rides that spin you around in every direction after you've foolishly eaten way too much cotton candy and elephant ears. Not that I'm knocking that feeling. Just sharing some words of wisdom, for what they're worth. (Note to Mom: You don't want to join Twitter.)

On a deeper level, I'm really enjoying it. Once you get past all the scammers trying to peddle their get-rich-quick schemes, there are some fascinating things to be found in 140-characters-or-less sound bites. A Twitter contact of mine recently posted the question: What do you want people to know about you? What kind of people would you most like to meet on Twitter?

My responses:

"I would like others to know that I'm pretending to be here for the networking while secretly enjoying the random tweets the most."

"I would most like to meet people who can make me laugh milk out my nose, or make my eyes widen in amazement."

There are certainly plenty of people who can do the latter. Like my friend Teresa Tarasewicz, owner of City Lights Bookshop in London, ON (aka @CityLightsLondn):

"Glorious burst of sunshine just made things better... no, don't go... wait... stay a bit longer, I have beer. (reaching hand towards fading beams)"

Or @TheBloggess, who writes:

"The Ultimate Argument For Legalizing Weed - Undeniable benefits that...OH MY GOD MY HANDS ARE HUGE! http://tinyurl.com/dfgo95 (via @cracked)"

"Also, I just want to point out that I have more followers than @cracked. It's awesome. And by "awesome" I mean "kind of a travesty"."

Ultimately what I'm enjoying about Twitter is the enforced restriction of having to communicate in 140-character chunks. It's not as easy at you might think. But it engages my mind in ways that I can't quite explain. Some recent tweets:

"My downstairs neighbours must hate me - I'm always dropping heavy stuff on my bedroom floor at midnight-ish." sent 11:30PM, Friday, March 13 2009

"Really??? The person in an apartment below me who showers ev wkday @ 515 showers @ 445 on Sat? That's some cruel sched." sent 4:46AM, Saturday, March 14 2009

"Wht's rlly cruel is waking up ur insomniac-tendencied nghbor @ 445 whn she went 2 bed @ midnght-ish. Aftr dropping smthg." sent 5:15AM, Saturday, March 14 2009

As you can see from the last tweet, running out of characters can lead to some desperate txt abbrevs. I have a friend who posts 100-word blog entries - as in, EXACTLY 100 words - no more, no less. I'm toying with the idea of 140-character blog posts, myself. Wait, isn't that what Twitter...? Nevermind.

Footnote: Follow me on Twitter @emelgy

Photo credit: ©2009 Michelle Lynne Goodfellow ~ Taken at some ungodly hour of the morning after I couldn't sleep because my neighbour was taking a shower at 4:45AM.

a moment

I may have already mentioned that I'm a little addicted to YouTube. It's a boon to a woman without a television - and I don't even mind watching that tiny little five-inch screen. I've seen some of the most amazing, moving, funny, gross and entertaining things on YouTube, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Tonight I was browsing through a bunch of random searches - mostly singers I like. After a search of Sting interviews I happened upon a music video of a Sheryl Crow song which featured an appearance by Sting.

I watched, and was deeply touched by the lyrics of this song - Always on Your Side.

It's funny - those private, intimate moments that happen between two people, that you assume are unique to you, and then discover much later are universal...

I once told a former boyfriend of mine that he was like a beautiful butterfly on my hand; I knew if I tried to hold on to him I would hurt him, and so I promised to leave my hand open, and just enjoy the blessing of his presence for as long as it lasted.

Turns out it didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked...

There's a lyric in Always on Your Side that goes:

Well they say that love is in the air; Never is it clear
How to pull it close and make it stay.
Butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away,
Leavin' me to carry on and wonder why?
Was it you that kept me wandering through this life
When you know that I was always on your side?

~

It really is a lovely song. Check out the video for yourself, here.

(I'm still trying to figure out how they knew about my butterfly story.)

(And now I'm missing that boy...)

someone with more blogs than i!

I'm doing research right now for a talk I'm giving next Monday for the Toronto Chapter of Professional Organizers in Canada. I'll be discussing inexpensive marketing techniques, including blogging.

I was just browsing for blogs on that topic when I came across a blogger.com user who has 43 (yes, that's forty-three!) blogs registered under his name. You can check out his profile and his list of blogs here:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/07219299130867293674

Now, what really bugs me about this guy is that he's obviously just used these blogs as a marketing ploy to generate web traffic. He has created as many blog titles as he could think of that relate to his business (advertising wraps on trucks - those huge print ads you see applied to buses and transport trucks). Then on each blog he's simply posted the exact same information - basically an advertisement of his business.

Why did he do this? Well, blogger.com offers their blog URLS for free. To do something similar by registering regular .com domain names would have cost a chunk of change.

But this is not blogging. He's not creating regular posts for any of these blogs. And I think his approach may turn off potential customers, once they realize what he's done...

pugs

I've mentioned in an earlier post that I visit a little pug puppy named Jack every weekday at noon. Jack makes me laugh. He does a lot of cute puppy things like bounding around after me and clambering all over me and taking great leaps at my face to lick me.

One of the weirdest things I've noticed about Jack, though, is that he seems to have no joints. Whenever I carry him, his front legs splay straight out to the side. And he likes to lie down with his hind legs spread just like the puppy in the photo above. (Which I found on the internet - the photo, that is - and it just goes to show that Jack is not unique in his double-jointedness.)

All I can say is, how does he do that?

de nile

How many things (besides my ex-boyfriend) have I been in denial about lately?

Scary thought.

I always assumed I had a pretty good handle on what was going on inside my own head.

I'm definitely in denial about the fact that I need bifocals. That would plant me too firmly smack dab in the middle of "middle-aged."

Oh well.

As my choir director Brainerd Blyden-Taylor pointed out to me last Thursday night, when my arms holding my music kept stretching further and further in front of me (and the notes coming out of my mouth whilst we were sight-reading kept straying further and further from what was on the printed page), "De Nile is a looong river, Michelle."

another egg story

I first posted this true story on Facebook. My status update that day read:

Michelle is cleaning up a royal mess after doing something UNBELIEVABLY STUPID involving a stovetop and some raw eggs.

So, the story.

Okay... so I wanted to hardboil some eggs, and I set everything up the way I always do: filled a pot with water, put it on the burner, put the lid on, turned on the burner...

I also put four eggs on another burner, ready to add to the water once it was boiling. I like putting the eggs on a burner—that way they don't roll all over the place.

Can you see where this is going? Yup, I turned on the wrong burner. *$&#*!!!

I was working at the computer and smelled a burning smell, but figured it was just an old spill on the burner under the pot of water, and would burn off quickly.

Then I heard a loud POP, and ran to the kitchen in a panic, afraid that something had exploded and my stove was on fire. Something had exploded all right—one of the eggs, sitting on top of a fiery-hot burner! The other three eggs also proceeded to explode.

(Sigh)

You know that really vile smell that burning eggs make? That's what my apartment smelled like. And I don't have a stovetop fan.

the car shuffle

I live in Toronto. Toronto is crazy for lack of parking spaces. My apartment building has only a limited number of surface parking spots, and none of them are mine.

You can park on the street overnight in Toronto if you buy an overnight parking pass. You have to go to City Hall to get one, I've been told. And you need all sorts of documentation to prove that you need to park on the street. City Hall can't always guarantee you a permit. It depends on whether or not there's any available space left on your street.

I have a safe place to park overnight. I can't tell you where it is; the official proclamation from City Hall is that there is NO FREE OVERNIGHT STREET PARKING in Toronto. But I do have a safe place to park overnight.

The hassle comes in the morning, when I need to move my car to another spot. Toronto has a really Machiavellian street parking system (in case you hadn't already guessed). On some streets you can park on at certain times; other streets you have to leave clear at certain times.

Every morning before 8:30 a.m., I have to move my car to a street where there are no parking restrictions. I can't park on the street in front of my building between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (It's a school zone.)

After 10:00 a.m., I can park further down my street—just not in front of my building. I can't stay in those areas after 10:00 p.m. without an overnight parking permit.

So the routine goes something like this:

First thing in the morning I move my car a block away, to a street where there are no overnight parking restrictions.* When I need to use my car later in the day, I have to walk a block to get to it.

When I come back to my apartment before 6:00 p.m., I have to park half a block away from my building. Sometime after 6:00 p.m.—but before 10:00 p.m.—I can move my car back in front of my building.

We won't talk about where I park my car overnight.

The most useful thing about this whole procedure is the hat that I wear on my head first thing in the morning when I go out to move my car. It covers my bed head.

*Why don’t I just park there all the time? That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? The fact is, there’s an uposted law that says you can’t park on any Toronto street between the hours of 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. without an overnight parking permit. So I can't safely park there overnight.