All My Little Words

Despite the fact that I won’t touch Facebook with a ten foot pole, social networking and I go way back. It’s true. Before Twitter, there was Myspace and Friendster, and before that there was Livejournal, and even before that message boards like the one at Chic or Shriek (a fashion do or don’t website), and waaaaay back in the dark ages, we used to socially network with personal websites. I was the shit back then – I had my own domain (yes, I still have it) and hand coded my own websites, (yes, plural, I had many, they were legion) unless I was feeling lazy and used Dreamweaver, which back then was considered cheating, but compared to the ease with which we build websites and blogs now, it was a monster to use.

Instead of @replies, we painstakingly linked to our friends websites. There was no concern about privacy – there was no Google, and getting your photos on a webpage could take days, if you (like me) had as many as we anow throw onto Myspace in a matter of minutes.

Back then the internet was still a new thing that no one really thought would catch on, and the only people who used it much were geeks like myself. You couldn’t just do a simple search for friends in those days – yeah, there were chat rooms, but those were lame even then. You’d spend hours combing the interwebs for good websites among the giant piles of crap on Angelfire and Geoshitties, and even more hours keywording and metatagging your site/s so that other geeks could find you.

Or you could find friends on ICQ (I Seek You, hahahaha), which was omnipresent, always on, always ready for a late night/early morning conversation. At one point in time, I had far more far flung friends around the world than I had IRL. And I’ll tell you what, I hope many of them are working in the digital media/social networking industry today, as they put out some beautiful, amazing and complex websites the like of which you just don’t see any more.

These days, it is all about simplicity. We want clean, simple lines, easy to navigate sites, and a plethora of features at our fingertips, just a single click or tap away. And there IS a lot to be said for “User Friendliness”, I agree.
It is nice to be able to quickly snap a little blurb like this out while I’m cooking lunch or keep my friends updated on my whereabouts on the fly.

And that, my friends, is kind of what inspired this. Yesterday, I somehow came across @mashable, the Twitter for the CEO of – you guessed it – Mashable, a Social Media Guide. I slogged through a veritable onslaught of tweets, stopping to read this article or that, when I came across what stuck with me today as the most noticeable article I read on Mashable (yesterday, anyway), Yelp vs. Foursquare vs. Gowalla.

Turns out that Yelp just got into the “Check-In” game by updating their iPhone app to support checking in pretty much anywhere, much like it’s two predecessors, but without the points. Hopefully, they’ll add that soon, because, let’s be honest – stealing the title of Mayor, or getting your Overshare or Super User badges are half the fun.

So of course, I went straight to the ole App Store and updated my Yelp app, so that I could check it out. And today, I went out to play with all three together to see what would happen.

Let me start by saying that I don’t spend a lot of time at THE MALL, but my husband’s wedding ring was waiting to picked up after being re-sized, and what better place to test my ability to check in with so many places to do so?
I drove to Northgate and parked, and sat in the car to check in simply, AT THE MALL. Yelp picked up Northgate Mall right away, no problem. Ditto Foursquare. Gowalla wouldn’t even load, a problem I’ve been having with it from the start. I’m just going to kick Gowalla to the curb right here and now by telling you that I tried a few more times to get it to at least load up, but it didn’t do it anytime during the 90 or so painful minutes I spent at THE MALL, much less let me check in. I would be more than willing to admit that maybe I AM DOING IT WRONG somehow, but – see above. I’ve been doing this kind of shit long enough that I can figure out almost anything on a computer or my iPhone in a matter of seconds without even trying. And as also noted above, everything is supposed to be so easy these days, it shouldn’t matter if I am The Man Who Fell to Earth. If I could figure out how to turn the iPhone on, get to the app store, download and install Gowalla, it should be a snap to get it to load up and check in. Everybody else seems to love it, though, so who knows?!?

Finally out of the car, I went into THE MALL through the Forever XXI store. I was just there the other day, but it was kind of awesome to be in there when there wasn’t 850,000,000 teens, and the clothes weren’t dumped into heaps all over the floor. Side note: Going during the day does have it’s downside – TONS of little kids.
I browsed and wandered through while I tried to check in. No problem with Foursquare, but Yelp told me I was too far away! I tried again immediately, and then later right when I walked into THE MALL, and again as I was leaving and I exited the same way I entered. For some reason, Yelp didn’t recognize that I was IN the store, it seemed to think I was a little over a mile away. Curious. I even tried “Forever 21″, to see if it could match up with another (incorrect) listing somehow. Nope. -1 Yelp.

Next, I headed over to Ben Bridge to pick up the ring. Yelp found that one okay, but no one had entered it on Foursquare yet. I checked in without adding it, (I know, I know, what’s the point of being a Super User if you’re not gonna add stuff? I add a lot of stuff, but unfortunately, it is sometimes unexpectedly difficult to add businesses, and I didn’t feel l like messing with it while I was standing in the middle of the mall.) thus, missing out on the points for that stop. -1 for Foursquare.

Honestly, I was a little lazy and forgetful because I wandered into a bunch of stores for a minute or two and didn’t check in. It didn’t seem worth it when I was just passing through on my way to another destination. At least I’m not a big cheater, I could have checked in at every store I passed! (I know people who do this sort of thing.)

After checking out the food court to see if anything looked good for lunch, I went to get a coffee from Starbucks. Checked in here just fine with both Yelp and Foursquare (Gowalla still down for the count), then used the Yelp app to see what was up at Blue Fin Sushi for lunch. I’d been there for dinner, and thought maybe I’d go shovel in some all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch (it’s better than you might think). First, I got really confused and thought they were closed, because the app shows the lunch and dinner hours, and next to them whether they are CURRENTLY open or closed. As it was 11:28am, it said “Closed” next to the lunch hours, which begin at 11:30, so I was like “WTF Blue Fin??” and I got a little annoyed. I ended up looking again a few minutes later, which cleared up the confusion, but then I took the time to see how much lunch was and ended up deciding that I didn’t feel like spending $16, although I totally would have if we weren’t having dinner at home tonight, and that was going to be my major meal for the day.

After I realized that I am a dumbass and forgot to order my venti latte iced instead of hot, I kind of just felt like going home and pouring it over ice instead of going to the At&T store to look at iPhone cases and to Payless to check out cheap purses. I also skipped looking for jeans in The Gap, and bypassed Macy’s even though I still have a gift card to use there. I ended up deciding that I should just leave and try checking in at a different location. First, I was going to try to go to the new orchid store in Ballard, but I was still hungry, so I opted to just go to Safeway on the way home instead.

I successfully checked in there, on both Yelp and Foursquare while I was waiting to turn left at the light that takes forever to change (oh, the irony) and after getting a few things, came home to write this while making and eating my lunch (Stir Fry!) and drinking my (now iced) latte.

I checked in at home (La Casa) on Foursquare (this is my friend Erik’s fault – he just joined Foursquare the other day and the first thing he did was add his house, an entity known as “The Sausage Ranch”, something which had previously never even occurred to me to do. I won’t add La Casa on Yelp, that just seems too weird.)

Conclusion? The social networking combination of “Tag” + “Hide and Seek” is fun. I got a few Tweets in there while I was at it, too.
I think Yelp is going to give Foursquare a run for it’s money, once it works out the bugs, but only if it becomes more of a game with points or some other reward. GoWalla can go suck it. To be fair though, I’m going to continue this little experiment by trying to figure out what’s up with my GoWalla app so I can give it a fair shake.

Okay, kids, I’m off to go check out some more articles on some of the above mentioned sites and maybe try to fix my Gowalla app. Until next time…

When I was a kid, I think I was pretty well behaved until I was about 3. At that point, perhaps I became a little more…
self aware, perhaps? Because for some reason, at that point, I guess I started testing the waters to see what I could get away with.

As I had mentioned in the other post about spanking, when I was a kid, all kids knew that if you did something bad, you’d get a spanking.
It was definitely the norm back then, although I think the tide was just starting to turn, as I think I thought that I would NOT
get one, simply because I hadn’t ever before. I was really probably just too young for one, or too young to have done anything to
“deserve” one.
I “got away with” stuff for probably about a year before my parents must have realized that reasoning with me was not working.
They told me not to do stuff and why and it went right in one ear and out the other, I guess.

One day when my dad wasn’t home, I was hanging out in the kitchen while my mom had something going on the stove, maybe hard-boiled eggs or something because she left the room with the pot still on. The cookie jar (which I had been warned repeatedly to NOT get into for a number of reasons) was on a shelf above the stove, probably to make it inaccessible to me. I had also been warned to stay AWAY from the stove, ALWAYS, because it could be hot and I could get burned. I saw my opportunity though,
and dragged a chair over and reached OVER a hot stove with a pot of boiling water on it to get that cookie jar, and in the process,
the jar fell and broke.
Of course, I was caught. But I wasn’t worried, because I knew I would just get a talking to, which I did, from my mom.
Then my dad came home, and I didn’t think anything of it when they went to talk in the other room. Then my dad sat me down to give me a talking to, which again, went right in one ear and out the other. Until he flipped me around and started spanking me.
It didn’t hurt, but I was shocked. I did not know what to do at first, but then it occurred to me that I’d heard that kids cry
when they got spanked, so I started crying. I think I wanted it to stop because it made me realize that I was bad. And I didn’t want
to be bad anymore. No one wants to be bad at that age.
So I started to cry and my dad stopped, and then he hugged me and I could see that he felt bad. My mom felt bad. I felt bad for
making them feel bad. But that was the end of that, and I knew now that I could get a spanking if I did wrong. I still did a few things
that I shouldn’t have over the next year, and I got a couple more spankings, but after only one or two more, I stopped doing stuff I
had been told not to.

But I didn’t stop getting into trouble. I think things were fine until I was about 6. I was well behaved, now understanding the
consequences of my actions. I didn’t intentionally do anything wrong, and in fact I made really sure to not do anything
accidentally wrong either.
One night my parents had a party, and I guess they decided that I was well enough behaved that I could just stay in their room
and sit on their waterbed and watch the little tv in there. All fine with me, the waterbed was fun, and I had stuffed animals.
After a couple of hours, I must have gotten bored. My mom had a bunch of posters push-pinned into the walls which I was fascinated
by, so I stood on the bed to take a closer look. I don’t know if I was bouncing and screwing around, or if the bed was just sloshy,
but I must have knocked one of the pins out of the wall. I didn’t even realize it. AT ALL. The poster was over the bed, so the tack
probably landing right on it, and then as I squooshed around on there, it probably bounced and rolled to edge, where it fell
between the mattress and the frame, and poked a hole in the mattress. But it would have been a tiny hole, and I was a tiny kid,
so hours passed with no visible evidence. It probably wasn’t until my parent’s much heavier combined weight was on the bed hours later that it really started to gush.

And my dad got really pissed. And he yelled, and it scared the everloving shit out of me, even though I didn’t even know what had happened until he started yelling at me about how horrible I was for puncturing the bed, and on and on and on.
This was WAY WAY WAY worse than getting spanked, and I hadn’t even done anything. (not intentionally anyway, or that I was aware of.)

I must have been too old to be spanked at that point, so instead, I was grounded. For 6 months. No friends, no tv, no dessert.
That was a billion times worse than the spanking that only lasted a few seconds. Even worse was the fact that my dad didn’t believe
that I didn’t do it on purpose. Even worse than that was the fact that after that, I don’t think he trusted me at all.
Because I didn’t intentionally go against my parents for years, but there were a few more times when I accidentally broke things
(things I was allowed to touch or whatever) that I again got the yelling, and even worse, the long term grounding.
This continued until I was a teenager, and I was accused of increasingly more and worse deeds over the years, and I
probably spent half of every year for the next 8 years being grounded. No wonder I became socially stunted, overly shy,
self conscious and overweight.

So, I guess, in short, spanking worked to straighten out my behavior, but I also got to experience the other side of the disciplinary
coin. I’m not saying that anyone would advocate verbal abuse in any case, as an alternative to spanking or not, but I think
even in the cases in which I was wrongfully accused, I would have taken the spanking over the verbal abuse and grounding.
When I was spanked, I felt like I had hurt my parent’s feelings and it made me feel remorseful.
When we moved on to the groundings and yelling, I didn’t feel like my parents had hurt feelings – I felt like they were angry and
wanted to hurt MY feelings. The pain on my butt would have faded long before the pain in my heart would have, as it obviously
still exists.
Again, I’m not trying to say that no one out there has a better disciplinary plan than verbal abuse or spanking – I’m sure many of you
do. My only point is that, in my case, the spanking wasn’t that bad.
And if I knew anyone today who was whaling on their kid on a daily basis, or for shit they didn’t deserve, or was actually
doing any sort of lasting damage (physical or mental) I would be sure to do something about it.

Good Lord, things are crazy. The house is a maze, something I hope to rectify today.

On top of all the other phone calls I have to make, yesterday I discovered that the insurance check I received for the guy hitting me 3 months ago, was in Canadian funds, so part of it was deducted from my account. That will take about a million phone calls to clear up, I’m sure.

Then, last night, I received a call from work saying that my father had called. No message, or indication of level of urgency, but it raises my level of anxiety to at least Orange Alert. He and I don’t talk, unless you count the letters he sends, which are filled with wild accusations and are obviously intended to make me feel guilty for something. I personally feel that I have the right to choose to whom I speak or don’t for any reasons whatsoever, no matter how good or bad, but he doesn’t seem to agree. I don’t think that I should have to have a “relationship” with him, just to satisfy his sense of self worth or whatever it is he is trying to acheive. I don’t have time to develop a whole new relationship with him. Plus, experience has taught me that when it comes to “family” – i.e. blood relations – one should be extrememly cautious, especially when you haven’t had much contact with them for a long time and don’t know what their motivations are. I’ve been burned – badly – in the past, and I’d rather just keep my distance.

Last night, the dogs went nuts, and we heard this crazy, crazy sound. Of course, when we went out to look, we didn’t see anything. At all. So we settled everyone down, and lay down in bed. Shortly after Alex fell asleep, I heard it again. Whatever it was sounding like it was tearing flesh apart or something equally crazy. Of course, when we looked, nothing. Alex falls asleep again, crazy noise again, we pop up and look…nothing.
I’m sure it’s just a raccoon (although I’ve never heard one that sounds like THAT) and they are all over the city, but it makes me more glad that we are moving. Everytime the crazy noises happened, both dogs would race around the house, bumping into shit, and looking for a way to get outside. For the first time in months, we slept with all the doors shut all the way (usually, doors are partly open and screens are shut, but I didn’t trust a screen to protect us from a rabid raccoon ). Eventually, crazy sounds ceased.

Time to go leave a check for the cleaning lady at work and go get some cleaning suppplies of my own.

Watching Obama’s speech – where the hell is the LiveSlog on this one?

Obama says Thank You about 1,000 times. The crowd won’t shush.

Flag pin!

Obama thanks Hill and Bill, Kennedy, and the “next President of the United States, Joe Biden”.
Huh? Next after Obama?

And Michelle! The crowd goes wild! Shout out to the kids!

Obama sympathizes with people with gas guzzlers and bad mortgages, and too much credit card debt. Hmph.

The crowd is SO. In Love. With Obama. Tears, boos, cheers!

Eight is Enough! Great slogan! Hahahahaha!
Respect for McCain and his military service. But of course!

Boo for McCain voting with Dubya 90% of the time.
But I hope he takes the high road soon and starts talking about his strengths, not McCain’s weaknesses.

Ooh, he pulled out “A nation of whiners”! More booing!!!!
Some laughter at McCain being out of touch

“Ownership Society” = You’re on your own!

Shout out to Bill for all the new jobs he created during his term! Shout out to Mom for raising a family on food stamps while in college! Shout out to Grandma!

Standing O for the zinger to McCain about “celebrity” lifestyle.

(Whoops, tiny fumble there on “drive”!)

Clean water, safe toys!!!

“I am my brother’s keeper”
(subtle shout out to Samuel L.???)

A lot of promises – that concerns me just a teensy bit…
American built, AFFORDABLE, fuel efficient cars no less.
Jobs that can’t be outsourced, even.
An army of teachers, that will be paid higher salaries.
Affordable college education for everyone. Sheesh, where was Obama when I was 18?
Ooh, a personal vendetta against health care, ouch.
Equal pay for an equal day AND I’m still gonna get my social security?

Oh, there’s the debate challenge – it’s on motherfucker!

Accusations of wagging the dog, snap!

Oooh, another debate challenge. DOUBLE DOG DARE!

But srsly, everybody stop bagging on patriotism, y0.

Omg, he said abortion. And “gay and lesbian brothers and sisters”.

Happytalk? Trojan horse?

“It’s not about ME, it’s about YOU.”

Enough!

Mr. Change goes to Washington.

I am pretty sure at this point that they are going to end this with Neil Diamond singing “America”.
Nope, sounds like some Travis Tritt bullshit.

I might be the only one, but I didn’t think the speech was THAT great. Far better than any in 2004 for sure, but it didn’t make me cry or anything.

Today we are supposed to hear back about the financing on the house. I’m sure it will be fine, but my stomach is still tied up. It will be such a big change to move, and I’m looking forward to it, but it may be a long time before my stomach settles down.

Just now, I was reading something a person that I don’t really know (a friend of friends) had written about going to the Sub Pop anniversary a couple of weeks back,  and in turn about Kurt Cobain’s death 14 years ago. Man, that is a long time. And I think about what I was doing then. About to move to Santa Cruz, CA. Didn’t know it at the time, but about to spend a few days down there is a less than luxurious hotel,  hiding my cats and rat, looking for a place to live. We ended up moving into a studio apartment that would have fit into the living room of this new house. Two of us. And two cats, and a rat. A tiny living room, kitchen and this weird bathroom that featured what is to this day, probably the biggest stall shower I’ve ever been in.

Kurt Cobain died just a few days before we were set to leave. I don’t have anything against Sub Pop, but I was never into grunge. As a security guard, I had worked a good number of grunge shows, and never really could believe how popular the whole thing became. Some of the performers were nice people. Some of them not so much. The fans definitely left a lot to be desired. While I didn’t have anything against ole’ Kurt personally, he was just another guy to me, nothing special, and his wife was the biggest mess this town has seen to this day. I wasn’t surprised when he died, and it was kind of ironic that we left town just a few days after, what with all the conspiracists around – when we came back 2-3 years later, there was still a show running on public access tv called “Who killed Kurt Cobain?” or something to that effect.

I guess reading that, and thinking about what I was doing 14 years ago is just a really weird thing to me, when I am waiting on pins and needles to be told, for sure, that I am officially going to become a first time home buyer. It is strange to think of that time when I lived in such a tiny space, and was barely able to afford it, and now I am still worried about affording my residence but these days it’s ten times bigger. I don’t even remember how much our rent was back then. I do remember that all we did when we weren’t working was go to the beach and drink.

I’ve led a funny life in which I’ve gone from being really quiet and uninvolved to right in the middle of the music scene (even if it was in a very low profile way) to a homebody again for years, to being really involved again (maybe in a much less low profile way) to now, in which I think I’m probably about to go back to being a homebody. We shall see, shan’t we?

I awoke today with a greater sense of optimism than usual, and so far the only thing that has gone wrong has been parking. I never love having to walk two blocks to work, especially when I have stuff to carry in. Of course, there are plenty of spaces now.

It was springlike even through the closed windows, which I made sure to open up before I left for work to let the fresh air in. It’s Friday, which is almost always a good day. I do have to work tomorrow, but Saturday is always a money maker and not the longest day of the week. Today is the shortest day, and it’s nice to be able to look forward to getting home early, and relaxing for a while before we do something. Tonight I think we are going to try to go eat at Elemental, which I have been wanting to try for about a year now. From what I understand, you don’t really order off of a menu, food is brought as seen suitable and each course is accompanied by different wines. I have also heard that it is fairly inexpensive for all this, people have said that for two people, they’ve spent around $60. We shall see, it is something different and therefore to be looked forward to.

I also found this morning that my tax refund has been deposited to my account, and I’m glad to not have to think about that anymore. It will be largely going towards bills, but that’s okay with me. It’s only a few weeks until tax rebate time too, so it is big catch-up time.

On that note, I made a trip to the grocery store this morning, so I definitely am feeling a sense of accomplishment.

To round all of this out, I received a Myspace friend request from what looks to be my best friend from childhood. We met in the fifth grade, both new to the school, and our brilliant teacher Mr. Hickam sat us next to one another. It worked. We not only became friends but were practically inseparable. I would ride from my house to hers every morning before school and we’d arrive at school together. We always hung out at recess, and after school we’d hang out some more. Back home in time for dinner, we usually spent all night on the phone together if not at each other’s houses. Every weekend there were sleepovers, and every day off from school was some sort of adventure. When we were kids, I think we had more freedom at school, as I remember having plenty of time to talk about…whatever. What I remember most about us was that we were always laughing. I don’t know if it was because we were actually both really funny or we just delighted in each other’s company so much, but if I had to say, I’d guess a lot of both.

Like many friends do, we drifted apart eventually, but not for many years. We were still the best of friends for at least 8 or 9 years, living together when we were older even. It was when we stopped being roommates that it kind of all petered out. I remember trying to visit her in the ‘burbs, and that she had a hard time visiting me with no car. Then she and her boyfriend got pregnant. She decided to have the baby and give it up for adoption, a decision I’ve always respected although it did honestly surprise me a bit.

We didn’t see each other again for a few years, until I looked her up in the phone book one day. This time I was pregnant. I was married and keeping him (Sage, who is now 11). I don’t know if that made things weird, or if it was just Sage’s dad who sort of made everything weird for me, especially as it pertained to my friends.

Now it has been almost eleven years exactly since we last met up. I think it may be okay again now. I always feel anxiety when it comes to seeing people I haven’t seen for years, but I’m actually kind of excited this time. Sara is a person, who if we made that connection again now, I would feel totally comfortable having her just drop by anytime, just like when we were kids. I would totally play a 3 day game of Monopoly with her just like we used to in the summer when we would sleep in a tent out in the backyard.

Here’s to seeing what the rest of today will bring.

When I read the bulletin that last night was Kincora’s last night to Alex, he asked me if I was going to go, presumably to say my goodbyes to a bar that played a big part in making Seattle what it is today – formerly Squid Row and Tugs, just to mention a couple of infamous places that previously occupied the corner building of what had become one of Seattle’s dive-y-est bars.

I surprised him a little by saying no, but it was no surprise at all that I didn’t because I wanted to preserve my memories. I saw no reason to go when it would be crowded, not the same little place where me and 8 of my friends could just swing and grab a table for the night. I didn’t want to feel the atmosphere of sadness, when I could remember all the good times.

Sitting in the back booth with Victoria, always trying to avoid the caved in part of the booth seat, trying to get Eric to sit there because he’s tall.

Playing pool on the kind of crappy little pool table that never had enough room around it to take a shot without hitting someone.

Christmastime last year, the night of the Santa Hat, the night that Eric threw his beer glass across the room, and no one got thrown out, absolutely nothing happened except that we sat back down and drank more.

The nights when I was there hanging out afterhours, when I would suddenly realize that it was 4am.

Even the night that Kiki practically attacked me in the bathroom stall, and I could hardly get his drunk ass off me.

All the times Reno and all the other guys would leave the Cha Cha to go the bathroom at Kincora.

And maybe best of all, sitting on the couch, looking up at my then future boyfriend, the aforementioned Alex.

It’s these little scenes, the smallest vignettes that stick, single moments frozen in time forever, that matter. I didn’t need to go have one last drink there – I’ve had plenty. I didn’t need to see it one last time – I’ve seen it more intimately than most. I didn’t need to be the last to leave before it’s gone – I’ve been the last to leave more times than you’ll ever know : ) And I didn’t need to try and capture any more memories – I have the best there’ll ever be.

What more could I need, when I know that everytime I ever think about Kincora, I’ll remember Alex’s smiling face looking down at me as I sat on that couch, and then a flood of other colorful and happy memories will wash back over me?
In a lot of ways, I wish they weren’t tearing Kincora down, but I also realize that just like every dog has his day, every bar has it’s night, and Kincora has had so many nights…I know from experience that sometimes you just can’t make any more amazing memories of a place. I was done making mine there a while ago, and that had nothing to do with the impending demise.

I’ll miss you Kincora. Just the way you were.