Dotty Parker

memory, all alone in the...um, something-ite...hm

I am known for my perfect memory!

Somebody else said that. Not me.

I'm working on improving my memory for dates and times. If I can't improve it, then I will change my life so I don't have to remember much.

For example:

Monday 10 am Continue working on bridge to Terabithia
3 pm Meet dogs at butcher shop
8 pm Stand outside neighbor's window and watch tv
Tuesday all day: make papier mache menagerie
Wednesday all day: earn a living
Thursday all day: people will visit me saying they had appointments
Friday all day until 4pm: I will visit people and tell them they forgot to see me on Thursday.
Saturday and Sunday: lose track of time.

I could remember a schedule like that.

I dug up a note to myself that has dates and times for tomorrow and the weekend. I'm glad I found it. That way I'll be where I need to be.

It's progress, too! I went looking for the note! I did! I knew I needed it and I found it! In time for the event!

I'm getting so good at this stuff.

Is it my scheduled time for bed? I must make a schedule.

who does your research?

I was eating my string cheese today and, as is my habit as I don't like plastic, I pulled the wrapper off. These particular wrappers have trivia on them. Today's trivia question is this:

A carnivorous animal will not eat an animal struck by what?

Struck by...a stone? A car? How about lightning! Yes! Lightning it is.

Doesn't that seem weird, though? Is that really a fact or just one of those things that people say? Like swallowing bubble gum means that it will stay in your stomach for seven years.

I tried to look it up and found a forum where people post back and forth and try to be knowledgeable.

One person said, "Just how do you conduct research that leads one to that discovery? That one really cracks me up."

Another said, "We had a bull struck and killed by lightning back in the late sixties. When we found him, the flies and maggots had already started in on the buffet. "

Still another suggested that lightning poisons the whole body, just as it poisons a human body.

Beyond that I could find nothing.

The page where I got the quotes is a wacky one, although not unusual, I don't think. It's the kind of site that I'd be tempted to post something on. Then I'd say, "Why? People aren't reading this for education. They want to be right. Just like I want to be right that the whole lightning thing is nonsense."

I want to ask, "What's your source?!" Instead I'll say, "Hey, here are some bits of stuff that might be real and might not be, but it's always a good time to read this kind of thing. Like calendars of fun facts. But whose facts?

But who cares! Let's have some fun! Here are some uncorroborated "facts" that lack a source. Dive in!

Pound for pound, the common Shrew is actually the most vicious predator on the American Continent. It eats many times it's body weight per day, and will eat damned near anything.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

A chicken who just lost its head can run the length of a football field before dropping dead.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. (I really like that one. So useful!)

Koala bears have finger prints that are almost identical to ours. (Now you know who to bring on your jewel heist!)

Most marine fish can survive in a tank filled with human blood. (I don't think I want to know how they figured that out.)

Toads have no teeth.

Frogs have teeth on their upper jaws but none on their lower.

Coconuts kill more people than sharks.

So forget about being worried about sharks. The killer coconuts are the real problem.

Now be happy for the education you got in school. At least there you knew it was supposed to be true.

workin' for the man yet?

I'm writing letters to publishers asking for freelance work as an editor or copy editor. It's quite distressing to write to someone asking to do editing when you know that your grammer end spelling ain't always good.

I found a place that is in serious need of my help, although I do think that they might be beyond help. Here's their description:

The [names have been changed to protect the innocent] has now advanced into the Mail Art syntagma within the context of Indefinite Surrealism in the fashion of Indefinite Design for exhibition, reading, website display, artistamps, and criticism by theoretical writing. While an effort is being made to generate Web Poetics as it correlates to the Mail Art dimension with free reader access or downloading, there remains the ambition to produce artifacts such as well-designed books that are esteemed for their material values in addition to the intellectual value of the writing. In commercial terms, the Surrealist Design, like House Mail, offers something of substantial, uncompromising value as a Free Expression, but in adddition reserves a supplemental quantity or quality to be purchased or industrialized under a license.

I wonder if the person writing this is giggling madly and cackling while saying, "If they send it here, I know I don't want it! What pretentious stink-heads!" I wonder if they giggle like that. When I stop wondering, though, I'm pretty sure they're serious.

And here's another description:

We are a small press, and publish chapbooks and chapbook-sized works. [This company] concentrates on helping those who are suicidal and depressed by publishing works of catharsis. All works we publish are dark, painful, anguished. Currently emphasizing scholarly nonfiction, essays and literary criticism. Scholarly works of the dark, painful, and anguished variety...is there any other kind? [and then add this] Write to us for our guidelines; they spell out exactly what we will and won't accept. I would encourage writers to be more professional than ever in regards to preparing their submissions. I will destroy any mail that comes to us without a return address specifying a particular person as well as any letter or package that is very haphazardly put together.

So they're worried about bombs and disorganized people. At least their priorities are in the right order. Bombs are, indeed, somewhat more dangerous than disorganization.

How long will it be until I become one of these people? Will I have to write dark, painful, and anguished notes in the margins?

Only time will tell.

staph meeting (as welcome as the infection)

I'm not a fan of meetings. They take too long and accomplish too little. People are meant to talk with each other. They're meant to work together. They aren't meant to work together by talking. They especially aren't meant to plan how to work together while working at talking.

A staff meeting tonight. Six women discussing upcoming sewing events. Six women discussing scheduling. Six woman looking at each other and wondering who is an ally and who is something else.

I must entertain myself during meetings. If I didn't, I would become infuriated and obviously angry. Some individuals are more irritating than others, and those would surely garner my wrath. In my attempts at creating small diversions, I drew pictures of Spring and Sprocket. I drew pictures of Bobsie and Midgie, the two dogs that the woman sitting next to me owns. I wrote down stuff that people said. BoPeep said, "Okay! Let's conquer the schedule!" (We attacked the schedule, but which of us was vanquished is yet undetermined.) And then another woman said, "Butt naked."

I wrote it down to remind myself to ask, "Isn't it 'buck naked' rather than 'butt'?" And so I looked it up. Here's what I found.

The standard expression is “buck naked,” and the contemporary “butt naked” is an error that will get you laughed at in some circles. However, it might be just as well if the new form were to triumph. Originally a “buck” was a dandy, a pretentious, overdressed show-off of a man. Condescendingly applied in the U.S. to Native Americans and black slaves, it quickly acquired negative connotations. To the historically aware speaker, “buck naked” conjures up stereotypical images of naked “savages” or—worse—slaves laboring naked on plantations. Consider using the alternative expression “stark naked.”

So the site this is from is interesting. It's an on line version of a book by a guy named Paul Brians. His book is called Common Errors in English Useage. He has a gigantic list of "errors" that I would sometime like to peruse to find out which parts of my vocabulary betray my early upbringing with my non-human family. (It's likely that the monkey grunts give it away more than any grammatical faux pas.)

But let's all learn how to correct our grammar! So at staff meetings we won't be caught buck naked or with our pants down.

and she returns

After so many moments missing my commentary, I return with, well, about the same amount of vigor I had before. It's not impressive in its size, but I'm sure it's fabulous in lots of other ways. I'm just sure of it.

I've been having calendar trouble lately. I don't know where I'm supposed to be or when I'm supposed to be there. This is often okay, especially when no one else knows either, but it seems to be catching up with me. I'm finding that I can't find things...like where I'm supposed to be.

I'm working on ecology stuff with the Black Locust Initiative and have that stuff scattered all over the place. I've only been late for that twice. No, three times. Vectors and Land Trusts and coat rack plans and Montessori Parent Handbooks--I'm a progressive forestry goddess. A goddess who's lost and doesn't know what time it is.

No matter! I am in possession of material that will save the world!

I just have to figure out where I'm supposed to be and when so that I can do it.