hello!

I'm just experimenting here, because that is what I like to do. If I ever find a way to actually make my website look and act the way I want it to, I'll give up and quit.

Cause and effect is a funny thing. One of my main reasons for switching over to this blogging format was so that my entries could be more easily read, one after another, as a coherent string of thought. Now that I've done that, I find myself less likely to update. The problem is I see the latest entry, and I feel required to continue that thought before I talk about anything else.

Friday, for instance, I went to my internship. I BARTed into SF, marveled at the beauty that is Downtown, gawked at the tall buildings, patronized an independent cafe, met the people at RAN, received my first assignment, and slogged my way through piles and piles of papers whilst sitting at a desk overlooking many potted plants, one dog, and a cardboard cutout of Legolas. I composed a lovely blog entry in my head, complete with a long dissertation on the appeal of the metropolis, as outlined in Pattern 10 of A Pattern Language. Problem was, I didn't have the time to sit down and actually write it until Sunday morning. By then the moment was gone. And so I've put off updating, because I had written all this buildup to my first day at RAN, and I didn't want to just leave that hanging. But on the other hand, I didn't want to go through the trouble of rehashing the whole day. It was a lot of fun, but I already had other things on my mind.

The end result is this: I don't think Blogger is for me. I enjoy reading other people's journal in blog format, but I can't really write that way. I was hoping that I would adopt the habit of just jumping onto Blogger and making quick updates, but I haven't really done that.

Part of the experience of blogging, for me, is capturing a moment in my life, and turning it into something tangible, giving it a name. My memories become documents. And, like the memories, each of those documents should be discrete.

Blogger is a nice service, and I've had fun fiddling with the template html. But the format is stifling my creativity (even if the most creative thing I usually do is change my background and give the entry a name--that is still something). My website is running the risk of becoming boring and that possiblility is more than I can cope with.

Killing time until I leave for my internship. Too early for me to leave to to my grocery shopping (every young environmentalist must bring Trader Joe's hummus for lunch--it's a law or something), and too late to fire up SimCity. Especially because I made a new region last night, and I want to play that one. If I was willing to play the other one, I could pop on for twenty minutes and do quite a bit. A new region, on the other hand, is a pain to get started, and I have to wait until I have a nice, uninterupted amount of time. Like Monday. Or maybe this afternoon, depending on how long I stay at RAN today.

Do you think it is odd for an intern to show up on the first day and start taking pictures of everything she does? Damn. I need a picture phone--geek spy gear. Picture phone, that is my long-term goal.

Well, it took me a while to drag myself away from SimCity 4 on this dark and dreary morning, but I knew I had a phone call to make, so as soon as I got my minor league stadium, I quit the game and got on the phone. And the result:

I am an intern!

Starting on Friday, I will be an official intern for the Rainforest Action Network. I will be working on the Global Finance Campaign, which just won a great big victory against CitiBank. The campaign is now turning it's attention to another bank, and harassing them until they make a big policy change like CitiBank did. So I will be doing research about some major bank and the projects they fund. Or something like that. I'll know more on Friday.

It's strange, how excited I am about this. I've been nervous ever since last Wednesday, even though I was 90% sure I had the internship. But I didn't want to say anything, because 1) I didn't want to 'jinx' it, and 2) I felt kinda silly being so worked up over an unpaid position. But it's nerve-racking, just like finding and starting a new job. In my mind, it feels the same.

So I'm psyched. I think I will even be able to do my internship presentations at the end of this quarter, and graduate on time. And now, if the Fish & Wildlife guy ever gets in contact with me, it will be a bonus. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.

And dammit if the sun isn't coming out :)

There are red wine stains on my keyboard. O, the hedonistic life I lead!

I've been having lots of dreams lately. Vivid dreams, every night. That is unusual for me. None of them have been particularly bad, which is something to be thankful for. Mostly they have been entertaining, if a little disorienting.

Last night, for example, I dreamt that Shorn had a new job making some sort of gadget in some sort of factory somewhere in the vast industrial complex of Martinez-Crockett-Rodeo (MarCrockEo?). This dream promotion allowed us to purchase a cute fixer-upper in Martinez. It was a darling little house, with a porch, basement, hardwood floors, crown molding, and a big back yard. It had also been used as a dog fighting arena by its previous occupants, and was missing several windows, sections of walls, doors, etc. None of this damage seemed to bother me. I immediately started making trips to Home Depot--after all, I was seven months pregnant with twins, and had to get the house in shape before they arrived. Meanwhile, we received news from my brother-in-law that he had settled on a house in Piedmont, "For the school system."

Hmm. You know, I didn't think anything of this dream this morning, but typing it out here, it sure sounds like I'm a little too focused on domestic issues right now.

I need an art museum.

Rita, what's showing at MOMA? Still Diane Arbus. That's okay, I suppose. But ooooooo, the Art Deco exhibit at the Legion of Honor looks much cooler. The exhibit is not until March, but advance tickets go on sale tomorrow. Any takers? It's Lempicka, Rita!