Frogs and Ravens

Santa Ana

I woke up this morning and knew instantly that the Santa Ana winds are reaching their peak. My eyes were already tired, the state of my nostrils and throat doesn't bear description, I'm running out of moisturizer, and my hair -- light and wispy on a good day -- stood straight up in the air when I tried to comb it in the morning (with a wooden comb, no less!).

These hot desert winds aggravate me in ways they don't when I'm in the desert itself. Yeah, I don't like the winds tugging at my hair (I live in bandanas when camping, therefore) but the rest of the environment makes me feel peaceful and calm and alive. But these winds... it's like someone stripped out all the negative aspects of desert life, wrapped it in an ion storm, and sent it our way. It's sure to rile me up and tire me out, leaving me feeling like I spent all day hiking in the sun without enough water.

Ayurveda would claim that this hot dryness was aggravating my vata and pitta natures. Sometimes I wonder about what I did to deserve this particularly contradictory constitution. Vata is cold and dry, and soothed by the warm and wet. Pitta, on the other hand, is hot and moist, soothed by the dry and cool. (I usually end up splitting the difference in favor of the cool and moist -- i.e. Oregon.) So things like the dry, electric Santa Ana stirs up the vata, making me edgy and twitchy and anxious and dry, while simultaneously the heat makes the pitta increase, meaning crankiness and irritability.

It's a wonder I haven't burst into flames like a bunch of dry twigs!

Lots of cool drinks, yoga, meditation and knitting seem called for this weekend, don't they?

(I believe the winds are getting to other people too. Why else would a few of my co-workers decide that today was a great time to install a remote-controlled whoopee cushion in another person's office? (Alas, they didn't hide it well enough and he found it. Dang.))

Academic Style

Okay, this article on poor academic dress is just silly. With the exception of a few older, weirder professors, most of my teachers and colleagues looked just fine. Leaning toward the business casual or the retro-funky, perhaps, but rarely genuinely bad. Bah.

(link c/o Lil.)

Okay, Then!

Ah, lovely morning, when the light is clear, the temperature is delightfully cool, and it is quiet and peaceful.

NOT.

This morning was a cacophony of garbage trucks, the neighbor's fool dog barking barking barking, and the surprise daytime arrival of Random Crazy Yelling Man, our local homeless weirdo, who normally restricts his obsenity-laden arguments with invisible people to the hours between midnight and 2am.

Methinks going in to work early was an excellent idea.

Equinox

Here comes Fall!

(And the attendant Santa Anas.)

Tap, Tap, Tap

Life at work sure is quiet right now. Today I entered some data, filed some things, made a sign and created a form. Whee. (Well, to be honest, I enjoy making signs and forms. But there isn't that much opportunity to do so.)

No particularly interesting thoughts in my head, either. Some vague "What would it be like to compete in "The Amazing Race" with D." speculations, a lot of "I'm hungry/bored/how long is it until I can go home" spit-ups, an occasional brief reaction to something on the net or radio, etc.

(I hate this ad campaign for "A Way with Words" that the local PBS station is airing. Yo, dudes, adding a langorous female nitwit to the pomposity of Richard Lederer makes things worse, not better. I hope it's only for the ads...)

Edit: Oh, bleargh, she IS the new co-host. Saccharine + pompous = puke.

I wish I could knit here. Unfortunately, that's a little too obviously not working. I've been getting good knitting done at home, between tv and reading like a madwoman. So far, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which I bought on impulse from the local bookstore last weekend) is quite good. It started like a classic novel of manners, and is now slowly morphing into something much more bizarre. And the footnotes rock. (I am such a geek.)

Gads, my life is boring!

*Ducks to avoid the arrival of the Karma Bus*

Amazing Race

Yay, Chip and Kim!

Why Blog?

I'm glad other people are answering this question. It's not that I don't have an answer, but rather that I don't feel like I gain much trying to articulate my reasoning at this point in my bloglife.

I blog. It's good for me. For now that is enough.

Maybe later I'll develop this line of thought; for now that's sufficient. Especially since I don't have to justify this activity to anyone but myself, and I already think it's a good idea. The whys are no doubt worth exploring, but... later.

Heh

Been here, done this, bought the cheap-ass t-shirt.

Language Geekitude

Have you ever looked at your blog in translation?

Somehow, I seem so much more worldly and mysterious. It is amusing as well to see what bits of language the translator (which is getting better and better) chokes on.

Dilberting

Hmmm...

I'm Dogbert!



Which Dilbert character are you?

c/o Brina.