musings

I had a strange experience yesterday (my whole life has been strange lately, but wtf, that's pretty normal, non?). My youngest sister, who is an accountant and who lives in North Carolina is studying massage therapy on the side (40 hour work week, 15-20 hours of classes, husband and daughter to take care of...) and, since she needed a total of 20 "practice massages" she flew to Illinois for the weekend so she could hit up family and do all 20 in 3 days. She set up her schedule using email.

I got a panicked email from her yesterday, asking if I was okay...because I hadn't really responded to her mail and she didn't see me on facebook so she thought something was wrong. Facebook is annoying...sometimes useful...but really freaking annoying.

I don't see her more than once a year at best, but she lives 600 miles away. I don't see my siblings who live nearby (20 minutes to 2 hours away) more than once or twice a year. Hell, I don't see some of my kids or grandchildren for weeks/months at a time. If I don't hear from someone, it takes me quite awhile to start worrying. Doesn't mean I don't love them, because I do. I guess I need to make more effort.

I'm truly sad that we have lost Walter Cronkite.

Work is stressful...I am STILL preparing training manuals and procedures manuals for work. I wish I could do the same for home and the rest of my life.

Lots of things happened 40 years ago... Stonewall, the Moon Landing, and Woodstock. I was 14 and spent that summer in California at my Aunt Bev's. Mostly I don't remember anything about it.

Amazon, kindle and big brother

@wilw posted this link on twitter. Okay, I love ebooks...but I have no intention of owning a kindle. Read why here:

http://tinyurl.com/l928mb

31 rules

courtesy of nancy jane moore

http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Nancy-Jane-Moore/Flash-Fiction/Thirty-One-Rules-for-Fulfilling-Your-Destiny

Nancy Jane Moore

1. You are blessed with a destiny, but it will not be given to you as a matter of right. It must be dreamed, desired, sought after, fought for, understood, and accepted.

2. It is likely you will fail to fulfill your destiny. Nevertheless, you must live as if you will succeed, risking everything: life, health, money, love.

3. Along your path you will find many teachers and mentors. Some will choose you; others will ignore you until you demand their guidance. Listen carefully to these teachers, but remember their destinies are not yours. When the time comes, leave them behind.

4. Other people will try to block your destiny. The most difficult obstacles will be presented not by your enemies, but by your family, who will want you to follow the vocation of their dreams, acquire the comfortable life, and provide them with grandchildren.

5. An ill-timed pregnancy can keep you from attaining your destiny.

6. War is one of the greatest evils created by humankind. It is also a crucible in which you can forge yourself to reach your destiny.

7. When you set out to follow the way of the warrior, do not disguise yourself as a man. The way of the warrior is not restricted to men.

8. The male way of warriorship has been defined for thousands of generations. It is possible that there is a female way of warriorship. Think on these things, but not when your enemies are attacking.

9. A warrior protects the people from the monsters, be they human, animal, magical, alien, imaginary, or even the people themselves.

10. You must learn to fight without giving in to fear, but if you refuse to acknowledge fear it will betray you at the most inauspicious moment.

11. You must master the physical arts of war, but if you refuse to learn strategy and rely on fighting ability alone, you will not survive to find your destiny.

12. There are times when killing is necessary. These times are more infrequent than has been commonly assumed.

13. There are times when saving the life of your enemy is required. These times are more numerous than anyone has ever suspected.

14. Killing is not the only method for defeating your enemies. The most successful way to defeat enemies is to make them your friends.

15. The lessons of war will prove useful as you move into politics, but the subtleties will change. You must learn new rules of engagement to survive the political life.

16. Behave with honor. Treat everyone with respect. Trust no one. Betrayal occurs more often in politics than in war.

17. The time will come when all the choices before you require breaking your word. Make the decision that the situation demands, not the one that allows you to avoid betraying a friend. A person of power is obligated to the people she leads, not the people she loves.

18. No matter how many monsters you defeat, more will appear.

19. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

20. You can make all the right choices and still lose badly. And no one ever makes all the right choices.

21. When everything that matters in your life has been destroyed and ground to dust, you have two choices: You can die or you can begin anew. Only you can decide which you will do.

22. Approach rebuilding your destiny with humility. The truly humble cannot be humiliated.

23. You will find it necessary to refight battles you thought already won. Do so without complaint.

24. When reached, your destiny may look very different than it did when you first began your journey. Do not be deceived. It is still your destiny.

25. No matter how powerful you become, you will still be forced to make difficult choices, to protect yourself from intrigues, and to do battle with monsters.

26. Fulfilling your destiny will not make you safe or comfortable. It may not even make you happy.

27. Do not let the magicians or the scientists make you immortal. You are human and humans die. Any effort to live past your natural time will destroy your soul and with it your humanity.

28. Do not be deceived by those who would make you a god. If taking on the name of God is a good strategic decision, accept the title humbly. But do not believe it yourself. Godhood is not your destiny.

29. You will not know if what you build survives your death, but you must wield power as if it will.

30. Death ends your story. What comes after belongs to someone else.

31. Break all rules, including these.

Copyright © 2008 by Nancy Jane Moore

i found this webpage i made

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/kittent/www/index.html

I freaking hate netfiles, but I made the page a long time ago and I don't want to lose it. It shows just how naive I was....

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barbara 'kitten' trumpinski-roberts' home page

hi all...

yes, this is another personal home page. i hope it won't bore you.

Eris is love.

*thanks go to my daughter, who helped her wicked stepmother start this webpage stuff. (i'm not really all that wicked, but it is an image i have cherished since i first met my stepchildren in 1985.) i have since abandoned tripod (%$#! ads) and have moved to the university server...and i think i even figured out how to make it visible to everyone!

my livejournal link barbarakitten_t

MY ALLABOUT

i was born on sunday, march 6, 1955 in central illinois. i am, in no particular order: a library technical assistant, a grandmother, a pagan, bisexual, part of a women's radio collective, married to two of the most wonderful men and one of the best women in the universe (not to mention a very cool step-wife), a patron of callahans place, and i belong to 4 cats. i like science fiction, journaling, chocolate, and my grandchildren (well, i love my grandchildren...they are beautiful and brilliant) and (i'm not supposed to have chocolate much any more, because my blood sugar is too high.

about my spice...i am NOT a bigamist; we are polyamous. the word poly+amorous translates as 'many loves' and the four of us have more than enough love for each other and for any other loves who become part of our family (like the really cool step-wife).

i have been married to tc for 16 years. he and i had a beautiful committment ceremony in november of 1997 where we joined our lives with our other husband, sean a.k.a. starknight. the ceremony was performed by a priest and priestess who are friends of ours and we had it at darkover, a science fiction convention which is held every year in timonium, maryland. a large contingent of our net.family was in attendance and we were especially honored by the presence of spider and jeanne robinson.

tc married marcey in 2000 in massecheusetts and she moved here to live with us in 2002. (he has known her since god was a girl) i met her in 1984. i bought a couch from her and tc recognized it the first time he took me home.

lady cheron moved here in 2000 and married me and sean and tc in 2001:a wedding odyssey...she is also a callahanian.

about my cats...no pictures yet, but they are kitters the white cat (she has blue eyes and the personality of a 16 year old juvenile delinquent); murrlin the bit bit (he is a largish gray and white once upon a tomcat and a real love); and rozemary p. bittykitty (black with long hair...part himalayan and part slappy squirrel wannabe...she is in training to become underwear, fur side in). they own the three of us body and soul and we are proud to serve them...
we also have a torby (tortoise tabby) names mitsy...she came to us from my mother-in-law's farm the day of my father-in-law's funeral.

cody (lady cheron's wolf) unfortunately crossed the rainbow bridge last year. we miss him and lady cheron has a dog-sized hole in her heart, which has been nearly filled by java (the mutt), who is almost a year old but still very much the puppy. java is a sheagle (shepard/beagle)...he doesn't need caffeine, he doesn't code yet...and he is nearly as fast as the millenium falcon. ;)

marcey is owned by harry, emily, bear-bear and camargo...four fat and feisty cats.

bast is one of our household goddesses. (melissa ethridge is another). my personal goddess is eris, who says:
"i am chaos. i am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. i am the spirit which which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. i am chaos. i am alive, and i tell you you are free."

about my library...i work at the ACES library at the university of illinois in urbana-champaign. ACES stands for agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences and i do mostly technical services now...that cussing you hear is me complaining about the publishers of serials (and don't get me started on government documents)!

about my radio station...i am part of a women's radio collective doing a show called 'womyn making waves' on a community radio station called WEFT (90.1fm). WMW has been on the air for as long as WEFT has been on the air, and it is one of the oldest women's music shows in existance on the radio. we do womyn's music and music by women.

about alt.callahans...callahan's place is a bar, created by spider robinson in a collection of science fiction books and short stories. my suggestion for you, if you want to learn more about callahans, is to go to your nearest bookstore and buy a copy of _the callahan chronicals_ (isbn 0-812-53937-0). it's a great read.

alt.callahans is a usenet newsgroup, created in 1989 by a guy named chris davis. i got there in 1991. there are various places on the web that one can find out about alt.callahans (see url listing) so i won't talk about it too much, except to say that the motto of the Place is "shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased; thus do we refute entropy" and the slogan of the Place is "the shortest distance between two straight lines is a pun." i am eternally grateful that i found alt.callahans.

we are in the process of buying and reconstructing a house. pictures of this house will be available when i figure out how to add them.
this page is obviously still under construction....stay tuned.

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Love is Love. Marriage is the state in which N people are formally joined together with certain legal rights and obligations toward each other.

barbara trumpinski-roberts

kittent@uiuc.edu

champaign, IL 61821

United States

cory doctorow in Locus

http://tiny.cc/ykYXV as found via twitter

I also grew up on science fiction novels that were full of this stuff: competent heroes and lovable rogues who worked the angles, solved the cons, and uncovered the truth that the shadowy forces of conspiracy wished to keep us mortals from discovering. These two literatures — the fiction and the how-tos — fed one another, because it wasn't enough to read about something being done, I wanted to find out how to do it. Not because I had any interest in blowing stuff up or hacking the phone company, but because it made the story better, and it gave me that frisson that genuinely forbidden knowledge can convey.

These facts were a currency in my social circle. We'd trade them like baseball cards. I'd show you my payphone trick and you'd show me your gag for turning the cellophane on a cigarette pack into a smoke-ring machine. Social capital accrued to everyone who could show or explain something that gave you power and insight into the mysterious workings of the world.

Like all currency, these facts were scarce. They were expensive. You needed access to esoteric books, secret BBS file-depositories, shady characters who knew knife-tricks and could roll joints one-handed (drug lore was a big part of secret knowledge, of course, our own version of the sacred rituals of a secret society).

Well, the market for facts has crashed. The Web has reduced the marginal cost of discovering a fact to $0.00. And that means that the two literatures — how-to and fiction — have effectively merged into one master story, the "plausible premise."

New warfare expert John Robb coined the term "plausible premise" to describe the new reality of "open source insurgencies" ("insurgency composed of many small groups without any hierarchical leadership or organizational structure that typifies 20th century practice"). Open source insurgencies don't run on detailed instructional manuals that describe tactics and techniques. Rather, they run on a master narrative about how insurgency may be conducted

I find this both exciting and scary.

multitasking sucks

...so why don't i just stop?

i have gone back to the Place...and that makes me happy. I am really stressing about work...and that makes me tense. Can't find Fall of Hyperion on my shelf at home, nor is it available as an ebook. That pisses me off. My psychotherapist might have lung cancer and that worries me.

Hannelore talks to kitten

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1418

See panel 3