Up until today, if you had asked me what was the Archvillain that sporadically wreaks his wicked will upon the innocent idyll of my workaday world, I would have instantly – well, okay, after some quandary, it’s that idyllic – told you, the IBM Correcting Selectric II.

Perhaps the name is strange to you, you that toil not in the triplicate-form areas of life. The term “correcting” means ‘able to perform the action “delete”’ and the name “Selectric” is meant to imply pithily that the object in question is electric. Perhaps by now you have put it together — something that can do and be both these things, and yet it is worth noting and advertising that it is and does…it is indeed a typewriter. And not just any typewriter. It is a huge beast of a machine, probably over fifty pounds in weight. Its very presence on my first day at work, lurking at the left hand of my computer chair, filled me with a nameless dread. In using it, this dread was long justified. It is willful and demanding. I must hold down keys in exactly the right combination in order to erase a mistake, an art which long eluded me. After “correcting”, the next letter typed will neither appear in ink nor advance the paper, so that each corrected mistake may, if unheeded, sprout more mistakes, like a typographical hydra.

Today, however, I typed a couple of forms on the infernal machine. My fingers fumbled only a few times, and the correction process, while still baroque, went by painlessly. Flushed with victory and glad not to be in the embarassing situation of yelling “KHAAAAAAAAAN!” inexplicably at my workplace, I moved on to the next task, faxing something somewhere. I searched about for the fax cover sheet used at the Center, and discovered to my horror that it exists in WordPerfect, a strange limbo where things are not truly as they seem and formatting is treacherous and arcane.

My problems with the program may seem, to you, small. I changed some formatting, and tried, from habit, to repeat the action on the next selection with ctrl-Y, only to be informed that macro ctrlY was unknown. I finished and printed the document, only to find that, as I had a section of text selected, that section was printed alone on a white expanse, suspended at its proper location in an otherwise invisible sea of text. These are not perhaps the epic struggles with which my old and now forgiven foe IBM Correcting Selectric II once plagued my merry existence. However, oh great anguish and woe…these software foibles that beset me…I cannot blame Microsoft for them!

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

I really love living across from a park. There are a million reasons, but here is today’s: opening the garage door and walking towards my car, only to stop and stare out at the world. Rain was falling, dense but not heavy, and the faint, tiny slaps of the drops against the street were softened and overwhelmed by a million drops bowing the glossy grass blades, splitting among evergreen needles, drumming on the tree trunks, and collapsing with a sigh into the softly flowing stream.

The other day, at work, I was treated to a panegyric on the topic of all-wheel drive Subaru wagons by one of my (three) bosses. He described in avid detail how the Subarus and Volvos of the world had lightly peregrinated the icy landscape while the gas-guzzling SUVs and chain-clad trucks mired in winter’s fecund blessing. It occured to me that one of my other bosses also owns a Subaru wagon, in fact, a WRX wagon—thus facilitating both automobile bad-assery and the transportation of car seats and strollers.

I remarked on this fact, and the glowing praise heaped on such metal chariots by their owners, to my husband in the evening, and we eventually came to the conclusion that, when in the course of time we have the means and inclination to buy another car, a Subaru WRX Wagon would be an excellent choice. The Minister of Finance having nodded his assent to this prognosticated proposal, I grinned. You see, when I ceded the drivership of the Golf to him, he agreed that the next new car shall be mine….

Last week I marched into work on Monday, grimly determined that the two blissful weeks of having Thursday off would not make me soft, would not make me expect days off in the middle of the week. And then the snow came. So here I am on Monday, struggling with the concept that I have to be here for FORTY WHOLE HOURS this week. That’s cruel and unusual! I mean, I’ve worked here about eight weeks—counting Thanksgiving, only half of them have been forty-hour weeks! How am I supposed to apply myself rigorously when I’m being conditioned to expect days off? :)

Ip trinlet finswickle paliwap zu;
Iffel tin if twadi tri kippen tefru.

Ka rem, swa kibitril baket imla.
Ka tsu im twibi kaln neti widiba.

Farul, kwi tabi likatep ifit wimtok!
Farul im chabit, kilfeltwim ik pibit ekvok!

Ek witi eftwil karasad, lin twigil baki ti —
Kel viti kabat Farul twass, wintipi kibech ri.

The problem with having a website is that sometimes, you don’t. Just when you least expect it.

Situation grim. The ice-sheet is thick and looks like staying. The only sign of life outside the outpost was a dog’s cry of pain two hours ago. The Coke supply is dwindling - I haven’t told Matthew, trying to keep as much bad news from him as I can. He already seems to be bending under the strain - keeps trying to ‘build a better robot’. I just… can’t bring myself to tell him. Virtual robots can’t save us from the ice.

Apparently the world without is glazed with a royal icing more delicate than any Martha could devise. The thick blanket of snow lies everywhere in the serene appearance of innocence, but a malignant sparkle along its crust shows the truth. This I infer from eyewitness accounts and short peeks, as it’s too cold just looking out the window at it.

Since yesterday’s conditions were a great deal more driveworthy than today’s, and yesterday those of us who did come to work were sent home with great dispatch, I wonder if I’m meant to come into work. No one, and I do mean no one (I called the Director) at my work is picking up the phone. And I don’t have the home phone numbers of my compadres. Errrrr…

Sanctioned truancy is back with a vengeance—I got sent home at 10:15 am today and got paid for the whole day :)

For some time now, it has been my opinion that going to dance clubs would be fun, being as how I have unlocked the secrets of Looking Cool While Dancing (warning: may not work for all possible values of gender): A) This is about your hips. All other body parts are secondary to your hips. B) Believe you look cool. No, really. Having this arcane knowledge at my command, dancing (in the modern, non-formal manner therein implied) becomes a matter of dressing up in an odd manner and enjoying cardiovascular exercise - both of which are rendered delicious by their very novelty.

So it was that when one of our collegiate compadres proposed going ‘clubbing’, I acceded most willingly. In my eagerness, I even forgot my two Clubbing Fears: namely, cigarette smoke and having no way to assess the quality of the music until already committed to the club. Both of these were brought home to me by the first club we tried to go to, Ohm. Ohm is a very popular club - most of us had heard good things about it—but we couldn’t get a working phone number from them, so we went there all unknowing of what acts they had and what we might pay for the privilege of deciding whether we liked them. This was definitely a Strategic Error, as we found on entering that it was far too early for anyone there to be thinking of dancing, and that, while the first band was a passable (if undanceable) alt-rock band, the second was an aggressive and unpleasant alt-rock band, with no concept of any musical style but fortissimo, which may of course be a predilection that explains itself.

Unhappily shrugging away our $7 cover charges, we betook ourselves to East Portland to our second choice, Holocene.

Now let me digress from the business of finding somewhere with non-abrasive music and a place to gyrate in order to speak of a far more delicate dance, done entirely with the feet and hands, not to mention the heart-in-mouth. In the interests of having a cool, cleanly car, not to mention one with a security system, for this junket, I had secured the Golf. The Golf boasts a manual transmission. It’s been a while since I drove it—long enough that the ride was a little jerkier than my companions might have wished, but otherwise fine. However, only once in my life before, I think, have I parallel-parked a stick. On none of these occasions was the spot in question approximately of length g+2, where g is the value of the Golf’s length in feet, and the unit of 2 is also that antiquated measure. After several harrowing attempts at such spaces, my watchful (and doubtless worried) passengers spotted a space of approx. g+4, and the day was saved. This one was, however, on a not inconsiderable incline, which added a whole new dimension of fear. That should be a summer blockbuster horror movie: Parallel Parking: This summer, a whole new dimension of fear.

At any rate, Holocene, whose music we had previously determined to be produced first by a euro-dance band and secondly by worldbeat DJs, charged us a very reasonable $4 cover, and was decidedly pleasant. The rooms were lofty and white-walled, giving a feeling of space that is, I understand, rather uncommon in the sardine world of nightclubs. There was a room for sitting around, and a room for dancing. This innovation I applaud most highly, as it encourages people to choose one, and not sit around whilst waiting for someone else to start with the dancing. Also, they had introduced the concept of a ventilated smoke room for the vile cancerous poisoners—I mean, for the people with diff’rent lifestyle choices from me - to enjoy their accelerated death rate withal. I smelled the miasma but once during the whole evening. Thus far we have solved or at least addressed Felicity’s Two Fears of Clubbing: Smoke, partitioned from me and my aerobic exercise; Music, both pleasant and easily ascertained via phone call.

The music was, indeed, quite nice. The band had already packed up, and a South Asian DJ was spinning music primarily of an Indian bent - in fact, when I watched Bend it like Beckham last night, I recognized one of the songs - but also Caribbean and African in flavor. No one made any attempts on my person, and a good time was had by all. It is worth noting that the electric feeling in one’s sinews one feels from really primally appealing music - that feeling that if there were room enough and time, one would dance forever and ever—is in fact, bosh. Especially after breathing in people’s cancer-spew, the body cannot stand more than ten or fifteen minutes without a break, a cold surface to lean against, and a drink of water. I’m sure, however, that if I keep on going on these expeditions, my body will begin to keep better pace with my dancing heart.