"You have a beautiful rack" - BeC

Lesson #822 in Communication

There are some word easily confused due to same spelling, pronunciation, etc. A homonym, if you will. “Rack” is one of these words, a homonym, and I actually think it’s a homograph and a homophone – a word that’s spelled and pronounced the same way, but means different things. There’s the English teacher in me coming out.

BeC was referring to a rack on which I hang my scarves and purses, and it is indeed lovely, but sometimes our culture uses the word rack to refer to other things one might not mention in company of those whom you don’t know very well. Well, you might talk about it in the abstract, but probably not refer to a specific set.

Anyway, there’s about 18 different meanings to “rack,” from an instrument of torture, to a pair of antlers, etc…. An easy way to clear up potential confusion would be to say “hat rack” or “scarf rack” or put some adjective in front of the noun so people know what I’m referring to.

It is a lovely scarf rack.

"And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time....

then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire."

- Milton, Office Space

I think my desk moved for the last time today. Well, the last time in the foreseeable future, anyway. Which was lovely because I got to put up posters and poems from my friends Sarah and Becky, and feel a little more grounded in the reality that is my life, and enjoy the fact that I have a whole wall of windows... I think the next time I think about moving homes during a time when I'm moving offices, a kind friend should point out to me that this is not a good idea.

"Do they roll the yolk away?" - Pink Floyd*

Sis is a nanny, and at her kids’ house, they do these things with Resurrection Eggs, for Easter. Apparently there’s eggs that come apart that have things like miniature palm branches, a stone, a cross, etc. I guess it’s important to teach kids about these things, and eggs might do the trick in a pinch, but it’s also kinda weird, like the commercialization of Christmas and other religious holidays.

*Pink Floyd my brother, not to be confused with the band.

"What are we having besides lamb" - Gretzky

"Well, we've also got a ham." - Dad

"He means a turkey." - Mom


Some things never change, and this is why it's good to visit home sometimes. My dad will always yell up the stairs if there's a phone call, "Daughter! The phone's for you." He's got this great deep booming voice, and you can hear it even if you're upstairs in the back with the door closed.

Also, he will always think that if I'm asking about the food we're serving tomorrow at Easter dinner, I must of course be talking about the meat. And then, while Mom and I go shopping to get the asparagus, he will also go to the store to get asparagus since he forgot.

I'm sure this says something profound about our family's communication style, but I'm not sure what yet.

hey peeps....

In preparation for Sunday's easter celebration with the fam, I've been doing some research on peeps and what people do with them. This is not for that faint of heart - I was envisioning something small, like blowing them up in the microwave and molding the resulting mess into something cool. Turns out you can do far greater things.

note bene blog

N.B. Just in case you were wondering, the ants are dying. I think this is more due to the chemicals than the cinnamon and bay leaves, honestly.

N.B. 2 I learned too late Saul Williams was at neumos last night and I missed him!!

N.B. 3 Change might be inevitable, but I'm sick of moving.

"the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah..."

This morning I was unpleasantly surprised to see some dark spots on my counter that turned out to be a swarm of ants trekking across the top of the dishwasher. Since there’s no food on my counter and very little in my cupboards, I was concerned about the advent of said ants.

It turns out there’s a lot of ways to get rid of ants. I’ve done some research and I’m going with a three-pronged approach: the Terro method, which worked well in a previous home infestation, accompanied by cinnamon and bay leaves. I like the idea of baiting individual ants who take the poison back to their colony to infiltrate and die. Also, cinnamon and bay leaves seem like such nice alternatives to chemicals and they probably can’t hurt.

move it, move it...

Since moving has now taken over my life both at work and at home, I've had this song in my head.




I don't actually like to move it, as it turns out, but it's always helpful to stay positive when life throws you transition times. Isn't that such a great phrase? Transition times? As in, I don't really know what the hell is going to happen in two days, wait, actually in two minutes, but what the heck....Grandpa said today his plans never work out the way he expects, and this was comforting to me since he generally appears to know what he's doing.


Kudos to Dad, Dale, Floyd, Mom, Rachel, and Siri for helping move large inanimate objects today. Esp. Dale and Dad for the couch.

"I am the kind of person who falls asleep with their mouth open on planes." - Cab

I told Cab she might sit next to a hot guy on the plane going home, and this was her response.

I don't think I've ever sat next to anyone remotely attractive on a plane ride. Wait, I take that back. I sat next to a kid who was studying aeronautical engineering. He was one of the most single-minded people I've ever run into, and I found this attractive. The green eyes helped. But clearly he was about 17, and way too young.

Sam, 1:10 p.m. "I think I lost the 3 hole punch."

2:20 p.m.: "I think I lost the 3 hole punch."

4:00 p.m.: "I found the 3 hole punch! It was under the book boxes in the library section!"

You've gotta love an office manager who's so dedicated she looks for our single 3 hold punch amidst the pile of book boxes. (I would not venture into this stack of things unless explicitly ordered to.)

Lesson #658: Moving offices is overrated.

"I don't want to eat an animal that doesn't have a soul, and I decided a long time ago that cloned animals don't have souls." - Rhealyn

Cloned food is not a very appealing thought to me, but I guess some folks don't care.

“That common cold of the male psyche, fear of commitment.” - Richard Schickel

(I don't think fear of commitment is actually a male problem. I think it might be more of a female issue, actually.)

I signed a lease today and inwardly freaked out and rejoiced intermittently. My anti-commitment voice, the one that's always telling me to pack up and move to Singapore, didn't want me to sign. And the calm, soothing peaceful voice was layered over it, saying, of course you want this fantastic place, it's perfect. Don't question it. It's fate.

A lot of things that led to the acquisition of this apartment lead me to believe it is in fact fated to be, so I'm not questioning that peaceful voice. It's just the anti-commitment piece of me is so strong at times it drowns out the other voices.

I'm pretty much against long-term commitments. I mean, in theory, they're great. In practice, however, I don't really know how they work. I look at things like my parents' 30 year marriage, or at Olivia Williams, teaching for 30 years in the same school, and I marvel at the level of commitment and single-minded determination required to even just wake up in the morning and do such things.

I don't know if I know how to do that kind of commitment. But a year-long lease should be okay.

"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." ~Maya Angelou

My friend Becca married this guy Trace, and he played a show tonight at the Triple Door, which I had never been to but am going back to stat.

First of all, I love places where you can eat good food and listen to music at the same time. Second of all, it's classy, and in this town, we need some classy venues. Seattle is more known for sloppiness than class. Thirdly, they pick good music that's often flying under the radar.

I tell people Trace is a guitar player and they kind of shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes, or say anyone can play guitar, but when I say this guy can play guitar, I mean this guy can play guitar.

"I thought about buying him a Mercedes Benz for his birthday, but he's pretty attached to his pickup truck." -Grandpa

Yesterday we celebrated my dad's birthday at the greatest little Italian place in Seattle: Mt. Baker's That's Amore, which is never crowded, has a fantastic view of the city and the Olympics, and everything tastes good. No matter what you order.

Conversation ranged from my date campaign ("You shouldn't eat that chocolate if you're planning on dates anytime soon" - Grandpa) to politics ("I still love you daughter, even though you're voting for Obama" - Dad) to sports ("Seattle's a bandwagon town."- my cousin Danny).

Mom: What does that mean?

Danny: It means that when they play like crap, they don't got fans. A Cubs fan is a Cubs fan until they die.

But some Seattle fans aren't just bandwagon fans. My friend Andrew is pretty passionate about the Sonics, and he's been writing the governor. He'd like you to join his campaign: contact the governor about the Sonics' importance to our state.

So would Bill Simmons, he just wrote his longest column ever about the travesty...

And Save Our Sonics has this alert out today about calling the legislature before the 13th, when the legislative session ends.

My dad loves the Sonics. He's been a fan since we moved here in 1981. Give him a good birthday gift and write the governor or call the legislature.

"You've Got to Watch the Wire" - Scott Blaszak

As if we need more reason to watch. But the finale's tomorrow night. I'm about to catch up on the last three episodes. I intentionally missed them, wanting to avoid the fact that the end is near and my favorite characters of all time will no longer be coming back...Tomorrow night's the end. I'm thinking about taking up smoking.

"I knew who I was when I woke up this morning, but I'm sure I must have changed several times since then." --Alice in Wonderland

Moving is over-rated. Especially at work.

People’s personalities come out when you move, and you learn what’s really important to them.

For example, it’s really important to one person that the table we eat lunch at is set up, even though there are no chairs, and it’s behind a bunch of boxes with no kitchen access. There is a table set up in another location with a kitchen, garbage can, and everything you would need to eat lunch together. So I’m personally not sure why we need another table set up behind boxes, but for some reason it’s important.

Another thing that happens when you move with a lot of people is that your individual stuff gets mixed up with communal stuff and if there’s very little organization or thought put into who’s doing what, it gets messy. Not just messy with stuff all over the place, but messy with people. It turns out that the offices which were supposed to hold two people actually only hold one, and all those folks who were going to share needed to be reshuffled, and flexibility has been key this week. Call me Miss Elastic…I didn’t do a good job of it yesterday, but I’m trying to today. I still get to sit by my favorite co-worker, and we now get to look out at what we think might be one of the hottest drug corners in Seattle. And downtown, to our right. It’s a pretty good view. Also, I’m right next to the back door, so I can sneak in and out if I want to. And the water cooler, so I’ll stay hydrated. Perfect.

On an entirely different note, when you are moving, carbohydrates are a good thing to have around. I ‘ve eaten 4 doughnuts and 3 girl scout peanut butter cookies today. I feel a little sick, but if could also be the fluorescent lighting.

Definition of Move #2: To transfer (a piece or man) from one space or position to another, according to the rules of the game; as, to move a king.

"Fuck." - Gretzky

"That's definitely swear-worthy." - My boss


Today my office moved locations, to next door. You might think this would be a simple endeavor, but I am learning that what I think should be simple is often complicated. In the midst of taking down bulletin boards and moving various office equipment that for some reason didn't get moved when the actual movers were here, and after drinking about a thousand nalgenes full of water, I realized I had to go to the bathroom and discovered they were locked. That's right, both of them, normally open, locked. And the keys were in a box somewhere, in the bottom of a pile of boxes marked office supplies.

I almost had to go across the street to Parnell's, and if you know Parnell's, you know why this might not be a good idea....so it's good I found the keys and made it back to the bathroom, only to discover that the lock wasn't working. This is where my well-placed "fuck" came in. Thankfully the other bathroom door opened, and I made it. Next time I won't wait so long. I probably should have learned this in kindergarten.

By the way, if you haven't seen the scene in the Wire, Season One, where Jimmy and Bunk review a crime scene only using the eff word, it's pretty fascinating.


(Also, the 28 dates in 2008 campaign is under way, and Courtney is well on her way, one of the movers got her number.)

"I changed my headline on match.com....

to "I'm probably not the one you think you're looking for."

"While this might not seem particularly optimistic, I feel like it's better to be upfront about some things. Gotta keep it real, right? I'm not saying "I'm probably not the one for you," I'm saying "I'm probably not what you think you want." Which is true. I have no idea how or where to get a bikini wax but I can name at least 5 foreign heads of state. "

- Laura, in an e-mail today @ 10 p.m.


Laura is my good friend who loves good books, knows pretty much every song from every musical ever performed, and also happens to be hysterically funny.

"that raised a pink flag for me...you know, not quite red" - sherrie

I got to be part of an interview panel today. It was an enlightening experience being on the other side of the table. One person used the word "I" about 73 times, and this raised some flags...According to wikipedia, red flag raising comes from when an army would use one to warn civilians of live fire coming toward them. Glen noted that the use of "I" might be past regular red, potentially burgandy or maroon.

bicycle dating

I was asking a colleague for dating advice today, because I think the last time I went on a date was in November, it was disastrous, and I'm kinda rusty. If anyone's up for practice dating with me, feel free to e-mail. Anyway, Jackie said it was just like riding a bike, you never forget how. I must have looked at her funny, because she said, "You know, ride on the handlebars for a while if that helps." I'm not sure what this means, but Glen's contribution was to "use hand signals in heavy traffic." Since I'm not even in sparse traffic, I don't think I'll need any hand signals, but i'll keep it in mind.

"A time comes when silence is a betrayal..." MLK

Shai sent me this the other day, about Barack and the end of racism and I didn't have a chance to read it til now. Don't know what I think, but it's definitely provocative and makes me wonder about how much power we let this construct of race have.

This could be tangential, but Santos reminds me of what Efrem Smith talked about when I heard him speak on Saturday: The white church might accept people of color, but not as authoritative theologians: Do we read Watchman Nee? Do we know who Rene Rochester is, or Vashti McKenzie, and see their contributions?

"I don't like the word Christian. Christendom is even harder...it's empire language..

I know about that because I'm English. You know about that if you're honest, because you're American." - Mark


More thoughts coming from the new conspirators conference, but that one around the language we use as followers of Jesus has been percolating...