seattlejo.com

This weekend there was discussion of the mythical beingness of the Deb. It’s not the first time its happened and here is how it works.

My significant other goes to an event or three without me, talks about me  and promises to his friends that someday they’ll get to meet me. In the meantime I am  scheduled up to here with work, school, and my own interests. It’s never that I don’t  want to meet his friends, its just that I  balance my schedule so carefully,  that there isn’t always time.  But thats not the  only reason. 

How Deb approaches relationships  (Part one)

Over the past 30 some odd years I’ve become and independent critter*. This is not meant to diminish my relationships, but rather enhance them. Instead of maintaining a life where I am socially dependent on my loved ones, I maintain my own pursuits  sharing with them when they overlap,  and sharing stories about it when they don’t. We have complementary interests and a great respect for the things the other likes. In  none of my relationships do I get packaged up as kit and caboodle going everywhere my partner wants doing everything they want to do and  I never assume that out of them either. And it works.   One of the reasons I think it works, is that my partners are attracted to me for who I am, and not who I could be.  They are interested in the Deb that knits, writes, reads, spends time on the internet, blogs, and so on. They werent attracted to me because I’m the person who could go to X, Y. or Z with them. They recognize me for who I am and love me anyway.

So thats why Deb is a mythological beast and why  you may see my partners out and social without me

*Save for one co-dependent relationship with my cat

Photo by Booleansplit
Happy Easter to all. Much to my Pastor’s chagrin I’m not at church today, and actually haven’t been in far to long.

(To the point that I got asked for my new address, when I supplied it, they asked if I want to still be considered part of the congregation. I’m conflicted about that. After all would I have changed my address if I didnt want to be?)

Anyway, Easter is low key here. Aron is out of town, Patrick is at Norwescon, Miss Bit and I are off to the Fremont Sunday fair (and to Theo for a chocolate tour, if they are open) Later I think I’ll post about what Easter was like as a kid and why I’m craving poundcake and coconut now.

So I have this hobby that I’m returning to. Historical recreation through the SCA.  Since I’m returning from a 6 year hiatus I decided to start from scratch with a new identity (persona). This has involved some research. Picking a location, choosing a name and a general time period. Now I’m ready to dig into the dirt and get some real details. Who is my persona? What does she do? What is the land around her like? What hobbies does she do? And so on and so on. 

Its been a while since I’ve done much heavy research and I decided that I might want to have resources from other places then the internet.  Since I was at work I decided to ask for some help from the 24/7 librarian chat line.
Here is the chat log:

Patron: I need information on daily living and trade routes for germany in the years 1500-1550 What sources can i use?

Librarian 1: I was just reading your question. Give me a few minutes to find the information.

Librarian 1: I found a website with many links would you like something like that.

Patron: thats a nice start.

Librarian 1: O.K. I will send it to you in a few moments.

Librarian 1: Here is one. http://www.curiousfrau.com/Articles/intro_costuming.htm <— Introduction to costuming. Nice resource not much on trade  but clothing is part of daily life (and she does have  a nice bibliography.

Librarian 1: I will send you anotherin a few moments.

Librarian 1: Here is another one.    http://mmcnealy.livejournal.com/tag/research <—— Livejournal for the girl who did the above website

Patron: Hmm. I was hoping for something more research oriented, not so “blog oriented”  Actual books and scholarly journals?

Librarian 1: O.K. what library do you use and where is this?

Patron: I use the Seattle Public Library and the University of Washington Library <—- Fantastic research institution.

Librarian 1: O.K. let me check there catalog.

Librarian 1: I’m still checking.

Patron: ok

Librarian 1: I’m not finding much in the catalogs. <—-- See Seattlejo boggle

At that point I got snarky  and said

Patron: I guess people didn’t research the  renaissance   before the internet.  Thats too bad.

Patron: Thanks for helping. I think I’ll check in with another library to see if they still have real books.

Did i overreact ? Probably.  Perhaps I should have been more clear initially that I was looking for non webbed resources, but it boggles me that the librarian couldn’t locate anything in either catalog that would help me. I  guess I should have said “What from your catalog would you recommend to someone in my position” After all this librarian was in Houston. I’ve got resources to find books, so its not a big deal if I  have to do my own searching.  I got an email from  the history librarian at the Seattle Public Library with some resources, both books and journals and now have  a good star, but really not even  able to suggest a single source offline? Suggesting someone’s blog ? Am I expecting too much?

Remember the Sansa e250 I reccomended?
Well it’s big brother the e260 is on sale at woot. $42.00 plus $5 shipping.  Its the same as i have just twice the memory.

I’d love to get one myself but its not in the cards today.

—-

In other words, I’m addicted to woot! This is Sunnie’s fault  . (Of course) First it started with her please for a roomba. I helped her out , seeing as i was at a computer and she was not.   That gave me a key to the site. I began checking the  regular woots as well as the T-Shirts. You see each day they offer a shirt that is $10 including shipping. Sometimes the design is nifty and appeals to me,(I’ve been sunk by this one, this one   this one and this one) other times it’s  just not something I would wear.

Each week they do a design contest  (called a Derby) and the top three winners  get to see their shirts made and make some money from it too. Here you vote for the ones you like and get caught up in the excitement hoping the ones you want will win.

All in all, not much wrong with a $10 t-shirt.

I have an ipod. well no, I have 3 ipods. A shuffle, a nonfunctional mini, and a nano. So getting another MP3 player wasnt high on my list of priorities. Playing movies? Eh no need. More storage? No not really. I was surfing around ebay looking for a deal on an ipod as a gift for someone, and it struck me that Ipods are not the only MP3 device out there. I switched over my search and began looking at the other options.

Hmm playing subscription music from Rhapsody. Now thats a feature I could use. You see I’ve had a Rhapsody.com account since the middle of 2001. I’ve subscribed and unsubscribed a handful of times in the end always coming back to my saved play lists. By purchasing the right player, upgrading my account to pay $2 a month, I could take these play lists with me.

Enter the Sansa e250.

This little 2 gig player cost me a total of $50 including shipping. It has a color display,  plays video, plays music and has FM radio ** It took a little bit of doing to get it to sync the first time, and its slow loading music, but its more then worth it to have my  playlists  available to go and not have to buy these songs.

** FM radio prompted the following conversation

Me: It’s amazing. Radio is a playlist of songs I dont own!

Girlfriend : WOW! Thats shocking

Boyfriend : Someone should tell the record companies about that, that must be illegal

I’ve signed up for daily lit in an effort to add a little literature  to my day. I signed up for Pride and Prejudice  and Little Women initially and have been enjoying the daily installments.

 Except that I had never read all of Little Women.     Little Women is one of those novels that you  get to read all the time growing up. I know that I had at least a copy  at home  and   got to read it at school at least a handful of times and yet I missed the whole story.  Evidently there are two parts to the novel, one  published in 1868 and one in 1869. The first section ends with Robert March, the girls father coming home. The story evidently continues on from there and  encompasses marriages and deaths and even children being born.  I don’t know how I missed this!
It’s not  like I didnt enjoy the story, I know that I returned to it over and over again I’m just baffled that I somehow missed half the story.

Am I the only one?