FIVE! Kinda.

It was not the dreadful day I anticipated at school. The secretary-who-isn't must have some sort of multiple personality thing going on. She's extremely pleasant face to face, delightful to chat with; it's only behind my back that she turns into a witch. But she was in front of my face all day today, so, no angst.

Otherwise, things are quiet. R wasn't feeling well for a few days so I was anxious to hear how she was this evening. She often calls me on her walk home from the train, which is now about three minutes long, but she's kind enough to keep talking after she gets inside. Anyway, she's feeling better.

K is going to the movies tonight with a friend, which is major news here because she has so few friends in this area anymore and rarely gets the chance to go out or do anything. So I'm very happy for her. This is actually more someone who is a good friend of one of K's best friends (if that makes any sense), both of whom are guys, so although I doubt anyone sees this as a date, she is getting to go to the movies in an evening with a guy friend. Since he still lives here, maybe they can hang out together more in future. A nice boy, I knew him when he was at the high school.

The RSS feeder thing is taking on a life of its own. I turned the SCM onto it today (tomorrow I'm going to teach him how to use more than one open tab in the browser.) R and I are now trading feeds back and forth.

Okay, short and sweet today. I fell asleep on the couch last night at 7.30, woke up around 9.00 and was up for a couple of hours, mostly shivering cold the whole time. No idea why. But I could fall asleep again any minute here. Best finish my posting and such so I'll be ready when the collapse comes.


watching MASH :: entry #1496

Where Can I Even Start?

At the punchline, I guess: my good ear is down again. It isn't even scary at this point -- three times in a month -- just annoying. It's not going to kill me, but it's going to annoy me until I die.

I'll spare you the details except to say I had it this morning, it got better by the time I was sitting in the doctor's office at 10.00, and it got much, much worse after school. The sibilant ear noise is drowning out most other sound, or distorting it. The doctor is puzzled, curious, and stumped. Oh, good. For now, we're trying more antihistamines, which will, in his words, knock me flat on my ass. I really don't think it's more than allergies. It got very active when the pollen got bad, and otherwise hadn't bothered me for a year or two, I think. The prednisone helps, which means it's some kind inflammation, and not another tumor or a blood clot (one of Harry Katz's possible theories).

Voices and sounds are strange and distorted. The laugh track on a TV show sounds like somebody guzzling up the last drops of a drink through a straw. Eeuw.

In other news, I picked up my hearing aids after school. Ironic, isn't it? I can't even try them out until this other thing clears up.

Although I'm okay now, I was very bummed by this and other surrounding crap this afternoon. K was in a bad mood, which is never pleasant for me. I understand why and all, but please. Do not take your moods out on your mother when you are 23 years old. (Oooh, there's something coming back to haunt me. Sorry, Shirl, really.) I won't even go into all the other nonsense going on; I don't even know if I can recall it all. But I'm better.

I had dinner last night with E and the Chum, and I really, really loved seeing E. (I generally only see her once or twice a year.) But she's checking her email regularly now, and we've already emailed today, so I'm hopeful for seeing her more. She is the one person in my 3D world that I would give full access to my diary and archives. I don't know if she'd want it, and I wouldn't want anyone else stumbling across it on her computer, but I would. Hopefully, we'll get together more this summer.

BTW, I have to say: I LOVE GOOGLE READER. Google Reader is changing my life, folks, or at least, the way I use the Internet. It's da bomb. Thank you, thank you, bluesleepy, for suggesting it, and golfwidow for giving me the final piece of the puzzle.

I believe I am going to put a Google Groups notify box up in a day or two, and take off the blogarithm thing that's there. I think I can do the GG and keep it up, but I'm still testing it out.

My mouse died this afternoon (prompting K to ask if I hate meeces to pieces), but after a few reboots and resets, I got it going again, and got the computer to recognize the bluetooth. I must say, this is the most trouble I've ever had with the Mac. Love this thing. And I shop at Ikea, too, Jane! (But I don't wear Pumas. So there.)

And now, a fond good-night. I have points-worth of snacks to consume before I sleep (should that ever occur.)

watching Reba :: entry #1487

Wait. IT GETS BETTER.

The wonderful golfwidow left this news in my comments:

It CAN work for Diaryland, if you enter the link manually as follows:

http://chailife.diaryland.com/index.rss

replacing "chailife" with the name of the diarist in question.

You won't get the full entry, because the RSS file doesn't generate it right (thanks again, Andrew) but you don't have to log into Diaryland to read people's diaries.

The only problem is that RSS files are not generated for locked diaries, so you might still want to log into D'Land to see if they updated. Me, I just add locked diaries to my browser's Favorites and check them manually, since D'Land doesn't let me comment on them anyway.

SO THERE YA GO!

So now, I am adding dlanders to my brandy-new Google Reader page, which I have courtesy of bluesleepy telling us all what a good idea it is, and when I get to be brave enough -- maybe in a week? -- I will actually take everyone off my dland buddies list except the locked up people. I'll work that way for now, I think. For now, I'm still going to post a link there when I update here (so I'll be red on your buddies list), but I'm also looking into using Google Groups as a mailing list. The one or two of you who'll remember my notify list disaster know I need to make this as simple as possible for me, because when I tried a notify list, I just never remembered to send out whatever it was I had to send. I need something automatic, which that blogarithm thing that I have there is, sort of, except it only updates once a day, which is a pain in the neck.

Okay, so what else can I tell you today? I was busy at work, which is good, and I wasn't itchy, but I was very, very tired. I just can't fall asleep until midnight, which is great if you can sleep til 8.00, like on a Sunday, but sucky if your alarm goes off at 5.15. Three weeks to go.

I went to pick up some prescriptions today after school, and the lady who works there, whose kids were in school with my kids so I know her forever, asked if I had plans for the summer. And I said, I plan to practice for retirement. *sigh*

Okay. Diaries to add to Reader. Group to create. Food blog to bitch in. Check.

watching The Simpsons :: entry #1485

Google Reader as a Buddy LIst

All hail Bluesleepy!

Thank you!

She has figured out how we are all going to stay informed about who's updated, even for those of us who've left dland. In brief:

1. Go to google.com/reader.
2. Log in to your google (gmail) account, or create one, if you need to.
3. Click the Add Subscription button.
4. Put in the URL of one of your non-dland diaries that you read, like mine.
5. Wash, rinse, repeat.

You'll end up with a list of the diaries you read, and it will show you how many of the recent entries you haven't read yet. On this first day, you may want to click that you've read all the entries for each of the diaries. From now on, keep this page open in a separate tab or window, and whenever you refresh the page, you'll see which diary has a new post for you to read.

It won't work for dland, but we still have our red links on the buddy page for that.

Good luck! It took me a few minutes to figure it out, and I still have tinkering to do, but it looks like a good option. (I also like that I can check for updates at work without being logged in to dland!)

watching Batman :: entry #1483