Dangermond.org

We read a list of how to make your technological life saner – one was to back up all your photos to a site like Picasa, another one was to use DropBox to also back up documents, and other notes such as these – as we all know – or at least I do – the digital world can be so, oh how do you say, tenuous. Interestingly enough, I’ve been waiting for my property tax bill only to learn today I’m going to have to wait because the database with all the real estate in New Orleans got corrupted and they have been using a Back Up company to try to retrieve all the data and I think as of today only they were supposed to have recovered most of it. So all real estate transactions were put on hold since October, costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, and everyone waiting for closure on real estate has been on hold. I don’t mind if they never send me my property taxes but now I cannot write them off of my 2010 taxes.

Put your data in the clouds – devices are just not that trustworthy anymore.

The ancient Babylonians believed that what a person does on the first day of the new year will affect what they do throughout the year. The tradition of New Year’s Day resolutions can be traced to this belief.

Not only was I having a rough start to the new year, but so were birds (remember the conversation yesterday outside my window? Where here is what they were talking about – 2000 dead birds fell out of the sky in Arkansas yesterday – you heard!) in a neighboring state – the culprit blunt trauma to their inner organs. Poltergeist? Perhaps, or the news is explaining it as possibly lightening or hail. So if indeed these 2000 dead birds portend anything, it is that there is more airspace in Arkansas for these biddies who were on the wire here in New Orleans.

I repeat, I’m not paranoid.

All Europeans are frightened to death of drafts. Here the myth of drafts is debunked in the Huffington Post:

Get cold, and you’ll catch a cold
It must be true because your mother always said so. Right?

The Truth: Mom was wrong. “Chilling doesn’t hurt your immunity, unless you’re so cold that your body defenses are destroyed — and that only occurs during hypothermia,” Vreeman says. “And you can’t get a cold unless you’re exposed to a virus that causes a cold.”

The reason people get more colds in the winter isn’t because of the temperature, but it may be a result of being cooped up in closed spaces and exposed to the spray of cold viruses.

My 8 year old neighbor came by today to bring a holiday gift for Tin. They had been up north during the holidays seeing relatives. I asked her if she was happy to be back at school and she just smiled thinly and said, “Ah, no.”

My 61 year old neighbor came by today to bring me some Prilosec – this old mare ain’t what she used to be – and she is going back to work tomorrow after being off for several weeks for the holidays. I asked her if she was dreading it and she said, “Ah, yes.”

It’s Monday, the first Monday of 2011 and it feels like every Monday I have known since I started school. Why would I expect it would be different today than it has been for over four decades?

The only good thing about Monday is that the next day is Tuesday.

There are 18 birds sitting on the wire outside my window and they haven’t moved for a while. They appear to be talking to each other. Every few minutes one flies into a new spot and another flies into the spot it vacated.

Do you ever feel like you’re having one of those days where you are seeking meaning in the nuances of the day. This morning, as the dogs and I came upon a gaggle of geese, I wondered why they chose to come out of the water where people and dogs walk and then go screaming back into the water. How many times had they done this already? Similarly, a friend wrote about my first love, “he was never at peace with himself” and I thought to myself, yeah, you’re right, but so? Later, I needed a new A-Z folder for my 2011 expenses and wound up cleaning out one from 2006 (since those receipts are older than three years), that year, strung together by expenditures, reappeared before me like the ghost of apocalypse past – was this to remind me that after 2005-06, any other obstacle may now be viewed as surmountable? The postman brought a holiday card with my niece’s four children all leaning on a fencepost, their cute little bottoms on display; I flipped the card over and didn’t recognize my niece – she has grown into a beauty. Did the card come today to make me smile?

What are those birds doing out there on the wire and what are they discussing? Do they have a message for me today? Tweet, tweet or is it Tweet Fucking Tweet. Hard to say.

Why do I keep getting spammed by the same people – Yoshi Blade, Elvis Currency,  Blowout Auctions – who are these people and is it possible that anyone in their right mind responds to Yoshi-Blade? Seriously?

The year has not kicked off in a groovy way and I hope it is no indication of how 2011 will play out. This morning my first love of my life died.

A friend emailed that her cousin, a single mother with an 11 year old daughter, was found beaten to death in her house while the daughter was out.

I need to re-smudge the house.

It is all in the mind, you say, and has
nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold,
the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world.
You take my arm and say something will happen,
something unusual for which we were always prepared,
like the sun arriving after a day in Asia,
like the moon departing after a night with us.

I just did my budget for the new year and I’m in the red. Nothing like starting off in a hole to get you motivated to shake things up for the rest of the year, huh?

Well, I decided midway last year to practice nonattachment to my weight and exercise and began doing only what I wanted to do – which led me to more yoga, more walks, and less cardio and weights. So now having seen the collateral damage of that decision, I’ve decided to flip flop my exercise schedule to five days of cardio and two days of yoga instead. And you know what – that works for me. I need the yoga, no doubt – the balance, the stretching, the repetition of yoga norms in my thinking – are all beneficial, but I need to get my heart rate up and I need to life weights because I’m encouraging my body to help me go easy into this autumn of my life.

Plus with my resolution to not buy clothes – I have no choice but to attack the center and reacquaint myself with the beautiful clothes hanging in my closet.