The Living Crowd

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  steph 7:38 pm on February 8, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  Last year, I when I started falling in love with running, I signed up for the Indy mini – a half marathon, this coming May.  They had a series of training races leading up to the mini – a 5k, a 10k, and a 15k, so I signed up for them too, figuring that they’d be a good way to keep myself on track.

  Then, along came my surgery.  Not that it means I won’t be able to do the mini, but it definitely threw my training schedule off.  That wouldn’t be a big deal for a more experienced runner, but building up to 13 miles for an amateur means some planning and some work.  But I figured it would be ok anyway – worst case, I’ll just have to walk part of it.

  The 5K is next Saturday.  Now of course when my surgery was scheduled for December, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to run it.  The doc told me that I wouldn’t be able to run for at least a month, and it ended up being six weeks off.  Obviously there’s no way.

  But I had this thing in the back of my mind that I was going to try it.  I mean, how much could I really lose in six weeks?  Seems like I ought to be able to get back on the horse pretty quickly.  If I was well enough to run, I ought to be well enough to run three miles, right?

  But I kept my mouth shut about it, because I knew my husband would think I’d lost my mind.  I just THOUGHT about it, and kept planning for it.

  So, last week, the doc finally released me., and I ran for the first time over the weekend.  OK, now I have to accept it.  There’s no way I’m going to be up for the 5K on Saturday.  I can barely manage a mile and a half, and it wiped me out.  There’s no point in going out there for a fun I’m not ready for and maybe getting myself hurt.

  So why am I so disappointed?  I dunno.  It was a pretty dumb idea anyway, and I KNEW I wasn’t likely to be back that quickly, but I’m still disappointed.  Wah.

   
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  steph 5:54 pm on February 8, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  1.5 miles, 23:30 treadmill.  I won’t bother to complain again.  Blech.

   
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  steph 1:51 pm on February 6, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  3.0 miles, 46 minutes, treadmill

  Yeah, ok, that’s flatly dismal, but then I’ve been off for two months.  It’s just going to take a while to get moving again.

   
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  steph 4:34 pm on February 5, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  The doc has finally given me a clean bill of health, despite my hard headedness about doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.  I can start running again, run the vacuum cleaner, you know, generally have my life back.  Most importantly, woooo hooooo is back on the menu.  I have not suffered that particular restriction graciously.

  I applied for a new job today.  Not that I don’t like the one I have, but as I’ve mentioned before, it’s terminally limited and I still consider myself a bit young, at 50, to have reached terminal rank.  The position is a team lead – and yeah, I know all about how freakin’ miserable team lead positions are, having been one, but it’s the next place I need to go.  And, it’s in an interesting business, and still inside the VLC I work for and like a LOT.  We shall see, but it’s a job I could get excited about, although I’m not excited about leaving my current boss and position.

  But even my boss is looking.  If I’m too young to retire on duty, she’s WAY too young.  And she’s ambitious and there’s nowhere to go in her current position unless someone dies.  Blech.  I could at least go laterally if I wanted to, but she’s trapped.

  I’m watching Wall Street these days with some amusement, as stocks wander around seeking some new level.  I’m predicting that as went January, so shall go the year.  Personally, I wouldn’t be shocked if we closed under 8,000 in 2010, but I’m a pessimist, or so I’ve been told.  Try though I do, I just don’t see many upsides in current economic conditions.  And so I”m torn about bothering to leave my job for another one.  Frankly, if the market actually crashed another couple of thousand points, I doubt there’d be any job to go to, for either Jim or I.  IT isn’t a profit center for most companies.  Not that the market itself IS the economy, but I think what might trigger a market crash – a real crash, not this whiny crap we’ve seen the last couple of years – would be a true economic crash, in which literally all bets would be off.  I fight the urge daily to buy more ammunition, because yes, I think it could be THAT bad.  It’s a house of cards, my friends, and winds of change are gonna blow.

  In other news, it’s snowing like hell here, and likely to snow a bunch more tonight, but my husband is home, the koshari is simmering, the nan is hot and ready to eat, and for tomorrow there are a couple of steaks in the fridge.  I’m sipping a glass of merlot while my husband solves just one more stupid thing for the VLB he contracts to before calling it a weekend.  Then, we’re going to watch it snow and have a nice, quiet weekend celebrating my successful recovery from surgery and making sure all the parts still work.  Life is good, my friends.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

   
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  Jane 3:52 pm on February 2, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  Tags: budget (2), Debt (2), health care (7), Nancy Pelosi (3), Scott Brown (2), SOTU, Virginia, You Too Congress

  Today’s show was really fun. I had expected to interview Jay Fleitman who is running for the republican nomination for the 2nd Congressional District in Massachusetts, but I had the wrong week. So Joe and I just talked politics.

  First we have a new theme song – Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, which has absolutely no relevance to anything but is fun. Secondly I think I’ve got the podcast to 2 segments instead of 4. Let’s hope.

  Joe and I talked Scott Brown, SOTU address, budget, debt, debt and more debt, the Virginia’s legislative victory (democrat) which makes it illegal to mandate health insurance (thus sticking a fork in any hope for resurrecting health care) NASA, Nancy Pelosi and affirmative action.

  Meanwhile, I have a new project with some friends called YOU TOO CONGRESS which you can see here. We are pre-launch while we work out the bugs, but feel free to poke around. Congress gives itself a lot of perks on our dime and excludes itself from a lot of obligations. Our goal is to point those things out, which should lead to voting them out.

  One can hope.

   
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  Debra Hyde 12:11 pm on January 31, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  In my collecting travels and endeavors, I sometimes snap up small pamphlets called “readers.”  A close cousin to the Tijuana Bible, they were essentially dirty short stories, often accompainied by photographs of prostitutes going at it.  I don’t routinely buy readers everytime I see them — they’ve become common enough, thanks to the aggregating nature of eBay and I own dozens of them alread — but when a good deal entices me, I’ll buy them.

  

  Click on graphic for larger image.

  Readers, like their more famous dirty comics kin, were produced by the same publishers who produced erotic book and playing cards.  Cheap to produce and carrying a big profit margin, they were distributed to newsstands, cigar shops, used bookstores, bars and burlesques houses.  First appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, they saw a good thirty-year run before falling away in the face of legal pornography.

  I’m always attracted to any clandestine erotica — and these babies certainly had underground existence — but I’m attracted to readers for more than just their clandestine nature.  First, known curiosa book publishers printed them, namely  Samuel Roth, who fought repeated obscenity charges during his publishing life, and I. R. and Jack Brussel, noted book row jack-of-all-trades, the latter of whom later reprinted the famed three-volume Bibliography of Prohibits Book by Prisaus Fraxi (really Henry S. Ashbee) in 1962.  I’ve also appreciated how, when all else tried to keep people ignorant about sex, these readers at least contributed something to an American’s erotic awareness.

  And, of course, pamphlets in general were often a vehicle of street democracy and sometimes subversive as well.

  But what I like best about readers are their subversion “thrown the authorities off the track” sense of humor.  Their cousin, the Tijuana Bible, were never actually printed in Mexico.  The label was a ruse, a complete fabrication, meant to mislead the authorities.  The same for readers, except they were far more tongue-in-cheek about it.  I mean really:  Humpville Illinois?  Gimme a break.

  

  Click on graphic for larger image.

  Shaftsbury Ave, London? Sure. Whatever.  But the 20 shillings suggest it could’ve been European in origin, perhaps aimed at lonely G.I.s.

  The Havana locale may have been legit.  The exorbitant $5.00 price tag indicates that it was produce late in the readers’ existence.  And the mob was well known for supplying all kinds of forbidden entertainment in Cuba in the years before the rise of Castro.  However, it’s just as likely that Havana, Cuba was nothing more than code.  “Havana” was once short-hand for anything-goes sex.  (See Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, believe it or not. Cleavon Little says as much to Madeline Kahn.)

  You know, maybe that’s another reason I like these little readers.  Maybe it’s because they make the cogs and wheels of my mind turn.  I guess it’s true — the best sex *is* between the ears!

   
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  Jane 9:41 am on January 30, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

   
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  Jane 9:24 am on January 30, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  We started today’s show simply giddy over the Brown victory in Massachusetts. I’ve been smiling for a week and it has been really fun seeing Massachusetts voters so clearly proud of themselves.

  Tom Wesley joined us. Tom is running for the republican nomination for the Congressional seat in MA 2nd District, currently held by Richard Neal. He has a primary opponent, Jay Fleitman who we will interview next week.

  Tom talked about his credentials, his plans for the economy, taxes, health care and terrorism and other issues. If you are in the 2nd District, he is clearly a contender and wants your support early and often. Check it out.

  BTW A few weeks ago Joe Managiacotti replaced Dick Vaughn as my co-host on the show. For obvious reasons the “Fun With Dick and Jane” title is no longer relevant. We don’t really have a new name yet, but apparently we do have theme music!

  This is my first attempt to download the podcast by myself, and for some reason it is in 4 parts. So persevere.

  Finally I’m involved in a new project with some friends. Check it out here.

   
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  Roger Benningfield 3:52 pm on January 26, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  Tags: iphone, mophie

  I’ve mentioned before that I love my iPhone. Smartphones with hardware keyboards are harder for me to use because the fine muscle control required to push down firmly on a tiny nub makes my hands shake even worse than usual. The iPhones tap-and-swipe interface, on the other hand, makes things relatively easy… no pressure == less muscular activity == less shaking.

  But there’s always been one nagging issue with the iPhone, relative to my tremor: its size. The thing, lightweight form factor that everyone else loves so much turns my hand into a trembling, shivering claw when I try to use it one-handed. It probably seems counter-intuitive to people without ET –especially in light of what I just said about muscle activity– but when it comes to holding stuff, small, delicate items are a real pain in the ass. Most of us take for granted how much control it takes to hold something gently until you wake up one day and “gently” has become a matter of concentration.

  Anyway… for reasons having nothing to do with ET, I picked up a Mophie Juicepack Air the other day. It’s a case/battery-pack combo that doubles the battery life of the iPhone while also providing it with a bit of protection. I’m constantly letting my phone run low, and I already had it in a semi-bulky case anyway, so I figured it’d be worth it.

  What I didn’t realize is that, by doubling the thickness of the device and adding several ounces of battery and plastic to my phone, the whole thing would become so much more comfortable to use. Yeah, it’s no longer as sleek and beautiful a device as it once was, but I use my iPhone constantly, and having it feel so much more secure in my grip is a blessing.

  If you’ve got ET and a Jesus Phone, definitely look into Mophie’s wonderful little add-on. It does everything it claims on the box, and then some.

   
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  steph 5:07 am on January 26, 2010 | Comments Off Permalink
  

  Well, I’m back at work, just a month after my surgery.  It’s a marvel, really, how great I feel.

  I’m one of those people who heal up quickly.  I always need pain meds for half the time that other people do, and feel better twice as quickly as the doc says I will, whether it’s flu or a pulled muscle.  But this experience with surgery has been pretty amazing.

  My surgeon says the biggest factor is that I’m so healthy.  A healthy weight.  My body is strong, from running and lifting weights religiously.  Losing all that weight would have been worth it just for this surgery!

  So, I got up this morning and put on skinny pants and a skinny little top and a skinny sweater over the top, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way out the door.  It would have been worth all the work for that glimpse.  My body composition scale tells me that my body age is 42.  Well, I dunno what a body age is, but I easily look 10 years younger than I did a year ago.  I can tell a difference even from just a month ago, as the loose skin tightens up.

  What a pleasure to be able to wear clothes again, and to not agonize when I’m going out the door and end up shrugging and thinking “it’ll have to do.” 

  I look great, and I feel great.  Why the heck did I waste more than 20 years fat?