Thoughts

I remember when I had actual adult human beings around to interact with, outside of work. Having Alex around is nice, but it's hardly a social life.

I'm jittery and nervous because of this paycheck thing. Tomorrow morning I'll wake up with either $632.74 or about $2500 deposited in my bank account, and I have no way of knowing until I look at my account balance tomorrow morning. (The discrepancy is due to the raise I'm receiving, which is retroactive to January 1.) It's driving me crazy, especially since if it's the latter amount I'll be just fine until the end of the month, whereas if it's the former I'm pretty much screwed.

I've started reading Peter Pan to Alex at bedtime, one chapter a night. At the moment, Peter has just entered the nursery and been discovered by Mrs Darling. (Incidentally, I'm thoroughly amused by Barrie's description of Mr Darling as "one of the deep ones"; I know it's not what he meant - hell, Lovecraft wrote twenty years later than Barrie did - but it's still funny to think about. Also, there's a sequence where Wendy describes to her mother how Peter "fits her just right", which - especially given the passage I quoted earlier - I just can't parse correctly.)

Still on the Peter Pan thread, someone - I don't remember who - mentioned recently, if I remember correctly, wondering why people had picked up Disney's use of "Never-Never Land" as opposed to Barrie's "Neverland"; to that person I mention that it's possible that Disney wasn't the first to use the term. There's a 1912 print in the copy that I'm reading to Alex whose caption is "Never-Never Land", so I'm not sure where it came from. (Perhaps the stage adaptation?)

The power went out at work today. It apparently only lasted for 30 or 40 minutes, but I took the opportunity to go to the School of Public Health and request a transcript (for the class I took last summer), so that Earlham can decide whether or not to accept the credits. Also got a bagel and chai (I am t3h trendy) and worked out some details of my supers setting. It's all falling into place.

I keep forgetting that my birthday is coming up. No idea why.

Alex's preschool is closed on the 27th. This means that I get to either work from home, bring him to work, or work extra all next week and all the week after so that I can take the 27th off. This irritates me, especially since he's already going to be out of school the 20th and the 23rd (when my parents are visiting).

Seriously, people, it isn't that hard to figure out: when you're getting onto an elevator, let the people inside get out first.

I think that's about it for now. More later.

Cell phones

So I'm thinking about buying a cell phone. Unless someone can come up with an overwhelming reason not to, I will probably go with Cingular as a provider, as they're the only provider in the US (to my knowledge) who allow unused minutes to be kept across months.

What I'm not sure on is the phone. I have three solid criteria:

It must not be a flat-body phone (in other words, it needs to be a flip-top or have a sliding panel that reveals the keypad), unless the power button is not easily accessible.

It must not cost me, when all is said and done, more than $300.

It must be heavy-duty enough to withstand being kept in my pocket.

Features, like games, text messaging, cameras, and the like, are completely optional; they're nice (except for the games - playing games on a cell phone = ugh) but I don't require them. What I do need is a device that will let me get in touch with people, and that will let people get in touch with me, when I don't have a land line handy.

So. Anybody have recommendations? What should I look for? What should I avoid?

Some days...

The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once probably the most common bird in the world. It is estimated that there were as many as five billion passenger pigeons in the United States. They lived in enormous flocks - the largest of them a mile wide and 300 miles long, taking several days to pass and probably containing two billion birds.