2002-11-07 - 7:25 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: Bach's "Invention #1"

Random crap:

I use a different password for every single site. I've been doing this for most of the time I've been on the internet. Supposedly most people use the same password for everything, and it's one of the biggest security problems there is.

I use very little paper at my job. The only thing I ever make printouts for is when I'm trying to concentrate on several different things that don't fit on the screen comfortably together. According to this link from Kenshi,, this is also unusual.

With the help of the comforter, which in cold weather makes me sleep more soundly, I finally trained myself not to get up to pee every goddamned night at 3am. I feel much more well-rested.

A kid I knew growing up was sort of hyperactive. If he was a kid today, he'd probably be diagnosed with ADD. He used to come over and sit with us at dinner (my family ate later than his, so he'd invariable show up wanting us to come outside and play and we'd be eating). He'd entertain us with his offbeat sense of humor. He used to send me into hysterics molding his stomach into weird shapes. In school, though, got put in "Special Ed". He was evaluated once and told not to bother to go to college. Y'know what he did? He went to college anyway, starting in community college, and he's now working in L.A. as a production coordinator on a TV series. Moral of the story: Don't listen to what the "experts" tell you. Mofos.

A couple days ago, I did something to my wrist. Don't know what. I've been doing a lot of scrubbing and de-wallpapering, and I also used another computer whose keyboard was at an odd angle. I suspect the latter caused it, and the former aggravated it. I can type fine for work, and I can twist it without pain. But I keep hurting it (shooting pains) when I bend it or use it to pull. Because it only hurts SOMETIMES, I keep forgetting about it and then bend or pull. The pain's been getting worse when it does happen, so I have to stop. Very hard to do when I'm trying to do work around the house!

So tonight I was busy improvising a splint to keep me from bending it. I was using stiff pieces of cardboard and old leggings. Then -- duh! -- I remembered that I have a pair of wrist guards for skating. Slipped that on and it does the trick. I think I might even sleep with it.

Heard this from my brother. I can't remember if it was a joke, if he heard it secondhand, or was a bystander, but I was extremely amused:

Location: Greenwich Village
A homophobe is talking to a non-homophobe.
Homophobe: I guess I just wish all the gay folks would go off to an island somewhere together.
Non-homophobe: You're ON it.

Twice now -- first the gas man and then the guy at Jim's the other night -- I've been warned to be careful in the city. "There's good areas and bad areas, and you gotta be watchful, and listen," said the cheesesteak guy. Both these guys knew -- because I mentioned it -- that I was new to Philadelphia. Their first thought for me was, "Ooo, be careful."

I find this sort of amusing. I mean, I'm a girl. A little one. It's been drilled into me from Day 1 that it's a dangerous world out there, I'm in a commonly-victimized demographic. I have always been obsessive about locking my door, watching people around me, and not running around in deserted places alone, especially at night. So basically, when I moved to the city, nothing really changed. Except perhaps that I get freaked out more easily as I learn to recognize the people who are freaky-but-harmless (there's a LOT of those).

I read an article today wherein someone says about Baltimore: "...cities are likely to suffer under reputations they may not deserve. 'We�re constantly fighting the negative way we�re depicted in the media,� she said. �OK, the murder rate might be high, but what the numbers don�t tell you is that 85 percent of the crime occurs in only 15 percent of the city.'"

I'm not saying that my neighborhood here is safer than my neighborhood in Northern Virginia, but I'm not living in the Philadelphia equivalent of Anacostia, either. There's always the chance that some violence or crime will spill over into my neighborhood, and certainly we've got break-ins and vandalism over here, but I think for me personally, if I continue to be vigilant, my odds are still pretty good that I'll remain safe.

(Of course, tomorrow I'll probably report that I've been mugged. But anyway.)

I grew up thinking that the city was a horrible, dirty, dangerous place. So it was sort of a revelation to me to find out that there are PEOPLE who LIVE here and LIKE it, and they live there for DECADES without getting mugged. Meanwhile, out in the 'burbs, my aunt's and friends houses have been burglarized (my aunt lived in the country, almost), and my mom's neighbor encountered a masked gunman in her driveway. It seems like there's danger everywhere, really, and I'll just have to keep up with my paying-attention.

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