F 1 D 0 -- 2001 12 08 at 04 00 Anita comes home crying. She's drunk. Very drunk. Is that why? She's broke. Not too broke. Is that why? She's got crack, but not had any? Is that why? She got work today. Is that why? She is upset because she should have stopped drinking twelve beers ago. In the process, she decided that she is too drunk, and a small zap of crack will be just the wake up she needs to function. So she retires to the ladies room, and while assembling her toke pipe, manages losing the bits of drug she values. All over the floor. Who knows how much value here, but she's looking for it like the most valuable thing in the world has disappeared. Now THAT is why she's crying. Her precious drugs got lost on the floor of her bathroom at work. So between her and Samir, I'm thinking I've had enough. Samir? He's decided that since I charge too much for sharing a bedroom here, he will pay me nothing for it. Force me to take him to court, and evict him that way. The good news is that a friend who should not have been evicted was given only five days to leave her flooded apartment. She tried to not pay when all of her posessions were ruined by backed up water from the sewer. I came from Irish Ceili tonight. I had a cloud over me when I started. I could only think about how I wasn't able to do well at work, and how that happened because of all the bull at home. But at 800 or 810pm, the dancing began, and it was worth the wait. Irish dance is full of motion, full of energy, and the band was right on the money. At 730pm, when I arrived, there was a terrible surplus of men. Eeek. Having trouble to find a lady partner. That was just what I wanted to see. Not. But around 800 I was pleased to see about thirty people arrive at once. About a dozen from a youth group came out. Their leaders are major players at this dance, and brought them. They were shy, but glad to be there. The dances during the week don't usually have the old timers. They make good strong partners. They were here tonight. To function at the Irish dance, all you need to be able to do is understand the calls, and know how long each function requires of you. Except for the nicest part (for me): The Blast of Reels. This is where the band just keeps playing and playing and playing. We dancers usually pick some "set" and do that. Tonight, just before we wound up, our little group of eight chose the Clare Lancers set. How does this go? Lead around, turn the lady under, swing. Then first man, and the opposite lady approach, turn away from each other, then swing. There's more, but I just want you to understand that there is a predictable recipe for this. Surprise tonight! Not just our set, but about six others are doing the same dance. What are the chances of that? High I guess. It must be a favourite. It is one of a handful of dances that we learn to memorize on Monday nights at Pat's dance. But there's more! After we finished all of the figures to that dance, our head couple said, "Ok, Plain Set." Wouldn't you know it, but three others made the same choice. No, they couldn't hear. They just did it. Work. I had to see Guru this afternoon. She had lots of things for me to deal with. I was surprised to find a new computer at Ofra's desk. This was much faster than Ofra's old one, and seemed to understand the internet. Cool! I tried to get the Internet connection sharing going, and it worked, kinda. They actually needed me to get the printer going. But as soon as the network was happy, so was the printer. Thank IBM/Lexmark for this wisdom. It is called a winprinter, but is really a virusprinter. It actually attempts to communicate over the internet whenever you print. Now, if it cannot, it isn't supposed to be upset, but it usually is. You see, it doesn't just say to itself, "oh, no net. Better forget sharing secrets." Instead it says "Oh, no net. Better save what I see, and send it along later." Now when the disk gets full, or confused, things freeze, as this program doesn't have permission to actually tell anyone about what it's working on, or why it should endeavour to talk on the net. So the solution? Well to me it was obvious. Get Ofra's computer onto the internet. Yah. It worked. Damn Lexmark. At Sanderson Taylor-- Dianne wanted me Blair wanted me Sharon wanted me But I was too long in travel to get there on time. I wanted to get a key, and I'd have given up dance to do this work. Not possible, said they. Fine. Well, when are you all going? We're leaving at 5 o'clock for a christmas party. Grand. I've got three people who will ream me out on Monday. Just Grand. That's all I know.