Ennui

I’ve been rather blue lately. I’m feeling creatively frustrated.

N is for Neville who died of ennui
N is for Neville who died of ennui

I have some idea in my head that I can’t quite get out – like that time when you had that really fantastic dream, and just as you woke up, you thought “I gotta remember this!” at the same time all the details start sliding away from you and you’re left with just that feeling that the dream gave you – a feeling of awesome, a Stendhal syndrome, that you’re trying to reconstruct…

Like I know there’s a picture there that just isn’t coming into focus, and every time I think I just start to get it, the dog barks, (if I’m at home) or someone comes into my cube (if I’m at work) and I lose track of that vision that I was trying to get to, that I almost just had in my hand if I’d just closed my fingers more quickly…

I find myself wishing for a work space at home that’s more like my workspace at work – a clean, organized desk with plenty of space and a big monitor to get my work done and away from the pets and the phone as distractions. Someplace I can focus. Entertainment Weekly has been doing a “Writers at Work” series, and Neil Gaiman’s is cool:

Gaiman escapes to his wooded Wisconsin hideaway with pup Cabel in tow to craft his fantastical works. Says the author, ”The setting is interesting enough that if I get stuck and need to stare out the window, there’s something to look at, which isn’t interesting enough to make me stop working and look at it for long.”

What a jerk with his “Wisconsin hideaway.” Where’s my hideaway?

On my tiny violin

I know, what a terrible problem to have, right? You play for me the world’s tiniest violin in response.

I think really just want to be more like this kid:

I Fucking Love Coloring
I Fucking Love Coloring
Continue ReadingEnnui

links for 2009-02-19

Continue Readinglinks for 2009-02-19

links for 2009-02-18

Continue Readinglinks for 2009-02-18

PR or related job?

I have a good friend who is looking for a PR or similar job right now – PR, writing, editing, proofreading, etc. She’s been working for a public relations firm for several years and is now on the hunt for a new position.

If you know of a position like this in the Indianapolis area right now, please contact me and I’ll forward information on to her. She’s a good friend and I’d love to be able to help her out.

Continue ReadingPR or related job?

Sarah Haskins – Target Women: Chocolate

Usually, the point of Target: Women is to highlight how inane and absurd advertising targeted to women is — pointing out where ads insult women’s intelligence and where they try to create an artificial demand for stuff we don’t really want or need. The problem is in the case of chocolate, I actually DO want to eat chocolate. So this was a funny video, but at the same time, I was watching the microwave brownie commercial and thinking “ooooo, I want that!”

Continue ReadingSarah Haskins – Target Women: Chocolate

links for 2009-02-12

Continue Readinglinks for 2009-02-12

How the world almost came to an end on Sept. 18th

How a run on Money Market accounts on September 18th almost collapsed the global economy – terrifying stuff that is just coming out now about what the Treasury and Congress were doing behind the scenes.

Quoting from Zero Hedge:

LiveLeak has caught a scary moment of previously undisclosed insight by Paul Kanjorski where he reveals some facts that have not been captured by the media previously. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds in the video below, Democratic Representative Kanjorski explains how the Federal Reserve told Congress members about a “tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars.” According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occurred over the period of an hour or two. And it gets worse. Kanjorski paraphrases the following disclosure by Bernanke and Paulson:

On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

We are no better off today than we were 3 months ago because we have a decrease in the equity positions of banks because other assets are going sour by the moment.

Interestingly, Kanjorski, and likely more and more Democrats, are starting to shift to the camp that more time is needed to make a correct decision this time (which may explain Geithner’s decision to postpone the “bank-rescue” announcement by one day to Tuesday), instead of rushing into another half-baked plan. Very scary stuff.

Continue ReadingHow the world almost came to an end on Sept. 18th