Nobody believes me when I tell them that a squirrel chewed two fist-sized holes out of the lid of my plastic garbage can, along with one of the handles. Nobody believes me until they actually see it, and then they say, "Holy cow! Those are big holes! A squirrel really DID chew into it!" To which I typically respond, "Well, YEAH. I TOLD you."

What's even more impressive is that this all took place over the course of a week. One week (the last trash day) I had an intact lid; the next trash day it was Swiss cheese.

Thankfully, my neighborhood hardware store permits you to buy trash can lids without the accompanying can. Just because I didn't know what else to do with it (trash day is a week away), I put the old holey lid on top of the new one.

This afternoon I heard a clatter on the porch. I step outside, and there is that squirrel! The bastard that chewed through the lid! Looking down bemused at the old lid lying on the porch, drooling (no doubt) over the new lid, and I was so mad that I aimed a kick at him--despite the fact that he was over the railing and away before my foot even got very far from the ground. I am fantasizing about taking a broom to him, sitting outside in the cold for hours, stealth-like, waiting for that perfect moment when I can whack him.

I have never had a squirrel chew on my plastic trash can before. I am bewildered as to why it tastes appealing. I also can't figure out how a stomach-full of plastic shavings hasn't killed him yet. If he doesn't stay away from the new lid, I might have to duct tape mousetraps to the top of it. Or....? Is there such a thing as squirrel repellent? How does one prevent chewage?

There are few things more satisfactory than scouring through Jeeves & Wooster episodes trying to find That One Great Episode With the Thing--and finding it. (Season 2, episode 1, if anyone cares. The best bath monologue ever. Plus a rubber ducky.)

I have all sorts of plans for today, most of which have been slightly postponed due to an overtired companion who spent most of last night watching an elevator. Apparently this is an important task in the military. One doesn't ask. So while he's napping, I am pouring springtime energy into washing dishes (done!), doing laundry (drying!), and writing emails. (With a short break for finding urgently-needed Jeeves & Wooster footage.)

More exciting linkages to exciting things! More library-related discussions! More updating in general! But first responding to several belated things and more housecleaning. Stay tuned.

During my weekly grocery shopping expedition, the high schooler behind the deli counter looked up alertly and asked me, "A half pound of roast beef, right?" If I'm going to be that predictable, I wish it would be for something a little more exciting. Also, perhaps I should mix up my brown bag lunch selections from time to time.

The St. Patrick's Day parade was held on Sunday, in sunny but cold weather. I only stayed for an hour before I retreated to my warm apartment. I got to see the highlights--the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator, the Guinness float, the hordes of people wearing green and carrying not-so-discreet red plastic cups--and then decided I didn't need to watch the fifth high school color guard in order to feel I'd gotten the whole St. Patrick's Day experience.

Monday was spent entertaining a mild bout of stomach flu. I don't think I've ever been that exhausted before. Sitting upright in a chair was too much for me; getting out of the shower was a Herculean task. It occurred to me that if I were an old person living by myself, something like the flu might just do me in--I might be found five days later, eaten by wild dogs. Not the most encouraging thought, when you're too exhausted to get off the floor.

Doing much better today, although I'm still pretty tired and have a cautious relationship with solid food. I made myself the first cup of chai I've had in two days and sat on the windowseat watching the sun rise over the river. Sometimes after a rainfall, the early morning presents such a deep, vivid display of colors: purples and emeralds and brilliant whites. It was shaping up to be a glorious day, and then it clouded over abruptly and the colors changed to drab grays and muddy whites.

The landlady is showing the apartment downstairs. I shamelessly eavesdrop at the door to the hallway. Hey--it's my door, right? There is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting next to it if I want to. Of course, most of what I hear is pretty garbled. People should be taught to insert proper names and descriptions into their conversation for the benefit of potential eavesdroppers. Hard to say yet whether the apartment has definitively been let, but it sounds that way. The landlady describes the other tenants: I am a "good kid," which just goes to show that sometimes you DO hear good things about yourself, but "she hasn't told me about her boyfriend yet". Guilt pangs. She didn't *technically* need to know, I tell myself, and he'll be leaving soon enough for another state anyway. But I do wonder how she found out about him.

Am considering the making of another cup of chai and a muffin to go along with it, followed by more sitting-on-the-couchage and internet perusing. Stay well, all.

This journal is 7 years and one day old today. I began it on a whim, one cold day in Scotland, and it has followed me back across the ocean to two states, through two schools, for one full-time job and my first apartment, and on to the present. Its heyday was, admittedly, during my college years when I had a full schedule and lots to say about the world. Now, ironically, I have more time and less to say, it seems. I value this blog mainly for ways in which it recalls and records so much of that time, in ways that class papers and exams (which I still keep in a box, carefully cataloged) just don't. I used to be clever and insightful, and I'm really proud of what I wrote and thought about; but now I only return to this blog occasionally (although I read my flist quite often), and I pick it up and put it down and turn it over in my hands the way I would an interesting, but familiar, rock on the mantelpiece. I should spend more time with it; I should focus upon it and look at it in new ways and with fresh eyes, but perhaps its familiarity is its own weakness--or perhaps the familiarity and routine of my own life depresses inspiration. There are a lot of things I can't talk about, even under locked entries, and there are a lot of things I won't talk about, and sometimes it seems that the only safe topics left are laundry and dishes, and there is a limit on what one can say about those, or would want to say.

I resolve, as I resolved last year, to be better about writing; to look at the familiar with unfamiliar eyes; and to get a damn backup copy made already. It would kill me to lose everything I've written for the better part of a decade.

I keep getting inappropriate ads on Facebook. "Thinking about becoming a librarian?" No, because I already am one. "Want to get your Master's Degree?" No thanks, I've already got one. "Want to protect your job by learning new skills?" No, because you only need to find one unique skill in order to become irreplaceable, and I have it. Nobody else in the library knows that you need to turn the copier on in the morning, or how to do it. Once they figure out that all you have to do is hit the Energy Saver button once--DAMMIT!

In other news, it's snowing. I left my parents' house early yesterday morning in order to beat the snowstorm, and weathered the weather safe and snug in my own little apartment. It's a little difficult to tell exactly how much snow we received: the wind keeps whipping it around, scouring the lawn and piling the snow into drifts against houses and cars. I see mini-cyclones in the streets, snow-devils racing up and down the road. My guess is about 6 inches, and although I'm grateful the library is closed today, I found myself saying, "But it isn't *actually* that bad outside..." And then round 2 appeared of Snowpocalypse, and it's pretty bad. The wind takes a pretty snowfall and turns it into an eye-stinging menace, which is why I haven't gone outside yet to shovel off the porch and walkway. I half-hope the snow on it will all be blown away. There were whitecaps on the river, when I could see the river, and last night I saw a bright white explosion and sparks: a blown transformer, or perhaps a streetlight. I keep going to check the door, because the wind banging the gutters against the house sounds exactly like someone banging frantically to be let inside.

A few hours after I wrote the above, and it's stopped snowing altogether. The wind is still going crazy strong, and it's with acute dread that I contemplate going outside to sweep the stairs. I should do it now, while the sun is out and can dry the steps before it ices over, but oh I don't want to. I could very well be blown away. :)

The first words that showed up, when I clicked "Restore from saved draft" for this entry, were the words "Against my will, I was coerced" and let me tell you, I'm at least as surprised and intrigued as you are. Really? I thought to myself. What the hell happened? I have no idea what I had in my mind when I wrote that, and so the world has lost a literary masterpiece. And also? This is going to bother me for the next hour or so. I feel as though it's the beginning of a "while I was at the reference desk" story, but obviously I can't prove that. And clearly have no memory of any amusing reference desk story, so again I say: Masterpiece = lost.

Although given the fact that I haven't written anything for a month, you would be forgiven for thinking so. I feel like I have failed the fine profession of English majors, and will do better. Or at least, I'll try. :)

I know I've said before that I need more hours in the day, or a time-turner, but this time I REALLY need more hours in the day, or a time-turner. My coworker asked me yesterday why I have so many suspensions on my library account (first of all, I asked her what she was doing, looking at my account, and got that sorted out). Suspensions, I should point out, are not a bad thing, at least when it comes to your hold list. It's like stopping your mail when you go on vacation. You can say, look: I have no time to read anything right now, so pass the book on to the next person but keep my name on the list so when X month rolls around, I can pick it up and read it then. My problem is that I keep suspending and suspending and suspending my holds, and I have 14 things I want to read. And five items already checked out. And no time (did I mention not having any time?).

I took the scenic drive up to Sturbridge over the holiday weekend, and was terribly disappointed both by the foliage (awful: even trees that have turned look dried out and dull) and by Old Sturbridge Village. I've spent a lot of time at OSV over the years, and it's one of my favorite places in Massachusetts. But lately they've been doing less live demonstrations and putting up more glossy placards and "interactive" signs. I'm ok with a little of that--hey, I know times are hard, and it's cheaper to buy a placard than to hire someone to talk about something all day--but I got really annoyed when one of the barns was cleared out, stalls and all, to make room for a big placard saying, "This is a barn! It housed all kinds of farm animals. Farm animals were very important to farms." (I exaggerate slightly.) The whole experience was disappointing enough that I may never go back.

In other news, I'm getting a raise! It's about two years overdue, and it'll only be retroactive for the past year, and I know that the amount I pay into health insurance will go up--but whatever. I'm still excited. :)

And now I am going to make an effort to clean all the things! Except the windows, because it's going to rain this afternoon. Well, and I decided against mopping the floor, because it'll never dry. But dishes will happen! And laundry will happen! And ironing will happen, although I will no doubt regret it! And a trip to the mall to find shoes, which I doubt will be available, but sometimes you have to undertake quests even though they're hopeless.

Went out to see "Despicable Me", despite a miserable review from the New York Times (I'd been looking forward to seeing it since forever, and wasn't going to let one stupid review keep me from going). I enjoyed it; the three little little kids in front of me REALLY enjoyed it, and got out of their seats to dance when the song came on. I'd forgotten how cute little kids can be when they're not yours, and you only have to deal with them for a couple of hours, and they're mostly behind a seat-barrier.

Saw the trailer for Tangled, which is another Disney princess flick, this time featuring Rapunzel. I mostly just noticed the good-looking (animated) thief, and decided it was worth watching just for that. What?

Stopped by the mall to look for short-sleeved shirts, and discovered that--at least according to the stores--it's fall. Want to buy a sweater? (Not in 80-degree weather, I don't.) Also, fall colors are mauve, pastel pink and purple, and grey. Who decides these things? My life would be so much easier if a) manufacturers made things in my size and b) someone would just tell me what to wear. ("Here. Try this on. That looks good; wear that with this. Perfect.") But that's an old complaint.

In other news, I have the whole day off tomorrow, and I anticipate buying more Ben & Jerry's Key Lime Pie ice cream (of which I have become mildly obsessed)--two very, very good things.

I am not a summer person. I like the idea of summer (see also: the idea of children, cats, and wine) but I don't care overmuch for the reality. I like being warm, but not hot. I like sunshine, but not sunburn. I like wearing less bulky clothes, but vehemently dislike shorts, skirts, and open-toed shoes. And flip-flips. I am sometimes a difficult person to please; it's not easy being me.

And yesterday was so terribly hot: too hot to move, too hot to think, too hot to do anything or go anywhere. I had the fan on all night (which I never ever do) and woke up this morning gloomily certain that I would be facing 24 hours of sheer fiery hell.

But it's actually not that hot. Well, it's 80. It's still hot. But compared to the 100 degrees and sticky I endured the other day, 80 feels rather pleasant. THANK GOODNESS, because I was starting to forget what cooler weather felt like. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't feel like absolute crap. I could do the dishes! In hot water! I could run a load of laundry! I could do the ironing! All things that were absolutely impossible in hotter weather.

In fact, it's so much nicer that I made myself a cup of chai. Oh, chai. (Is it fall yet?)

If you give someone a form and tell them something at the same time, that person can EITHER fill out the form OR they can listen. They can't do both, and nine times out of ten they choose filling out the form instead of listening. I know this, because people do it every bloody time the computers are full.

"There are no computers free at the moment," I say when someone approaches, "but please"--and here I speak very loudly and enunciate very clearly--"put down your name and leave everything else blank, and the wait will just be a couple of minutes."

Nine bloody times out of ten, they start filling in the time, too. "Just your name. Please, just your name. Leave everything else blank."

The reason for this is because everyone is guaranteed a half hour of computer time. And if you put down the time you ARRIVE versus the time you ACTUALLY GET A COMPUTER, you could short yourself by ten or fifteen minutes. I might in another instance take some sort of malicious, passive-aggressive glee from this, but again--nine times out of bloody ten, that same person will cause a ruckus when they don't receive their full time. So we (the librarians) get it both instances.

In a perfect world, I would be permitted to adjust the phrasing thusly: "Please put down your name and leave everything else blank unless you wish to forfeit your right to a computer. AAAAAND...FORFEIT. Thank you, have a nice day."

I would be extremely grateful to anyone who could clearly and succinctly explain to me what, exactly, the manifestation of an expression of a work is. I mean, I think I get it, abstractly--but I have a sneaking suspicion that when faced with it in the wild--say, out in the jungle, forestalling its approach by frantically shuffling and crumpling large maps and notebooks with loose papers--it would probably eat me before I had a chance to properly identify it.

Thus far I have uneasily dismissed the manifestation-expression-work issue--"ROUSs? I don't think they exist"--as something that might, might affect other people, at some hypothetical point in the future, but not--haha--not me.

But recently it's begun to occur to me that what I've been hearing is not wind whispering through the grass, but the stealthy tread of something far more predatory. Manifestation. Expression. Work. Crap.

I was going to make an early night of it, but then I decided, Ah, what the hell. A little lack of sleep combined with sheer bloody ignorance of the topics being discussed never stopped me before.

Have you ever read Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith? It's fabulous stuff, and if you haven't read it before, you should start right at the beginning with Wee Free Men. Thank me later. The reason I'm mentioning it now, apart from a benevolent wish to see everyone familiar with Pratchett's not inconsiderable body of work, is because there is one particular scene which aptly summarizes the points I will try later to make. And, ok, because it's also hilarious and I love it.

The scene takes place in a driving snowstorm. Our heroes have just arrived at a camp of librarians, and they ask:

"Er...I dinna wanta be a knee aboot this, but why is ye all here freezin' tae death?"

"Our oxen wandered off, and alas, the snow's too deep to walk through," said Mr. Swinsley.

"Aye. But youse got a stove an' all them dry ol' books," said the dark figure.

"Yes, we know," said the librarian, looking puzzled.

There was the kind of wretched pause you get when two people aren't going to understand each other's point of view at all. [p. 182]

This scene, I think, could just as easily be used to describe the current chasm between authors of fanfic and--I have no idea what the technical term is, so I'll make one up--authors of canon. (Notice how blithely I leap where angels fear to tiptoe. Lack of sleep. Sheer bloody ignorance.)

Oh--have I mentioned the ignorance? I don't read a lot of fanfic; I'm not really much of a writer; but I have friends who do both and the whole issue--the contention between authors and authors of fanfic--is one that I've thought a lot about. And while I don't intend to make any judgements, I think I can put my finger on exactly why the two parties will never, ever understand each other.*

I think what it boils down to, in short (and I'm going to make this very short, since I'm suddenly very tired), is the difference between oral and written tradition.

Written tradition has a very long, established history. If I have something I want to say, or a thought I want to express, then I can choose the right words and carve them onto stone tablets to preserve them for posterity. And if what I say is important enough, I can have other people copy what I say, word for word, over centuries and centuries, onto scrolls and paper and using carbon copies and photocopiers etc. The words are there; the words won't change (mostly); and the words are MINE. Attribution is key in this. If I work hard to polish a phrase or write down a really cool idea, then you better believe I want my name on it somewhere, preferably in large letters. And if you use it, if you quote it or mention it, then I want you to mention my name as the originator. If approval and applause are the coins of this new realm, as evidenced by the plethora of ways to "like" or "share" or "retweet" items**, then attribution is the means by which I get what's due to me.

Most canon authors, I'd argue fall into the written tradition. They believe that allowing someone else to "steal" their characters would in some measurable way diminish their own work. Most fanfic writers are pretty scrupulous about attributing where characters and worlds were borrowed from; although, in point of fact, some characters and worlds are so well-known, so established that they don't need any introduction or attribution: they are in the public domain. But for canon authors, some of whom are 60 or 70 years away from pub-dom, I can certainly understand where a world in which the words describing their creations are ever-shifting and constantly changing would be a scary one. If I were to earn my living solely from writing, then I would certainly guard my works jealously; not only because I'd want due credit/income/applause, but also because--I'd imagine--I'd have a possessive feeling about the worlds and characters that I created. Allowing others to use them would mean that they weren't special, weren't unique.

This is completely opposite from fanfic authors. While canon authors believe that sharing an idea diminishes their work, fanfic authors fervently believe that sharing only strengthens it. They belong to the oral tradition of story-telling, where the facts of a story may be changed or deleted or replaced with other names and events in order to make the story more real, more relevant, more timely. Canon authors want you to wait until they're dead (and sometimes not even then) before they'll allow their work to be used by the public. Fanfic authors want to play with them now. They elevate works to canon almost immediately because there is something special or unique about a particular story or world or character. Fanfic authors say, "This is the story as it was created by the original author. Now let's look at it from this perspective. Now let's take this element and change it to this. Now let's change the setting to here." And each time they do this, every addition or change or modification only makes the story stronger, not weaker. Canon authors hate this because, if anything, it frees the story from the words encasing it--their words. But for fanfic authors, it's the ultimate accolade; it's recognition that canon authors have created something truly timeless.

Now, not everyone falls into either one camp or the other. Many authors of canon are also authors of fanfic. Some authors embrace fanfiction written about their canon, but others don't. And it will be interesting to see whether the issue--contention between "oral" and "written" traditions, for lack of a better analogy--will simply disappear like the rotary telephone once blogs and other social media have truly established themselves.


*With obvious exceptions, of course.

**Which, by the way, is not my idea. My library is elsewhere at the moment, so I'm going to point you toward Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg, which is where I think I remember reading it. I scrolled through all the endnotes online hoping to find the attribution...and didn't. Ironically.

I didn't go to the Memorial Day parade today--I don't, in general, attend; I find them slightly tacky--but I could hear the drums from my apartment, even though I couldn't actually see any of the procession. It put me in mind, oddly enough, of that scene in Persuasion (the older film version), when Wentworth and Anne are walking together in Bath; the parade passes by, but they only have eyes for each other. It's an odd sort of scene--why a parade? was this even in the book?--and very surreal, but nevertheless I was reminded of it when I heard drums faintly beating in the distance, and I had eyes only for the book on my lap.

It's only during parades that I remember that drums were originally used in battle: to motivate, intimidate, and pass on commands. I'm not a very good judge of distance, but it's a pretty fair ways from my place to the parade route--maybe only half a mile--but sitting next to an open window, I could very clearly hear the drumbeats. It made me wonder what it would have been like to hear an approaching army--hear the drums, if not perhaps the thud and jingle of horses' hooves and harness--without being able to see the soldiers coming.

There aren't many sounds that carry through the centuries. Conversation and chatter is a constant, although the cadence of it changes. There are few places today where you can hear big wooden ships creak and the wind whip through the rigging; and although I've heard one horse and one carriage clopping down a street, I can't imagine what a city where horses and carriages were the only form of transportation would sound like. But drumbeats stay the same, and even though we only hear them ritually at parades and processions, they remind us distantly of soldiers going, armies coming, danger, imminent action, celebration and defeat. I believe that just as places gain power over centuries of people touching the stones and walking the streets, so do sounds and tunes gain strength from years of being played and sung. In such moments, although we are separated from our ancestors by the distance of years, we are brought together again by shared experiences.

I had an excellent time at Reunion, and I plan to write all about it, but it will have to wait for a time when a) it's less hot and sticky (we broke a temperature record today. Yay?); b) I am not quietly MELTING TO DEATH; and c) my head isn't throbbing quite so persistently.

I came home to discover that my evil plan to keep all the windows closed actually made the apartment cooler by, oh, about 4 degrees. So I made dinner, and ate it, and brought my ice cream outside just in time to be spattered by a surprise thundershower which, in no time at all, turned into a downpour. Sometimes you can't win.

In other news, tomorrow should be quite a bit cooler--thank goodness. (I could never survive in Florida.)

I'm chillin', got five tabs open on my browser, chai next to me, radio on. It's some kind of college station, and I'm only half listening to it, until suddenly I hear someone speaking:

"You will listen to my voice, and it will remain in your mind even after I stop speaking."

WTF kind of radio station is this?! Holy crap, that's creepy. A song comes on, and I chalk it up as some kind of weird transition. And then after the song ends:

"You are listening to my voice, and with each repetition you are becoming more attuned."

Whoa! Somebody is clearly doing some sort of psych study on subliminal messages or something, and let me tell you, I am paying *particularly* close attention to the next song lyrics, because no way do I want to wake up five hours later chanting something calming like "Braaaaains! BRAAAAAIIINNNSSSS!"

And this is why I tend to avoid listening to college radio stations. Sometimes they play cool stuff, and sometimes they're just...weird. (Ok, changing the station now.)

I have just spent hours and hours combing through shops and websites looking for professional short-sleeve shirts that are A) flattering and B) in my size. After a while I gave up on A (it was probably too optimistic of me) and settled just for B. And after hours and hours, I finally found two possibles that I took home, only to discover that while they were marginally B, they were so very very far from A that they might as well not even be B.

This gives me a very dim view of humankind in general and retailers in particular. In fact, I might even say that the beginning of off-the-rack clothing marked the end of angst-free clothes-shopping as we know it. Life would be so much easier if I could just have someone tailor clothes for me. In fact, if someone would just take over the whole clothes-shopping thing in general, that would be about perfect.

But all of this doesn't solve my problem, viz. finding professional short-sleeve shirts for a petite 20-something. (As an aside, I wish retailers would realize that a petite, XS 20-something is a LOT different than a petite, XS 40-something.)

It is probably not a coincidence that most of my clothes-shopping expeditions end with alcohol-shopping expeditions.

I have always eagerly embraced new technologies: I love social networking, I'm thrilled at the ways in which people can connect or re-connect with each other, and I see a lot of optimism and potential for the future.

But I also feel a bit of...deja vu. I feel like this was a film I saw once. You know, that film where everybody knew everything including what crimes people were going to commit in the future and so...wait. Not that one. The one where robots took over and...wait. Not that one, either. But one of those. One of those films where, you know, things went all to heck. (Didn't anyone watch those films?)

And you know I'm all about optimism and thinking positively, but I'm also a firm believer in looking at The Worst That Could Happen. And the worst that could happen regarding the use of some of these technologies could be pretty damn bad. We've already seen how robbers have used people's careless tweets about their vacation trips to plan (and get away with) burglaries. We know that the great thing about the internet is that "no one knows you're a dog." And now that location-specific posts are becoming the new normal, I worry about stalkers, muggers, and others. (Why bother to vary the times and routes of your jogging workout when you're giving more detailed, 24/7 information regarding your exact whereabouts to the whole world?)

Our privacy is slowly eroding away, and here's the thing about erosion: you don't necessarily see it happening. It's gradual. It takes a long time for its effects to be seen or felt, but seen and felt they most definitely are. And I worry that we'll be so entranced with these new shinys that we won't notice the gradual losses until someday in the not-so-very-distant future, when we become the characters in those films. How could they have let those terrible things come to pass? How could they not have noticed that their rights and privacies were being taken away? Because they were lost gradually, gradually.

Which explains why I'm more than usually upset about what's going on with Facebook. I don't know when they stopped making you opt-in and started making it so you have to opt-out, but I'm tired of chasing after them putting my safeguards back up after they have been so casually taken down. Did you know that Google can cache your profile? No, I bet you didn't. It's something you have to opt-out of. Did you know that third-party websites can use your FB information for their own benefit? Again, you have to opt-out. Did you know that all your interests, films, books, and activities are public (which makes you wonder, what is the point of having your profile friends-only, if 90% of it is made public by Facebook?)? Aha, but this time, you *can't* opt-out. I think it's a cool idea, having all your interests and favorites linked to pages--I didn't know there *were* pages for some of those things, and I was kind of pleased to discover them. But I want the decision about whether or not to connect with them to be MINE. It's like finding out that your friend, knowing your interest in Jane Austen, added your email address to a listserv, got you a magazine subscription, and enrolled you in a bookclub. It's a kind thought, but YOU SHOULD HAVE ASKED FIRST. And the problem with Facebook, recently, has been that they don't ask, and they don't allow you to say no.

For new people just joining Facebook, they either don't know about these changes, or they know and don't care. Either way, it's an offer they--literally--can't refuse. But for those of us who joined back when Facebook was ONLY open to people within a college network (remember that? Erosion), the gradual widening of these networks--from college, to geographic, to EVERYONE--is not at all what we signed on for. If other people are interested, if other people want to involve themselves with enhanced networks and more connections, great. But for those of us who zealously guard our privacy and make deliberate decisions about whom we are connected to, there should be a way to opt out or at least to impose safeguards on our private information.

( But it's a good one, even if it's a bit long )

Oh, frabjous day! The sun is out, the tourists are rubber-necking, and all in all I'm quite satisfied. I popped by the Book Barn, having heard a rumor that they got a truckload of 5,000 used books in (that's five. THOUSAND.) and I was glad I did. Wodehouse! 40 copies of beautiful Wodehouse paperbacks, which is more Wodehouse than I've ever seen together in one place before, including libraries. I almost bought the whole thing, but then I remembered the necessity of food in my life, so I just bought all the Jeeves. And two Holly Black books. And 80% of the Sisters Grimm series. And then I left, vowing not to look back, or visit their satellite store (which was on the way).

I dropped the books at home, and then made my way downtown to stroll by the river in the sunshine, and watch the tourists, and drink chai (the breeze was still pretty cool for such a sunny day). I bought an address book in which to log my acquisitions (because I'm tired of thinking that I own such-and-such a book, going home and discovering it's the one I need), and then I went to the new and expanded ice cream shop to buy a Caesar wrap. I never thought that grilled chicken, mozzarella, tomatoes, and spinach would ever make such a brilliant combination, but they do. I ate half, and put the other half in the fridge, where no doubt the salad dressing will leak all over the shelf.

And now I am watching silly films about sheep. I have all the windows open, am wearing short sleeves, and bundled myself up in a wool blanket. I am very happy that it's spring, and I'm going to wear t-shirts, dammit, but it's also kind of cold. (This all makes sense in my head.) Off to make more chai, and investigate the possibilities of cake.

I am perversely disappointed that the character in the TV series I've been watching did not die as I expected him to.

I was all prepared: mentally, physically (tissue box: check)--and it didn't happen. He was supposed to die! I've seen him die! Why didn't he die?!

A little background: there was this awesome cowboy TV series on while I was in high school, and between the tyranny of homework (I was forbidden to watch TV until my homework was done, which I thought unnecessarily cruel when my favorite TV show was on at, say, 3:00) and the tyranny of the remote control (my dad controls the remote and his attention span is pretty short. "And the winner is--" Click. "I know who the murderer is! It's--" Click. "DA-AD!!" I used to complain. He looked at me, confused. "What?") it was pretty hard to watch any series in completion.

Magnificent Seven (the 1999 version) was soooo good, though. I mean, it had some cheesy moments, but I really got into that whole "brotherhood of tormented men out to save the town from villains" thing. I was able to catch *most* of the episodes, and it concluded **SPOILER** with the departure of the men from town. I remember one scene vividly: JD, the young impetuous greenhorn, is brutally gunned down during a fight, and dies tragically. And Buck, the man who mocked him but secretly looked after him, exchanges hats: his battered hat for the stupid one JD wore, as a tribute and a remembrance and an honor.

It made a big impression on high-school me. It was the end of the fellowship, the death of an innocent, and the end of all good things. It was also the end of the series. (Like Firefly, the ratings weren't good enough to continue it.)

I was so psyched when Netflix had the episodes. I was able to watch the first and second series in their entirety, without interruption (apart from the mailing of envelopes). And for the last, final episode, I prepared myself.

Only it didn't happen. The men don't depart the town. JD doesn't get shot. Buck doesn't lose his faith in the world and a friend.

I felt so cheated. I scoured IMDB to check the episode listings. I Googled, I YouTubed, I wikipedia'd, and I even looked at bad M7 fanfic sites. Nothing. No mention of it. It either existed only on television (how could it exist only on television??) or I completely made it up (how could I have completely made this up??). I have no explanations. I have no answers.

But I know which version I prefer, which ending had more meaning and pathos, even if I can't embed a clip to show you exactly why.