The Mountainwitch Scrapbook

Since when did Russia become LJ's Nigeria?

2009-04-14T14:17:12Z

What's up with the random adds of users who write in Russian? I just reported about six of them as bots, although that was sometimes difficult as the menu didn't pop up every time. What I don't get is how this stuff is useful . . . If I could read the "posts," would they be asking me to forward my bank account information? Are they hoping I'll friend them--cause I know lots of people from the former USSR, ayup--and then they can troll my entries, looking for products they can sell me? ("Boris! Prepare more perfume oils at once!")

I just don't get it. Is there profit to be made in creating fake journals and randomly friending everybody you can get your hands on?

(And just in case you ARE a Russian sockpuppet . . . Укусите меня, Вы несчастные шлюхи.)

End of the third week . . . Shouldn't I have a routine by now?

2008-09-19T23:01:57Z

I am badly overextended right now. I can't keep up with all my commitments. Seriously, I haven't even been able to answer e-mail. And I'm trying to carve out niches of time for myself--time to study for my class, time to write, time where I don't have to BE somewhere--and it feels like I'm just failing at it. Today, I left my phone at home before class . . . When I came back I had EIGHT messages (I didn't check them until just now because I just didn't realize--it was on silent, of course, because every waking moment seems like it's spent in class).

It was like the whole world crashed because I wasn't available for five hours, one of which was on the road and two and a half of which were in class. Strangely, it didn't feel that long.

Andrew Marvell haunts me periodically. Not as frequently as Joey Ramone, old Simon and Garfunkle songs, or, oddly, Alexander Pope, but often enough. Little bits of "Coy Mistress" have a way of turning up like gum on my shoe. Lately, I keep hearing the line about "time's winged chariot hurrying near." Over and over. And each time I think hmm, that's a little tame. Instead the horses are doped up, the axle is broken, and we're all careening down a path fit for a mountain goat.

I can make SOME of this work. But not all of it. I need help. Not guilt over missed commitments, just understanding and patience. And maybe this weekend I'll get to my mail.

Vote for a Hero

2007-10-04T16:53:26Z

Larry Gibson is the real deal. I've met this gentleman, who is trying to hang on to his family lands in the face of environmentally-devastating and shitstain-ugly mountaintop removal. West Virginia is gorgeous country, but there are huge sections being transformed into a flat, dangerous mess . . . Seriously, what I've seen and studied is so damn ugly it makes me sick to think about it.

Currently he's been nominated by CNN for an award; however, he is currently being beaten out by a guy who recycles computers. (?!?)

If you'd like to vote, the original e-mail alert I received is pasted below. Contact info from the sender has been stripped out to protect her from bots and/or Bruce Stirling.

____________________________________________________________________

Larry Gibson, of Kayford Mountain, West Virginia, a mountain defender and Appalachian-Hero extraordinaire, has been nominated as a CNN Defender of the Planet Hero!

If you are new to the list and not familiar with Larry's work, check out http://www.mountainkeeper.org/ for more information about him! He's amazing!

You may know that he was featured last month as a CNN Hero, but please support Larry's nomination for CNN Defender of the Planet Hero by voting for him online at:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/cnn.heroes/

Current STATS on CNN's Nominees:

James Burgett
repairs discarded computers and gives them away
49%

Larry Gibson
is fighting to protect his land from mountaintop mining
15%

Ken Noguchi
leads "litter brigades" on the slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan
5%

Eugene Rutagarama
is dedicated to saving mountain gorillas from extinction
32%

___________________________________
Cassie M. R---
Coordinator, Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies
http://www.mhc.edu/regional

Pirates 'Round the World

2007-09-19T13:16:58Z

From the Reuters story on "Talk Like a Pirate Day":

A Brazilian fan even sent a letter of support in a bottle while one overjoyed Argentinian whose birthday falls on the same day said "It will be difficult to talk in Spanish like pirates but we will try."

I guess that's because they keep rolling their ARRRRRRHs.

We've got the media circus.

2007-04-19T15:01:21Z

Now the freakshow is coming to town.

<http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/vtfunerals/index.html>

I realize the height of futility is the Internet petition (otherwise HBO would have brought Carnivale back). But at least it beats my Plan A, which involved running over Fred Phelps with a Chrysler.

I love my car.

Christiansburg, the Day After

2007-04-17T22:01:30Z

Everything was really quiet around here, considering the influx of people for the convocation. The outskirts were like a ghost town, except for the lines of students in school colors. I was in the 460 business district, right next door to Blacksburg; everything had kind of a strange and surreal quality. Outside a clothing store, clerks were hanging big bunches of ribbons, the kind you'd see on homecoming weekend, but there were big yellow strips dangling out that read "In Memorium." Inside, wandering through the racks of clothes, I could hear the Talking Heads: "Once in a Lifetime." Of course.

Afterwards my mother and I try to escape by ducking into a Mexican restaurant. It's full of TVs, one in every corner, on every wall. Every one of them tuned to the convocation. Governor Kaine's voice rose in power as he talked about Job, about the empty feeling of despair: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And then he emphasized the community, Virginia as a "commonwealth" and not a state.

His words rang with power.

Eventually the media circus will go home. Eventually people will get to grieve and remember outside of the camera's eye. The flags will rise again, the ribbons blow away in that knifelike, gritty wind. The grief will still be here, but so will the sense of connection.

I'm a teacher. Education is my business. And the fear will NOT shut me up, the shadow of this massacre will NOT send me running home. And all the whacked-out, narcissistic, masturbatory killers in the world do not have the power to do that one miraculous thing--to awaken a sense of wonder, in this magnificent and terrible world.

mountainwitch @ 2007-04-16T12:32:00

2007-04-16T16:32:18Z

Oh my god he killed 22 people.

Psst!

2007-02-14T15:25:10Z

In spite of all rumors to the contrary, my boyfriend is, in reality, the sweetest, most romantic person in the world.

Thanks for making my office hours bright. :)

mountainwitch @ 2007-01-17T14:43:00

2007-01-17T19:52:06Z

Some people would say it's none of my business. But it still hurts to see something die.

It always will.

mountainwitch @ 2006-12-21T11:23:00

2006-12-21T16:24:43Z

I am:

Kurt Vonnegut

For years, this unique creator of absurd and haunting tales denied that he had anything to do with science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Get us out from under, Wonder Woman!

2006-12-18T06:54:56Z

Just a few more grades to go. Just a few more . . .

All day I have been a shambling hulk. No exercise. Eating carbs. Grading. I turned on the TV for background noise and put in a disc from Season 2 of Wonder Woman. You know, that show was much funnier when it was in the World War II era; the faux German, the Golden-Age heroics . . . Priceless. When they moved it into the "present time"--1977--it became simultaneously more disturbing and dull. I can remember being bored by episodes when I was a kid: not enough Wonder Woman! Now I realize that those must have been the season two and three episodes.

So anyway, I've got about forty grades left to average, a scad of bubble sheets to do, and the back of my brain is percolating with that groovy 70s theme song, complete with piccolo trills.

I am so tired.

. . . And he almost gave Thor a bra, too.

2006-11-29T04:58:56Z

The co-creator of some of my favorite comic book heroes died today. I still remember the first time I saw Storm, in a guest appearance of the X-Men on, you guessed it, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I wanted to know--who was this woman with the dark skin and the wild white hair? She could control the lightning, and she could fly! This was the same artist who worked on Nightcrawler, too, working on the revamped X-Men around the time when I was born.

It looks like he died dreaming.

The Story

The Work

What can I do with all these BOOKS?

2006-05-18T19:55:54Z

So I'm trying, vainly, to straighten up my study. And one of my bright ideas was to put in some cheap-O sliding plastic shelves on the bottom row of my shelves to keep my shoes and boots nice and neat. Of course, there's a small problem . . . That space is occupied by big white boxes.

Comic books. Books. And books. And books.

I started collecting books in 1993, when I was writing a big research paper on Wonder Woman for a Women's Studies class. And I was hooked. I'd try different books, reading around to see what I liked. I would fall in love with series, and of course they'd be cancelled within a year. People would GIVE me books, sometimes whole discarded collections, and now . . .

I HAVE TO GET SOME OF THIS STUFF OUT OF MY HOUSE.

I am, of course, keeping all the WW-related stuff. In addition, I'm keeping Starman, The Huntress, Spider-Girl, The Creeper, and some other odd books; that will get me down to just four short boxes. More than any human being should need, but still.

I want to get rid of a humongous number of the following: Daredevil, Excalibur, Swamp Thing, Tim Hunter: The Age of Magic, The Maxx, Teen (or New, or whatever--multiple series) Titans, Justice League, X books (especially Generation X) and others. I have odd Batmans. I have Beauty and the Beast--yes, the 80s TV show. I also have Roger's books.

I have three boxes of stuff to get rid of, and no idea how to even start. There are hundreds of books here, and I'd like to get rid of them sooner rather than later.

Any advice?

Be vewy quiet; I'm blogger-hunting.

2006-04-20T14:08:39Z

Bruce Sterling hates dachsunds.

Damn you, Bruce Sterling! What did the poor weenie dog ever do to you? "Cool and confident" my ass; you are a cold-hearted virtual bastard!

(See shentou with questions.)

The Ritual Apology

2001-08-18T21:22:48Z

In the Irish tradition, a storyteller would usually begin with a ritual apology to his audience. It's not a bad practice--if the story is good, he appears humble; if the story is bad, well, you were warned . . .

The assumption that someone wants to read one's innermost thoughts on everything is, of course, a little on the egocentric side . . . But we love secrets. We all love looking at the innermost thoughts of others . . .

We want stories, dammit.

I don't see this journal as being a replacement for the horribly personal ramblings in my "real journal." (This is for OTHER kinds of horrible ramblings.)

But there's nothing quite like opening a new journal, and seeing all that empty space, just waiting.