08/10/08

02-27-08, 2:31am, the worktable was cleared, space cleaned, got the clay out, pulled the food processor close, cleaned out the pasta machine, sorted and arranged my tools and picked the ones I need for the BH4DO project.

Mark Twain said the hardest thing about writing is setting the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. For me, organizing the supplies and tools is a physical meditation. A ritual to clear the deck for some claying, picture taking, web page making, while I sculpt action figure heads with necks, no hair. I found a wooden basswood box, suppose to hold taper candles. I thought it would be hip to ship the heads to LA in that box. Maybe decorate the box as well, line it with red satin, go Ghetto Fabulous with the packaging.

Oh, Yahoo mail was down for almost three hours. YIKES During that time I posted to COC and COCM via the web, and put a notice on my main home page to let wandering ClayMates know as much as I did. No blog mention of the outage until I posted on  Aunty's Hide Out. Left a crumb trail from there to here. I have a handful of off site free blogs, done as examples for CITY-Computer. I have to braid the links so they all point here. Got to update the CITY-Computer blog page too. Remind me, ok?

Anyway with the Yahoo mail being unavailable gave me a little panic. I had 24,000 email that I saved in various folders. First thing I thought was I don't want to loose the email between me and my hubs from this last tumultuous year. Fodder for fiction, intense life experiences, all's fair and all that. Stuff from my family, close friends, record of the tour to Texas, leaving one webhost and getting another, buying the computer. I thought what would I do if I lost it all due to some server malfunction. It would certainly bum my high, I tell you true.

So as soon as Yahoo mail came back online I spent 4-5 hours transferring 25 posts at a time to the inbox, then downloading them to Outlook, making new folders as I removed them off of Yahoo's server. A totally anal retentive exercise. Next step is to archive with Outlook and store on my external HDD. Only then will I feel they are as safe as I know how to make them.

I have so much Virgo in my chart that when I'm uncentered a lot of stuff just doesn't get done. From the mundane chores of checking the phone messages or the snail mail, to not moving email off of Yahoo to Outlook to archive.  I've just been uncentered for a long time, nearly a year. But now I feel better. Got a whole new POV. I feel clear enough to do these chores. I might even do the taxes in a mad dash.

The posts from the Yahoo Groups are archived. With a copy of the posts it's a belt and suspender approach. I wasn't worried about list mail. If I lost the family email and domestic admin I would kick myself forever. It's just a boring slog of a chore. Since I've been updating the dynamic template to the top of the current pages, checking pages for missing thumbnails and broken links, saving screen shots from Epson before it closes in April 2008, I've been slogging through some pretty boring stuff already. The email archive chore seemed like a walk in the park in comparison. Something I could do and half assed watch late night TV, my naughty monkeys... who is not a fan of Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson? Oh yikes, he has the same birth month and day as my youngest son's father. May 17th. Usually musicians on that date, like Rudy Mwongozi, piano player, same day as Yassir Chadly and his Ud. But I digress, humming "Midnight on the oasis...."

The critical email has been off loaded from Yahoo. There's only a couple of dozen albums more on Epson to copy. slog slog slog. I got to get them heads sculpted. Well, at least the work table is ready for my burst of energy.

Tomorrow I will make all day spaghetti sauce for Thursday night's dinner. Stirring the pot every so often will give me some reason to get up and stretch, flex my hands - open/close, open/close. It's easy to get cramped up, repetitive stress injury while sculpting if one doesn't take regular breaks.

I got a lot done today. I've still got to get back in the routine of going to the gym. Put that on my to-do list too, ok? I've written for nearly an hour so I best get some shut eye.