From e-mail: “Lyns, you are my web ceL(ynsey)E(lizabeth)B(arnett).”

Specs appeal!

I like to call this one “Upon consuming a Long Island Tea and learning her son would be moving in with his girlfriend upon graduation”.

My new hero is the sales associate at Ritz Camera in Burnsville mall. He and I proudly present pictures from Monday’s hot night on the town. {Help! I’m a plastic animal and drowning in your water glass!}

I hate it when this happens. I’ve just received five cyber-tips about responding to an online personals ad. (No, it wasn’t me doing the responding, although I’ve been there once and it sucked.) And I quote (without permission, but anyway):

1. Never use a personal ads web site that requires you to pay membership to post or reply to an ad. You’re much too wonderful to have to prostitute yourselves … people should want to get to know you for free!

2. Be cautious. There are some weirdos out in cyber-land. Only reveal as much information as you’d like (e.g., you can give your first name, but you don’t have to use your last name).

3. Be patient. Some people don’t check their email as often as you do. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear from someone the next day. Play it cool. Stay calm. And, hopefully, they’ll write back with a really, really, good excuse.

4. If you don’t have one already, you’ll need it: a pic to share with your cyber match! TRUST ME … it’s not 100% effective, but it’ll save some precious time by narrowing the playing field. Who wants to go out with someone who looks like Screech (from TV’s Emmy-award winning “Saved By The Bell”)? And since we’re on the subject of pictures … always send a “pic for trade.” There are some desperate people out there who like to collect photos. It’s a hobby. God only know where your picture ends up on the Internet. If they make comments like, “I don’t have a picture … I’ll make one later … just PLEEEEAAAASSSE send me your photo NOW you FUCKING BASTARD” — chances are, they’re creepy! Remember, you have the control!

5. As always, keep Harry updated on your progess.

Good advice to live by. If you do that sort of thing. I’m not naming names.

Tonight, late, late, on a dark and long Minnnesota highway, the Northern Lights morphed and twisted above me like nothing I’d seen before. And I craned my neck from the car window, swerving over the center line, until I could pull over and watch them from the silence of the parking lot. I left them looming large above me — knowing that if I stopped watching before they finished their show, I’d remember them when they were most spectacular. And things seemed good and right that way.

Just came back from a great evening out in Uptown with Sara … chowed on some BBQ at Famous Daves, saw East is East at the Lagoon, browsed magazines at Borders, sipped lattes at the Boo, and spent buco bucks on CDs at Cheapo. I needed that.

I still haven’t been able to figure out what’s up with my email account at lynsey.org (or lackthereof). So I’ve re-set some things over at register.com and either I’ll get email in 24 hours or this web site will self-destruct.

Had a near-death experience with a cheesecake this morning. I called mom for a recipe and when my dad picked up the phone he asked, “Why didn’t you just find on on the Internet?” Geez. That never crossed my mind for a recipe. I mean, you just don’t do that when you know your mom has a perfectly good cheescake recipe that she can email you in, like, five minutes. “And anyway, Dad,” I said, “I’m not going on the Net this weekend.” (Nice try — that lasted a whole five minutes.) This weblogging shit is doing some weird things to me. There have been odd minutes this week when I’ve not felt good about myself. Writing a web log should be about doing it for myself and I’ve not been doing that. So I’m going to try to stop worrying about the people reading/not reading and linking/not linking to this and try to make this site what I want it to be, without thoughts of what that means for my place in the blogging community, which, even though is burgeoning, seems to me only to be getting smaller and smaller.

I realized that I forgot to explain the near-death cheescake experience. My cheap springform pan nearly fell apart on its way into the oven. The graham cracker crumb was leaving a ring on my kitchen table and I could see the runny cheesecake gook starting to seep out the bottom. But I got it on another cookie sheet and into the oven on time. I hope it’s not all runny tomorrow.

How could she know? She was keeping her normal routine … studying, practicing, likely heading back to her room after another long meeting or study session. Probably thought nothing of leaving the building at 11 at night, still early. After all, finals were approaching. She had so much to do. And the next five minutes, maybe ten or fifteen, probably turned into a lifetime.

So they stopped walking alone. When they did, they knew they shouldn’t be and kept a brisk clip in their step. Maybe thought twice about leaving their backpacks lying around. They stopped talking about the “sleepy” college town. They became guarded and contemplative. They had too many other things to think about and it wasn’t fair that they had to think about this too.

But she kept her composure. Her wits. Her memory. And she broke free, and then freed another 3000 from thinking about whether they might be next.

Welcome back, Jack. You tell a great story. Big news (not to mention big speculation — I so saw this coming) over in Pyra-land: they’ve hired Derek as their creative director. Since they’ve got another announcement coming later this week, I immediately assumed they’d hired Kottke, too … but did anyone else read his source code for April 14? (Okay, I’m literally reading between the lines here …)

• The throw pillows on the couch are arranged as if they were just perfectly … thrown there.
• The KMS “Hair Play” molding paste and defining pomade haven’t quite been placed back to their original positions on the bathroom shelf.
• You can’t stop singing Britney Spears’ “Oops, I did it again.”
• The note left on the kitchen table reminds you to let go of the things that don’t really count and re-prioritize the people who do.