It’s a snow drifting night, all the roads are closed
But baby that’s all right because we’ve got no place to go
The wind is howling like Miles Davis gone insane
Pounding on the tin roof and the window panes

I’m not worried ’bout the weather
The weather’s gonna do just what it wants
I’m just glad to be together
Together all alone, Together all alone

Your mama’s got the kids, so you know they’ll be okay
And it looks like she’s going get to keep them now another two or three more days
The basement’s full of wood so we’re going to stay warm
Kitchen’s full of food, so go on and let it storm

We can go to bed real early, we can stay in bed real late
We’re going to get down under ‘neath all those covers, darlin’
And we’re going to hibernate
Turn off the television, unplug that telephone
We’ll have a short vacation and stay right here at home
Pretend this Pabst Blue Ribbon is Dom Perignon
And pray that the snowplows never come

I’m not worried ’bout the weather
The weather’s gonna do just what it wants
I’m just glad to be together,
Together all alone, Together all alone

—Robin and Linda Williams, Sugar for Sugar

We were paralyzed by an ice storm yesterday. For some reason, with the stormy weather didn’t come my usual winter depression. Instead, I went home, curled up on the couch, and listened to the rain in January fall against my windows.

---

The above Robin (not the comedian) and Linda Williams tune was part of the Prairie Home Companion show I attended Saturday. Garrison Keillor is a phenomenal writer and actor whose monologues on the radio are even more astounding in a live hall. Every day, around noon on National Public Radio, they air his Writer’s Almanac … almost like an audio version of a web log.The USDA offers a cool service on their web site: the Interactive Healthy Eating Index. Plug in everything you’ve eaten in the past 24 hours, and voila! instant food pyramid. I wish that more government branches offered services like this. Doesn’t it make sense to get health information from these organizations rather than relying on a monthly subscription to Glamour or Self?Along those same lines of government agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration plans to archive all of Bill Clinton’s presidential materials. At the same time, President Bush announced that he would be launching an extensive web site which, God help us, will actually serve his constituents and replace the shameful White House site.

I’m flattered that the kind Brits at Guardian Unlimited plan to use one of my Norway photos in their new travel section! Will post the link when the site is live next week. My photos! In print!

Thanks to all of you who emailed and called after a few of my more … uh …. depressing posts last week. You inspire me.

I get worked up over little things, don’t I? Situations that wouldn’t bother most people eat away at me for hours, days, weeks … sometimes I think that writing about them will make me feel better.

Did you read yesterday’s post? Writing about the situation was supposed to help me; intsead, it left a permanent mark on my web log and the words are now etched in front of me, waiting to be re-read, re-lived. I contemplated deleting the post. I vowed, from from the start of this journey, I’d never do that.

So, today I’m writing again, a little sooner than I normally would, trying to erase some of yesterday’s damage. A few words, like a little cover up, whiting out that blemish of yesterday’s disillusionment.

Remember this: don’t let the bastards get you down!

---

Golly, gee whiz. Things seem to be appearing and disappearing on this web site as I seem to be having issues with Blogger lately. Please bear with me as I work through a few technical difficulties.The women’s font collective. I’ve always wanted my handwriting to be made into a font. My mom tells me to type letters to my grandma so she can actually read them; I suppose that would defeat the purpose if I used a font in my own handwriting, wouldn’t it?

T.J. calls this article “blog-worthy.” I think T.J. needs to get his own blog so the rest of us don’t have to do his linking for him! If you agree, you should email him!

I love the emails I get from the Brits: “Please feel assured that as requested I have now checked and amended your card details. Your goods with therefore be despatched to you within the next few days.” Why can’t we get such wonderful, personal service from the rest of the online retailers in the world?

Email is an amazing thing.

I remember when I first discovered email. Fall. 1993. My college friend Sara and I would race back to the dorm after lunch in the cafeteria, settle into a few uncomfy chairs in the building’s Mac lab (Mac in a Box — remember those?!), and log into our UNIX accounts. A little tingle when “You have new mail” would appear after the UNIX prompt; gallon waves of disaapointment when we read “You have mail” instead (there is a differenence). First Elm. Then Pine (”Pine Is Not Elm”). Then neither of us used either and we checked email with the fancy Eudora or Outlook or Netscape instead. No matter the mehod: those were the days when the emails I received were kind words from mom whose mundane news from home was the best thing that often happened in a day.

For a while now, I’ve found that email is much easier than the phone. I’m a better writer than I am top-of-the-head speaker. Email gives me time to prepare, think, and choose my words carefully; the phone gives me the opportunity to practice “ums” and “ahs” … and the phrase “is there a reason you called?”

Maybe though, for others, the phone remains the better mechanism for communicating. They would be better off saying things to me rather than writing them, because, five bucks down, they’d never say it in the first place if they realized what they were writing. Tell me: do you people think when you send me emails like you did today? Do you realize that I’m a person, not just an email address? And what would you do if I picked up the phone, called you right this second, and said “I’d like to discuss the email you sent me today”?

Mom, send me an email with good news from home. Tell me Grandma is well. Tell me dad went to the dentist and is for once happy about his teeth. Tell me it’s parent teacher conference time and you’ve been at work a lot, but that when you got home last night you made chicken and potatoes and that you got a really good “do” on that last batch of chocolate chip cookies.

And you — you know who you are — send me an email that doesn’t criticize my work, because, even though I shouldn’t take it personally, my work is an extension of me. And you know what? I’ll be calling you.

---

Eric has moved into new digs (only online; the real move won’t happen til spring). Hopefully the lame designer he hired (uh, that would be me) got everything to work in both IE and Netscape. Check out the fresh look!Another dot-com disaster. It’s really bad when only two days after you place an order from an online store, it goes belly-up. Bye bye, lucy.com. For me? I’m sticking with the web in education. We’ll be around a lot longer than some of these folks are.

It’s a bit colder now, but last week’s thaw produced amazing icicles from the rafters of my office.

I work in an old house on campus … and this is the view from its backyard. The president of the college used to live here; sometimes, when I admire the elegantly curved ceilings, or visit with a co-worker in front of the living room fireplace, I wonder about the house’s past. Did the president and his wife hold intimate receptions or gala parties? Did he toss and turn the night before he faced difficult decisions? Did she smile coolly, despising the role of the “president’s wife” and her life in this home that was never really hers? Did their children run up and down these squeaky stairs, pausing at the landing and peering out the crack to the outside world, which has never quite been repaired, even with half a dozen renovations?

It’s charming working in an old house. My office is hotter than blazes in the morning; as cold as cold can be in the afternoons. If you run out of toilet paper in the bathroom, you can’t just pick another stall; house rules: change the roll yourself. The fridge in the kitchen is overflowing; if we tried hard enough, we’d probably have a five course meal with the provisions my co-workers bring in. And just this afternoon? Folks around here sometimes forget we’re still an office; the pastor’s secretary rang the doorbell today. I half-expected her to arrive with a fresh batch of cookies, as if welcoming new neighbors.

---

On the other night’s evening news, Tom Brokaw called the Internet the “Internot.” Maybe he’s got something there.I know you’ve seen her. That mildly annoying NBCi.com girl. Well, she has a name. Ingrid Torrance. And she has a fan club.

He accepted the offer. How’d I know? I cracked the code, baby!

The new Valentine’s theme on top (re-fresh a few times; you’ll see it!) is inspired by those oh-so-wonderful conversation hearts.

It was a call from off campus. I had better be nice to this one.

I laughed. Do I what? Have a web site? What kind of question is that? While I wasn’t quite sure, this could have been my father, calling me out of the blue on a weekday morning, ever failing to identify himself, simply to ask some inane question about my rarely updated web log. I knew that, with my father, as soon as I answered, “Why yes, I have a web site” I’d be peppered with “Well then, why don’t you update it?” Surely enough, this is what my father would do on the phone this very morning, of all mornings.

But he’s not going to win! I’m not answering this person the way he wants me to. He’s just going to have to guess whether or not I have a web site. So there! I laughed in to the phone, my long and cackling laugh that identifies me across the room in a crowd of hundreds. And in a teasing, taunting voice said, “May I ask who is calling, please?”

Pregnant pause.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, and I’m looking for your college’s web site. You do have one don’t you? Aren’t I speaking to the webmaster?”

{Can one actually hear across the phone lines an embarrassed flush rise up one’s cheeks?}

“Uhh . . . yes . . . of course we have a web site. And you’re not my father, are you?”

This is why I prefer to email.

---

I am sure I’m only one of the millions who decided to tape the West Wing last night and tune into Fox’sTemptation Island instead (or “Temptaion Island,” misspelled, as the producers declared in one screen). So what should appear in my inbox today? “TELEVISION PROGRAMMING HAS SUNKEN TO A DISAPPOINTING LOW.” Tune in tonight to CNN’s Crossfire to discuss this show which features “four unmarried, but serious couples and 26 attractive singles who will vacation in Belize and have their sexual antics recorded for America’s growing population of voyeurs.” Tempt me not!I anted up and paid an exorbitant $20 for a kick-ass Blogger mug, which now sits on my desk at work and from which I’ll be happily sipping my coffee tomorrow. And dag! I’m even lucky enough to get MY blog on their new server!

Over lunch today I had a 20 minute conversation about washing my car.

You see, we’re all in the same dilemma here. It’s Minnesota, it’s winter, the roads are a mess. The snow on the side of the road has turned a lovely shade of brown gray ick. The white slime on my car doors makes it look like I’ve used a salt rub on the Chevy.

Wash your car and take the chance of freezing your car doors shut. Like I did last week. The only door to be opened was the back passenger door. I had to twist and crawl my ass to the front driver seat. Only then was I finally able to push it open by lunging my whole body against the door. The shoulders are still bruised! Not a pretty picture.

And then, this week the thaw comes. And my nice, clean car is covered in slush once again, effectively wasting the $1.99 I spent at the Amoco last week freezing my car doors shut.

It’s 30 degrees outside and I’ve never been happier about a dirty car.

---

Seems that everyone is making confessions this new year! Lance presents The Dead Letter Office, and Jack, Christine and the crew have come up with crush.nu. My desire to participate in either one of these is about nil right now. Thank goodness I don’t have the need to!

Jonatha Brooke’s new CD is almost in stores. Go. Order. Now. (Speaking of music on the net, I’m still a bit embarrassed that my two fifty-something co-workers have downloaded music from Napster and I’ve even yet to get on the site. Hmm. Something’s wrong with this picture.)