Oasis (today, at least)

Most of what I've had to say recently has been rather (read as "pretty") dark... but today was a good day, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

A very good day, actually. Yesterday, my acupuncturist said she was going to include at least one "just have fun" point, and my spirits are definitely lighter today. Actually got some composition done; I would have gotten more done, but school called because something had electronically thrown a shoe and they were stymied, so I had to drive in and do the technological equivalent of hitting something with a fifteen-pound sledge, which solved the problem quite nicely (and, fortunately, quite quickly). I was relieved that the going there was without difficulty, the being there was without difficulty, and the interacting with the other folks who happened to be there at the time was not just without difficulty, but actually enjoyable.

I am very glad, though, that stuff has been going on there that I have been having nothing to do with, and that I will continue to have nothing to do with. The place is swarming with technophobes, just getting e-mail into semi-regular use took at least eight years. And that's only SEMI-regular use. There are a terrible number of just plain misconceptions about anything electrically powered, it would seem, much less anything network-enabled... but to get to the point of the story, this year for the first time we're providing e-mail addresses for the students (so nobody has to remember that little Sally is "YippieSkippyPinkAndBlue192332@whatever.com", but rather has a much-easier-to-understand-and-remember address like "LittleSally@OurStudents.org") , and apparently there was recently a meeting between some Highly Placed Administrator and one of the tech crew about how to encourage students to use their school e-mail accounts.

I suggested to my techy friend that any and all plans to accomplish this could be summarized with the same three words: "Use the f**kers." Whether e-mail has uses that pretty much everybody except some of the people on our staff have already known for what, ten years? Twenty years? Thirty years? ...apparently, it hasn't quite soaked in, and some people think we're going to need to "strategize" on how to implement it... Well, all I can say is, thank God I don't have anything to do with this project, because I'm sure that nobody wants to hear what I'd have to say about it. Even if I only said the polite things I'd like to say about it. Of which, frankly, I don't have many. I had my first internet-accessible e-mail account in... 1981, was it?

Well, anyway, that technological nonsense shot at least half of a day that was, up to the point of the phone call, filled with joy and creativity. But, I had at least a reasonable amount of fun hopping down the road, I didn't have any problems doing it, simply driving the car (something I've occassionally been concerned about as something that maybe might not be doable any more) was no problem at all.

Someone at school asked me how I was doing, and I said, "I'm in air conditioning and my house isn't on fire. In Southern California right now, that's about all you can hope for, and for us right now, that's pretty good."

So, all in all... a good ride, today, bumps and all. Hope the "happy" is still going tomorrow.