: don’t try this at home :

Or anywhere else for that matter.

Here’s the thing: I made the mistake of trying to order DSL service through AT&T. What was I thinking? AT&T?!? They’re the most disorganized, inefficient, arrogant, bumbling company in the known universe. It took me five hours and seven phone calls and I’m still no closer to realizing my goal: I remain without an internet connection.

I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of an aneurysm, though — thar she blows, matey! Or a massive stroke.

Talking to AT&T, for any reason whatsoever, is only a slight improvement over talking to walls. Or teenagers. It doesn’t get any easier with practice, either. The only difference between the first phone call and the seventh was the duration. The first call was immediately disconnected, bink, while the seventh was routed and re-routed and re-re-re-re-routed to every department and every employee at AT&T. At least once, usually two or three times.

I mean, first I was sent to the Department of Dead Ends, then forwarded to Obstacles and Hurdles, then Stonewalling, Human Incompetence and Nonsensical Excuses, Contradictions, and, finally, Circular Logic, the whole round robin of departments and divisions. Each one as clueless and unhelpful as the next.

How can they remain in business with such abysmal service? AT&T is a carrier, all right, a carrier of acid reflux. Who has the patience to deal with them on a regular basis? I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

Not only did I not order DSL, I canceled my wireless service in a fit of pique. I had to have it restored later, of course, but that’s how far those airheads pushed me. Right over the edge into Irrationalville, where the sky is brown and the flowers are wilted.

Don’t go there, I promise you won’t like it. But if you absolutely have to, make some preparations before you embark on the descent into the bowels of Hell, which is AT&T — such as pack a lunch and a fistful of Valium and a roll of Tums. They will be invaluable, keep them close at hand.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: weak fingers are my achilles heel :

In a recent job search, I was outed as a clumsy, weak-fingered, hunt-and-pecker. In other words, I took a typing test.

At the end of said test I was ushered into a cubicle and presented with the results: a dismal 40 wpm. Then they subtracted the one measly typo, resulting in an even more dismal 39 wpm. Visions of lucrative job offers did not dance in my head.

There, in that cramped, windowless cube, Truman Capote is what came to mind. After he’d read On The Road by Jack Kerouac, Capote, who was a spiteful, bitter, little man, huffed, “That’s not writing — that’s typing.”

Well, I’ll never be accused of that, because I have weak fingers. Weak ankles, too, but that’s another post altogether. My fingers are stiff, troublesome things, refusing to do what I want them to, go where I want them to go. I can’t type, I can’t play the piano, I can’t knit, sew, draw, or use a touchscreen. Shoot, I can’t even hang on to my car keys; I keep dropping them, like bad habits.

Maybe it’s not weakness so much as really bad aim, you know? I rarely hit the key I’m headed for when I try to type like a grown-up. My fingers, instead, lurch around spastically, eventually crash landing on every key except the one I wanted. Sometimes hitting two or three at a time.

And, when the planets are right, my fingers land in configurations that turn out to be computer commands. I’ve done things like turn on the voiceover function — that annoying computer-generated voice that narrates every mouse click and dialogue box and keystroke — without a clue how to turn it off. I’ve also enlarged the screen size by something like two thousand percent — again, with no idea how to undo it.

While that’s irritating, it doesn’t compare to the disaster my fingers would cause in a life threatening situation. They wouldn’t, for example, cling bravely to a helicopter’s landing strut or a balcony railing for dear life. No, not for a second. They’d send me and my car keys plummeting earthward without a second thought. I can’t trust fingers like that, they’ll kill me given the opportunity.

I’ve tried strength training. I’ve tried squeezing stress balls. I’ve tried typing classes. Nothing, no improvement. So what do I do? I keep them at arm’s length and refuse to take my eyes off them.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: do you smell something? :

A Reader’s Poll

It’s probably me. Or maybe the blog. Or maybe, and this is what I’m really hoping, I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m good at that, at being a craftsman of K2s.

Here’s the thing: traffic was down 3.01% last week and down 6.11% the week before. That’s all I needed to see before deciding I’m headed for complete and utter ruin, washed up, a has been (ta-da!, a K2).

But traffic is a variable, right? An indicator? Please, tell me it’s not necessarily a harbinger of doom. Tell me it could be a harmless, inconsequential blip. No, don’t, I won’t believe you. I’ll still freak out and worry and obsess over it.

I mean, I’ve been mired in a blunk (blog funk) for what seems like forever and, while I tried to maintain some standards when publishing posts, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’ve been posting crap all along. Steaming piles of the stuff. How would I know? I’ve lost all perspective. Up is down, black is white, and I’m dizzy.

So I keep asking myself: is this the beginning of a trend? Have I lost my relevance as a blogger? Am I not funny anymore; well, assuming I ever was? Are my topics uninspired and predictable? Should I leave blogging to the professionals? Those questions taunt me.

I need your help to find the answers. Maybe we can turn this ship around, bring the old fun back. Make a few improvements here, add new features there, hire a writer, polish this, burnish that, put in an oxygen bar, et voila, a new and improved blog experience for you, my loyal and discerning readers. Would you like that, a better blog experience?

I would, so I hope you’ll give me a chance to shape up and fix the error of my ways. Simply answer a few quick questions and — bada bing, bada boom — we’ll be on our merry way. Please secure your flotation device.

1. Does the content on publikworks stink?
a.)  Yes, ma’am, it does.
b.)  No worse than usual.
c.)  What’s a publikworks?

2.  Is there too much whining and complaining?
a.)  Yes, there is, you big crybaby.
b.)  No, there’s not enough.
c.)  I don’t know, I only look at the pictures.

3.)  Do you have any favorite posts or topics or categories?
Which ones  ______________________?

4.)  Would you like more variety?
a.)  More videos and music, please.
b.)  I like to enter contests.
c.)  Poetry slams.
d.)  Games are fun.
e.)  Happy hour specials.
f.)  A mosh pit.
g.) Better, funnier posts would be nice.

5.)  Do you have any interest in:
a.)  Book reviews and / or recommendations.
b.)  More science and astronomy and topical interest posts.
c.)  The revival of Half-Baked, our weekly review of new books and music and other hip stuff.
d.)  Receiving occasional and offbeat tweets.
e.)  Better, funnier posts would be nice.

6.)  Would a change in format help?
a.)  It wouldn’t hurt.
b.)  No, not at all.
c.)  Maybe.

7.)  How about a complete overhaul?
a.)  Yes, change everything.
b.)  Nah, leave it alone.
c.)  Change is refreshing, but it needn’t be drastic — new curtains will work wonders.

Well, I guess that about covers it. If you have any suggestions or opinions or tips or answers, please drop a comment in the comment box or shoot me an email. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I’ll let you know the results of the poll and of any planned changes in a future post.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: so much for the mayans :

The New Agers and pop culturalists were wrong; Mayan calendars do not predict the end of the world in 2012. And archaeologists can prove it.

They’ve recently unearthed deep-time calendars in Guatemala counting thousands of years into the past and future. The Mayans, a storied star-gazing people, calculated the paths of the planets with their naked eye long before telescopes, tracking the motion of the moon, Venus, and Mars. The calendars provide a peek into how they kept such accurate records of the months, seasons, and years.

One calendar, which charts the transit of Mars and Venus across the sky and back again, spans 7,000 years. It goes well beyond the doomsday forecast for December 21, 2012 (or December 23, depending on who you were listening to).

We’ll need to soldier on, folks, so keep up with your flossing. Unless.

Good old 99942 Apophis, the killer asteroid of 2036, gets us first. Okay, maybe not killer, but still a dangerous asteroid that might could possibly come within striking distance of earth in 2036, thus putting an end to life as we know it. Of course, a number of other things could blow up or collide or erupt or incinerate long before 2036.

Like the Yellowstone Volcano, a suddenly popular apocalyptic possibility. Some are calling it a super volcano. Ooooh. It’s ready to erupt at any moment! Unless you listen to the National Park Service, who says there’s no evidence a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone National Park is imminent. Current geologic activity remains stable, just as it has since monitoring began back in the 80s. Keep a good thought, nonetheless.

Or someone could push the wrong button, and ka-BOOM. Or all that space junk could plummet to earth at once, all 20,000+ pieces, and ka-BOOM. Or the Cubs could win the World Series, and ka-BOOM. All kinds of possibilities.

Then, too, the world is full of crackpots who enjoy making bizarre predictions, so there will never be a shortage of doomsday scenarios. Or a shortage of doomsday preppers, for that matter.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012.

: invasion of the giant pink underpants :

I awoke to a dire situation this morning: I was down to my last clean pair of underwear. The unsightly, ill-fitting, for-emergency-use-only, I’ll die-if-anyone-sees-me-in-these, elastic sprung, Pepto-Bismol-pink pair that bunches and binds.

My heart sank at the sight of them. It’s going to be a long day.

Ordinarily, I’m pretty good about doing laundry, a little compulsive about the folding and putting away, maybe, but pretty good about keeping up with it. I think a house full of clean clothes feels faintly luxurious, indulgent even. But time and Tide® got the better of me this week, I’m behind on housework, too.

These solitary wallflowers, my voluminous, pastel-colored, grandma-type bloomers, they feel like penance, a hair cloth shirt. And they’re very nearly as comfortable. Women’s underwear comes in too many styles, in my unsolicited opinion — everything from boy cut to thong to French bikini to edible.

Me? I like the hipsters, they’re not too teeny weeny and not too oversize-wide-load proportioned. They’re just right, like baby bear’s bed in Goldilocks.

So how’d I wind up with these big girls? By not reading the package they came in, that’s how. The one that was clearly labeled ’Briefs’. Okay, let me stop right there and say that’s a lie; there’s nothing brief about these pink nightmares. I could set up camp in those things, they’re big as a tent. A three-ringer, Barnum & Bailey circus-sized.

The elastic waistband reaches to my armpits and the leg bands give chase, providing a snug, all-day wedgie. One that leaves me walking funny. Not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar. They need a belt — or a cinch or an anchor — and about three fewer yards of material. If Jockey For Her continues with such profligacy, we’re headed straight for a cotton shortage — which is the slippery slope to scratchy, coarse, uncomfortable, billowing underpants.

None of us wants that, do we? No, of course, we don’t. I walk funny enough without the perpetual wedgies.

: it needed killing :

When I say ‘it’ I mean the device they call a smartphone. Please, who do they think they’re kidding? Smart? Such a benighted little marauder should be dubbed a sadist-o-phone. For nearly a year now, it’s been the bane of my existence, the fly in my ointment, the bug up my nose.

The very fact I’m not afflicted with apoplexy or involuntary twitches is a miracle, really. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have twice tried to strangle the stoopid thing with my bare hands. That’s how unhinged and irrational that phone can make me.

What I’ve suffered, instead, are dropped calls and butt dials; poor reception, untimely disconnects, settings changes; mysterious application launches, weird alarms, blinking and bleating and a persistent ringing; violent vibrations, too; and on and on. Need I continue?

Most of the shrieking alerts and alarms were so startling the sadist-o-phone wound up crashing to the floor or sidewalk or whatever in a paroxysm of fear. Injuries were sustained. The screen has pressure cracks; the battery’s damaged; the touchscreen’s gone wonky — no, wait, the touchscreen’s gone wonkier. And, I confess, my heart was made glad with each new dent or scrape or crack.

As I said, it needs killing and there’s no time like the present. I canceled my wireless data plan and downgraded to a plain old $9 cell phone that, quite unexpectedly, gets a stronger signal — voice only. No email, no texts, no internet, no GPS, no wi-fi, and, best of all, no bloated bill. Now who’s smart?

No, still not me. Seems I was a bit premature: my new DSL connection hasn’t been activated quite yet. Maybe next week, they say. Maybe? Week? Are you crazy, I need it now, I can’t wait until next week. I need Tweets and YouTube and Google, Pinterest and stuff, comprende, señor? And I need them bad.

I have meteor showers to monitor and neuroscientists to follow, iTunes to shop and libraries to browse. C’mon, man, I’ve got email to check and inboxes to fill. I can’t do any of that without a connection. I’m unplugged, I’ve got no connections and I’m out of the loop.

Ooh, I’ve got chocolate chip cookies, though, and cold milk. Forget the internet, let’s eat cookies  — and I don’t mean the ones stored in your computer.

The smartphone looks pretty stoopid now, doesn’t it? nert, nert, nert.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: goody, a pantone 416 day :

Yesterday dawned a glorious leaden gray, everything awash in the brilliant splendor of Pantone 416. The sky was gray, the streets and buildings and moods were gray, even the air — gray.

It was the fourth in a series of gloomy days predicted to stretch well into next week. Extended forecasts, though, are notoriously unreliable; in fact, would they even qualify as wild guesses? Judges? No, they wouldn’t.

Here, on the fifth soggy morning in a row, it’s 64º with 92% humidity and a UV Index of 1 — Low — with a light rain. Puddles dot the sidewalks, cars splash like pontoons, people look glum under their umbrella canopies.

After a few quick errands, I looked basted and in need of a towel.The car seats were damp and had wet paw prints, the steering wheel was, ew, clammy. Plastic grocery bags, groceries, hair, socks, everything — wet. It’s the kind of weather where patience is thin and frustration is high. It’s bleak, naturally, but any worse than the previous four? Yes.

I’m growing mold on my north-facing side. Mold!

Enough already. Where’s the sun? Why doesn’t it come out? Is it on vacation, was it kidnapped, what? Ever since our very benign and mild winter I’m worried about payback, the big backlash — things like arctic cold snaps or suffocating heat waves or rain forest status.

That’s what we’re on the verge of becoming, you know: a rain forest — drippy and squishy, but minus the exotic foliage. (Unless corn is considered exotic in your local area.)

And now that Newtie’s left the campaign trail, we’re out of options. Who else will colonize the moon? Bet that’s a nice, dry climate up there, what with the craters and moon rocks. There’s a dark side to it, though. Well, according to Pink Floyd, anyway — has anyone checked their facts? Pardon me, Houston, we have a question.

Be honest. Wouldn’t we all like a pretty Pantone 712 (sea shell pink) day or maybe a lovely 538 (blue sky)? I would. Dry out this mold and pruney finge–hey, the sun’s out.

Never mind.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: this is a carrot :

What, you’ve never seen a carrot before? You look puzzled. You, um, don’t think that’s a bike, do you?

Because it’s not, it’s a carrot. A big, fat, three-speed carrot dangling from a short stick. First, it’s going to lead me into temptation, then wildly and painfully astray.

I know this just as surely as I know it’s futile to resist the siren call; I will succumb. You see, I love bikes. I love their design, I love the freedom and openness and the tick of the gears when I coast. I love the sun on my shoulders and leaning into turns and the feeling of power and exhilaration and speed.

You know what I don’t like? Biking shorts, they’re too shiny. And pedal clips, things I call toe traps. Neither do I like the one-legged stuff: the getting on and off, the stopping and starting, that’s where the trouble starts. Not with the riding, but with the one-legged stuff. Count on it.

I mean, I can’t even put on a pair of pants without clutching a wall. Or climb the stairs sans railing. What do I think will happen when I try to maneuver myself onto a bike? I’ll defy gravity? Levitate? Hover like a traffic helicopter? No, sir.

What I will do, of course, is crash to the ground with the dainty grace of space junk. Someone will see me fall, run to my aid, ask if I’m okay, and yadda yadda yadda. It’s practically a rite of spring, this ushering in of a new bike season. The first crash. Granted, I meet a lot of nice people this way, but still.

Why do I keep doing this, year after year? It hurts. And I know exactly how it will turn out, but I do it, anyway. Eagerly and with great anticipation, because I’m addicted to the rush. I get jazzed by the sounds and the jangle and the rhythms.

All winter long, I’m hermetically sealed away — safely stored in blister pack. By now, my senses are deprived, my hearing is muffled, and I’m dulled stoopid by climate-controlled comfort. Let me out! No matter what the price, just let me out in the fresh air and hubbub. I’ll fall down, get up with a limp, and all will be right with the world.

Now, shall we proceed?

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: seminal moments in the new ‘hood :

Sshhh, listen, do you hear that?

That’s not idle cranial chatter pinging around in my brainpan. That’s the sound of genuine, bona fide thoughts. Lucid ones. Isn’t that something after all this time; I can think again. That or the marbles got loose.

So what mysterious force sparked this resurgence, you ask? I don’t know. My little world went topsy-turvy on me this month, like a snow globe in a paint shaker. Upheaval and disorientation are the orders of the day lately.

First, I moved to an unfamiliar area. Then I had the thyroid ablation, a tiny nuclear bomb in pill form. Then parted from the one constant I had, namely my dog. And, as a final insult, I got caught in a knock-down-drag-out-fight with the wind. That’s right, I said the wind. See : ixnay on the indway* :

It came blasting out of nowhere and everywhere at the same time to assault me in public, in full view of office workers, in broad daylight. I was tossed and blown and ricocheted when I wasn’t clinging like a bad smell to handholds and dear life. My entire self-image came into question.

No longer was I the reckless, undaunted dame I believed I was, but a quivering weakling. An ignoble wuss. It was disgraceful. There is shame in such cowardice, plenty of wisdom, too, but it was the shame that gnawed at me.

Was that going to be my future, I wondered, a craven, skittish existence? Was I destined to be the pigeon in my new and alien neighborhood? Oy. I drew the curtains and dragged my sorry self through days of bitter recriminations and muttered epithets. Until I awoke that sunny Saturday morning to my seminal moment, my epiphany, which was: Wait a second, I’m not a weakling!

I don’t cower. I’m not timid. And I can take a punch, dammit. So snap out of it.

Okay, as seminal moments go, it lacked panache. But it was effective, it was rational, it was even motivating. I began venturing out into my new neighborhood, on foot and unaccompanied. It’s not scary, in fact, it’s kind of wonderful. There’s a sense of community here and architecture and church bells and wide, tree-lined avenues. My bunker mentality has evaporated. This feels like home.

I stand up straighter, I’ve regained my footing and some of my confidence. New ideas occasionally pop into my head (at least I hope they’re ideas, not arteries), like the days when I had focus. The executions still blow, but the ideas are solid. Where there are ideas, there is hope.

Things are slowly returning to normal and life is good.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: the double dip :

I’m not referring to ice cream or embezzlement or recession. No, ladies and gentlemen, nothing so delightful.

I’m talking about falling in the toilet. Twice. On two consecutive nights. First, I forgot to put the seat down and … ka-PLOOOSH!!!aww, crap!!! Next, I unknowingly lifted the lid and the seat and … ka-PLOOOSH!!!aww, crap 2!!!

Ta da.

So for those keeping score, that makes 2 self-inflicted whirlies and 1 minor, but ungainly, pratfall off my bike. Thus far. Stay tuned, it’s only Thursday, there’s still plenty of time for a dazzling finish. Because my new bottle of meds screams in yellow ‘May Cause Dizziness.’ I’m doomed. Traction looms large in my future, I can feel it like phantom pain.

The pharmacist warned me, too, about the dizziness, but also about an increased appetite. Which makes perfect sense, because when I’m not busy falling into the toilet, I’m eating or, you know, shoveling. In the manner of a chipper/shredder. At this pace, I should be the size of a Macy’s balloon in eight, maybe nine days. I’ll need handlers — crane operators mostly.

I’m going to need a bigger blog for this. A bigger chair, too. Bigger Levi’s. Hey, where’d my feet go? I can’t see my feet. Can you, are they here? Come on, this isn’t funny. They were here a minute ago, I swear.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: ixnay on the indway* :

Things have a way of sneaking up on us, don’t they? Birthdays and deadlines do it all the time, surprise! They catch you unaware, sure, but they don’t knock you to the ground and hold you there. The wind will. It’s a mean, sneaky bastard. I know this because it came after me a couple days ago.

I was skipping merrily along, minding my own business, when the wind came out of nowhere and sucker punched me with a body slam — whooomp! — four blocks from the main library. It was an invisible 60 mph blast from the north I did not see coming. And I went sideways, against my better judgment and best intentions, straight into a parked car. Hard.

Remember bop bags, those inflatable plastic clowns you’d beat up, but couldn’t knock down? That’s what I turned into: a staggering, skittering, reeling bop bag. My backpack acted like a sail, catching the wind and buffeting me, sending me caroming from parking meter to street light to mailbox to wall. At high-speed and off-balance. I’m certain it made for entertaining street ballet, my stumbling, graceless performance.

How does a person fight back against this quixotic, malevolent force? Me, I clung like death to anything upright: including the aforementioned fixtures, plus flagpole, cement planter, bus bench, and doorknobs. I scuttled like a crab, hunched and furtive, for two scary blocks. Then I came to a broad intersection or, more accurately, a giant freaking wind tunnel and met my Waterloo.

The prospect of venturing across traffic in such gale-force conditions — where I’d have only bumpers to grab, the ones on moving cars — was far too daunting. I turned around and scuttled home. I had discovered my inner wuss. My role models, Olive Oyl (Popeye’s girlfriend) and Granny Clampett (from the Hills of Bever-lee), they would have soldiered on. Why didn’t I?

Well, at this late stage in my life, I think it dawned on me that I’m not animated nor do I have a stunt double. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m breakable, a hateful and disturbing thought if ever I had one. I’m hoping it passes quickly, like the wind’s been doing. Wish me luck.

*Translation from the original Pig Latin: nix the wind.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012