burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Went out to dinner with the fam last night.  Byblos (Lebanese restaurant downtown) has yummy hummus, though I wasn't particularly impressed by anything else.  (They score points for having Riesling on the wine menu -- and orderable by the glass, too -- but I didn't love their Riesling so it's perhaps a wash.)

Eric called this morning and I answered: "Whadda you want?"
Eric: [feignning shock] "That's not how you answer your phone."
Me: "It is when you're the one who's calling."
Eric: [something I don't remember]
Me: [sweetly] "Hello, this is Elizabeth [surname redacted], how can I help you?"
Eric: [sweetly] "You're so nice."

Later:
[Eric calls]
Me: [answering the phone] "Good morning, this is Elizabeth, how can I help you?"
Eric: "You're so nice."
Me: "I try."
Eric: [suddenly confused] "Why did I call?"
Me: "Because I'm charming?"
Eric: "No, that's not it, you're not."
Me: "Ow-ch!"
Eric: [at almost the same time] "I'm kidding."

I came into work and my new coat felt a bit overwarm, but 62F at lunchtime? (and winds ~34mph)  So not okay.  Blessedly it got coldish tonight.  At this rate, when it comes summer and I'm complaining about the hot&humid and get the "oh but you'll miss it come winter" I'll be able to say "what winter?"-- instead of my usual "no, actually; I love winter."

I wa so bad at Millionaire today.  One of the questions was about pre-Cana in the Catholic Church.  I had it narrowed down to 2 but had never heard of the term before and probably would have guessed wrong.  Mary Alice said one didn't have to be Catholic but one did have to know some Bible -- wedding at Canna.  I protest because it's not like that was the first wedding or anything, and it's not even famous so much for the wedding as for the miracle.

Prof. MW and I commiserated about HBS comp computers this afternoon :)  He likened his to a "cinder block."

I tend to forget that scans_daily sometimes has whole storylines rather than single crack panels, so encountering this link via the_red_shoes was a very pleasant surprise.  Dark, fucked-up, sex, story.  Just the way I like it :)

However, everything on LJ seems to be setting off my rage recently.  (And wasn't I just saying that recently?)

So, highlights of things that have set me off:

An acquaintance posted something recently about aging, and while I understand people's concerns -- worries about mortality and so forth -- this is one of the things guaranteed to set me off.  If you're actually slowing down and your body doesn't do as much as it used to be able to and so on, that's a valid complaint, but numbers themselves do not define you, and aging is so far.  tenebraeli once put it: "Old equals winning," explaining that we only have two options.  I recently read a NYT article on an ovarian cancer treatment, and it closes with a quote from a patient:
    "I turned 60 on the Fourth of July," Ms. Palmquist said. "That's one thing about this disease. I never complain about getting older."

musesfool discusses tagging and other organizational issues, and reading the comments from people saying things like "my Memories are a mess 'cause I never really mastered that feature" makes me weep 'cause I so love the Memories function.  It has recently come to my attention that ease-of-access is a huge issue for me, and that it's a handy umbrella term encompassing so many things that bug me in websites and LJs.

wisdomeagle wrote Ann M. Martin/Elaine Fairchild (that would be the BSC author and a Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood puppet).  She commented that "in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, the characters played by puppets and the characters played by humans (Mr. McFeely, Lady Aberlin, Mayor Maggie, Neighbor Abor, and Bob Dog are the ones springing to mind) interact on a pretty much equal level. Their being played by puppets has no actual plot-wise impact on anything that happens."  I wonder if this is part of why Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood never quite connected with me -- though that's probably not it.

Vaguely related, there's discussion of 80s movies over in scrollgirl's journal.  Yeah, this list is clearly in descending order of rage-inducing-ness.  The 80s movie thing is more a general rolling of the eyes at something that just doesn't connect with me (likewise, the immediately above item is not really a rage item either).

Am still deciding whether or not to go to the Boston Smith College Club event tomorrow night.  I think I may opt for being anti-social.

I am in fact generally content, however -- lest anyone worry. (I so want to write long rageful posts, but I find myself wondering if I should do joy lists instead. Because it's me, of course the answer will ultimately be to do both. Yeah complexity :) )