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Such a frustrating day yesterday. I did something to all those webpages I had to reupload – missing [/div] tag or something. It was a batch change: Cirque de Méprise's cast has changed so many times in the last month that I had to entirely redo the nav bar that links to the cast member bios. I did all the programming with my mind elsewhere, did not save back-ups of the original pages, did not upload first into a protected test directory.
In other words, I was riding bareback.
What was I daydreaming about? Why the Great American novel, of course. And not just any Great American Novel, no. The Great American Novel as written by me. Because the circus really would be a perfect backdrop. Say the central character is a JD Barton introject (Puckish, quixotic, mid-twenties) in love with the Val character (slightly older – say thirty.) Val is living with Agostino, the immensely charismatic Peruvian aerialist. Agostino plunges 60 feet two-thirds of the way through the novel and breaks his spine. Lots of space for the specialite du maison – long rambling descriptions of the American heartlands. I think I was writing the first sentence of Publisher Weekly's four-star review – "A live circus is one of the most personal and compelling experiences available in a world where entertainment franchises threaten to turn our imaginations into strip malls" – when I actually looked down at the PC screen and noticed: the layout was all screwy!
Aiuto!
Of course I couldn't fix it because I really wasn't sure what I had done. Plus I had to scamper off for an orientation meeting for the Gala Spring Auction at Robin's school since, most unwisely, I had signed up to be a volunteer.
May I just say now that I hate all people involved in school fundraising? They're all women, and I think there may be forty of them in any given community of 30,000. They scurry around from school auction meeting to school auction meeting. I think they wear disguises – funny hats, Groucho Marx nose-and-glasses. The most fanatic arrange to have themselves artificially inseminated so that at any given time they can have a child of school age in each school district.
Anyway I sat there for two hours surreptitiously calculating the interval at which I could safely dip into the plastic container of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts without having the auction ladies rise up as one to pelt me with raffle tickets. I think I hate half a pint. What I really wanted to do was stand up and scream: "Do you know how fucking stupid it is to price raffle tickets at $10 a pop? And then get all smarmy and self-righteous because most of the school's parents are too broke to spring for ten tickets?"
I was bilious and sick by the time I drove home. But miracle or miracles! hostility gave me back my edge. By 10pm, the Mystery of the Weird Web Layout was solved. Now media outlets throughout west Texas and New Mexico can continue to ignore the upcoming Academy Awards in their relentless pursuit of fresh information about Cirque du Méprise!
In other news, in February the Little Store was up 40% over January and 30% over February 2005. One wants to see this as a trend, of course, but one would be well advised to keep a tight finger hovering over that chicken-counter.
In other words, I was riding bareback.
What was I daydreaming about? Why the Great American novel, of course. And not just any Great American Novel, no. The Great American Novel as written by me. Because the circus really would be a perfect backdrop. Say the central character is a JD Barton introject (Puckish, quixotic, mid-twenties) in love with the Val character (slightly older – say thirty.) Val is living with Agostino, the immensely charismatic Peruvian aerialist. Agostino plunges 60 feet two-thirds of the way through the novel and breaks his spine. Lots of space for the specialite du maison – long rambling descriptions of the American heartlands. I think I was writing the first sentence of Publisher Weekly's four-star review – "A live circus is one of the most personal and compelling experiences available in a world where entertainment franchises threaten to turn our imaginations into strip malls" – when I actually looked down at the PC screen and noticed: the layout was all screwy!
Aiuto!
Of course I couldn't fix it because I really wasn't sure what I had done. Plus I had to scamper off for an orientation meeting for the Gala Spring Auction at Robin's school since, most unwisely, I had signed up to be a volunteer.
May I just say now that I hate all people involved in school fundraising? They're all women, and I think there may be forty of them in any given community of 30,000. They scurry around from school auction meeting to school auction meeting. I think they wear disguises – funny hats, Groucho Marx nose-and-glasses. The most fanatic arrange to have themselves artificially inseminated so that at any given time they can have a child of school age in each school district.
Anyway I sat there for two hours surreptitiously calculating the interval at which I could safely dip into the plastic container of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts without having the auction ladies rise up as one to pelt me with raffle tickets. I think I hate half a pint. What I really wanted to do was stand up and scream: "Do you know how fucking stupid it is to price raffle tickets at $10 a pop? And then get all smarmy and self-righteous because most of the school's parents are too broke to spring for ten tickets?"
I was bilious and sick by the time I drove home. But miracle or miracles! hostility gave me back my edge. By 10pm, the Mystery of the Weird Web Layout was solved. Now media outlets throughout west Texas and New Mexico can continue to ignore the upcoming Academy Awards in their relentless pursuit of fresh information about Cirque du Méprise!
In other news, in February the Little Store was up 40% over January and 30% over February 2005. One wants to see this as a trend, of course, but one would be well advised to keep a tight finger hovering over that chicken-counter.
