blogging on my on-firon

Hope you like my new name for my Dell Inspiron, whose battery apparently has been recalled as a serious fire hazard. Hm. One more thing to worry about, as I rig it up several times a week to show movies in A's room while I take a shower. It does get rather hot, and we already replaced the fan last year because it made some strange squeaking sounds. But thinking about one more thing that could have happened to forever change my life, it's just too much work.

I am avoiding doing real things like finding out how to get a new battery, calling people back about art lessons and sending in a new article to my favorite magazine, even though it's pretty much done. I realized, once again, that I am terrible at taking pictures of people. I don't consider my immediate family in that, since I am very comfortable with them, but I don't like taking pictures of people. I had a few for this article I'm writing, and all but two were complete rubbish, either blurry or uninteresting. It probably shows some very deep-seated antisocial, conflict-avoidance tendencies, which are likely true, but it might also mean that I much prefer landscapes and objects as subjects. (admit it, mk, you just hate people. ok I admit it.)

As I sit here waiting for the laptop to catch fire, I intermittently hear the sharp, piercing bark of one of the many smaller-than-a-breadbox dogs that surround my house. My immediate neighbor got one about a year ago, and he's a bored terrier with one hobby: barking. Then right across the street, a little unsupervised girl has yet another, smaller terrier that would probably make my ears bleed if I stood too close to it. Many perfect-spring-weather afternoons, with the smell of lilacs outside my studio window, were ruined by the persistent scream of this dog. Then, to my horror, about two weeks ago I looked out my back window and saw my other neighbor's yard, with a little white yipyip puppy running back and forth along the fence. I am beseiged.

I am off now, to avoid other things and to listen to more of 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. Sometimes I really hate this book, and other times I am riveted. Or to be more precise, about half the characters I totally despise, and the other half I am ambivalent towards. Why am I continuing with the book? Because I usually like McCall Smith's stuff, and perhaps this will have a lovely denouement like many of his works. Or not. But I have to find out.