Have a holly jolly

I slept through my ATA Access meeting tonight. I am a bad, bad volunteer. I signed up with the Taproot Foundation a month ago, and this is my first project: rebuilding a Web site for blind and disabled web surfers. The project has been in the preliminary stages of development since June. This is what happens when there's no budget, no accountability, and no pay. Service grants are a nice idea, anyway.

Eugene was lovely for Thanksgiving. OK, let me qualify that. It was cloudy. cold, and it rained. But the company was good. I got to hang at my niece's pad, watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and bounce on a trampoline with my very adorable nephew F. I told him about Godzilla -- how big he is and how he steps on everything. And what he doesn't step on, his tail knocks over. And that he lives underwater and breathes radioactive fire. He and his sister A were a bit wide-eyed. They don't get a lot of mainstream culture. But little F's eyes lit up at one point: we were hiking, he saw a spider and got scared. I told him, "Godzilla's not afraid of spiders. He eats them." This excited him tremendously. Crazy what kids cotton onto.

My friend S gave me a CD by the Kings of Convenience. I quite like it. Sometimes it sounds like highly produced jingles from bad seventies TV shows, but then it's slow and folksy like CCR. THey're kindof like The Church on qualuudes. I think. I've never had qualuudes. I think.

Christmas shopping has begun. I put in a massive Amazon oder today. And I've got to make a list. No matter how much shopping I do in August, I never get half of what I need. OK, and sometimes I raid the gift drawer. Until there's nothing left. ("Well, I wouldn't have bought it if I didn't like it!")

Work is slow. Autodesk is days late calling me. I am regretting not taking the job. I mean, my life's not that great. Then again, there are projects of my own I could develop. For instance, I have this burning interest in libraries. What on earth will they look like in 10 years, I wonder? And, of course, I could take my volunteer committment more seriously.