Spinning Uncensored

Seriously, it was. Drivers not watching what they are doing. Office Depot is Office-empty-of-all-office-supplies. (Urban Ore) “Dude, what happened to your chair?” My previous cat had a taste for foam rubber. What can I say? Like your chairs are in any better condition? (Hong Kong East Ocean Restaurant) Given paper to indicate what dim sum desired, but no pencil. The couple next to us, seated after us, were finished before us. Waiters puzzled by our irritation. Grrrr….
Grown men should not take baby steps when walking.
Say what you mean, mean what you say, and DON’T put your ice cream container in the bread basket!

So we are tucking in with soup, pie, wine, and a film noir. Cheers.

P.S. the following title was a random false drop from a lit search. “Can chlamydial conjunctivitis result from direct ejaculation into the eye?” My question is: who does this research benefit? Ahem…  and how did it become a research topic?

Over a year ago, my U.S. Women’s History professor asked my class this question: at the end of the day, what have you left behind that documents your life–your existence? The question has stayed with me.

For many of us that documentation is the blog. It serves as a sort of social diary and a new form of letter writing. It allows us to reveal thoughts and opinions, and often serves as a way of recording the events in our lives. What’s remarkable about the blog is that it has no publishing constraints. Therefore, everything from larger social concerns to everyday domestic events find their way into this social forum.

However, the life span of digital documents is considered to be about five years, (source forthcoming). Paper lasts for centuries and stone even longer. Where will our blogs be in a decade? Are you archiving yours on paper? Is this really important, you wonder. Yes, it is.

Today’s historians are increasingly sifting through the personal histories of everyday working people. Unimportant people who had little to do with shaping the course of politics, wars, and major social events. Yet their lives and stories formed the tapestry of society–a rich context through which the important events of history flowed.  We only know of their lives though the ephemera they left behind–letters, diaries, memoirs, accounting books,etc.

So at the end of the day, what have you left behind as evidence of your life?

This isn’t a threat. It’s the new anime/manga I’m working on! It features a bibliophile named Yomiko Readman–scatterbrained, geeky, and wholly unpractical. But she has a superpower librarians can only dream of: the ability to manipulate paper to do her bidding–which is always painfully good and ethical. I have seen her dice people apart, create shields, weapons, parachutes, planes, bridges, etc. with this durable medium.

But the best part is that she lives in a tall building stuffed top to bottom with books. Bookstore owners adore–nay, worship–her. Her book thirst is beyond that of the most compulsive of bibliophiles.

What bugs me though–revealing the cataloger geek that I am–is the absolute chaos of her book collection! Random piles of books scattered everywhere. Only with superpowers could one find what they wanted. She needs a cataloger. Or at least some rough system of organization. Alas…

Oh, right. You can find this series on Netflix in movie and TV versions, (I like the TV series better), and in graphic novel form.