The Worm Continues to Turn

I was relieved to see no Sobig new copies in my email trash today, but other people didn't have it as easy.

Reuters: "Computer security experts raced to beat the clock Friday as the super-potent Sobig.F e-mail virus threatened to unleash a crippling barrage of data across the Internet."

[Scripting News]Email is still broken. I'm trying Eudora, it seems to work a little better than Outlook Express, but of course it's totally strange and all my filters are gone. It doesn't work better enough to use it instead of Outlook. The solution may be switching to Fastmail. In the meantime I'm missing boatloads of email. Thanks for all the great tips in the comments on last night's message. If you're trying to dig out of the quagmire, you may find some good advice here. [Scripting News]

8:20:04 PM    

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Forgiveness VI

Last night I trudged back to a 12-step group as a prodigal daughter. Unlike the Biblical story, no one ran out to meet me. No one even knew me, though I was relieved to see it was a large meeting, about 20 people. In New England I went to quite a few non-existent or onesy-twosy meetings before I gave up. When I finally did find a meeting that met regularly, someone timed each speaker and shouted "Three minutes!" while you were talking. Then the timer would smile and say, "Don't let me interrupt you. You can talk for another minute." I'd always forget what I'd been saying and just shrink into silence. I found myself worrying more about what time it was and trying to talk fast. I concluded that they just had too many people and would welcome one less. I'd been forcing myself to attend ever since the national office declared people like me didn't have the right kind of disease and should go away. And various other incidents that added up to my feeling abused and unwelcome. When I couldn't recover in 3 minutes like a good addict, I lost hope and went away.

That's been a pattern for a large part of my life, its most spectacular beginning when my mother kicked me out of the family at age 19 for daring to become engaged to someone she didn't like. I tend to assume that if someone's mad at me, I have to leave.

What does this have to do with forgiveness? It's just barely possible that I cherish a wee bit of resentment over such matters. My mother's dead; no hope of working anything out there, though I took the initiative to call my brothers last fall, and we seem to have a tenous speaking relationship.

With the group, it looks like to me that I'd better learn how to go back, stake out my place, and diffuse the negative screen that I've erected between me and what I need. As Anne Lamott says, "Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die."

So I showed up. Late. Sat there with my mouth shut. Resisted temptations to get my feelings hurt. Came home and reread Irrational Fears by William Browning Spencer (most unfairly out of print, but you can find used copies at places like half.com). It's the story of a retread AA in rehab as he fights with the old recovery, the new recovery, and the Elder Gods that infiltrate them. "But for the Grace of Azathoth," says the sign in the meeting house. Despite the laughs, Our Hero gets sober, too. Eventually.

8:10:52 PM    

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Tribute

When Sally Baron died, her kids thought the best way to memorialize her was to impeach Bush. She thought he was a liar. Read all about it.

Exercise Redux

I'm pretty tired again. Not satisfied with 2 5-min workouts and a half-mile walk each day, I took a Nia class today. Pumping jello, that's me. I enjoyed Nia when I used to live in Texas, but I couldn't find any classes close by in New England. (Even though everything is technically "close by," anything more than 2 miles away takes at least an hour to get to, not counting finding parking. On holidays it takes longer.) Nia is kind of a dance-yoga-martial arts-aerobics lite. Very low impact. Operates on the pleasure principle, not "no pain, no gain."

It may not be as wimpy as it sounds. A friend was telling me how she's toned up and slimmed down with SuperSlow, weight training in slow motion, designed to work out your fast twitch and slow twitch muscles at the same time. Maybe we'll abandon the exercise=abuse mode. Whether we'll get in shape remains to be seen.

Just a note that I feel particularly thankful that my new home serendipitously turned out to be two blocks from a community rec center that offers NIA, yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, as well as all the standard gym stuff. Sometimes God gift-wraps your blessings.

Read It and Act

Working Assets has a particularly good set of articles this week. Check out Greg Palast's story of the dim bulb that cratered the power and the ten excerpts from his book on the 2000 Florida Presidential election and the technology that made it possible. We've got to do something about the voting machines and registration process, or it won't matter whether we go to the polls or not. And take a stop by the activism page to scold Monsanto for bullying tiny Oakhurst Dairy for daring to state on their labels that their their livestock doesn't take growth hormones. It's sad that bullies don't even have to pretend they aren't.

7:20:13 PM    

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