Wednesday, July 29, 1998

        This afternoon I got a phone call from Bob, and he said, "I think I did something bad on the computer." "At work?" I asked, and he said yes. He has one of our old computers at his office. I told him not to worry, and asked what he had done. It turns out that he was going to send me an email to my new address at work, and while he was at it, he wanted to add me to his address book.

        So he opened up the Address Book in AOL, but instead of clicking "New Entry" or whatever it is to add a new address to the database, he double-clicked on an entry that said "Address Book." He said he saw the message flash by with fifteen or so addressees.

        As it turns out, "Address Book" was a very old back-up copy of the subscription list for my notification messages. I just laughed and told him it was fine, that I was sure that anyone who had been on that list that long ago was a friend and that it wasn't a big deal. I did ask him if he said anything embarrassing, and he said he didn't. Just so I could confirm that what I thought had happened, happened, I wrote to Mike, who's always been the first name on the list, and asked if he had gotten mail from Bob. He had; he forwarded it to me, and it was just a short note saying that he (Bob) was going to help his brother move tonight and probably wouldn't be home until around 8:00 and not to worry about dinner.

        So I sent an email to the people that the message had gone to and told them that, fortunately or unfortunately, the love note they got from Bob really wasn't intended for them.

        In other mailing list weirdness, this morning I got the following email from Laura, quoting the signature that is automatically appended to the notification messages I send out every night:

>To unsubscribe from this list,
>send email to willa@willa.com
>with UNSUBSCIBE in the subject.

just wondering ... do we really have to spell it "UNSUBSCIBE"? :)

        I can't remember when I started putting that signature on the messages. I had several reasons for doing it, as I remember. One is that some people seem sort of embarrassed or guilty when they unsubscribe, and I don't want them to feel that way. Putting that notation on the end of the message sounded (to me) as if the process was automated, although it isn't. I still receive the messages and still process them by hand, but I felt like maybe it made it seem a little more impersonal, and that the people who wrote with excuses as to why they wanted to unsubscribe could be spared having to do that.

        The other reason is that people are occasionally rude when they unsubscribe, and apparently people sometimes subscribe under other people's names, causing embarrassment and irritation on both sides. It doesn't happen very often, but, again, I thought that putting the signature in with the appearance of automation would make the process a little less annoying.

        But it is pretty funny that the word UNSUBSCRIBE has been misspelled for all these weeks (or months, for all I know).

        I'm reading Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp, an autobiographical book about her years of alcoholism and her recovery from it. She has an article in SALON this week called "The Merry Recluse"--about how she's single and lives alone and loves it, and how it's hard sometimes to explain this fact to people who ask. She describes one of her typical evenings:

Nine forty-five p.m. I am standing in my kitchen preparing my very favorite meal, a zesty blend of wheat flakes, Muslix and raisins that comforts me deeply. It is a Thursday, which means that "ER" is on in 15 minutes, and it is mid-May -- sweeps month -- which means that I am filled with anticipation: yes, a new episode. I feel serene. I am wearing torn leggings, a T-shirt, a bathrobe. The dog is in the living room, curled contentedly (and wordlessly) on the sofa; the phone machine is blinking with several messages, which I've dutifully screened and have no intention of answering until tomorrow. And a thought comes to me, a simple statement of fact that arrives in a fully formed sentence. I hear the words: I am the Merry Recluse.

        I thought the whole article was interesting, and it has some relevance to my life, of course, since, although not a recluse, I am childless and fairly independent, and being married to someone who is also fairly independent, I sometimes feel like I live like a single person most of the time. I get to do pretty much what I want most of the time. Tonight Bob's helping his brother move, and I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich and some sour cream and onion low-fat potato chips. I'll finish this journal entry, maybe read a little bit or surf some web sites, then go to bed. I guess it was the part about eating that made me think of it tonight. She says later in the article that she eats "breakfast" pretty much for every meal--muffins, scones, cereal--and I've done that, certainly, as well.

        Just an observation--I'm happy with my life and wouldn't want it any other way.

        Work went well again today; I'm working on an enormous site that someone else created, making changes and corrections and making the pages conform. Bob asked me when I got home if I had fun today, and I said, "Well, I'm not sure fun is exactly the word I'd use, but it was good." I'm tired, but I know I spent the day doing worthwhile work, and so the tiredness feels earned.

        Yesterday I took in a small wicker thing that I think is meant to hold a square box of tissues; it's a nice size to hold a few note pads and some of my favorite pens, a tube of hand lotion and a hairbrush (I don't even have a drawer). Today I kept writing things down during that day that I want to remember to bring in. A hair clip to scrunch my hair up on the back of my head when it starts to bother me or I get hot. A coaster. A clock. Either some headphones with a longer cord or an extension cord for the ones I have. A mouse pad.

        I haven't used a mouse for a long time, all the computers I use have trackballs. And I have a mousepad there, but it's nondescript. I know we have a couple upstairs; I think I remember a plain blue one, although I may have taken that in to my previous office for someone, and I know there's another one up there that came with a Doom or Duke Nukem game or something. That might be interesting. I'll probably buy one, though. I've seen some good ones lately. The one that has particularly intrigued me is the Ouija board one. I almost bought one a couple of times, but then reminded myself that I didn't need one, since I didn't have a mouse. Well, now I do.

        And I don't want to move everything I own in there, of course, but I do want a few of my things around, so there's something to rest my eyes on occasionally other than the computer screen or the blank wall.

        I put the headphones on this afternoon, put a CD in the drive, formed a little cocoon of sound in my head and worked and worked. I'm turning into this little programmer person, and I like it.