Home Making and Lies We Tell Ourselves

One word that has been on my mind a lot lately is 'displacing.' The meaning I assign to it is a sort of psychological one. It is doing one activity to avoid another. Which is not to say that the activity done is useless although it may well be. I'm not sure that my definition is really correct. (I just displaced from writing this entry which is displacing me from lunch and a number of other things to try to see if my definition was correct and I've concluded it's probably not.)

Anyway, yeah. There are things that need doing. And I'm editing photos (the one above is going to become a favorite, see if you can see why) and writing a blog entry about not doing stuff.

One part of me says that by doing all this stuff on the computer I'm 'burning it in' to be sure that all is well. And, you ask (or maybe you didn't), how is it going with that other iMac which was supposed to be the condo solution for sleek computing environment for FFP? Well, Britney called from Apple. She is a genius, I guess. "We ran a test on your hard drive and found some bad sectors, too." She said she'd ordered another drive and it should be in tomorrow. She offered to transfer data but we'd wiped out most everything and my guru and I feel like starting fresh. I'm happy that we are going to have another go with a new hard drive, but sad that it happened.

I've a huge list of things to do from the ridiculous to the sublime, but (besides blogging) I've been calling providers of AV equipment and TV and Internet services for the condo. (This has been dissatisfying because the TV and Internet people can't find our 'community' in their data base and I got an answering machine for the company we already paid a lot of money to for the AV Surround Sound). Because, after all, what is a home without AV equipment, TV and Internet services....and coffee?

Yeah, coffee. FFP and I were discussing what to move to the 360 and we decided that since we will initially probably be spending most nights here (since our platform bed is being custom built) we would leave the Capresso here. This baby is one of our prized possessions. We decided we'd probably buy a more conventional cheaper coffee maker as backup and to use at the condo until we got the Capresso there so guess what? I looked online at coffee makers! Of course.

Making a home nest is complicated in our digital age. There's the issue of Internet, the home network, TV, sound, etc. without which really it's not a home. The condo has a data cabinet that is supposed to assist in hooking up phones and Internet. In our walk through the assistant was surprised to find a tangle of loose wires there. Hmmm.

Then there are the more mundane things like trash cans, coffee makers and toilet paper. In re that last item, FFP and I had to laugh at the instructions from the condo people about the low flow toilets. ("You may find it necessary to change your use habits (e.g. space loads and flush more often).") We have replaced two of the toilets in our current home with the still low-flow but more expensive Totos that use some kind of vacuum action for better flushing. Better add a plumber's friend to the list of essential condo items!

A lie I've told myself through all this displacement when I've been sitting here messing around with the computer is that I'm 'burning in' this environment for the condo and that the result will be a better, sleeker computing environment for the future there. Of course, with the iMac for FFP the burning in did turn out to reveal a problem.

Anyway, things are going along here. We make progress by fits and starts, I guess. And the deadlines will come no matter what and we will race around, making snap decisions and seeing to the absolute necessities. I think I'll displace to have a late lunch. Since I missed breakfast and I worked out...it's time.

Doing one thing and not another here, but I think I'll quit