Author: foxtongue

a run down of doom

Enter Thursday, December 10th, the day I officially come down with death flu, when Tony leaves his backpack on the bus and loses his laptop, which contains all of his writing, pictures and video of the last four months, our Montreal trip, etcetera, and his camera. We are, understandably, not feeling terrific.

Enter Friday, which spits on Thursday, calling it names and degrading its mother, declaring itself far more bad ass. I go into work and am promptly fired, as the bosses wife, who believes she is the reincarnation of an Atlantis princess and has a giant painted portrait of her idealized past self as Crystal Princess Barbie hanging in the office to prove it, has taken over my job. My bank account has been at zero since the 1st, because they’ve been with-holding my pay so they could get it all over with at once, but even with that plan they failed to have my cheque ready, so they fired me with nothing and gave me nothing. I’m contract, too, which means no severance. As part of cleaning out my desk, I go to unplug my various electronics and get such a nasty shock from the power bar that my hand spasms shut on the cord, and I lose the tip of a fingernail to scorch. Let the day’s twitching commence.

The bright side of being let go is that I am free to leave early, and so, with absolutely no time to spare, I run for the two:thirty Grayhound while Tony scurries to buy me a ticket long distance. The Grayhound, which I catch, then catches fire on the side of the highway just on the other side of the border. A shock had come loose and had been dragging under the bus, sending sparks up into the machine. Someone driving behind us, noting this and the subsequent tiny flames which started, called Grayhound, who then called the bus driver, who then pulled us over and put it out with an extinguisher. During the hours of waiting for the repair people, a fever develops, and I begin to see tiny hallucinations around the edges of my vision. To cheer myself up, I text back and forth with Tony, telling him that I’m not even sad about being laid off, as it means I finally have time to devote to photography. The repair people, coming from Canada, take so long to arrive that by the time we’re all patched up and on the road again, the next Grayhound bus was arriving at the stations the same time we were.

Enter Seattle, a city I am always glad to see. The bus pulls in and I am a rocket, clattering off the bus and through the station with unmatched speed, flagging down the first cab I see. Get me out of here! Get me home! I am silent for the ride, too spaced out for conversation, barely able to concentrate on the texts Tony is sending me, though I note the driver, a dark thin man, smells of sweet incense and has pretty hands. Finally I am home! Another text comes in as I exit the cab, and in my haste to reach my destination, I skip my usual taxi double check, I do not even look up from the phone until I am at the front door, and do not realize that my camera bag is behind me, driving away, fallen to the floor of the car.

Everything that could be done to get it back has been done, and failed. The taxi people do not have it, Craigslist does not have it, nor do any of the pawn shops. To make it worse, it seems that not only did the bag contain the camera and memory cards, (containing all my pictures since leaving Montreal), my arm warmers, and a roll of film I had shot as a gift, it also contained my credit card, which today, after more than a week of searching, I finally have to cave in and cancel.

On the up, I am with Tony for two weeks, and out of Canada until 2010, which is maybe the best gift I ever could have. He is a beautiful, wonderful creature, and he makes my life better absolutely every day.

They with the same hair from when we were thirteen

last night:

Sitting in Kino Cafe on Cambie Street, a place I am far too familiar with from when I was a teenager, out to support an old friend in the latest band she’s in with her brother. I am uncomfortable here, isolated, oddly part and yet not of the lives of the people involved with this evening. We used to come here all the time. The bartender would flirt and pour us drinks, even though we were underage. Fifteen years later, the bartender is gone, off to open his own place on Main St, but the place is little changed. As, too, are the people I am here with again.

Oddly, like the venue space, she looks almost exactly the same. The clothing has changed, but excepting that, the only thing missing are her braces.

Her brother, by contrast, I cannot see him as the person he is past the ruin of who he used to be. It’s as if someone has clumsily globbed handfuls of plasticine over the familiar corners of his body, rounding him out into the oddly bulky costume of a stranger. Underneath his new shape, however, it’s likely he is still a liar.

She is my conduit to these people, to this place. Her I named far more, in certain ways, than her parents ever did, a solid fingerprint the world does not know to see. “I don’t like my name,” she said when we met, and so by the time she was eleven, I had changed it, twisting the syllables until it described her face, until it fit her as well as her own skin. Little Mouse, she is, and for so long now that people commonly ask if she’s Russian. If it weren’t for her, I never would have come. Out of the twenty socially incestuous names I know in this crowd, she is the only one I would call my friend. For the rest of them, it was more that I was sometimes around, though we were all almost constant companions, present for almost every adventure, for years.

It makes me wonder if I should feel sorry, if there is something I missed, though I would not change our distance. Even through my disasters, I prefer who I am to who they would have me be.

Anybody know where to buy or sell a stolen/found laptop? Do you know anyone who does?‏

Bad news from Tony this morning:

I’ve been lying low busy with work and other stuff for far too long. but I hope you are proud to know that you are the first people I thought of when I was considering how I might contact the crinimal element in Seattle. You are people who know people. Be proud. :-T

I left my backpack on a bus last night and it contained a bunch of unimportant and replaceable odds and sods that I am willing to let go of. It also contained a laptop which I am also willing to let go of and replace with something newer. Unfortunately the last time I backed up the photos and saved data and IM logs and such onto my external drive at home was a few months ago and so it contains 4-10GB of photos and video of my recent life and that is irreplaceable.

I tried the bus lost and found and (no surprise) no one turned in my backpack last night. I will be trying another few lost and found searches and emails, but I expect them all to fail. A found backpack on a bus driving through downtown is not likely to be ignored or altruistically turned in.

I would like to find my specific laptop amongst the volume of “found goods” in Seattle, specifically if it has not been wiped yet and I can get the data off of it. I would be willing to pay any reasonable (and almost any unreasonable) price and would be uninterested in punishing or being mean or being anything but incredibly thankful to any person who might have been trying to to profit from my stupidity. I don’t even care about the hardware, only the data.

There is no way this is going to work. No way that one of you can point me to “Jimmy the fence” or “Mikey the Hand who works the 545 bus route” like they do in the movies. None of you are going to be able to “put your ear to the ground” and “talk to your contacts” and find some specific laptop in the “cold, big, dark city” of Seattle. Life is not like a movie.

That said, if any of you think you might be able to pull of some kind of miraculous feat like this or know people who could then feel free to contact me with any tips you have. Otherwise you can just alternately pity me or mock my stupidity, your choice. :-T

tonyja blip microsoft bloop com

Thanks,
Tony

Time and place details:
I left work and got on the 545 sound transit bus at Overlake transit center in Redmond at 9:09PM last night and traveled toward downtown. At Stewart and Denny I got up and got off the bus without picking up my backpack, leaving it at the very back of the bus (on the right hand side while sitting looking forward). I expect my backpack traveled another stop or two until someone found it unattended, discovered that it contained some useless junk and also an HP Pavillion 17″ widescreen monitor black laptop (and maybe a little green 8GB iPod). the person who found it is either trying to find me know (hope hope) or trying to turn a reasonable profit off of my laptop and iPod (which I don’t really begrudge them for if they are, economic downturn and all). I expect there are some paper print outs or mail envelopes or other identifying items in there that could reveal my name and/or address and/or Microsoft email address.

We’ll be scouring Craigslist for the next two weeks and posting this letter anywhere we can think of. Please pass it on!

gift guide: make yourself feel better by making other people feel better

The most essential component to any gift is the giving, so with this in mind, I’ve researched a number of trust-worthy charities in a number of categories. (Feel free to check up on them or find your own at Charitynavigator.org, “your guide to intelligent giving”.) Many so-called charities come with nasty strings attached. They scoop the largest amount of the take for overhead and/or push religion on people, denying help based on faith, race, sexual orientation, gender, or even, as the Salvation Army has recently been caught doing, base nationalism.

These following organizations are, to the best of my knowledge, free of such traps. They encourage, educate, and work towards a more sustainable future.

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  • Amensty International: Free prisoners of conscience, abolish the death penalty, stop violence against women and ensure the human rights of all people. Kapow!
  • Oxfam International: A confederation of 14 like-minded organizations working together to bring about lasting change, Oxfam offers direct action with their catalog of Unwrapped Gifts, presents like water jugs, school books, education, and goats, to benefit those living in poverty.
  • Kiva: The world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe. Working with the knowledge that your dollar goes significantly farther elsewhere in the world, browse the entrepreneurs’ profiles and choose someone to lend to. If you make your money back, lend it again! Only drawback: You, the lender, are not paid any interest, but the lendees do pay interest. This goes to the “local partners.”
  • Seva: Seva Canada’s mission is to restore sight and prevent blindness in the developing world, helping communities develop their own capacity to deliver affordable eye care services. Seva provides funding and expertise to partners in 7 countries and regions: Nepal, Tibet, India, Tanzania and eastern Africa, Guatemala, Cambodia and Egypt. Seva is creating sight programs that are locally managed, high volume, low cost, directed to those most in need, accessible to women and girls, and sustainable.
  • International Foundation for Education & Self-Help: Through self-help programs, IFESH specializes in education systems, health, community development and conflict mitigation. The work of IFESH supports the efforts of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of poverty and hunger, achieving universal education, combating HIV/AIDS, promoting gender equality and maternal health.
  • Plan International: Sponsor a child! Tony’s got one named Ruth. We put her letters on the fridge. Founded over 70 years ago, Plan is one of the oldest and largest children’s development organisations in the world. We work in 48 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas to promote child rights and lift millions of children out of poverty. Plan is independent, with no religious, political or governmental affiliations.
  • The Nature Conservancy: The leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people, they offer gifts like Adopt-An-Acre programs, which include coral reefs as well as the usual rainforests, tree planting, carbon offsets, and donations to particular wildlife and habitats. They also have a shop where 10% of all purchases go to supporting the Conservancy, but I’d go for the acres of land, myself.
  • World Wildlife Federation: Adopt an animal! Save the world and get something cute! With every symbolic adoption of one of the seventeen species, you receive a small kit that includes a plush version of the animal, a personalized adoption certificate, and a report detailing the work that your symbolic adoption will support. To spice up the usual OH NOES SAVE THEMS species, pandas, tigers, polar bears, they’re also offering zomg-cute! animals like meercats and black footed ferrets, and, for those better hearted humans who do not care if the animal they save is adorable, cod.
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation: An international non-profit advocacy and legal organization dedicated to the right to freedom of speech in the context of the digital age, they are principled, effective civil liberties watchdogs and I love them very much. Among their many, many attributes, they defend individuals and new technologies from baseless or misdirected legal threats, provide guidance to the government and courts, organize political action, and monitor and challenge potential legislation that would infringe on personal liberties and fair use. Become a member, directly donate, buy stock or nifty swag. They’re pretty darned clever with how they spend their money, so every penny counts.
  • Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales is a bit sleazy, but Wikipedia’s bigger than him these days, and if you’re even a little web savvy, you probably use it almost every day. They’re trying to give free access to the sum of all human knowledge. As projects go, that’s pretty spectacular, especially as a non-profit, as it’s only donations which keep Wikipedia alive.
  • Wikileaks: Similar, but not. Wikileaks is an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface, and provides an incredible service for human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public.
  • The Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Founded by the developer of the polio vaccine, the Salk Institute is doing the basic lab research necessary to find cures for a whole host of human diseases. The major areas of study are: Molecular Biology and Genetics; Neurosciences; and Plant Biology. Knowledge acquired in Salk laboratories provides new understanding and potential new therapies and treatments for a range of diseases — from cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease, to cardiovascular disorders, anomalies of the brain and birth defects. Studies in plant biology at the Salk may one day help improve the quality and quantity of the world’s food supply.
  • Doctors Without Borders: An international medical humanitarian organization working to assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, DWB provides aid in nearly 60 countries. In 1999, they received the Nobel Peace Prize. The organization is committed to bringing quality medical care to people caught in crisis regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation.

    • gift guide: I have both wagered life and land, Your love and good-will for to have.

    By almost any argument, living in an apartment is good for the environment. By compacting our living space, we’re using less resources, reducing our footprint, and discouraging car culture. Sure. Okay. But where’s the garden? No matter how nice our pad, public parks and apartment complex courtyards don’t measure up to having a back yard, which is where this next bit of gift guide list comes in, presenting indoor garden alternatives to augment our kitchen potted plants and tiny windowsill flower boxes.

    -::-

  • Air Plants: Like fresh air but don’t have the knack of keeping plants alive? These weird, bizarrely wonderful plants grow on anything, in any direction, even upside down, and require little to no watering. I first encountered them at Paxton Gate, where dignified arrangements of them were hanging flat on the walls on square planks of wood. Distinctly odd, that, and terrific. Etsy is an excellent place to find a whole spectrum of terrariums with air plants inside. Steampunk vases exist, as do sleekly modern vases, vases in the shape of cute teapots, faux jellyfish, and miniature arrangements.

  • Wooly Pockets: First spotted over on Apartment Therapy in June, these vertical garden eco-planters have been spreading to design sites everywhere. Created by the same couple responsible for the SmogShoppe, the greenest event space in California, they’re lightweight, made from recycled bottles, suitable for indoor as well as outdoor use, and positively elegant, as both an object and a solution. The only drawback is that they’re a little pricey. Pockets start at $39 and go up from there.

    Which brings me to..

  • DIY Windowfarms: Vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials that generally cost about $30 to start. They’re not as chic as the Woolly Pockets, but for a similar thing, they have a higher yield for far, far cheaper. Instructions on how to make your own are available on their site as free PDFs and starter kits will be available for purchase soon. (If you live in NYC and are feeling especially short on time, you can commission a team of windowfarm experts to come make you one.)