* I generally make the presumption that, unless indipendently verified, everything I read on the internet is fiction. Every personality construct to whom Live Journal lets me speak has just as much chance of being a 12 year old girl from Peoria, as being what and who they say they are. (If they type with an "Irish" accent, I bump the odds for Peoria significantly higher, by the way.) If I send money to someone's rescue cause for a friend of a friend whom I've never met, I'm aware that I might possibly be sending money to some 12 year old in Peoria, and in that regard, I consider that I'm paying for a good story. It's just like buying a lottery ticket -- I'm not buying 12 million dollars, and I know it. What I'm buying is the ticket to dream of SPENDING that 12 million dollars, or whatever of it Uncle Sam lets me keep. So when I send money to someone's 'a person I know got booted to the kerb and is living in her car' fund, I'm buying a ticket to imagine doing a little good for someone who needs the help, not pulling a superhero dive to pluck someone off the train tracks. It's all illusion, except for what I can prove by experience, or can find someone I trust to vouch for, but it's an illusion I'm willing to venerate at least as much as the illusion that Daniel Radcliffe is a wizard, Chris Pine is a space captain, and John Barrowman is omnisexual and immortal. I realize there's a chance (a very good chance) they're not who they say they are, but pretending is fun.

* That said, I know there are a lot of people who feel deeply betrayed when they learn that someone on the internet was not who they claimed to be. I have seen sockpuppet wanks the like of which could make Cod weep in his watery heaven, and this is over an offhanded 'I wanted to make you feel better' sort of deception, wherein no money was involved. There are people out there who make deep emotional investments in the friendships they make online, and when something like the Than-Fiction finally blows its cover, the aftershocks tend to be as deeply wounding to them as the initial sense of betrayal was. They question everyone they 'know', they doubt everything they've heard about anyone they haven't seen face to face, and generally the sense that 'you're all just a lying pack of cards' can steal over the place.

* I've been thinking about this lately, because earlier this year, I did use my internet 'fame' to raise money for a cause. And a lot of people kicked money into that cause, not knowing for sure if the person I was claiming to help was real, or entirely made up. (Now the truth is, a lot of the people who kicked into that fund knew the beneficiary personally, and knew what she was going through, or know me personally, and trust my word as good, but that's friendship, not pure altruism, and while just as worthy, it's different.) When people use their online personae to steal from and decieve people, it takes a swat at any of us who HAVE shilled money to help our friends in need. It injects a sore spot of suspicion into people who needed that moment of altruism to be sound, and good, but instead now find that it's foolish, and weak. It betrays the spirit of altruism on a fundamental level that just spreads through a community like a cancer of doubt. It is for THAT, I am angry. Not because I was fooled myself -- as I said above, I come to the internet expecting illusion. It's because of the poison that's flowing in the water now, with no way to leach it out. All we can do is wait for the stink to pass.

* To all of you who, in your altruism and generousity, donated to my Spider Rescue fund earlier this year, especially those of you who are now watching the Than-Fiction devolve over on Fandom Wank, I can't offer you any kind of proof that what you did was helpful, real, and immeasurably valid in a person's life (several people, because it was an amazing experience for me, as well, and I only handled the money and the cards.) I can't offer you anything in this medium which couldn't be argued away by a concerted effort. I really wish I could, but I respect your individual intelligences too much for that. So instead of trying to find some kind of lasting or concrete cred that despite being slightly larger than life, I am exactly who I've always claimed to be***, I will just thank you for having had faith enough, back then, to be helpful. And to hope that you don't find yourself regretting the help you gave now, because inasmuch as the word of an internet stranger can mean anything, I promise you your help DID make a difference.

* I know a lot of these thoughtbytes today have orbited the same hub. That's not a normal approach for this type of essay, but it's been on my mind for a few days, and I just needed to spin some words on it from my little corner of Baker Street. We now return you to your regularly scheduled randomness.

* General Foods makes their International Coffees line... it's something of a guilty pleasure for me. I mean I'm not a HUGE fan, since the fake milk and preservative aftertaste is kind of an inescapable thing, but sometimes when I don't want to brew up a pot, or go out for a shot, I do enjoy a cup of instant indulgence. In general, they're sweeter than I like, but they come out with some seasonal ones that I am really enjoying. Like today: Peppermint mocha. My Achilles' heel of coffee drinks, I do believe. The only one more dangerous is a good, spicy Mayan mocha, but only the Ultraviolet Cafe's ever managed to make it hot enough to really be good.

* So I took some time last night to read through <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hp_kinkfest/2928.html">the prompts</a> for <lj-comm=HP_Kinkfest>. Phoar! I won't be doing any claiming, but I'm bloody well downloading that list for future reference when I get stuck for ideas! (Mmmm... figging!)

* So we heard from the Exorcists about my desktop. The problem was unreplicatable. Hence, Vajra will be sent home with only a few very expensive dribbles of dried holy water on her case, and a stern talking-to. *SIGH!* Why, electronics? WHY? Ah well. <a href="http://www.nightwatchmanchronicles.com/Newspaper/NW1Feb08.htm">At least it's not just me.</a> I do wonder, though, whether any of the other Electrical People could make people bleed via mere proximithy...

* Sirocco ransacked my violets today. I'd moved them out of the bathroom, into the kitchen, in the hopes of better care. But the trouble is that Herself is still managing to get up on top of the kitchen cabinets to lurk, and so her jumping down led to massive violet-plant wipeout. She even broke a marble urn I was using as a watercatch for one of them. That cat is my own force of nature, apparently. She also managed to knock my computer off the table the other day, so it landed directly on my thumb drive, and bent it nearly 45 degrees. I bent it back to straight, and it seemed at the time as though everything was intact, but I decided it was better not to risk it. I went and got a replacement -- twice the storage... and it's <a href="http://www3.pny.com/4GB-Micro-Swivel-Attach---GREEN-P2852C430.aspx">the size of a piece of gum.</a> I'm kinda enraptured with it, really. Might start wearing it as an earring.

* Or, y'know, not.

* Next step for the house, is to apply plumber's wrap to the heating pipes in the basement, and cut down the transfer-loss from the furnace to the radiators. I had done a lot of the pipes the first year we moved in, but when we had the flood, the contractors ripped a lot of that out in order to get at the pipes they needed to replace. And when I say 'ripped', of course, I do mean that. There was very little of what they removed that could be put back onto the pipes. Most of it went into Jock, the cat's scratching-monster, in fact. So we've ordered the wrap, which should get here sometime soon after Solstice. Then we just need the get 'er done!

* And in that same spirit... once the Solstice party this Saturday's over, we'll be back in the shoe room, stripping it to the studs. Whee! We've finally given up all hope of being able to repair that room as-was, and have decided to just strip it bare, get at the plumbing and wiring we need to access, and then totally rebuild the damned thing. I'm kinda looking forward to it, actually. We're re-using the built-in bookcases that never did much good in that tiny, closet-sized space, in the library (once we find a home for that damned roll top desk, that is...) and we're going to save the decorative molding, in case any of it can be reused once we're done, but that weird little mid-hall bulge of a room is going to become our new Mudroom. We'll add an exterior door where its window is, move the radiator to the right side wall, and build a cabinet around it (with a cut-tin face and marble top, of course,) and build in a coat/hat/boot bench along the back wall. Then, once we get the driveway and parking pad, and porte cochere in place the entrance will be directly connected to where the cars are. Guests will still come in through the front door and entry parlour, but the family entrance, and all the day to day detritus that goes along with it, will be out of sight behind a nice pocket door.

* I tend to think that, now we've committed to going all the damned way with this project, it'll manage to roll rather better along than it had been. I choose to believe it so. Lo, my forcible optimism; it is mightier than the strength of ten men's mathematics.

* I am becoming aware of yet another of Mandala House's ghosts these days. I know him by the smell of his cigarettes, and I suspect that he resents my plans for the mud room. (I think it was on his watch that the bookcases were built in there, and the atrocious panelling was added.) He's going to have to cope with his bad self though, because Mandala House herself rather digs the idea of her Foyer being a proper greeting for the elegant lady she truly is, and is a bit giddy at the idea of getting all our grotty old boots and hats out of sight. Cigarette Smell isn't doing anything worse than a little grumbling at present, and I don't get any real meanness from him, but he's still not best pleased. I don't think he likes cats, either. Now I think about it, I wonder if he's not part of Godric's sprahying problem... Hmm... *Breaks out white sage*

* And now, I'm gettin outta this place! I been here too long. Gonna climb the walls. No, I need's me a new viewport, is all. Me and Argentyne are gonna go pirate some signal, and bang out some prose together on somebody else's turf. Ciao, all!




*** Barring clearly marked posts in which I pretend to be fictitional characters, including, but not limited to, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Severus Snape, Harry Potte, et al, my cats, my house, or my internal organs. These should present to actual confusion to the savvy reader, I promise.