So I remember hearing at one point some muttering about people not liking popup comments. And as this blog grows, I see the drawbacks.
So now my individual post pages won’t have popup comments. They’ll still pop up from the main page, category pages, and monthly archives. But individual posts will be nicely viewable WITH their comments, all on one page.
We’ll see how this goes and decide to keep it or not.
By the way, I just pissed off a coworker. Not really through any fault of my own (she’s having issues with a computer upgrade), but I tried to take control and show her what she couldn’t see, and she got upset.
Five weeks. Five weeks. Five weeks.
Update: Watching our IT help her makes me realize why I could never do tech support. I know more than he does about this particular problem, but he’s so much nicer about dealing with newbies. I’m too impatient and get too easily frustrated with luddites.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
I loved this book. Loved. Very excellent.
This book, apparently, is an American classic. And I see why. It is the story of a young girl, Francie, growing up in Brooklyn, child of the child of immigrants. They are poor but seeking greater things. The plot is not traditional—this is not a typical story, with exposition, climax, and denoument. Rather, it is memoir-like, meandering. As Francie grows, the storytelling grows along with her. Her childhood is filled with the observations of a child; as she gets older, the writing reflects her age, becoming sharper, tighter, more adult.
One of the critical “characters” in this novel is Brooklyn, the Brooklyn of early 20th-century immigration, the Brooklyn of poor, working class men and women, the Brooklyn of Tammany Hall. It is lovingly, but fairly, treated by Smith. I think anyone whose family came to America at that time should pick up this book for no other reason than to feel these descriptions.
Highly recommended.
Stag asks what I’ll miss while on a student budget.
Um, so, I’m pretty cheap. And I’m one of those people who, in the grocery store, looks at the per-unit price that’s printed on the price tags on the shelves. And I rarely splurge on stuff for myself.
So realistically, there won’t be much I’ll miss. I’ll miss being able to go out to a nice dinner every couple of weeks—or going out to a nice dinner and being able to get the nice bottle of wine—but that’s a minor thing. I’ll miss being able to buy the clothes I need and afford them (I suspect that I’ll spend more on clothes before interview season than I do NOW, which is frightening). I’ll miss…um, yeah, those are probably the main things.
Because, honestly, I don’t spend a lot of money. I color my own hair. I have it cut rarely (once every six months or so). I don’t get facials and I have a friend who works a salon who does my eyebrows for cheap. I shop at Target and Ross and Payless. When I can’t find what I need there, I go to Steinmart. I buy the grocery store brand if I can and, if I can’t, I get the next cheapest option.
I’m cheap, OK? It’s actually something I’ve started to see as a sort of flaw—this reluctance to spend money on things I can afford because they seem sort of unnecessary. Things like nice dress shoes and a brake job for my car. (Yes, the latter is something I’ve waited to have done because I have been too cheap to spend the $70.)
So I think what I’ll miss being on the law school budget is, perhaps, the progress I have made towards doing nice things for myself. In the last year, I’ve gotten better about buying myself nice clothes or shoes and getting a more expensive haircut. I’ve found the joy in buying figs at $9/lb. when they’re available, just because I love them so much. And I won’t be able to make those splurges as much any more. I think I’ll miss knowing that I CAN splurge (even if I almost never do).
