I’m feeling a sudden rush of “wanting to do stuff.” It’s probably some sort of Joni Mitchell/Big Yellow Taxi-effect: “don’t it always seem to go / that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”

Not having the use of this left hand has me planning all kinds of craziness for when I can use it again. This might end up being a good thing; I’ll be doing Pilates and yoga again since they won’t cause me pain. I’ll start running since I won’t have to worry about the utter discomfort of running while wearing a cast up to my elbow and sweating into it.

I want a new digital camera with better macro features since I want to get more into photography. I want to finish cataloging my library and start adding reviews of and excerpts from books. I already checked the copyright law on this. Using a segment of a work to review it is acceptable under the fair use doctrine:

How much of someone else’s work can I use without getting permission?

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.

And now…

the dangers of affiliation

A general life question. Have you ever met a friend of a friend who rubbed you the wrong way so much that you questioned your very friendship with the aforementioned friend? Not because that friend is an unsatisfactory friend, but because his/her friendship with this other individual made you feel sort of crappy about yourself (as in, “if this is the type of person they befriend, what does this say about me?“) and led to doubting the nature of your friendship? Not seriously, but enough to keep you awake? Especially when your friend knows damn well that you don’t like the other individual at all based on previous experiences. Sigh.

Yeah. It’s also nice to know that the person who rubs you the wrong way has been invited to participate in evening plans BEFORE you’re already out of the house and totally reliant upon someone else for transportation home. It’s also nice to know the proposed plans for the evening in their entirety before you leave the house; finding out about part 2 when you’re already out of the house also sucks, esp. when part 2 was apparently decided upon via group email earlier in the week (an email in which you were not included) and which leaves you sounding bitchy and nasty when you say, “F**k no - I’m not doing that.”

Do I have a right to be annoyed over this?
Yes.
But it’s fruitless to hold onto it.
I’ve vented and now I’m going to be OK.
Talking about it with the friend in question would (no doubt) lead to conversations including the phrases “being the bigger person” and excuses re: a busy schedule and the need to multi-task the social life. If it comes up again, though, I will assert from the outset that I do not wish to participate in “hang out with as many friends as possible to consolidate social life” events and that’s that. I’d rather wait a few months until I can get some pleasant time with a friend than just see them for the sake of seeing them.

I can be patient and deal with months of silence; at least I don’t get upset over that. It’s infinitely preferable to questioning an otherwise-good friendship.

(Getting pretty good with one-handed typing…)