Lots of thoughts going through my head today. I spent most of the day at the computer, working on things that I wanted to work on for a change. I spent a good hour or two revamping how I do archives here on domesticat, and I'm pleased with the results. While it requires a bit more effort on my part, I think that it will make more sense to you, the reader.

I've created a two-tiered archival system. The link to the archives on the front page of domesticat takes you to a meta-index of all my posted entries. At the top will be the most recent articles, preserved in the weekly format that I've set up on blogger. At the bottom are month-by-month links. These link to monthly indices, instead of directly to the entries themselves.

The reason I did this: domesticat was originally intended as a generic, low-bandwidth weblog. I'd been saying that I needed to start writing again, and suddenly it occurred to me that an opportunity had presented itself. Instead of tossing off updates every few days, it had quickly become something I looked forward to tinkering with on a daily basis. My short, three-paragraph updates got longer and longer, and gradually I started writing less about the occurrences in my daily life (although they do still play a part) and more about the questions and ideas that occurred to me as I went about my day.

To give you an idea, I've written over 200K of plain text since I started writing for domesticat a few months ago. That's a lot of text. I never expected it to be like this, but I suppose I should take the opportunities and run with them.

More vacation thoughts
I've been thinking about next weekend. I can tell that a week from now, I'm going to be just about a nervous wreck. I was scrolling through our database of mp3s and I found Billy Joel's "New York State Of Mind," which is what is playing right now. It made me laugh—funny to think that I'm going to actually be in a place that, up to now, has been a place that wasn't truly real to me. It was a location in a state that I'd never been to; a skyline shown in movies and news interviews, but not a real place.

Soon, I shall know.

I love exploring new places; I'm always fascinated to see the character and personality each city develops. But I have a confession to make: planes scare me. While I originally wrote "planes terrify me," I'm not sure that's the right shade of meaning, so I toned it down. While I'm fascinated by the mechanics of flight and awed by the fact that those big silvery things actually can get me where I want to go, there's something about the lurch of my stomach as the plane goes airborne that I really don't care for.

Jeff can attest to the fact that in every single takeoff and landing, I'm nearly silent and my knuckles are white. During those moments, I'm reviewing the mechanics of flight and promising myself that things will be okay.

I think that's why I hesitate to call it terror—because I willingly get on planes, and because I don't lose my capacity to think, even when I'm most uncomfortable.

Either way, I'm two takeoffs and two landings away from a week away from work. I can't call it rest and recreation, because I know that Andy delights in sending me home from vacations exhausted and footsore. But the pictures are usually excellent, and the memories are better.

I've got a lot to get done between now and then. Tenzing's also hinting that he wants to be a lap kitty, so I'd better finish this quickly and get to the couch; otherwise he's going to be walking on the keyboard and pestering me until I do.