In the land of computers, there are few things more destructive or annoying than having to completely wipe a hard drive clean and then reinstalling every piece of software on it. Which, of course, is exactly what Jeff and I did to my computer on Sunday.

I've been having problems with my computer lately.

It's not unlike going to a psychotherapist; it's a serious measure and isn't to be taken lightly. One wouldn't go to a computer psychotherapist and say, "Once a week or so, things just aren't right—I'll open a program and it'll just bomb on me," then dab at your eyes with a pocket hankie.

Dr. Wipe-And-Reinstall generally hears complaints like this: "My computer freezes at least once a day for reasons unknown. It hates these particular programs. When I have Outlook open, I can't always open Mozilla. I have to reboot at least once a day—if the freeze doesn't get me first—because one of my programs has sprung a memory leak."

Re: my previous entry, 'A hair rock band, and a red-haired girl'—not everyone appears in my life, stays for a while, and completely vanishes shortly thereafter.

Nothing like a good spot of thunderstorms to turn a perfectly good day into a sodden one, no?

Kat and I went out to run errands this afternoon—and managed, once again, to get caught in a sudden rainstorm. This one was worse than usual; after making our purchases at Kroger, we stopped in amazement as the winds howled harder and harder. The rain wasn't falling, it was being blown across the parking lot in sheets.

Admit it—you thought I'd vanished.

It's ok, I promise. You're to be forgiven, as I am usually quite regular about commenting on the randomness that life throws on my doorstep.

The incredible variances inherent in people never cease to amaze me, and never more so than when I trek to Atlanta. The town itself both compels and repels me: the traffic, the arts scene, the incredible southern acceptance of varied cultures, the horrid traffic, the excellent restaurants and shops, the upper-crust hauteur…and the techops folks.

Edmund sleeps on my desk; therefore, all must be well.

I do have a couple of skins-related site updates to pass along. For now, I've given up the ghost, and decided to make the 'nautical' cat.net skin available, despite the fact that it only fully works in IE 5.5.Don't get me wrong—it's readable in Mozilla as well, and if you never plan to go past the front page, you'll never feel like you've missed a thing. But the blasted dropdown menus don't work properly, and until I find some code that makes it work in both IE and Mozilla, I'm a bit stuck. Blerg.

The difficulty of appreciating a bit of eye candy like Charlie's Angels can be understood a bit better when you find out that I've been considering renting a VHS copy of sex, lies, & videotape so that Jeff can see it.

Rather ironic, the rain returning. Just what I needed; an excuse to settle in and write, with cats and spouse tucked into bed earlier than usual, and a movie whose finishing hinges upon the return of my normal attention span.

It crept up, slow and steady, as the day went by. Any southerner knows it—the traditionally blue sky dulled to a white haze by the low-lying clouds. The heat of the day triggers these storms; they come in late afternoon and early evening. If they clear before sundown, the result is a soupy, humid mire; if the storms continue past sundown, some actual cooling-off takes place.

Running errands at two p.m. in the atmospheric soup left me breathless and sweaty. I went home, changed clothing per Kat's instructions, and met up for the casual Wednesday night dinner at the wondergeeks' apartment.

Which, to my almost-total surprise, turned out to be neither casual nor at the wondergeeks.

I chose to keep my mother entertained this weekend by keeping her busy. The original plans for Saturday consisted of Kat and I taking Mom out to Boaz so that she could do some shopping at Boaz' outlet stores.