1995-03-14 Woozle writes to Hilary

Dear H.,

Sorry for the printout instead of handwriting, but I had some thoughts I wanted to organize in response to your letter, and time comes in leetle tiny chunks these days, which doesn’t really explain anything, but if I keep splicing commas onto this sentence, perhaps I can go for some kind of record, and then at least be achieving some kind of recognition for my work... <feeb joke>

[ ... ] I’m sorry you weren’t able to make it to the ceremony at Xmas; we had a blast. (If you’re feeling guilty about not going, though, bear this in mind: we had RBW’s house at capacity; she (happily) spent several nights at the house of her new boyfriend, Adrian (who is also the father of Livia’s old boyfriend Mark, but that’s another story...) so Tigger could occupy her bed while Matt used the spare bedroom (which Mubbie had already vacated upon returning to Georgia a day or two earlier). The bunch of us were barely able to fit in one car, and in fact we had to use two cars for at least one dinner. So your absence may have made practical things a little easier -- but I would gladly have traded a little extra simplicity for your presence. So either way, you shouldn’t feel guilty, ok?)

And I’m also sorry we’ve been out of touch in general. I was just getting around to deciding that writing letters is a very important part of my internal life (or whatever you want to call it). Perhaps it’s a character flaw, but I need to explain myself to somebody in order to get my thoughts in order. It’s important that this person be somebody who understands a lot of the things I understand and who wants a lot of the things I want, and it helps further if this person has output of their own to add.

I do talk with Livia a lot. I think our relationship is very solid and healthy up to a certain point. Beyond that point, I wouldn’t exactly say it’s unhealthy; it’s more like it just doesn’t exist [yet?]. Back when we hadn’t yet been married a year, I often thought that what our relationship really needed was exposure to some (or preferably all) of the other relationships I have. In the time since then, we have had a lot of that exposure (especially at Xmas), and I do think it has made the kind of impact I wanted it to -- but there still needs to be more. So if you need a justification for why I need to talk to you when perhaps I should be talking to Livia instead, there it is. (I don’t know, maybe you don’t need one. I think I’ve brought this issue up several times in past letters, but we’ve never discussed it, so I don’t know if it’s an issue for you. I do know you worry about adversely affecting people’s lives.)

About the anteater (before I forget): I think it’s a splendid gift. It will (possibly) teach Anna not to be afraid of monsters (things that eat little girls/ants), and that you shouldn’t judge someone by their appearance or by what other people call them, and (possibly) that an enemy can become a friend -- at least, that’s what I’ll go for if she starts to worry about it. (nb delivery can wait until it’s convenient; it will be awhile yet before she starts getting attached to stuffed toys and such. In the meantime, she’s got Clarence the Rock¹...) I think I’ve finally gotten around to the part of the letter where I tell you what’s been going on lately. (Oh, nothing much -- how about you?)

The studio still isn’t open, but this was largely a deliberate choice on my part. I’ve been using most of my available hours (which average about 3 a day) to do programming work for UGA. Since I did make some commitments to finish one or two pieces of software for them, it’s kind of important to me to do so. After that, my head will be a little clearer and I’ll be able to concentrate on other things a little better. In the mean time, it helps pay the bills -- which we are so far approximately keeping up with, though I’m not sure if we’re slightly gaining or losing ground. (Probably the latter, I haven’t had time to sit down and “do the numbers” as they say on Marketplace; I barely have time to sit down and actually write the checks.)

1995mar12 21:39 (about 9 hours later)

Had to go work at the studio with Brian Morris -- we finished jacking up the center wall (it was sagging), put blocks under the floor of the front room (it was bouncy and sagging) and put up some drywall. Then L and I had supper (spaghetti, the I-don’t-know-what-to-fix fallback meal) and watched TV for awhile, and now I’m here in bed typing and I’m sore all over. Under the house where we were doing the jacking is a crawl space about 2 feet high (in between the floor joists; less if you need to go under one) covered in soot from the former chimney. Not enough room to sit up, so when you’re turning the jacks, you’re doing it with one hand while leaning on the other elbow and holding your head up at an unpleasant angle.

Anyway, that gives you an idea of the sort of thing with which we must deal before the studio can open. There’s still a lot of lighting-wiring to do, as well as sound-wiring (microphone jacks and so forth) and at some point central A/C will be going in (Mubbie is paying for it, but we’re trying to find a way to do it cheaply so she will have more money left over for other stuff like a new roof) and the water heater needs to be moved. Musically, the place is operational at a marginal level, but not really presentable to paying-customer types. Computer-wise, we just got a color scanner and a fax/voice/data modem with 16-bit sound card built in -- the converters are probably not clean enough for recording or mastering, but it’s certainly good enough to audition a mix while working on it. Later I plan to get an S/PDIF interface so I can import/export digital audio directly from the DAT, which has quite good converters.

I also upgraded to a 486-DX2/66. I was trying to fix a problem which I thought was in the system board -- the mouse gradually freezes up sometimes, but it’s not the mouse card -- but it turns out that wasn’t the problem. Oh well. Now it seems the video card may be the culprit, which would be good because it’s got other annoying problems too (and now I can get a VL-bus card for extra speed as well). I purchased Borland C++ 4.5, but found it difficult to use -- partly because of a non-standard (but very useful) construct supported by MSC which I unwittingly incorporated at a low level in some of my object libraries. Now I’m trying to decide if I want to invest in MSVC 1.5 (the MSVC 1.0 I have now is pirated) or just convert everything. Ugh. I also just got Borland Delphi, but haven’t had time to play with it much. Why am I telling you all this technical stuff in which you probably have very little interest? I guess I’m hoping your interest is non-zero, and there isn’t anybody else around here who is technically inclined. Matt is, to a certain extent, but he doesn’t get here until April (see attached correspondence for explanation).

And on the Anna front: she is now picking things up, and almost sitting up unaided, and standing with help. She should be able to crawl in a month or so. ...We call her a number of things, among them Squirrel, Flying Squirrel (because she likes being tossed around), Scribble, Squiggle, etc. I’ll probably have more to say about Anna at some point, but right now I feel very brain-dead.

Less pleasant family stuff: my grandfather (Dad’s dad) finally died of prostate cancer a week or two ago. [...]

So where are you in Oxford? Are you anywhere near Botley Road and the train station? If so, you’re within walking distance of where we stayed (which is probably available again if you need to change housing). What is the duration of your stay? I know you said you were planning to make side-trips back to RI, but I don’t remember what the overall trip profile was. (And what the freep are you doing there, anyway? Expiring minds want to know.) There’s an excellent Indian restaurant which I could walk to if I was there (or perhaps if I had a map) but to which I doubt I could give directions. Perhaps we’ll visit, and all go. (Lately I’ve had daydreams of going back to England... or one of our parents’ beach houses... or up north... or anywhere... Not that it would be wise, financially, but we do have access to the necessary funds. Perhaps things will improve enough by summer that it will be merely foolish instead of utter folly.) I miss trains.

I think I’ll avoid emailing you for a bit, because (quite aside from the fact that your address does sound rather like Bill the Cat) I’d like to avoid falling into the trap of giving out the boring day-to-day tedium over the net and then not having any excuse to write a real letter. At least for awhile. Hopefully, this will increase my actual amount of substantial writing-to-you.

That’s all for now, really. I’ll write more as it comes to me. Write when you feel like it, and tell Y to tell the anteater that it’s good enough, it’s smart enough, and, doggone it, people like it.

Ant lions and Annacondas,

Footnote

Note 1

Did I ever send you any Clarence the Rock comics? Anyway, Matt gave Anna a stuffed CtR for Xmas.