Privacy Alert: Clearing Autocompete from the location/search bar in Firefox

As an erotic romance writer, there are times I have to look up web sites that I wouldn't want my high-school aged nephews stumbling upon. For instance, recently I wanted to include some fancy and unusual lingerie and browsed a site called Lady Strange. Although I cleared my browsing history using the tools menu, the site kept returning as an option when I typed www into the location bar. Frustrated, I backed up my bookmarks and then uninstalled and reinstalled firefox. When I reinstalled my bookmarks, the site came back!

Grrrr.

I finally did figure it out, and just in case other writers/readers have this problem, I'll include the fix in this post.

It turns out that firefox 3 has a feature called the "awesome bar" that, "Over time, it adapts to your preferences and offers better matches, based on how frequently you visit each site and how recent those visits were." (Quote courtesy of Mozilla help directory)

Frightening!

So how do you get rid of it? Well, if you haven't bookmarked the site, you can simply highlight the address in the location bar and delete it. If you have bookmarked the site, however, the awesome bar will simply retrieve the information. The only way to stop it is to go to Tools, Location, Privacy. In the bottom of the box it says "Location Bar: When using the location bar, suggest:" and then has a drop down menu. Choosing "Nothing" from this menu will turn off the awesome bar.

Phew!

On how to recover from a bad experience...

I found this quote on how to recover from a bad experience in an old Oprah Mag (I can't help it, it's an addiction...I've subscribed for years!). I just love it:

"Write yourself a new chapter-a hopeful, happy one that involves your being insanely well-dressed and sexually fulfilled."
---Faith Salie

Amen!

Romance on Ice

Last night my husband and I were lounging on the couch and looking for something to watch since our usual Simpsons/Family Guy hour was smoked by football. We ended up watching ice dancing. The reigning champs, Meryl Davis and Charlie White danced to Billie Jean. I was so swept away by the pair, I had to check out their winning Phantom performance on you tube. Oh. My. God. It doesn't hurt, of course, that Charlie White bears an uncanny resemblance to my first celebrity crush...I'll leave that one up to your imagination rather than date myself too much... I'll definably be tuning in for the Olympics now & hoping to find some more inspiration for stories!

free verse refections

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

--William Carlos Williams

This poem infuriated me in high school; I wasn't much for subtleties. Lately, though, I find myself thinking about it from time to time. It has a beautiful simplicity, and a stark truth I never could have grasped then: we often take for granted the things most important. (Ever try and remove yard waste without a wheel barrow?) Those things most important we forget to honor, we leave in the rain, we fail to notice...at least until something contrasts with it.

Writing erotica has been the "white" to my "red"--the thing that made me notice things I've taken for granted...from the feel of a nylon stocking to the erotic possibilities of secret-sharing. It's a bit of a surprise, but not an unwelcome one.

And since I was appreciating subtleties, I decided to poke around the internet and read some other poets who infuriated me. I found this gem by ee cummings. (And I'm certain if this one was included in the anthology, I would have had ALOT more interest in free verse!)

i like my body when it is with your body.

It is so quite a new thing. Muscles better

and nerves more. i like your body. i like

what it does, i like its hows. i like to feel

the spine of your body and its bones, and

the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which

i will again and again and again kiss, i like

kissing this and that of you, i like, slowly

stroking the, shocking fuzz of your

electric fur, and what-is-it comes over

parting flesh . . . . And eyes big

love-crumbs, and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

--ee cummings