I maintain a conviction that what I'm doing with my life has some purpose. Some greater purpose, that is, than the stuff of just living, just getting by. I'm learning. I'm improving things for myself and therefore, by living in the way that I want to, I'll be improving things for everyone. Eventually I hope I'll get to a point with these ways of expressing myself that it'll really make a difference. I should be writing more. I need some satisfyingly eloquent way of expressing myself, and I haven't been maintaining any of the venues I've cultivated proficiency in so far - music (the saxophone, the piano, sometimes the bassoon...), academics (?), y'know, whatever else I've been really good at in life so far. Public speaking? Hah. That digs into the whole can of worms and what-ifs that Unitarian Universalism fills at this point in my life. Not in the mood for that right now.
As great American novelist-philosopher Robert M. Pirsig says, there is a keen metaphor for the workings of the hyper-rational mind, that of an analytic knife. The knife defines our view of the world in analytic forms, and it doesn't always cut very keenly. For those who learn to guide their thoughts with the steadying power of rationality and logic, it's becomes easier to see the shape of their worldview - the edges of perspective formed by the ever-moving surgery of this knife. We're deep into metaphor now, but bear with me. The shape of one's worldview is one thing to consider, but also keep in mind what would happen in these metaphorical terms if one were to have a very very keen rational knife, a great logical mind, and nothing to balance it; a very small view of the world, a whole lot of black and white, with clear edges of faith everywhere and an unassailable core of reasoning to defend it all. That's surely not too unpleasant of a way to live one's life, but I can't help but feel like it misses most of the potential that we have to revel in our human flaws.
Face it - we're inherently flawed, wonderfully imperfect creatures. It's one of the deepest truths I've uncovered. Follow any philosophy deep enough and you either are blinded by confusion and close your eyes in blind faith, or you uncover your eyes and see that there's something imperfect, mortal, limited, somehow fundamentally dissonant about being human. There's room for improvement. There's a gap between what we are and what we want to be. There's something worth struggling for. This struggle is, I guess, a somewhat bizarrely stark representation of something I try to understand about the nature of faith. How can people accept so willingly and wholeheartedly, so many very different answers to the question; why we are here?
Mmm, heady stuff. Back to Pirsig's knife. I've been working for some time now on honing mine, that is, intentionally 'flexing' mental muscles, as it were, and thinking hard about something. I hope everybody does that, by the way. I think it'd be very sad if people didn't stop every now and then and take a while to tackle some mental exercise the way that you'd tackle any other project, from baking cookies to fixing a car or doing the crossword or researching a band or reading scientific papers or walking the dog. All of these sorts of projects require mental effort, sure, and varying degrees of it, but just as it's healthy to do some purely physical exercise every day, I just want to remind everybody to do some purely mental exercise too. And spend the rest of your time balancing the two. Seek balance. [Yes, I totally feel like an advice columnist or something now, all giving prescriptive advice and being preachy and this-is-how-things-are. Sorry.]
So the question I'm tackling for myself these last couple weeks or so is this: Why am I so fascinated right now by learning about my parents' pasts and what am I getting out of consciously and subconsciously emulating the successes and failures of my parents?
The answer, I think, came to me tonight. Well, an answer. Maybe it's not the best one. Maybe it won't make sense tomorrow. But I think that it all adds up... I'm forging an identity. I'm making this complex, tangled web of experience and perspective that we call a sense of self, and I'm paying particular attention right now to the ways in which I reflect and refract the discrete identities of my parents in the way I am, myself. And this is all very normal. Everybody does this, or at least has the opportunity to do this, all the time. Figure out who you are, ask yourself why you do the things you do, and let the picture of yourself that you paint in your mind with the answers to these questions be both an encouragement and a warning when considering all that you do next.
[Editorial note: I can tell that this writing seems, as a style, to be excessively normative, and I'm unhappy with it's rigidity as such, and the lack of respect for general relativism that it suggests. However, if the reader will be so kind as to 'push' out one level of analytic dimension, in the sense of dimensional 'push' and 'pop' that Hofstadler describes, these opinions of mine will seem much more appropriately humble. They are simply a mark of how I think at this point in time, and not at all something that I write at this time with the thought that it could or should hold true for all time. This disclaimer, by the by, if applied to all philosophical writing, could ameliorate a good deal of frustration with how stuffy those goddamn philosophers are. I think.]
So here I am, son of my father, son of my mother, etc. with the exception of my father's brother Chad, who insists on calling me Uncle and whom I obligingly refer to as Nephew - he says he feels old enough anyway without being called 'uncle', and I guess I believe him. I'm not going to try to sum up who I think I am, because that's not the point. I don't think I'm that interesting, or rather, I don't think I want to spend my life now talking about my life before now - I'm too busy trying to live it, so I'll have more to talk about later. And this is the struggle. For me, and maybe for a lot of other people. How much of my life do I spend as a means to an end, and how much of it do I spend vicariously? Really, it's a constant flux, an irregular dance of the bars on a graph, the skittering of needles on the polygraph, the static in the recording; this switching between modes is what creates such dissonance for us. The modes are, for purposes of this idea, the experiential and the analytical (my labels), roughly analogous to Pirsig's romantic and classical views of the world, in turn analogous to Kant's dichotomy between the immediacy of experiential reasoning and the a priori knowledge of the mind.
We switch back and forth between modes, jumping the chasm of this dichotomy, all the time. How wide the chasm is and how difficult a transition it is for us from one side to the other also depends on the lay of the land - that is, what we're doing with ourselves at the moment, what influences we're under, etc. The way in which we cut up our perception of the world and the edges of what we take to be meaningful are under our own control to define - such is the work of the knife I keep coming back to. If we can precisely and intentionally, thinking, quite simply, becomes easier.
I'd better make sure I'm making sense here and not lost in too broad a generalization or too specific of a metaphor. Perhaps examples of what I mean by experiential and analytical. Living primarily in the experiential mode, I might spend a whole day running, jumping, and climbing trees, (as Eddie Izzard once described). I'd be DOING things all day, you know, waving at strangers, practicing random acts of kindness, talking, dancing, reveling in the senses and being relational in the interpersonal sense, making social connections. In a primarily analytical day, I could have just as wonderful of a time sitting at home, reading - the paper, a magazine, bits of a book or three, wikipedia, allmusic, blogs, facebook - and writing, doing puzzles, working on origami models. I'd be comfortably alone in my own mind, reveling in the flow of information and the richness and complexity of intrapersonal relations, making intellectual connections. It's a world of a priori, conceptual analysis and thought, all captured in a very small and uninteresting physical world composed only of some papers and screen, and I suspect that some people can only see that sort of living as somebody sitting on their ass instead of getting out in the world and doing something 'important'. I think that's unnecessarily judgmental and close-minded, only because it ignores the challenge of finding a way to comfortably balance both by claiming that one is better than the other. There's some definite value in seeing flaws in either mode alone, because neither one is very valuable without the other.
Depending on the level of detail you apply this analysis to, the switching back and forth can be seen as an almost constant process, so keeping the analysis broad is most useful - the patterns you can see are much more interesting on a larger scale than from moment-to-moment. Labeling everything as motivated by either experiential or analytical inspiration is exhausting after a while, and is itself a highly analytic process.
Essentially, the point of this concept is to encourage others to seek self-awareness in a similar way, or whatever way works better. As I see it, honing one's analytical knife to as biting a sharpness as possible makes it possible to think more clearly all the time, spending less time 'in the air' while jumping the gap between modes of thinking and more time with both feet on the ground, enjoying the best of both sides. That's the idea, right? Make the most of this life. Find a way to get somewhere with your struggle.
I think I'm leaving this awfully unpolished, but it's starting to feel late. Thanks for reading, please leave a note if you read the whole thing and give me some perspective on whether this sort of writing is more 'hmm, interesting' or 'wtf'.
6.08.2007
well, here I am
Man, it's been a long time. There's so much I could write about, blah blah blah, but truth be told it's just not worth the time to go back and create a novel out of the last few weeks. It would take another week or so, and I could be out doing stuff instead of writing about stuff that already happened. So here's a quick way of being kinda interesting and providing some idea of the grand adventure that my life currently is without taking up too much of it in the telling - a list. Here's some of what I've done and seen and experienced in the last while, in no particular order.
Well, so it goes. More to follow!
- saw a man on the sidewalk flip off and scream obscenities at a passing ambulance.
- met a guy who was looking for his pet mountain lion and gazed in due wonderment at the very deep scratches all over his arms and legs. yes, they were from his 'mountain lion,' and he was fresh out of the hospital, drinking 22s of Alaskan Amber, and looking for his cat. he seemed really genuinely concerned that nobody was helping him find the beast.
- applied for a job at the Alberta Cooperative Grocery two blocks from my house.
- found graffiti on the outside of the fence around the back of my new house.
- found cat shit/vomit on my rug in the bathroom - not my cat's doing, either.
- hiked through the International Rose Garden with Abra.
- memorable moment - after hours of making fun of the crazy names people give their roses, I was totally noticed acting like a stoner by some guy with dreads and a camera. I was standing there with Abra and we were talking about the roses, and I said something like, "ah, yes, 'The Poet.' Fresh, vividly colored, yet maintaining that literary depth which earned him his name." (yes, I'm talking about a rose bush) And the guy was walking by and overheard me and just grinned at Abra and I and was like "hey guys, how's it going" and oh man, I was embarassed. I think I blushed.
- got lost at Washington Park with Abra, wandering along unmarked trails and crossing the intra-park railway several times.
- at one point we emerged from the underbrush just as a train was starting to go by, and I just stood there in my torn jeans and flip-flops, Abra on the hill about ten feet behind me, picking her way down the trail in ballet flats (yeah, we have great hiking footwear). the train was full of tourists and families 'seeing the park' from the safety of a wee train. I just stood there, smoking my cigarette, avoiding direct eye contact, feeling totally on display and trying to be cool. The exhibit was titled "hipsters taken out of their natural habitat" and it was awesome.
- it occurs to me now in trying to describe that that maybe you had to be there. but it was amazingly funny at the time. I looked back at Abra once the train had passed and she was just doubled over laughing, and imagining what it must have looked like from the train - I mean, there was no reason for us to be out there, we were following tiny little dirt paths, and there was nobody else around. Anyway. Maybe you had to be there.
- at one point we emerged from the underbrush just as a train was starting to go by, and I just stood there in my torn jeans and flip-flops, Abra on the hill about ten feet behind me, picking her way down the trail in ballet flats (yeah, we have great hiking footwear). the train was full of tourists and families 'seeing the park' from the safety of a wee train. I just stood there, smoking my cigarette, avoiding direct eye contact, feeling totally on display and trying to be cool. The exhibit was titled "hipsters taken out of their natural habitat" and it was awesome.
- I've been carded maybe eight times so far, either buying beer or at the bar, and only one person has ever seen a uniformed services ID card before. They've all asked and been reassured when I confirm that no, I was never actually in the service myself.
- walking with Abra & Megan back to my house from the Co-op, overheard the following: A guy gets out of his car and calls up to a few people outside on the porch of a house three down from mine, and he says "hi there! I don't mean to be rude, but I just got back into town from Washington DC and I grew up in that house (points across the street at a house) and, well, I just have one question... what happened to the neighborhood?" (everybody, on the porch and in my group, laughs) He looks over at us with a flicker of concern that he's pissed us off or something and Megan says "yeah, I KNOW!" (more laughter from everyone). I should explain - I'm in a neighborhood where people seem to act very stereotypically proud of their race. That is, black people live around here, and they seem to actively enforce certain stereotypes of what being black is supposed to mean. Like talking loudly and at all hours in very ebonics-tinged vernacular, and acting suspicious or demeaning towards the white people. The white people, in turn, reinforce other crappy stereotypes by acting aloof and holier-and-richer-than-thou, and it's a bunch of hogwash. So I'm guessing that 'the neighborhood' being referred to was one where it was pretty much racially homogenous and there weren't all these honkies hanging around. Anyway...
- while driving, I was stopped at a light, and a guy comes up to my passenger window and asks if I can give him a dollar for four quarters, and I'm stuck behind a bus and the light just turned red, so I figure okay, I can help somebody out here. well, he tried to scam me eight different ways and then asked if I smoked pot right as the light was changing, and said 'hey man, come back here!' and well, I just waved out the sunroof and said 'later man' and drove off.
Well, so it goes. More to follow!
4.20.2007
perspective
In response and with all credit due to Evan, here is a graphic representation of what occupies my computer's hard drive. Thanks to the makers of GrandPerspective for making such a nifty app.
My music is, well, y'know, that big blue bit. 49.58GB out of a total 62.22GB currently in use. 79.7%. Wow. This is what I'm doing with my life... I mean, this is my life. As of right now, 8762 songs. They could play unrepeating for very nearly an entire February. Y'know, a short February. The 28 day one. Still a month, dude.
The little bugger towards the bottom left side is the iTunes music library and album art cache/stash. One of the two big blocks at the upper right (in golden tones) is a movie (which I highly recommend), but the other one is apparently a 1GB "sleepimage" in /private/var/vm/ that I don't know if I'm supposed to have. It occurs to me that it might be a leftover from that one time when I kinda-half-accidentally tested out the 'deep sleep' feature of the newer intel macs... it was scary.
My music is, well, y'know, that big blue bit. 49.58GB out of a total 62.22GB currently in use. 79.7%. Wow. This is what I'm doing with my life... I mean, this is my life. As of right now, 8762 songs. They could play unrepeating for very nearly an entire February. Y'know, a short February. The 28 day one. Still a month, dude.
The little bugger towards the bottom left side is the iTunes music library and album art cache/stash. One of the two big blocks at the upper right (in golden tones) is a movie (which I highly recommend), but the other one is apparently a 1GB "sleepimage" in /private/var/vm/ that I don't know if I'm supposed to have. It occurs to me that it might be a leftover from that one time when I kinda-half-accidentally tested out the 'deep sleep' feature of the newer intel macs... it was scary.
3.28.2007
OMG coupons...
Oh coupons, what have you done? What have you done? When I was younger coupons were a joyous thing, an innocent thing. But this, this is just frightening.
The terror. Oh, the terror of ancient secrets and nasal cleansing pots. And the hilarity. Really, that's pretty much it. Hilarity.
The terror. Oh, the terror of ancient secrets and nasal cleansing pots. And the hilarity. Really, that's pretty much it. Hilarity.
3.26.2007
music count redux
Okay, this is actually comprehensible without a twenty minute conversation about the analytic self-evaluative thought process used to design the last graph. Still, I don't really think anyone cares, but I like making pretty graphs.
3.25.2007
the ski-off at deadman's peak cove
...and their name is Rachel.
"Save that as a draft, you son-of-a-bitch!"
"Save that as a draft, you son-of-a-bitch!"
3.23.2007
rating one's music
This is just a thing, a minor thing. Evan and I were talking about the rating of things, and I got to thinking about how many songs are rated what within my music library, and what the distribution of ratings looks like (and what that therefore may say about my musical taste and such). Well, I quicked counted up how many songs were rated how many stars, including the number that are without a rating, and then started trying to figure out a good way to graphically represent the data. This is what I've come up with so far, and though there's something cooler in my mind, I don't know if I'll take the time to produce it. Does anybody else think this sort of thing is interesting? Empirical sociological analysis based on evidence of organizational habits, behavioral patterns, and subjective musical taste? Anyone?
3.12.2007
detroit day one and a half
The tragic beauty of this urban decay is impossible to describe in mere words. I’ve felt the need to have a camera, imbedded behind my eyes, to capture the scenes which catch my breath. I want to share this place and its people, the gorgeous buildings and the filthy ruined streets, and in a world of easy poetry I would have the freeze-frames from this experience to explain with. Yet this is far from such a world, as all poets and writers surely would agree, and the thousands of images I wish to capture in every hour remain stuck exclusively in my memory.
Small scenes seem profound amidst such desolation; a couple embraces joyously outside the barred windows of Value World, a young girl tenderly pats the shoulder of an old woman while they wait at a crosswalk. Glimpsed only in passing, these seem like even more preciously rare kindnesses than usual, since so many people are seen isolated behind the windows of their car. I was cut off, too, by the expansive glass of my dad’s Previa -reference image-, as we drove around this afternoon - an important part, I’m sure, of why I feel like this has been so far such a visual experience.
Small scenes seem profound amidst such desolation; a couple embraces joyously outside the barred windows of Value World, a young girl tenderly pats the shoulder of an old woman while they wait at a crosswalk. Glimpsed only in passing, these seem like even more preciously rare kindnesses than usual, since so many people are seen isolated behind the windows of their car. I was cut off, too, by the expansive glass of my dad’s Previa -reference image-, as we drove around this afternoon - an important part, I’m sure, of why I feel like this has been so far such a visual experience.
pretty pictures!
Okay, so I've finally figured out how to integrate this lovely javascript photo viewing code into Blogger. It's called Lightbox. I had to spend a couple hours giving myself a crash course in CSS, and set up a whole 'nother website just to host some files and images for it, but I think it was all totally worth it. All my images will be much prettier now.
When the LightBox launches, you can press N and P for next and previous images, and X to close. Snazzy.
Here is the test.
When the LightBox launches, you can press N and P for next and previous images, and X to close. Snazzy.
Here is the test.
trip to
I wrote all the following during the trip to Detroit. More to come soon about the place itself.
Interesting things happen all the time.
The other day a conversation began over a song that I was playing in the cafe. The song is a very well done revision of Bob Dylan’s famous “Like A Rolling Stone” and the group is named Articolo 31. It appeared on the soundtrack for Masked And Anonymous, the 2003 movie starring Bob Dylan (surrounded by a fantastic cast) as a world-weary musician in an oh-so-slightly fictitious third world country. The soundtrack includes some previously unreleased Dylan material, a couple re-recordings, and over a dozen very interesting covers of his music done by bands from all over the world. The Magakoro Brothers perform “My Back Pages,” fully translated and sung in Japanese - though they added an almost forty second long introductory vocal sample of an unidentified evangelical preacher. Hmm. Well, aside from that and Dylan’s performance of “Cold Iron Bound,” which highlights the dramatic climax of the movie, this little Articolo 31 ditty was pretty much my favorite tune from the soundtrack. “Come Una Pietra Scalciata (Like A Rolling Stone).” It’s largely unrecognizable as Dylan, save for the giveaway vocal sampling used for the titular chorus. Virtually all the words are delivered rapidly by a male rapper in a language similar but certainly not identical to Spanish. I was able to make that distinction on my own, but I was also too lazy to look up what nationality the musicians were, so I guessed at Portuguese and left it unconfirmed. Well, the other day at the cafe, a regular customer who I’ve spoken with about politics on a couple occasions came up to me and asked about the music.
It turns out that this guy teaches Italian, in Italy, to American students, using modern cultural material - particularly music, including that of Articolo 31. He recognized their voices and, of course, the Dylan sample, and was just thrilled. I got his email address and sent him the one song that night and burned a copy of the whole soundtrack and gave it to him a couple days later. I’ve contributed to the cultural and linguistic education of students in Italy who I’ll probably never know. This is one of my favorite parts of working at the cafe.
Ah, I’m struck now by that wonderful catharsis that comes from finally authoring something that’s been bouncing around in my consciousness for days. Ah. Now I can’t think of what else to write.
Dr. David Thorpe made an excellent point some time ago about why exactly Natasha Beddingfield’s music sucks - she writes songs about not being able to write songs. Listen closely to Unwritten and try to identify the few aspects of musicianship hidden underneath all the glossy pop production. They’re not very impressive.
On this long and dark flight across the country I reread Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”. It is not the American translation which my high school literature class was made to read, but the lovely British translation done by Stuart Gilbert. I love the extra depth of surreal existentialism lent by British turns of phrase and wording from the middle twentieth century. Even though I’m crushed in the very back in the plane, I feel like sharing my three favorite passages from the book. Seriously, though, I’m typing on my upper thighs and can’t really read what’s on the screen at all. The old man in front of me leaned way back, the guy to my left is watching a movie on his laptop and using the armrest, and the guy on my right is sleeping - but he’s one of those guys who sprawls while sleeping, so not only is the armrest unavailable for my use, but his foot has been runover no less than four times by the stewardess’ carts. Ha. Oh, and the obnoxious teenagers lining the row behind aren’t so bad now that I can’t hear them - say yes to good headphones, say no to being a twat. Good thing I’m not trying to be an inspirational speaker since that’s the sort of tagline that comes to my mind, huh? Oh hell, there’s probably a market for it. Nevermind. British audiophiles, here I am. Let’s go.
Damn. What a last sentence there, huh? One sentence. Thirty-five words. Seven commas. Damn.
Vile psychological warfare, I say, to make the condemned desire a successful execution. Indeed. And finally, from the very very end, the showdown between our protagonist and the priest:
I want to write but can’t fit my elbows any deeper into my ribcage. This is definitely the most unpleasant flight I’ve ever been on. I feel like stew. Like an ingredient in stew. And so are the people around me. God, I’m in a big flying pot of man-stew. Gross.
Interesting things happen all the time.
The other day a conversation began over a song that I was playing in the cafe. The song is a very well done revision of Bob Dylan’s famous “Like A Rolling Stone” and the group is named Articolo 31. It appeared on the soundtrack for Masked And Anonymous, the 2003 movie starring Bob Dylan (surrounded by a fantastic cast) as a world-weary musician in an oh-so-slightly fictitious third world country. The soundtrack includes some previously unreleased Dylan material, a couple re-recordings, and over a dozen very interesting covers of his music done by bands from all over the world. The Magakoro Brothers perform “My Back Pages,” fully translated and sung in Japanese - though they added an almost forty second long introductory vocal sample of an unidentified evangelical preacher. Hmm. Well, aside from that and Dylan’s performance of “Cold Iron Bound,” which highlights the dramatic climax of the movie, this little Articolo 31 ditty was pretty much my favorite tune from the soundtrack. “Come Una Pietra Scalciata (Like A Rolling Stone).” It’s largely unrecognizable as Dylan, save for the giveaway vocal sampling used for the titular chorus. Virtually all the words are delivered rapidly by a male rapper in a language similar but certainly not identical to Spanish. I was able to make that distinction on my own, but I was also too lazy to look up what nationality the musicians were, so I guessed at Portuguese and left it unconfirmed. Well, the other day at the cafe, a regular customer who I’ve spoken with about politics on a couple occasions came up to me and asked about the music.
It turns out that this guy teaches Italian, in Italy, to American students, using modern cultural material - particularly music, including that of Articolo 31. He recognized their voices and, of course, the Dylan sample, and was just thrilled. I got his email address and sent him the one song that night and burned a copy of the whole soundtrack and gave it to him a couple days later. I’ve contributed to the cultural and linguistic education of students in Italy who I’ll probably never know. This is one of my favorite parts of working at the cafe.
Ah, I’m struck now by that wonderful catharsis that comes from finally authoring something that’s been bouncing around in my consciousness for days. Ah. Now I can’t think of what else to write.
Dr. David Thorpe made an excellent point some time ago about why exactly Natasha Beddingfield’s music sucks - she writes songs about not being able to write songs. Listen closely to Unwritten and try to identify the few aspects of musicianship hidden underneath all the glossy pop production. They’re not very impressive.
On this long and dark flight across the country I reread Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”. It is not the American translation which my high school literature class was made to read, but the lovely British translation done by Stuart Gilbert. I love the extra depth of surreal existentialism lent by British turns of phrase and wording from the middle twentieth century. Even though I’m crushed in the very back in the plane, I feel like sharing my three favorite passages from the book. Seriously, though, I’m typing on my upper thighs and can’t really read what’s on the screen at all. The old man in front of me leaned way back, the guy to my left is watching a movie on his laptop and using the armrest, and the guy on my right is sleeping - but he’s one of those guys who sprawls while sleeping, so not only is the armrest unavailable for my use, but his foot has been runover no less than four times by the stewardess’ carts. Ha. Oh, and the obnoxious teenagers lining the row behind aren’t so bad now that I can’t hear them - say yes to good headphones, say no to being a twat. Good thing I’m not trying to be an inspirational speaker since that’s the sort of tagline that comes to my mind, huh? Oh hell, there’s probably a market for it. Nevermind. British audiophiles, here I am. Let’s go.
The papers often speak of a “debt owed to society” –a debt which, according to them, must be paid by the offender. But talk of that sort doesn’t touch the imagination. No, the one thing that counted for me was the possibility of making a dash for it and defeating their bloodthirsty rite; of a mad stampede to freedom that would anyhow give me a moment’s hope, the gambler’s last throw. But, all things considered, even this luxury was forbidden me; I was caught in the rattrap irrevocably.
Try as I might, I couldn’t stomach this brutal certitude. For really, when one came to think of it, there was a disproportion between the judgment on which it was based and the unalterable sequence of events starting from the moment when that judgment was delivered. The fact that the verdict was read out at 8 P.M. rather than at five, the fact that it might have been quite different, that it was given by men who change their underclothes, and was credited to so vague an entity as the “French people” –for that matter, why not to the Chinese or the German people? –all these facts seeded to deprive the court’s decision of much of its gravity. Yet I could but recognize that, from the moment the verdict was given, its effects became as cogent, as tangible, as, for example, this wall against which I was lying, pressing my back to it.
Damn. What a last sentence there, huh? One sentence. Thirty-five words. Seven commas. Damn.
Another equally ridiculous fantasy of mine was to frame new laws, altering the penalties. What was wanted, to my mind, was to give the criminal a chance, if only a dog’s chance; say, one chance in a thousand. There might be some drug, or combination of drugs, which would kill the patient (I thought of him as “the patient”) nine hundred and ninety times in a thousand. [sic] That he should know this was, of course, essential. For after taking much thought, calmly, I came to the conclusion that what was wrong about the guillotine was that the condemned man had no chance at all, absolutely none. In fact, the patient’s death had been ordained irrevocably. It was a foregone conclusion. If by some fluke the knife didn’t do its job, they started again. So it came to this, that–against the grain, no doubt–the condemned man had to hope the apparatus was in good working order! This, I thought, was a flaw in the system; and, on the face of it, my view was sound enough. On the other hand, I had to admit it proved the efficiency of the system, It came to this; the man under sentence was obliged to collaborate mentally, it was in his interest that all should go off without a hitch.
Vile psychological warfare, I say, to make the condemned desire a successful execution. Indeed. And finally, from the very very end, the showdown between our protagonist and the priest:
“No! No! I refuse to believe it. I’m sure you’ve often wished there was an afterlife.”
Of course I had I told him. Everybody has that wish at times. But that had no more importance than wishing to be rich, or to swim very fast, or to have a better-shaped mouth. It was in the same order of things. I was going on in the same vein, when he cut in with a question. How did I picture the life after the grave?
I fairly bawled out at him: “A life in which I can remember this life on earth. That’s all I want of it,” And in the same breath I told him I’d had enough of his company.
But, apparently, he had more to say on the subject of God. I went close up to him and made a last attempt to explain that I’d very little time left, and I wasn’t going to waste it on God.
Then he tried to change the subject by asking me why I hadn’t once addressed him as “Father,” seeing that he was a priest. That irritated me still more, and I told him that he wasn’t my father; quite the contrary, he was on the others’ side.
“No, no, my son,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder. “I’m on your side, though you don’t realize it–because your heart is hardened. But I shall pray for you.”
Then, I don’t know how it was, but something seemed to break inside me, and I started yelling at the top of my voice. I hurled insults at him, I told him not to waste his rotten prayers on me; it was better to burn than to disappear. I’d taken him by the neckband of his cassock, and, in a sort of ecstasy of joy and rage, I poured out on him all the thoughts that had been simmering in my brain. He seemed so cocksure, you see. And yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman’s hair. Living as he did, like a corpse, he couldn’t even be sure of being alive. It might look as if my hands were empty. Actually, I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming. That, no doubt, was all I had; but at least that certainty was something I could get my teeth into–just as it had gotten its teeth into me. I’d been right, I was still right, I was always right. I’d passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I’d felt like it. I’d acted thus, and I hadn’t acted otherwise; I hadn’t done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean? That, all the time, I’d been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn, tomorrow’s or another day’s, which was to justify me. Nothing, nothing had the least importance, and I knew quite well why. He, too, knew why. From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come. And on its way that breeze had leveled out all the ideas that people tried to foist on me in the equally unreal years I then was living through. What difference could they make to me, the deaths of others, or a mother’s love, or his God; or the way a man decides to live, the fate he thinks he chooses, since one and the same fate was bound to “choose” not only me but thousands of millions of privileged people who, like him, called themselves my brothers. Surely, surely he must see that? Every man alive was privileged; there was only one class of men, the privileged class. All alike would be condemned to die one day; his turn, too, would come like the others’. And what difference could it make if, after being charged with murder, he were executed because he didn’t weep at his mother’s funeral, since it all came to the same thing in the end?
I want to write but can’t fit my elbows any deeper into my ribcage. This is definitely the most unpleasant flight I’ve ever been on. I feel like stew. Like an ingredient in stew. And so are the people around me. God, I’m in a big flying pot of man-stew. Gross.
1.26.2007
road trip
Well, this post has become thoroughly belated. Nonetheless, I'll skim through it and flesh out a few details, since it was a fantastic trip.
Saturday (January 20) I set off on a grand adventure. My car, the lovely Supra, was finally fixed and ready to be picked up after wallowing (well, wintering) on Bainbridge Island. So I began to develop a plan for getting it back - my dad no longer lives in that area, but I knew there were a couple friends who I could stay with, and.... blah blah blah... here's what actually happened:
Saturday morning Megan drove me up to Spokane to catch a flight to SeaTac. Evan tagged along and we had a good little drive. Until it started snowing. A lot. And then Megan accidentally took an exit instead of staying on the highway. And at the top of the exit ramp, like a big metal yeti, was a snowplow. Well, I don't claim to know what was going on in the heads of all the drivers involved, but what I observed was us going pretty damn fast on a snowy icy slope and the plow shifting into reverse and heading straight back towards us. Yes, in reverse, along an onramp. Like, yeah, it was that... stupid. So we ended up plowing into the plow at a good clip - maybe 20 MPH - but Megan's little Honda just bounced off the rear tires of the beast and there was no apparent damage. We were all a little shook up, though, and I ended up driving the rest of the way to the airport.
This is evidence that Megan and I were both at the Spokane airport, and it was indeed snowy.
I just don't get airport security. They never give me trouble, and I really feel like they probably should. Aren't I a suspicious enough character to merit some special attention? Uh, apparently not. My mom gets all sorts of shit from them. But me? Nope. Maybe it's my insistence on being polite to everyone who works at an airport, but really, I expect them to judge based simply on the way that I look. Once I was held back a little and they had a fuss about my earrings, but the guy in charge loudly stated for the benefit of everyone in a thirty foot radius that I was more of a danger to myself than anyone else. I wear these three woven-ring bracelets on my left wrist that don't come off without pliers (I've had them on for years) and they don't set off the metal detector. What? I mean, they're made out of a couple ounces of stainless steel, brass, and copper each. But I can't take more than a couple ounces of eyedrops with me to keep my contacts from fusing to my eyes. Ridiculous. Well, this particular trip was typically uneventful, but I was freaked out at security when a guy who looked like the evil cousin of Mr. Rat from the film adaptation of Wind In The Willows bellowed at me a query about the liquids possibly in my bag. I denied everything and then felt a little bad when I remembered afterwards that I had eyedrops, lip balm, and hand cream with me. I'm going to terrorize myself with moisture, I admit it!
I don't think that I'd ever flown Southwest before. They're goofy. The flight attendants and cabin crew were just... goofy. They referred to each other as 'darlin' over the PA, and when we touched down and were taxiing to the gate in Seattle the captain sang us a very silly little ditty about flying Southwest because they want our money and if you marry one of the crew you get to fly free. Seriously. Those are practically verbatim quotes from it. I wish I'd have written it all down. He had a good voice. The two women next to me ignored me completely, but I heard them talking about their plans - go to Vegas for a day, get trashed, bitch about their husbands, and go home. Which came first, the sitcoms about miserable people, or the miserable people? They seemed like they might be doing it just because it's the sort of thing other people would do.
During the hour I spent waiting at the SeaTac bus terminal, I watched some inebriated and ostensibly homeless people try to start fights with other transit patrons. I kept to myself, tried to act unapproachable, and continued reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. What a fabulous book. I continued reading it on the bus, and I noticed that I always maintain vivid memories of the vehicles that I read books on in connection with memories of the books. Especially buses. I remember clearly the faces of the people around me and my memory connects them to exact pages of the book, paragraphs or sentences even. Cool.
The ferry to Bainbridge was very familiar, and I spent half the trip reading and half of it on the phone with people.
I met up with my old friend Naomi at a snazzy little bakery called Blackbird on the island, just a few blocks down from the ferry. We got some food and some coffee and chatted for about an hour about life. It was good to see her again, and good to get some individual human interaction after being in crowd-mode all day.
Instead of finding a ride or taking a taxi to the auto shop, I had decided to walk there from the ferry. It's about four miles across the island, and it was just starting to get dark when I left the bakery. The roads were mostly little winding two lane affairs with no sidewalks and a 40 MPH speed limit. I hiked along in the dark, with my luggage in one hand and my bag across my back, and dodged speeding SUVs and ditches. It took longer than I thought to get to the shop - about an hour - despite my attempts at a brisk pace.
It was SO good to get my car back. I had missed it so. Wonder of wonders, it ran beautifully and I went straight back the way I came and got in line for the next ferry. I've realized in the weeks since then what actually happened to my car in months of 2000% humidity and cold... everything that could possibly corrode, did. So I've spent quite a bit of time scrubbing gunk off of things. But it works, and that's the important part.
I got to downtown Seattle a little after 7:30 and made my way to Chance's place. It was, of course, great to see him (and his girlfriend Sara) again, and we spent a couple hours sitting around, chatting about life and sharing music. Always good to hang out with Chance. Why don't you ever come to Moscow, man? Oh, that's right, you already live somewhere cool. Nevermind.
About nine I took off for Leanne's place and met up with her. We drove down to Renton to her boyfriend's pad, I met the boyfriend, and we gathered together a posse and walked to a nearby friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's place, where a birthday party was taking place. Leanne was the ONLY person there I knew, which could have been really awkward, but I ended up just relaxing and having a pretty good time. Many inebriants were consumed, which certainly glossed over some of my shyness, and I crashed on Jeremy's (the boyfriend's) couch that night.
Sunday morning I followed Leanne back to her place and we caught up on stuff for a while. I woke myself up properly at Starbucks and began the drive down to Portland. I don't know why I thought it was a five hour drive, but it seemed to fly by and it was a delightful surprise to be there only three hours after leaving the Seattle area. The sky was gray, and driving over the bridges into Portland's northwest industrial area I felt like I was seeing the city for the first time. Every light gleamed suggestively and every splash of color stood out as an advertisement. It was very much like meeting up with an old friend who you haven't seen in years - everything different from your memory stands out, even as your memory is being added to and quickly, simultaneously, the differences become the new vision of what so-and-so is 'supposed' to look like. So, like that, with a city. Hmm.
I met up with my uncle Chad and his partner Chris before anything else, clumsily navigating my way to their little apartment, befuddled by memories of driving the wrong ways last time I was there. Eventually, I found them, and had a very good time hanging out and talking with both for a while. It's always kinda weird to be there, but this was definitely the least weirdness I'd ever experienced because, for the first time, I was visiting them alone and on my own terms. I'd never seen them without one or the other of my parents around, and to have all that baggage removed from the immediate conversation was a thrilling liberation. I talked about philosophy and ancient Greeks with Chris and discussed school/life choices with Chad. It was great to see them, and I really look forward to being able to do so more often and get to know them better.
This is the point in the travelogue where I catch myself saying too much and remember that I was going to summarize, skim through, and otherwise be succinct with it. See, I'm not doing so well.
After leaving Chad & Chris' place, I found Meredith. What a wonderful person. Really. It was a dreamy couple of days, where I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to wake up, but consciousness persists and I remember it quite fondly. We became pretty good friends, I think, and in a peculiarly accelerated way. It wasn't really at all like meeting somebody in person is supposed to be, or at least normally is. It was more like we just hadn't seen each other in a few months or years, and we just got along. I hope that everyone who experiments with making friends online before meeting them in person gets as lucky as that at some point in their life.
Meredith also pretty much taught me how to fall in love with Portland. So I pretty much did. I'm really looking forward to being there again, and I'm ready for the next step of evaluating it as a place to live. You know, the actual practical consideration time, where I start to find out that housing is going to be like three times more expensive than it is here, and I'll freak out about it but also start finding jobs to apply for and such.
I left for Boise on Tuesday afternoon, and had an uneventful but very long drive.
In Boise I met up with Jesse, who I often refer to as my oldest and bestest friend. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years, and we've both changed a hell of a lot in that time. He now lives with a bunch of guys in some pretty cool apartments near BSU. One of the roommates is our mutual friend, Austin, who I've actually known since I was three years old but haven't kept in very close touch with. It turns out that he's an extraordinarily gifted artist, and overall I would describe him as one of the most serene people I know at this time. Jesse seems to be doing pretty well, except that he smokes like a chimney factory. I really hope I find a way to see him more often - seems like we're back in similar enough tracks with our lives that we could be close friends again.
Wednesday I drove back up to Moscow, and clearly everything since then has left me pretty much unscathed, since I'm here now finally writing about what happened more than a month ago. Before closing this chapter, I just have to say that the drive from Boise to Moscow has now been revealed to me as not exclusively a horrible horrible deathtrap. That particular Wednesday it was clear and sunny, cold but not icy, and it was one of the best few hours of driving I've ever had. The car handled perfectly, I had fun, I was safe (enough), and the music was, of course, good.
Thanks for reading!
Saturday (January 20) I set off on a grand adventure. My car, the lovely Supra, was finally fixed and ready to be picked up after wallowing (well, wintering) on Bainbridge Island. So I began to develop a plan for getting it back - my dad no longer lives in that area, but I knew there were a couple friends who I could stay with, and.... blah blah blah... here's what actually happened:
Saturday morning Megan drove me up to Spokane to catch a flight to SeaTac. Evan tagged along and we had a good little drive. Until it started snowing. A lot. And then Megan accidentally took an exit instead of staying on the highway. And at the top of the exit ramp, like a big metal yeti, was a snowplow. Well, I don't claim to know what was going on in the heads of all the drivers involved, but what I observed was us going pretty damn fast on a snowy icy slope and the plow shifting into reverse and heading straight back towards us. Yes, in reverse, along an onramp. Like, yeah, it was that... stupid. So we ended up plowing into the plow at a good clip - maybe 20 MPH - but Megan's little Honda just bounced off the rear tires of the beast and there was no apparent damage. We were all a little shook up, though, and I ended up driving the rest of the way to the airport.
This is evidence that Megan and I were both at the Spokane airport, and it was indeed snowy.
I just don't get airport security. They never give me trouble, and I really feel like they probably should. Aren't I a suspicious enough character to merit some special attention? Uh, apparently not. My mom gets all sorts of shit from them. But me? Nope. Maybe it's my insistence on being polite to everyone who works at an airport, but really, I expect them to judge based simply on the way that I look. Once I was held back a little and they had a fuss about my earrings, but the guy in charge loudly stated for the benefit of everyone in a thirty foot radius that I was more of a danger to myself than anyone else. I wear these three woven-ring bracelets on my left wrist that don't come off without pliers (I've had them on for years) and they don't set off the metal detector. What? I mean, they're made out of a couple ounces of stainless steel, brass, and copper each. But I can't take more than a couple ounces of eyedrops with me to keep my contacts from fusing to my eyes. Ridiculous. Well, this particular trip was typically uneventful, but I was freaked out at security when a guy who looked like the evil cousin of Mr. Rat from the film adaptation of Wind In The Willows bellowed at me a query about the liquids possibly in my bag. I denied everything and then felt a little bad when I remembered afterwards that I had eyedrops, lip balm, and hand cream with me. I'm going to terrorize myself with moisture, I admit it!
I don't think that I'd ever flown Southwest before. They're goofy. The flight attendants and cabin crew were just... goofy. They referred to each other as 'darlin' over the PA, and when we touched down and were taxiing to the gate in Seattle the captain sang us a very silly little ditty about flying Southwest because they want our money and if you marry one of the crew you get to fly free. Seriously. Those are practically verbatim quotes from it. I wish I'd have written it all down. He had a good voice. The two women next to me ignored me completely, but I heard them talking about their plans - go to Vegas for a day, get trashed, bitch about their husbands, and go home. Which came first, the sitcoms about miserable people, or the miserable people? They seemed like they might be doing it just because it's the sort of thing other people would do.
During the hour I spent waiting at the SeaTac bus terminal, I watched some inebriated and ostensibly homeless people try to start fights with other transit patrons. I kept to myself, tried to act unapproachable, and continued reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. What a fabulous book. I continued reading it on the bus, and I noticed that I always maintain vivid memories of the vehicles that I read books on in connection with memories of the books. Especially buses. I remember clearly the faces of the people around me and my memory connects them to exact pages of the book, paragraphs or sentences even. Cool.
The ferry to Bainbridge was very familiar, and I spent half the trip reading and half of it on the phone with people.
I met up with my old friend Naomi at a snazzy little bakery called Blackbird on the island, just a few blocks down from the ferry. We got some food and some coffee and chatted for about an hour about life. It was good to see her again, and good to get some individual human interaction after being in crowd-mode all day.
Instead of finding a ride or taking a taxi to the auto shop, I had decided to walk there from the ferry. It's about four miles across the island, and it was just starting to get dark when I left the bakery. The roads were mostly little winding two lane affairs with no sidewalks and a 40 MPH speed limit. I hiked along in the dark, with my luggage in one hand and my bag across my back, and dodged speeding SUVs and ditches. It took longer than I thought to get to the shop - about an hour - despite my attempts at a brisk pace.
It was SO good to get my car back. I had missed it so. Wonder of wonders, it ran beautifully and I went straight back the way I came and got in line for the next ferry. I've realized in the weeks since then what actually happened to my car in months of 2000% humidity and cold... everything that could possibly corrode, did. So I've spent quite a bit of time scrubbing gunk off of things. But it works, and that's the important part.
I got to downtown Seattle a little after 7:30 and made my way to Chance's place. It was, of course, great to see him (and his girlfriend Sara) again, and we spent a couple hours sitting around, chatting about life and sharing music. Always good to hang out with Chance. Why don't you ever come to Moscow, man? Oh, that's right, you already live somewhere cool. Nevermind.
About nine I took off for Leanne's place and met up with her. We drove down to Renton to her boyfriend's pad, I met the boyfriend, and we gathered together a posse and walked to a nearby friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's place, where a birthday party was taking place. Leanne was the ONLY person there I knew, which could have been really awkward, but I ended up just relaxing and having a pretty good time. Many inebriants were consumed, which certainly glossed over some of my shyness, and I crashed on Jeremy's (the boyfriend's) couch that night.
Sunday morning I followed Leanne back to her place and we caught up on stuff for a while. I woke myself up properly at Starbucks and began the drive down to Portland. I don't know why I thought it was a five hour drive, but it seemed to fly by and it was a delightful surprise to be there only three hours after leaving the Seattle area. The sky was gray, and driving over the bridges into Portland's northwest industrial area I felt like I was seeing the city for the first time. Every light gleamed suggestively and every splash of color stood out as an advertisement. It was very much like meeting up with an old friend who you haven't seen in years - everything different from your memory stands out, even as your memory is being added to and quickly, simultaneously, the differences become the new vision of what so-and-so is 'supposed' to look like. So, like that, with a city. Hmm.
I met up with my uncle Chad and his partner Chris before anything else, clumsily navigating my way to their little apartment, befuddled by memories of driving the wrong ways last time I was there. Eventually, I found them, and had a very good time hanging out and talking with both for a while. It's always kinda weird to be there, but this was definitely the least weirdness I'd ever experienced because, for the first time, I was visiting them alone and on my own terms. I'd never seen them without one or the other of my parents around, and to have all that baggage removed from the immediate conversation was a thrilling liberation. I talked about philosophy and ancient Greeks with Chris and discussed school/life choices with Chad. It was great to see them, and I really look forward to being able to do so more often and get to know them better.
This is the point in the travelogue where I catch myself saying too much and remember that I was going to summarize, skim through, and otherwise be succinct with it. See, I'm not doing so well.
After leaving Chad & Chris' place, I found Meredith. What a wonderful person. Really. It was a dreamy couple of days, where I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to wake up, but consciousness persists and I remember it quite fondly. We became pretty good friends, I think, and in a peculiarly accelerated way. It wasn't really at all like meeting somebody in person is supposed to be, or at least normally is. It was more like we just hadn't seen each other in a few months or years, and we just got along. I hope that everyone who experiments with making friends online before meeting them in person gets as lucky as that at some point in their life.
Meredith also pretty much taught me how to fall in love with Portland. So I pretty much did. I'm really looking forward to being there again, and I'm ready for the next step of evaluating it as a place to live. You know, the actual practical consideration time, where I start to find out that housing is going to be like three times more expensive than it is here, and I'll freak out about it but also start finding jobs to apply for and such.
I left for Boise on Tuesday afternoon, and had an uneventful but very long drive.
In Boise I met up with Jesse, who I often refer to as my oldest and bestest friend. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years, and we've both changed a hell of a lot in that time. He now lives with a bunch of guys in some pretty cool apartments near BSU. One of the roommates is our mutual friend, Austin, who I've actually known since I was three years old but haven't kept in very close touch with. It turns out that he's an extraordinarily gifted artist, and overall I would describe him as one of the most serene people I know at this time. Jesse seems to be doing pretty well, except that he smokes like a chimney factory. I really hope I find a way to see him more often - seems like we're back in similar enough tracks with our lives that we could be close friends again.
Wednesday I drove back up to Moscow, and clearly everything since then has left me pretty much unscathed, since I'm here now finally writing about what happened more than a month ago. Before closing this chapter, I just have to say that the drive from Boise to Moscow has now been revealed to me as not exclusively a horrible horrible deathtrap. That particular Wednesday it was clear and sunny, cold but not icy, and it was one of the best few hours of driving I've ever had. The car handled perfectly, I had fun, I was safe (enough), and the music was, of course, good.
Thanks for reading!
1.11.2007
a birthday, my birthday, it was
I am worth $2,583,270 on HumanForSale.com
I don't even know what to say about that.
So Tuesday was my 21st birthday. I've been writing about it for the last hour or so, and Safari decided to freeze a couple minutes ago. So. I lost the first 56.2% of the post I'd written... (making up percentages is cheap fun). So here I'm going to copy down the latter 43.8%, which I captured with a desperate screenshot, and shed a metaphorical tear for the prose that was lost to the ether. I think some of it was pretty good.
That I'm now of legal drinking age means, to me, that the sense of entitlement that I've cultivated within the safe confines of my own home over the last couple years is now free to expand out to the rest of the world. That's what I meant of facebook by 'being a real person'. I'm legally entitled to the rights and freedoms of a full-fledged adult. Well, almost. Can't rent cars 'til I'm 25.
The whole deal has been kinda anticlimactic like that. Yay, it's my birthday, oh, I didn't organize a party. Yay, my friends want to party anyway, oh, there are three of them and they're not all old enough to take me barhopping. Yay, I have good friends and good liquor and good games and a warm house, oh... my closest friends really don't get along with each other any more and I spent a hell of a lot of money on this liquor that my friends are drinking and nobody's even offering to chip in, and the games are a lot better with ten people than with four, and I really don't want to be living here now because of the crazy landlady and the growing discomfort between my roommate and I.
Bitch bitch bitch. That's what I'm doing. I feel like I'm treading too close to self-indugent whining here, so I'll move on, but I promise the intention was to share my state of mind - not to bitch about it. I just have a nasty headache. Ah, right....
I gave myself a present for my birthday. Besides the liquor, I mean. I decided to quit smoking cigarettes.
Yeah, dad, grandma, you two can take some credit for the immaculate guilt-tripping. As two ex-smokers who sincerely asked me to quit for my own sake, I can't fault you for hypocrisy nearly as much as I'd need to to ignore your advice. You speak with an appeal to knowledge you've gained from your personal experience, which I respect. And that approach, for me, inspires introspection which, as those who know me well will confirm, is my favorite and most well worn path towards change. So I got all introspective and decided a couple weeks ago that I am not smoking for the same reasons that I used to and after much evaluation, I said to myself, I said "Self, it's time for a change."
I've been fooling around with yet another social networking service/site: OK Cupid. In just a couple weeks of building a profile, I've enjoyed more quality interaction with other users than months and months of facebookery and myspacing have produced. Yeah, okay, it's basically a dating site, but it's based on a pretty interesting approach whereby your ostensibly honest answers to a multitude of questions result in a rigorous algorithmic analysis of your personality and you get to review the thousands of other users through an enjoyably simplified representation of your calculated interpersonal compatibility.
That's all for now. Please please please leave me a comment if you read this. I'm still trying to gauge my audience here. Do I have one?
I don't even know what to say about that.
So Tuesday was my 21st birthday. I've been writing about it for the last hour or so, and Safari decided to freeze a couple minutes ago. So. I lost the first 56.2% of the post I'd written... (making up percentages is cheap fun). So here I'm going to copy down the latter 43.8%, which I captured with a desperate screenshot, and shed a metaphorical tear for the prose that was lost to the ether. I think some of it was pretty good.
That I'm now of legal drinking age means, to me, that the sense of entitlement that I've cultivated within the safe confines of my own home over the last couple years is now free to expand out to the rest of the world. That's what I meant of facebook by 'being a real person'. I'm legally entitled to the rights and freedoms of a full-fledged adult. Well, almost. Can't rent cars 'til I'm 25.
The whole deal has been kinda anticlimactic like that. Yay, it's my birthday, oh, I didn't organize a party. Yay, my friends want to party anyway, oh, there are three of them and they're not all old enough to take me barhopping. Yay, I have good friends and good liquor and good games and a warm house, oh... my closest friends really don't get along with each other any more and I spent a hell of a lot of money on this liquor that my friends are drinking and nobody's even offering to chip in, and the games are a lot better with ten people than with four, and I really don't want to be living here now because of the crazy landlady and the growing discomfort between my roommate and I.
Bitch bitch bitch. That's what I'm doing. I feel like I'm treading too close to self-indugent whining here, so I'll move on, but I promise the intention was to share my state of mind - not to bitch about it. I just have a nasty headache. Ah, right....
I gave myself a present for my birthday. Besides the liquor, I mean. I decided to quit smoking cigarettes.
Yeah, dad, grandma, you two can take some credit for the immaculate guilt-tripping. As two ex-smokers who sincerely asked me to quit for my own sake, I can't fault you for hypocrisy nearly as much as I'd need to to ignore your advice. You speak with an appeal to knowledge you've gained from your personal experience, which I respect. And that approach, for me, inspires introspection which, as those who know me well will confirm, is my favorite and most well worn path towards change. So I got all introspective and decided a couple weeks ago that I am not smoking for the same reasons that I used to and after much evaluation, I said to myself, I said "Self, it's time for a change."
I've been fooling around with yet another social networking service/site: OK Cupid. In just a couple weeks of building a profile, I've enjoyed more quality interaction with other users than months and months of facebookery and myspacing have produced. Yeah, okay, it's basically a dating site, but it's based on a pretty interesting approach whereby your ostensibly honest answers to a multitude of questions result in a rigorous algorithmic analysis of your personality and you get to review the thousands of other users through an enjoyably simplified representation of your calculated interpersonal compatibility.
That's all for now. Please please please leave me a comment if you read this. I'm still trying to gauge my audience here. Do I have one?
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