Remember being “offline”?
When I was your age(1), we had this thing called being “offline”. I’ve
been around computers of one primitive sort or another almost my whole
life, but only ever owned a real one after I got out of high school,
and it went online. But at that time, online generally meant “dial-up”
which meant “in relatively short doses or late at night, unless you
want to tie up the damn phone line all day”. This was, at first,
during the age of America Online anyway, so you didn’t want to spend
too much money either. And but so this necessitated periods of time
during which one was not, actually online. Shocking I know. And in many ways of course, it is kind of fucking amazing, the level
of like connectivity and information we have available these days. I
still have a moment of future shock whenever I have some inane trivia
question pop up that I can’t quite remember, and I realize that I can
pull out my phone and look it up from almost anywhere in the civilized
world(2). I mean this is fairly amazing, living-in-the-future level
shit here. But on the other hand, I’ve been living mostly offline most weekends
now for a while. Granted, there’s still the occasional looking at
funny cat pictures, but this is mainly vicarious and on the same level
of watching a TeeVee program or something with someone. I tend to
limit my data consumption as much as possible in favor of human
contact. Sort of a novel new thing for me. I like it. Which isn’t to
say I’m particularly effective, said phone being insidious in an “I’ll
just check my email quickly… oh and see who’s on the Twitter… oh
and check Facebook…” sort of way. And I don’t want to fall into the alarmist camp where you occasionally
see news articles like “IS GOOGLE MAKING US DUM?”, like we’re becoming
incapable of knowledge because we can just look everything up. I’m
just saying I personally benefit from a period of time where I’m not
moving a mile-a-minute browsing this and that and following links and
playing games that go for exactly ONE MINUTE. It’s not something I’d
do permanently, I’m as addicted as the next person, but I’m really
liking taking a break from these things. I like that I can still go
out and drink a bunch of cactus by-product and bullshit about whatever
(granted, it’s often about what evil Google is up to, so by the nature
of my work and my interests, the grim specter of technology is never
far behind). I don’t know that I particularly have a point to make here. I was just
struck by the idea that, years ago being “online” was a state you
actively entered, and then stopped doing when you were finished. This
is a cultural artifact which has fallen by the wayside, much like
television stopping broadcasting at a certain hour, or the US Senate
ever accomplishing anything(3). So I figured I’d go on about it for a
little bit while I’m unable to figure out a particularly pressing
problem about a web application for work (which is used by the courts,
all of which are online nearly all of the time and which has made
information sharing actually work so that the courts can function to a
more reasonable semblance of sanity [though still VERY far from
actually reaching sanity]). So maybe, be offline a little while and see what happens. The internet
will survive without you. Though of course, it can’t survive without
me for very long… —-
1. The esteemed Ashleigh is a little bit younger than me, which I like
to use to mock her incessantly, saying things like “when I was your
age…” or telling her things from when I was in college are “before
her time”. And but so, “When I was your age…” has become a sort of
go-to thing for me when talking about the Distant Past. I’ll even say
it to people who are older than me, often to some befuddlement if they
know our relative ages. 2. Except, ironically, inside my own home. Because fuck you, AT&T and
your shitty coverage. 3. Zing!
been around computers of one primitive sort or another almost my whole
life, but only ever owned a real one after I got out of high school,
and it went online. But at that time, online generally meant “dial-up”
which meant “in relatively short doses or late at night, unless you
want to tie up the damn phone line all day”. This was, at first,
during the age of America Online anyway, so you didn’t want to spend
too much money either. And but so this necessitated periods of time
during which one was not, actually online. Shocking I know. And in many ways of course, it is kind of fucking amazing, the level
of like connectivity and information we have available these days. I
still have a moment of future shock whenever I have some inane trivia
question pop up that I can’t quite remember, and I realize that I can
pull out my phone and look it up from almost anywhere in the civilized
world(2). I mean this is fairly amazing, living-in-the-future level
shit here. But on the other hand, I’ve been living mostly offline most weekends
now for a while. Granted, there’s still the occasional looking at
funny cat pictures, but this is mainly vicarious and on the same level
of watching a TeeVee program or something with someone. I tend to
limit my data consumption as much as possible in favor of human
contact. Sort of a novel new thing for me. I like it. Which isn’t to
say I’m particularly effective, said phone being insidious in an “I’ll
just check my email quickly… oh and see who’s on the Twitter… oh
and check Facebook…” sort of way. And I don’t want to fall into the alarmist camp where you occasionally
see news articles like “IS GOOGLE MAKING US DUM?”, like we’re becoming
incapable of knowledge because we can just look everything up. I’m
just saying I personally benefit from a period of time where I’m not
moving a mile-a-minute browsing this and that and following links and
playing games that go for exactly ONE MINUTE. It’s not something I’d
do permanently, I’m as addicted as the next person, but I’m really
liking taking a break from these things. I like that I can still go
out and drink a bunch of cactus by-product and bullshit about whatever
(granted, it’s often about what evil Google is up to, so by the nature
of my work and my interests, the grim specter of technology is never
far behind). I don’t know that I particularly have a point to make here. I was just
struck by the idea that, years ago being “online” was a state you
actively entered, and then stopped doing when you were finished. This
is a cultural artifact which has fallen by the wayside, much like
television stopping broadcasting at a certain hour, or the US Senate
ever accomplishing anything(3). So I figured I’d go on about it for a
little bit while I’m unable to figure out a particularly pressing
problem about a web application for work (which is used by the courts,
all of which are online nearly all of the time and which has made
information sharing actually work so that the courts can function to a
more reasonable semblance of sanity [though still VERY far from
actually reaching sanity]). So maybe, be offline a little while and see what happens. The internet
will survive without you. Though of course, it can’t survive without
me for very long… —-
1. The esteemed Ashleigh is a little bit younger than me, which I like
to use to mock her incessantly, saying things like “when I was your
age…” or telling her things from when I was in college are “before
her time”. And but so, “When I was your age…” has become a sort of
go-to thing for me when talking about the Distant Past. I’ll even say
it to people who are older than me, often to some befuddlement if they
know our relative ages. 2. Except, ironically, inside my own home. Because fuck you, AT&T and
your shitty coverage. 3. Zing!
Found: I… I don’t even know…
This is completely mystifying and more than a little bizarre, but for
some reason I am fascinated by it. Welcome to the weekend, children.
Almost.
In which there was a Cavalcade of Scientific Whimsy
This weekend I became ensconced in my natural habitat, which is to say
SCIENCE!, by way of the Connecticut Science Museum. This was, as
expected, fairly awesome, as this is not really the sort of thing I’ve
done for a very long time, probably since such time as this would have
been a type of school field trip I’d have gone on. So it was a fine
use of a holiday and a splendid time was had by all. Fotografs will be
soon forthcoming. And so as we were waiting in line to pay for admission to the
Cavalcade of Scientific Whimsy, there was a woman in the next line
(the “if you have a membership or season pass or something express
line”) with a small collection of children, which unexpectedly warmed
the frozen cockles of my heart. She was overheard expressing to the
children (I assume some of which were hers) that they should be sure
to visit the rooms they hadn’t been to yet. And so I was quite buoyed
by the idea that children should not only be taken to a science
museum, but that they should be taken there frequently enough that
they should have passes and have to plan out making sure to see the
whole place. In that brief moment I had at least a tiny bit of hope for our
misbegotten planet. I mean it was only one group of kids, only one
woman, but hey, even misanthropes can be touched sometimes. I know
that, if I should ever change my ways and decide to breed, my children
will certainly be found among those excited to see Science. Of course
with my luck they’ll end up being hardcore Fundamentalist Nutbags, or
Scientologists or something, and I’ll never get them to set foot in
such a place. But a person can dream about what their unlikely spawn will be like, can’t he?
SCIENCE!, by way of the Connecticut Science Museum. This was, as
expected, fairly awesome, as this is not really the sort of thing I’ve
done for a very long time, probably since such time as this would have
been a type of school field trip I’d have gone on. So it was a fine
use of a holiday and a splendid time was had by all. Fotografs will be
soon forthcoming. And so as we were waiting in line to pay for admission to the
Cavalcade of Scientific Whimsy, there was a woman in the next line
(the “if you have a membership or season pass or something express
line”) with a small collection of children, which unexpectedly warmed
the frozen cockles of my heart. She was overheard expressing to the
children (I assume some of which were hers) that they should be sure
to visit the rooms they hadn’t been to yet. And so I was quite buoyed
by the idea that children should not only be taken to a science
museum, but that they should be taken there frequently enough that
they should have passes and have to plan out making sure to see the
whole place. In that brief moment I had at least a tiny bit of hope for our
misbegotten planet. I mean it was only one group of kids, only one
woman, but hey, even misanthropes can be touched sometimes. I know
that, if I should ever change my ways and decide to breed, my children
will certainly be found among those excited to see Science. Of course
with my luck they’ll end up being hardcore Fundamentalist Nutbags, or
Scientologists or something, and I’ll never get them to set foot in
such a place. But a person can dream about what their unlikely spawn will be like, can’t he?
Why I don’t want to hear about the full moon at work ever again.
So there’s this individual with whom I work… Let me back up, and start by saying that I work in state government.
This is a wonderful thing, at least coming from a position of having
several years of rampant unemployment and commensurate stress,
depression, desperation (and subsequently working for a huge asshole
who caused me panic attacks because it was a paycheck)… after all of
that, a steady (union!) job with a pension at the end (assuming the
state remains solvent until I’m retirement age [which is no guarantee
these days]) is a lovely thing, to which I offer no complaints
whatsoever, praise Eris and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for it. But let us just say that the stereotypes about state government
employees, if not even nearly universally true, are based on some
fact. There are a few of them out there, the sorts of people who
basically consider anyone getting between them and their next coffee
break The Enemy. Even if the person getting in the way is, I don’t
know, a user they have to support and a problem they have to deal with
as part of THEIR JOB. And so, there’s this individual with whom I work, who does not
hesitate to complain whenever someone calls in with some bug or some
error in communication between our agency (the courts) and some other
group with whom we have to communicate (for example, the DMV for
traffic violations, or the criminal justice system, or whoever). It is
his job (or part of it) to keep these things working properly, yet
every problem that springs up is a personal affront to him. Fine. I’m not here (solely) to rag on the guy. He’s kind of a weird,
chumpy guy for that, but whatever, y’know? I don’t have to work with
him directly most of the time, so more power to him. What I want to complain about is the fact that every single day, no
matter what, he’ll reference “the full moon” as the cause of people
calling in. I hear this approximately 27 times a day “I swear, it must
be the full moon”. “I think we just had one last week, but I feel like
it must be a full moon again”. “I tell you, what is with this full
moon, all the crazies are out.” This all regarding the same small
group of people who always call him. And I have no other comment on this, except that it makes me WANT TO
FUCKING KILL HIM. That is all.
This is a wonderful thing, at least coming from a position of having
several years of rampant unemployment and commensurate stress,
depression, desperation (and subsequently working for a huge asshole
who caused me panic attacks because it was a paycheck)… after all of
that, a steady (union!) job with a pension at the end (assuming the
state remains solvent until I’m retirement age [which is no guarantee
these days]) is a lovely thing, to which I offer no complaints
whatsoever, praise Eris and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for it. But let us just say that the stereotypes about state government
employees, if not even nearly universally true, are based on some
fact. There are a few of them out there, the sorts of people who
basically consider anyone getting between them and their next coffee
break The Enemy. Even if the person getting in the way is, I don’t
know, a user they have to support and a problem they have to deal with
as part of THEIR JOB. And so, there’s this individual with whom I work, who does not
hesitate to complain whenever someone calls in with some bug or some
error in communication between our agency (the courts) and some other
group with whom we have to communicate (for example, the DMV for
traffic violations, or the criminal justice system, or whoever). It is
his job (or part of it) to keep these things working properly, yet
every problem that springs up is a personal affront to him. Fine. I’m not here (solely) to rag on the guy. He’s kind of a weird,
chumpy guy for that, but whatever, y’know? I don’t have to work with
him directly most of the time, so more power to him. What I want to complain about is the fact that every single day, no
matter what, he’ll reference “the full moon” as the cause of people
calling in. I hear this approximately 27 times a day “I swear, it must
be the full moon”. “I think we just had one last week, but I feel like
it must be a full moon again”. “I tell you, what is with this full
moon, all the crazies are out.” This all regarding the same small
group of people who always call him. And I have no other comment on this, except that it makes me WANT TO
FUCKING KILL HIM. That is all.
The man in the saffron robe
In the busiest part of the city (it doesn’t matter which one, you
won’t find it) is a shop. In the back of the shop is… well, mainly
in the back of the shop is the sort of thing you’ll find in the back
of any shop: boxes of spare merchandise (in this case mainly mens’
coats, hats and pants), staff break room, a disused and filthy
restroom, rats, an emergency exit… But behind all of *that* is
another door, to another room, and in that room is a woven mat, a
small table, and a man in a greasy saffron-colored robe. It is said that if you ask this man a question, he has to answer it,
and the answer is always correct. It is further said (probably to fend
off the familiar disappointment of other such tales) that his answers
are actually useful, and relevant, and in the spirit of the
questioner’s desires. None of this monkey’s-paw, gift-of-the-magi,
ironic postmodern bullshit, oh no. Ask a question, something that’s
been bothering you, something that will help you in your life, get a
valid answer. You can see why I don’t tell you where the shop is. And
why it doesn’t actually exist. I mean if such a thing did exist, the poor bastard would just be
giving out lottery numbers and stock tips all day. The entire economic
system would be crushed under the weight of inflation inside a week.
Most churches would probably go out of business, the secrets of the
universe having been revealed and the conflicting premises of every
other faith laid bare as just so much nonsensical muttering. And it might occur to you to ask: if such a man did exist, why would
he be living in the back of a haberdashery, wearing a robe anyway? I
mean is this just dramatic license, or what? Sure. But remember this:
if you could correctly answer anybody’s question, you could never go
outside, at least not once word got around. It’d be a few orders of
magnitude worse than being some famous celebrity. At least they can’t
do anything useful, except maybe look good (or sing well, or whatever
it is that some celebrities who don’t look good or sing or act or play
sports DO). And so I suppose if he couldn’t answer his own questions
for some reason, that’d pretty much be a cogent definition of hell.
Being able to solve anyone’s problem but your own is basically a kind
of exquisite torture, a sentence of a life of self-imprisonment, lest
you become like the goose who laid the golden eggs. And so it came to pass that a particularly disheveled woman, without
home or family or possessions or even a shopping cart ran across this
man. He had retired, for obvious reasons, but somehow she knew it was
him. Saw it in his eyes maybe. And she asked him a question, whispered
it into his ear, and looked on, plaintively, hoping for the answer. And he, having been silent for many years, having shut himself out of
the world of conversation for fear of revealing his oracularness to
the world at large, bit his lip. Drew in breath. Let out a sigh,
filled with warmth and resignation and fear and hope (it was quite a
sigh to behold). And at length, he opened his eyes, and opened his
mouth, and opened his eyes, and answered. She wept, and thanked him, and moved on.
won’t find it) is a shop. In the back of the shop is… well, mainly
in the back of the shop is the sort of thing you’ll find in the back
of any shop: boxes of spare merchandise (in this case mainly mens’
coats, hats and pants), staff break room, a disused and filthy
restroom, rats, an emergency exit… But behind all of *that* is
another door, to another room, and in that room is a woven mat, a
small table, and a man in a greasy saffron-colored robe. It is said that if you ask this man a question, he has to answer it,
and the answer is always correct. It is further said (probably to fend
off the familiar disappointment of other such tales) that his answers
are actually useful, and relevant, and in the spirit of the
questioner’s desires. None of this monkey’s-paw, gift-of-the-magi,
ironic postmodern bullshit, oh no. Ask a question, something that’s
been bothering you, something that will help you in your life, get a
valid answer. You can see why I don’t tell you where the shop is. And
why it doesn’t actually exist. I mean if such a thing did exist, the poor bastard would just be
giving out lottery numbers and stock tips all day. The entire economic
system would be crushed under the weight of inflation inside a week.
Most churches would probably go out of business, the secrets of the
universe having been revealed and the conflicting premises of every
other faith laid bare as just so much nonsensical muttering. And it might occur to you to ask: if such a man did exist, why would
he be living in the back of a haberdashery, wearing a robe anyway? I
mean is this just dramatic license, or what? Sure. But remember this:
if you could correctly answer anybody’s question, you could never go
outside, at least not once word got around. It’d be a few orders of
magnitude worse than being some famous celebrity. At least they can’t
do anything useful, except maybe look good (or sing well, or whatever
it is that some celebrities who don’t look good or sing or act or play
sports DO). And so I suppose if he couldn’t answer his own questions
for some reason, that’d pretty much be a cogent definition of hell.
Being able to solve anyone’s problem but your own is basically a kind
of exquisite torture, a sentence of a life of self-imprisonment, lest
you become like the goose who laid the golden eggs. And so it came to pass that a particularly disheveled woman, without
home or family or possessions or even a shopping cart ran across this
man. He had retired, for obvious reasons, but somehow she knew it was
him. Saw it in his eyes maybe. And she asked him a question, whispered
it into his ear, and looked on, plaintively, hoping for the answer. And he, having been silent for many years, having shut himself out of
the world of conversation for fear of revealing his oracularness to
the world at large, bit his lip. Drew in breath. Let out a sigh,
filled with warmth and resignation and fear and hope (it was quite a
sigh to behold). And at length, he opened his eyes, and opened his
mouth, and opened his eyes, and answered. She wept, and thanked him, and moved on.
Excuses, self-doubt and other things nobody gives a shit about
So I made this goal, or at least plan, for 2010 to start writing
again. And I ostensibly said I’d try to write something every day,
although I’m pretty sure even when I wrote that I knew it was
basically a lie. But nevertheless it’s kind of indicative of myself
anyway that I didn’t keep up with a schedule I’d made for myself. I
mean I’m hardly known for my slavish adherence to plans and like,
order and such. I think basically the main thing is, I’m sort of afraid people will
actually pay attention to my writing. Which is why I tend more toward
emo bloggery and less toward actual like, writing. Mainly when I was a
youth in high school, one of the few things people ever said to me was
that my writing was good. I’m still sort of afraid that it was a sort
of “big fish/small pond” thing, or at least that it’s all just
atrophied away in the intervening years. So if I never let anyone see
it, they can never tell me that I suck, and I can continue to believe
that it’s this awesome talent I have that I’ve just never done
anything with. Sort of along the lines of “better to be silent and be
thought a fool, rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt”. And so I’m not sure exactly what I intend by writing. I mean on the
one hand I don’t intend anything: it’s just something I used to enjoy;
it, like so many other things, fell by the wayside over the past…
oh, many years… and now I’m rediscovering many things and
discovering a lot of new ones to boot. So I don’t really intend
anything, I don’t expect it’ll come to anything apart from maybe a
little bit of creativity, make my old, rusted-out brain start working
again, and maybe on the off chance anyone is paying attention, to
entertain someone a little bit. On the other hand, there’s a reason I guess that it’s so hard for me.
The easy answer is it’s just self-consciousness as always. So the
answer I suppose is, to keep going, keep trying, and damn the schedule
and damn what anyone says (or doesn’t say) and just keep trying. Or I could just punt and keep writing navel-gazing blogosity, which
technically counts as writing (if only in the barest sense of the
word)… :P
again. And I ostensibly said I’d try to write something every day,
although I’m pretty sure even when I wrote that I knew it was
basically a lie. But nevertheless it’s kind of indicative of myself
anyway that I didn’t keep up with a schedule I’d made for myself. I
mean I’m hardly known for my slavish adherence to plans and like,
order and such. I think basically the main thing is, I’m sort of afraid people will
actually pay attention to my writing. Which is why I tend more toward
emo bloggery and less toward actual like, writing. Mainly when I was a
youth in high school, one of the few things people ever said to me was
that my writing was good. I’m still sort of afraid that it was a sort
of “big fish/small pond” thing, or at least that it’s all just
atrophied away in the intervening years. So if I never let anyone see
it, they can never tell me that I suck, and I can continue to believe
that it’s this awesome talent I have that I’ve just never done
anything with. Sort of along the lines of “better to be silent and be
thought a fool, rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt”. And so I’m not sure exactly what I intend by writing. I mean on the
one hand I don’t intend anything: it’s just something I used to enjoy;
it, like so many other things, fell by the wayside over the past…
oh, many years… and now I’m rediscovering many things and
discovering a lot of new ones to boot. So I don’t really intend
anything, I don’t expect it’ll come to anything apart from maybe a
little bit of creativity, make my old, rusted-out brain start working
again, and maybe on the off chance anyone is paying attention, to
entertain someone a little bit. On the other hand, there’s a reason I guess that it’s so hard for me.
The easy answer is it’s just self-consciousness as always. So the
answer I suppose is, to keep going, keep trying, and damn the schedule
and damn what anyone says (or doesn’t say) and just keep trying. Or I could just punt and keep writing navel-gazing blogosity, which
technically counts as writing (if only in the barest sense of the
word)… :P
Some tiny fiction, as an exercise…
It’s the growling that gets to you. It’s the growling that pushes you
over that last edge, shows whether you’ve got that extra instinct for
life or whether you’re just too soft and just starts you panicking,
stumbling, falling to the teeth and the jaws and the claws. You can hear barking from miles away. Though there is that certain
bark, that certain tone that sets your spine on edge and lets you know
that it’s not just Milk Bones and kibble, that this motherfucker is
serious, that forces the cold sweat out of every pore. You hear that,
you know someone is going to get it. Someone went where they shouldn’t
have gone, done what they shouldn’t have done.
close, but it could be a squirrel, or some other poor bastard, or just
one of those mysterious invisible things that gets them all riled up.
Until you can hear the growling. The guttural low throat. The violent
gravel. Something menacing and strident and directed squarely at YOU.
By the time you can hear that, you know it’s after you. If you weren’t running already, tearing away from it with all your
might, once you hear the growling you certainly start. You put
everything you have, everything you are into it. You hope against hope
that it’s enough. The street stops being a street, the rain is just
something else blurring your mind, already blurred by adrenaline,
epinephrine, fear-panic-terror-go-go-GO… Everything resolves into
the next step, the next ten paces, the next turn, the false hope that
it’ll just leave you alone. Or maybe you just run out of gas, finally
use up that last reserve, maybe the panic just stops your mind, stops
even that instinct to put one foot ahead of the other and you stumble
swear trip fall moan crawl and finally collapse into the ground. It’s really the breathing that gets to you, at the very last… —-
So I just decided that today I’d write a micro-sized bit of fiction,
just all in one go and see what came out. Not even sure where I got
the scene from. Not sure I 100% like it, but not sure I feel like it
either deserves or would stand up to much editing, so I’ll just leave
it as my exercise for today. Baby steps. Feel free to leave comments
though…
Fortune cookie… pants?
In recent months, I’ve begun acquiring new pants(1). Basically I’m a
different size now, it’s fairly stable, so I feel like I can spend
money on re-equipping myself. And but so, today I notice something about my otherwise-normal pants.
Printed on the inside of the waistband, in fairly large letters, is
the legend “One Leg at a Time”… which is useful advice as far as it
goes, I guess, but I have to wonder why exactly they felt the need to
impart this morsel of wisdom to me from the inside of my own pants.
come from the inside of pants. Even my own if that’s all that’s
available. But in the relatively small number of years I’ve lived on
the planet, I have never heard of receiving pithy aphorisms from
menswear. So I’m left to interpret this. Possibly it’s overkill from some legal
problems the company had. Perhaps too many people were injuring
themselves trying to jump into their pants all at once, and rather
than being sage wisdom it’s actually just instructional in nature. I
mean hell, they put instructions on a box of toothpicks, so why not
pants. If nothing else the popularity of Sarah Palin is evidence
enough that possibly Americans are in fact growing too stupid to even
put on pants. And I have to wonder if this printing is costing me anything. I mean
even if it’s some tiny fraction of a penny’s worth of ink or dye or
whatever, I don’t want to pay that shit for them to be printing some
mystery slogan inside my pants. At least if it were on the outside
it’d make sense, it’d be some sort of marketing or what have you
(which granted, I still wouldn’t be happy paying for but at least it’d
benefit somebody). But this seems like it’s somehow supposed to
benefit *me*, or at least be something that makes me more willing to
buy these pants rather than another kind. “Oh well these have the
knowledge and guidance of the ages printed on them, definitely those
ones”. In the end, it remains a mystery to me, but at least an amusing
mystery that gives me a bit of a chuckle whenever I notice it. In the
end I guess that’s enough. At some point it will cease to be amusing
and they’ll just be pants (knowing me, it’ll probably be funny much
longer than it should), and some small part of the absurdity of the
universe will be lost forever. Thus endeth the deep thoughts on “what’s written next to my underwear”.
—-
1. The true promise of the internet has always been detailed awareness
of other peoples’ clothes-buying habits. Praise be to the intertubes,
lest we not have this vital social network of haberdashery!(2)
2. Pants-related footnotes. The true promise of the internet has
always been pants-related footnotes.(3)
3. And meta-footnotery.(4)
4. Is footnotery a word?(5)
5. It is now.
What’s a Discordian, anyway?
Over in Facebook, I present my religion as “Discordian”. I often post
strange status updates which are basically references or inside jokes
from this. And at least one person who reads my twitterings has me on
a list called “eris”. But at the same time, I’m basically a naturalist
(which I mean in opposition to “supernatural”, not in the sense that I
spend a great deal of time outdoors) and a skeptic and an atheist. So
people basically assume that my claim to religious affiliation is a
joke. And indeed many people looking at Discordianism as a whole
basically come to the same conclusion. These people are, of course, correct.
the Discordian holydays or to Eris or what have you, not necessarily
because I truly believe that there is a magic, invisible, supernatural
crazy bitch out there in the universe mixing everything up, but
because it is entertaining for me to do so. On the other hand, as supernatural explanations for why things are the
way they are, I can’t help but wonder if that one doesn’t make any
more sense than anything else people believe. And on the gripping hand, as the book says, “If you think the
Principia is just a ha-ha, read it again”. I’ve heard Discordianism
described as “Zen for roundeyes” or “Taoism in a clown suit” and
that’s not half-bad. The point is this: even (especially) the clearest-eyed,
scientifically-minded atheist will admit that we don’t know what the
fuck is going on in the world, most of the time. We have theories, we
have experiments, but nobody knew what exactly was going to happen
when they turned on the Large Hadron Collider, nobody really quite
knows if there’s anything to string theory, and we’re barely aware of
a small fraction of our universe. Essentially, as the great philosopher Donald Rumsfeld said, there are
things we don’t even know that we don’t know. There are things we
thought we knew but we were wrong about. How many years did we think
we understood force and gravity before Einstein came along and
basically made Newtonian physics a sort of quaint theoretical model
for a universe much simpler than the one we actually inhabit? And so the weird ramblings of a bunch of hippies going on about Eris
and Greyface and all of that basically means this: don’t believe
everything you read. Don’t believe everything you believe. Don’t take
yourself so seriously. Try to look at things from every perspective,
even perspectives you know are wrong. Be absurd. Things are weirder
than you think. There’s more than one way to do it. These are all things I actually believe. And so in that sense, I am a
full-fledged, bible-believing Discordian. And still an atheist, and
still a skeptic, and still a naturalist. Every Discordian is, by
definition, different and iconoclastic in some ways. Some of them
would say that I’m kind of a shitty Discordian. And fuck them. Even
though they’re right. I claim sometimes to be a Pope, because the Principia Discordia tells
us every man, woman and child on earth is a Pope. I believe this. I
believe that if any of us is spiritually advanced, then all of us are
so equally. Which is to say not at all. Nobody has dominion over
anyone else based on some kind of superstition, or invisible cloud
fairy, or flying spaghetti monster or any of it. So to my mind I am
just as valid a Pope as that crazy Nazi over in Rome. Probably more
so. And so it’s all about relativism. It’s all in how you look at it. If
you look at the world as a child would, and just enjoy it for the
beauty and fun and insanity of it all, good for you! It’s no less
valid than being completely serious all the time. Granted, I happen to
personally think that science has gotten us a lot more than some other
ways of looking at the world, and it happens to have great explanatory
and predictive powers. And so it is a very useful viewpoint in many
ways, and happens to be the default lens I look at the world through.
But I know that as a human there are a lot of other ways to look at
things. Some of them appear false, and some of them appear true, but
to the person who believes them they are all true. I might disagree,
science might disagree, hell reality might disagree. But to that
person it’s still true, and who’s to say that in some way it isn’t? So there’s some heavy-duty philosophy in there, that is both useful
and fun to think about. I won’t claim it’s incredibly deep stuff, but
it’s more than just a joke at the same time. And it’s a way to stretch
your mind a little bit. Think of ways in which disorder and randomness
and chaos (with a little-c) add creativity and joy to the world. Think
of ways in which too much order and organization can be destructive
and remove joy from the world. And vice versa. Reality is always the same. There is an objective world out there that
is what it is. But we all look at it slightly differently. “Reality is
the original Rorschach”. People are too quick to divide things into
binary divisions of this-vs-that, good-vs-bad, black-vs-white when
it’s nearly never that easy and anyway such distinction is relative to
your belief. Ultimately the danger isn’t in any particular belief
(though some are more dangerous than others) but in simply coming to
the conclusion that yours is correct and needs to be inflicted on
everyone else. You’re not right. None of us are. So am I an atheist, or a skeptic, or a Discordian? Yes, all of them.
Do I believe that there is a rainbow-eyed goddess floating around
making sure things happen in multiples of five? Probably not
literally, no. Like Russell’s teapot I suppose I can’t rule it out,
but in the end as long as I exercise my mind and keep it open I don’t
much think it matters what is real or not. And I think Discordianism is a wonderful way to confuse people, which
is an important goal. Throw people off with non sequiturs and bad
logic and nonsense just to see how they react. Do things which aren’t
normal just to get a rise out of people. Test peoples’ beliefs. If
people think I’m just screwing with them, they’ll be less likely to
see it coming. It is also possible I don’t believe any of this. But more than that,
it is extremely possible that I both believe it and don’t believe it
at the same time. And that, to me, is as good a statement of
Discordianism as any. Verily! So much for all that…
The leading edge of 2010: A summary
So, mainly for my own purposes, but also in the interest of
documentation and possibly the entertainment of those involved, I
present my accounting of the very end of 2009 and the first few days
of 2010. It is indicative of my life that these are several days that
I quite literally would not have conceived of being anything I
personally would be involved with one year ago… Thursday night (New Year’s Eve) started out a bit chaotic (in a bad
way) due to last-minute plan-changing. But it worked out all right in
the end, just a few very good friends, Apples to Apples (a highly
recommended game with the rare quality of basically being fun to
anybody), a solid but not excessive level of wine-fueled intoxication,
making gentle fun of poor Dick Clark (mainly just indignation that the
network still insists on trotting him out) and my first high-quality
New Year’s kiss in quite a long while. Taking last year as an anomaly,
because I did actually go out and spend some time with a new friend I
had made in ‘08 (1) New Year’s Eve has never been particularly amusing
for me. A combination of the factors that I was basically a teetotaler
my whole life(2), that passion and kissing and such were never a done
thing in my former life, and that I never had a whole lot of friends
to spend time around made this the case. Typical New Years’ would be
basically watching whatever Dick Clark was doing on the TeeVee, and
going to sleep soon thereafter. Maybe a glass of champagne just
because, but I never much cared for it as I hadn’t the taste for wine
until recently.
my flickr(3) if you like that sort of thing. Friday was pretty much recovery. Not that we were especially wiped out
from the night, we were not stupidly drunk and didn’t stay up stupidly
late, so we mainly slept in just because we could, and continued to
not do very much for the same reason. I expect it’s probably the
soonest in any year I’ve ever done certain things (ahem). Friday also
featured coloring, on printed out copies of Lisa Frank drawings, which
I was aware of in general but didn’t know much about in specific… And so, my reaction to the drawing in question is immortalized on
Facebook, as is a photograph of the finished product, but essentially
it was a giant unicorn, the size of a small moon, standing on said
moon with planets and stars and whatnot trailing in the background.
The cropping of the image gave said pony (as I called it before
realizing it was in fact a unicorn) a cut-off butt. And as I doodled
in a stick figure impaled on the horn, it is now the KILLER SPACE PONY
and it is truly epic. I fully realize that my life is surreal, and I would have it no other way. Saturday was shopping, errands &c. Testing extremely lovely and
expensive mattresses, a bit of clothes shopping which was unsuccessful
for me (I desperately need a non-ugly coat), but successful for others
and assisting in the exorcism of relics from ashleigh’s exes. Which in some ways made me sad because I don’t personally have much in
the way of sentimental detritus in my life. On the one hand, this is a
good thing because that sort of thing just becomes one more thing to
throw away or to look at every day and be sad about. On the other
hand, it sort of is just another indicator that the last however-many
years of my life were kind of a black hole. Which, I don’t want to
constantly come off like everything was totally negative, because it
wasn’t. But really it’s like, there are a few digital pictures, a
couple t-shirts that might remind me of things I’ve done, but on the
whole not really very much to indicate that I’ve even really had a
life. And from several perspectives I kind of haven’t. I didn’t have a
whole lot of friends that I interacted with regularly, adventures were
relatively rare and generally it was much of the same much of the
time. And this is entirely based on the fact that you just need to be
with people you enjoy in life. Looking at for instance, Saturday,
mattress- and coat-shopping are not massively entertaining activities.
But in the right company it’s a tonne of fun, at least to me. And so I have nothing really to show for my life except emotional
scars, a bit more cynicism than I started with (though in many ways
not nearly as much cynicism as might be expected, being as how I’m
taking a second chance at putting myself out there), and a continuing
sense of responsibility for another person based mainly on emotional
guilt. But this, as many other things, is changing and I hope that
maybe I’ll have something to show for myself in 10 more years… So then Saturday evening we (at this point the adventuring party
consisted of myself, ashleigh, and the esteemed Mr Lawlor) went down
to New Haven, had some awesome felafel/hummus/shish-kebab from a quite
renowned cheap mediterranean place (for those that know either New
Haven or NYC, Mamoun’s), followed by shopping for “survival gear” at
the sporting goods shop. This turned out to be freeze-dried ice cream,
a swiss army knife and assorted other non-survival type items, plus
screwing around with the boxing dummies and generally making asses of
ourselves. All of this screwing around before we even GOT to the boozeteria,
proving that alcohol is never required for a good measure of
ridiculousness. But said boozeteria allowed the awesome finds of
absinthe (too rich for my personal blood, but a member of our intrepid
adventuring party did acquire it) and a ridiculous variety of beers,
from the sublime (but still quite tasty, if prosiac, Sam Adams winter
brew) to the ridiculous (He’Brew, the chosen beer [www.shmaltz.com]). And THEN, after all of that, we ended up roped in to a sort of
mini-high-school reunion at a karaoke bar. I was not nearly drunk
enough to actually sing “Muzzle” when my turn came up SECOND, and I am
pretty sure I butchered it, but my companions killed (in a good way)
everything they tried. I was quite touched when ashleigh did “Friday,
I’m in Love”, which even if it wasn’t done with me in mind certainly
is appropriate to a relationship which by necessity of distance only
occurs on the weekends (starting, as implied, every Friday evening). I
also note here for the record that I was not responsible for the bar
tab and cubas libre kept appearing before me as if by magic, and so my
behaviour was not something for which I personally take any actual
responsibility. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily for the amusement of
those around me), I did not attempt to perform once I actually did
become intoxicated. Photos of this even, for better or for worse, also exist. As my camera
is a bit fiddly on the focus, there are no pictures of us as a couple,
but a few of my singing did come out well enough (though I maintain I
am one strange-looking individual), and I managed to capture everyone
else in situations ranging from posed cuteness to abject iniquity,
with which I am truly pleased. Sunday featured more recovery. Christmas tree disposal. Quiet
contemplation. Reading. Sleeping in. Not sleeping in. Text messaging.
Disbursing evidence of misdeeds across the internet. And so, in summary I attempt to say that it was the second extremely
lovely holiday weekend in a row, and I am sorry to see it end. Lately
I’ve been getting a lot of comments to my status updates and whatnot
that I seem quite different. This is a bit amusing to me, as this is a
process that has been steadily progressing all of last year, but I
guess lately I’m more open about the fact that I am content, happy,
and generally a more mellow person now than probably ever before.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still an asshole, but I have never been an
asshole to people I care about, and there are more of those around now
and with a greater quality of caring. And so if I seem different to
you, gentle reader, it is only because I am just being more honest and
open about things. This might come back to sting me at some point, I
don’t know (I don’t think so, but I don’t know). But life is too short
to be vague and elusive and cryptic all the time. This might be kind
of boring to those who might be more interested in my snark, than in
reading things about my life and like, emotional wanking, but fuck you
it’s my blog and I’ll be emo if I want to. So, I will remember many things about this holiday, and hopefully
things will continue to be amusing for the foreseeable future. From
staying up way too late with ashleigh & her sister drinking too much
and attempting to play Mario Kart, to the killer space pony, to
“Friday, I’m in Love”, it was a hell of a holiday season. Here’s to
2010 (and hopefully less self-indulgent bloggery). —-
1. Which friend has since been poisoned against me for no particularly
good reason, and which is possibly one of the things I’m bitterest
about in my breakup…
2. Which is not to say that I have ever been specifically against
alcohol. I was a little wary of it for a while because of someone in
my family, but that was never really about alcohol specifically
anyway. So I’m in some ways making up for lost time, but mainly just
gotten to the point where it’s just another minor facet of enjoying
life, and to get a little better at dealing with people I don’t know
very well (which was also never really much of a concern)…
3. http://flickr.com/photos/misterdiskord
In which 2009 is reviewed, and goals for 2010 are discussed…
Generally speaking, I have not been one for “New Year’s Resolutions”
unless strongly pressed to provide some. In the past I have almost
universally been strongly pressed to provide them, out of a series of
deeply-held beliefs by those around me. Said beliefs seem mainly to
consist of paying lip service to self-improvement through lots of
goal-setting and inscribing goals in notebooks, and typically not
doing any of them. These were also deeply-held beliefs on fitness and
weight control. And so I have never really taken them all that seriously. This is
compounded by the fact that I have never really had the energy or
wherewithal to really make any striking changes in myself in previous
years. 2009 was quite different, and so now I am somewhat skeptical of
the value of resolutions due to the fact that my whole life is
currently an ongoing New Year’s Resolution which is going shockingly
well.
(note that these things are not necessarily to brag. Particularly in
the case of weight-loss I always feel guilty talking about it because
many people do have such trouble. Maybe I’m just lucky, I don’t know.
But I list things only to remind myself that I have done amazing
things with my life and should continue to do so) -Lost 70 pounds and have maintained myself at my “normal” weight for
some months (with usual fluctuations)
-Began being creative again, in the form of some (very little
writing), photography (which gets compliments) and knitting (which has
also gotten compliments)
-Exercising, at least until the weather turned bad and I didn’t feel
like walking most days
-Emotional changes: after the initial fallout from the major changes,
I’ve tried to be less moody, less jealous, less suspicious and less
self-loathing. I think I’ve succeeded somewhat at these, though I am a
bad judge of myself. And so for 2010 I simply wish to list for myself goals. Health: Just maintenance in many ways. I want to stay at or around
170. A little below is OK if it happens (I seem to fluctuate wildly)
but I think this is fairly healthy and looks OK. I want to start
exercising again, at least walking again and maybe other things as
well, I haven’t really decided yet. I think that in the main (keeping
my weight to stay reasonably healthy) this will be easy, exercise
might be harder. Creativity: This is a big one for me. My photographs I did OK with,
though posting a single photo every day more turned into clumps of
photos every week, which I’m sort of fine with. I’d like to make sure
to keep up taking pictures and improving on that. I want to start writing again. I think that, at least at first, I’m
going to try writing (really writing, not just
twittering/micro-blogging) something every day. This may turn out to
be a lot of execrable “what I did today” blog posts at first, for
which I apologize in advance, but hopefully it will get the muscles
going. As a side goal, I want to keep up with reading more. As I’ve got a
Kindle now (quick review: it’s awesome, even though the
DRM/remove-book-destruction twinges some of my info-hippie nerves)
this will be easier so hopefully I’ll keep it up. I have a lot of knitting projects in mind now that I know more people
who would appreciate knitted gifts. So I want to make more stuff this
year. I’d like to learn to play guitar, or some other instrument. Learning: As always, I’d like to practice and/or learn more languages.
I don’t really have anything to shoot at learning like I had ASL last
year, but I would like to continue with sign if and when it’s
possible. I’d like to learn something completely new, even if only
just a little bit. Haven’t decided what or how yet. I’d like to continue to learn how to use Lightroom (my photo-editing
software), although I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand I prefer
to just be able to shoot pictures well and not have to tweak them too
much. But I suspect that I could save a lot more of my “that is such a
good shot except you messed it up by THAT much” so that’s what I’m
going for. Work: I’m still torn on the career thing. Late summer 2010 will be 5
years with the state and I could, technically, leave and still get
some of my pension. But as programming jobs go it is about as good as
I would desire; I like my co-workers and bosses, the work is
interesting enough without demanding hugely late hours, the pay is
decent and the benefits are great. On the other hand, I can’t help but
feeling I could be doing something more creative with my life. I think
that I will just keep my eyes open, look around, and see where things
go vis-a-vis the other people in my life. Because on the one hand I
definitely agree you can’t arrange your life around someone else, but
on the other hand when you’re not particularly strongly tied to your
job or where you live, sometimes it can be the impetus you need to
make a big change. This is another wait-and-see, but I definitely want
to look. (some weeks ago ashleigh had a dream that I sprung on her that I’d be
leaving to do a photography grad course in Kenya at the end of the
year. For her this was an abandonment nightmare [especially as I was
telling her around November so it kind of sucked of me to have done]
but I did really like that her subconscious believed I could do
something like that as a real life. It’s just a dream, with no basis
in reality, but it’s one of my dreams too [not necessarily schooling
for it, but doing it as a life]. I’d also like a pony) Emotionally, I’m trying to keep my mouth shut about people. I can move
on without talking ill of the people I’ve left behind, even if I still
maintain that there’s a lot to blame. So as I say, just keep my mouth
shut, be positive, not create as much negativity. And outside of that, to just continue to grow, to give love and
friendship now that I’ve found more people willing and excited to
accept my love and friendship and to return it, and basically to
continue the latter half of 2009 on into 2010, possibly trying to get
things more settled (though obviously as a Discordian in both
philosophy and in life circumstance, I doubt things will be able to be
too settled this year, maybe 2011…) ryan
My awesome christmas gift…
Which, if you are not a Star Trek: TNG fan you might not get. But then
again, if you don’t get it, I’m not sure why I’m friends with you.
Other wonderful facts about this mug, which may or may not be evident
in the photo: It is of very prodigious size which assists in my
caffeine addiction, the borders are done in the style of the LCARS,
and it has a bit of sappiness painted on the bottom which I will not
share because I don’t want to be one of those people. In short, much
awesomeness and many thanks to the lovely and talented ashleigh (who
is forced to endure one further final exam before she can relax for
the holidays, and so further good luck for that…)
