Experiment Day 42: The Engine Core
I slept briefly but well. I dreamed in Italian, and in my dream I understood most of it. I'm at work now, a bit early. The sky was cloudy and it strained to turn from black to dusty yellow as the sun rose behind the mountain. The dust drifts upwards.
This is the hour I used to write. This is the hour in which I now write. This is the hour I didn't write. This hour is all hours.
In one of my journals, I used to start with the alphabet. I'd go Ahab Bradbury Chaucer Dickinson Edgar Fahrenheit Gloat Hamstrung Ipswich Journeyman Kilogram Lout Mosaic gNostic Ostrich Planetarium Quartered Render Slake Tongue Umpteenth Vigorous Wainscot Xygote Zeno's paradox.
Something like that.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Tuesday, August 09, 2016
My god I just went in to Livejournal. I barely recognize the place.
It's like wandering through electronic ruins. There was a world here. Now it's gone. Destroyed by the myspace and facebooks. We had to write, then. To show up in the feed. Photos were possible, but not the currency.
Not ruins, maybe, but the cast-off shell of something. What did we grow into? Molted old communications. Dried out husks of hubs. We were writers then. All hands on deck. Now we tap our thoughts, hen pecks. Our writing tools talk back. Whole writing systems spring from the tools available to the culture. Right to left, up and down. With how much care would we plumb our own depths if each text message took a chisel and an hour?
We're running out of things to wonder.
I was a fool to leave you, Liverjournal.
It's like wandering through electronic ruins. There was a world here. Now it's gone. Destroyed by the myspace and facebooks. We had to write, then. To show up in the feed. Photos were possible, but not the currency.
Not ruins, maybe, but the cast-off shell of something. What did we grow into? Molted old communications. Dried out husks of hubs. We were writers then. All hands on deck. Now we tap our thoughts, hen pecks. Our writing tools talk back. Whole writing systems spring from the tools available to the culture. Right to left, up and down. With how much care would we plumb our own depths if each text message took a chisel and an hour?
We're running out of things to wonder.
I was a fool to leave you, Liverjournal.
Experiment Day 2. Note to self: Remove the tiny clock on the corner of the screen. It tasks me.
A massive white pickup truck with a license plate that says "SHADWFX". I didn't see the driver, but I either love them or hate them.
Noise-canceling headphones were expensive, but worth it. They put in a solid 6 hours of work every day. The Bose run backup duty when it's quiet, usually in the early morning and following afternoon potlucks.
Reading...nothing right now. Finished a collection of short stories. "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Probably keep it next to the Borges and the Vonnegut on the nightstand. They would get along. Or they have already gotten along. They are getting along?
Cloudbursts of rain, dusty and abrasive at first. The second rainfall, often in the evening, cleanses. We all sparkle.
Can I do this? Can I keep doing...this? The hours are available. There are wasted moments in a pile in the closet next to dirty laundry and unfolded but clean towels. Remember how to build. Top-down, of course. Hoist the most important sails, lash them to the highest mast, then build the boat beneath the wind and sea as we sail.
There are no long days, she reminded me.
Her gentle admonishments lie, unfolded, in the closet.
A massive white pickup truck with a license plate that says "SHADWFX". I didn't see the driver, but I either love them or hate them.
Noise-canceling headphones were expensive, but worth it. They put in a solid 6 hours of work every day. The Bose run backup duty when it's quiet, usually in the early morning and following afternoon potlucks.
Reading...nothing right now. Finished a collection of short stories. "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Probably keep it next to the Borges and the Vonnegut on the nightstand. They would get along. Or they have already gotten along. They are getting along?
Cloudbursts of rain, dusty and abrasive at first. The second rainfall, often in the evening, cleanses. We all sparkle.
Can I do this? Can I keep doing...this? The hours are available. There are wasted moments in a pile in the closet next to dirty laundry and unfolded but clean towels. Remember how to build. Top-down, of course. Hoist the most important sails, lash them to the highest mast, then build the boat beneath the wind and sea as we sail.
There are no long days, she reminded me.
Her gentle admonishments lie, unfolded, in the closet.
Experiments. Very important. Learn by trying. Learn by failing. Mnemonic scar map pictograms.
Perfect.
It's early. Is this time-stamped? I think it is. It used to be. Settings aren't important right now. Early enough that most of the world is out of my way. Drive to work in peaceful cool relative darkness. There was a time when I had no air conditioning, but I forget those days.
Experiments.
How long has it been? Sometimes it feels like I'll see you when I get home. In a dream I remembered your boots. I think you were them. Definitely the hat.
Concrete examples: Treadmill. Incline walking 2.3 MPH. Playing video games and walking. Doing nothing while doing something. Almost looks productive. Veil of ingenious. Momentum works two ways. I can't seem to keep moving, so I move the ground beneath me. My knee hurts. The world whirs beneath, and does not care.
There is no perfect experiment, I suppose.
Perfect.
It's early. Is this time-stamped? I think it is. It used to be. Settings aren't important right now. Early enough that most of the world is out of my way. Drive to work in peaceful cool relative darkness. There was a time when I had no air conditioning, but I forget those days.
Experiments.
How long has it been? Sometimes it feels like I'll see you when I get home. In a dream I remembered your boots. I think you were them. Definitely the hat.
Concrete examples: Treadmill. Incline walking 2.3 MPH. Playing video games and walking. Doing nothing while doing something. Almost looks productive. Veil of ingenious. Momentum works two ways. I can't seem to keep moving, so I move the ground beneath me. My knee hurts. The world whirs beneath, and does not care.
There is no perfect experiment, I suppose.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
I'm in the closet. Feels good.
Writing, I mean. I've spent the afternoon painstakingly constructing a shelf inside my closet that will function as a writing/breakfast nook. It's stuffy, but at least it smells like clean laundry. Also dirty laundry. I keep my dirty laundry in here.
I'm working on a Toshiba Chromebook 2. I ordered it from the internet and the internet delivered it to my house. I'm still getting used to the chiclet keyborad. Reminds me of my very first writing machine. Beep bop boop.
My nephews are playing Minecraft in the gaming room. My closet is in the gaming room.
I am in the closet.
Feels good.
Writing, I mean. I've spent the afternoon painstakingly constructing a shelf inside my closet that will function as a writing/breakfast nook. It's stuffy, but at least it smells like clean laundry. Also dirty laundry. I keep my dirty laundry in here.
I'm working on a Toshiba Chromebook 2. I ordered it from the internet and the internet delivered it to my house. I'm still getting used to the chiclet keyborad. Reminds me of my very first writing machine. Beep bop boop.
My nephews are playing Minecraft in the gaming room. My closet is in the gaming room.
I am in the closet.
Feels good.
Sunday, March 06, 2016
Gurg has joined the room
(12:57) Gurg: Fashion is a cruel mistress, if mistress she be.
(13:00) Gurg: Long has the human head gone adorned and un-adorned. Earliest recorded instances of hat-wearing is found in the Babylonian temples erected in 1975, with crude cave-drawings depicting human-like shapes with large crescents upon their brows.
(13:02) Gurg: It is unlikely they were comfortable, and most hat-scholars agree that they were not so. However, there is no serious academic that can deny they don't look damn good.
Invited benO
Invited libstrom
Libstrom has joined the room
Ben has joined the room
(13:05) Libstrom: Interesting
(13:05) Ben: We should bring back the egyptian pharoh hat. That looks comfortable and boss.
(13:06) Ben: Also, the historical phrenologists agree that crecent people of Urdu/Babylon had no need for hats.
(13:07) Gurg: Friezes upon the Great Wall of Appalachia, artifically aged to appear over 3,000 years old, depict a caste system in which the lower-castes were forced to wear more and more hats as the upper-casts could not possibly don the great multitude of hats were forever ordering from the hat-making-caste.
(13:07) Gurg: It was a vicous, jaunty cycle.
(13:08) Ben: *edit Urdu is a language from a completely different area. Ur was the city from Mesopotamia.
(13:08) Libstrom: I am not knowledgeable enough to comment
(13:08) Gurg: The hat is its own language.
(13:08) Gurg: PERFECT!
(13:08) Ben: I am hat-illiterate.
(13:09) Gurg: I think you can change the topic, if you wish.
(13:09) Libstrom: Hmmm....
(13:10) Ben: I'm the topicoligist here! Are you licenced to guide discourse?
(13:13) Libstrom: I just said something out loud that sounded very bad
(13:14) Libstrom: "The only way for her not to be a stranger is if she comes."
(13:14) Libstrom: >.<
(13:14) Ben: lol
(13:14) Gurg: She better bring a hat.
(13:15) Libstrom: I'm dying laughing right now
(13:17) Libstrom: Ok I'm done dying now...please continue...
(13:17) Ben: I'm imagining a yellow rain hat, like for a fisherman.
(13:18) Gurg: See, I was thinking of those Dutch hats. The really tall cone ones.
(13:19) Ben: lol
(13:20) Libstrom: In Isabel and I's conversation the sentence was perfectly normal....but, leave it to me to take it out of context.
(13:21) Gurg: Quit taking it out.
(13:22) Libstrom: I need a hat
(13:23) Libstrom: In other news....
(13:25) Ben: Stimulus package.
(13:32) Gurg: In the late 1800s, the denuding of the forests and overfarming of the land created massive swaths of bare earth. Exacerbated by a decade of drought, the autumnal high winds swept the plains mercilessly. This was known as "The Hatless Time."
(13:33) Libstrom: Now I know how Penny feels
(13:33) Ben: I think we should be bullish about the Amazon, we burned and farmed North America to within an inch of its life.
(13:35) Gurg: No thank you Ma'amazon.
(13:35) Gurg: The cursed river flows two directions, despite every law of physics decrying it.
(13:37) Ben: Is this the Illinois river connected to the Missisipi?
(13:38) Gurg: Ben, this is Searching4Truth, not DoneFoundTheTruth.
(13:38) Libstrom: hahahahahahahaha
(13:39) Gurg: Everything I say is a lie.
(13:39) Ben: We should do a live action version of the famous paradox.
(13:40) Gurg: Maybe we're already not doing it right now.
(13:40) Ben: I wouldn't know what you aren't talking about.
(13:41) Libstrom: :-\ I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment
(13:41) Ben: Stop being down on yourself! #libbyisawesome
(13:41) Gurg: I don't believe you.
(13:42) Libstrom: I don't believe him either...
(13:42) Libstrom: #Libbyissometimesawesome
(13:45) Gurg: A Slovakian communications satellite was knocked out of orbit by a grapefruit sized chunk of space debris. As it fell to Earth, its scanners picked up extremely high levels of awesome in the vicinity of Libby. It found some comfort in this, and transmitted the information to Alpha Palmetto, a distant binary galaxy. It felt no fear as it crashed into the red dirt of the Namibian desert, frightening a local goat.
(13:46) Libstrom: Hopefully not a fainting goat...
(13:47) Gurg: The goat did not comment, as it had fainted.
(13:47) Libstrom: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
(13:48) Ben: Where were the Checklo in all this?
(13:48) Gurg: And fell into a goat-sized bed. When it awoke, goat milk and cookies were on the tiny night stand next to it. Then work called and told the goat to take the day off to focus on goat stuff.
(13:49) Ben: You just yell like a man and eat garbage. Chill.
(13:51) Gurg: The Checklo could be reached for comment, but refused to speak in any known language. They would only click the knob of an ancient black-and-white TV set. Every channel showed Fox News.
(13:51) Gurg: The TV's power cord dangled in the red dust, plugged into nothing.
(13:52) Ben: I plug the power cord into a grapefruit.
(13:52) Libstrom: Some people say that humans should not drink other animals milk because it's not natural, and they use the example that cows don't drink goat milk...but, in all reality, how often does a cow have the opportunity to drink a goat's milk?
(13:53) Gurg: You are turned into a sky whale. Is this awesome? Y/N
(13:53) Ben: Y!
(13:53) Ben: I mount the sky whale, excelsior!
(13:54) Ben: I think some people do drink goat milk, libby, or at least make cheese.
(13:54) Ben: And if it isn't natural, how come my genes make lactase, an enzyme specifically made to digest milk? That's pretty damn natural.
(13:55) Gurg: You receive the +5 Baleen of Baleful Blades. Super-effective against ogres and mournful dirges.
(13:55) Gurg: Humans naturally put everything in their mouth.
(13:55) Ben: lol, too true.
(13:56) Libstrom: Oh
(13:56) Libstrom: I see.
(13:56) Gurg: Consider the lobster.
(13:56) Libstrom: I thought this was going somewhere else...sorry
(13:56) Libstrom: please continue
(12:57) Gurg: Fashion is a cruel mistress, if mistress she be.
(13:00) Gurg: Long has the human head gone adorned and un-adorned. Earliest recorded instances of hat-wearing is found in the Babylonian temples erected in 1975, with crude cave-drawings depicting human-like shapes with large crescents upon their brows.
(13:02) Gurg: It is unlikely they were comfortable, and most hat-scholars agree that they were not so. However, there is no serious academic that can deny they don't look damn good.
Invited benO
Invited libstrom
Libstrom has joined the room
Ben has joined the room
(13:05) Libstrom: Interesting
(13:05) Ben: We should bring back the egyptian pharoh hat. That looks comfortable and boss.
(13:06) Ben: Also, the historical phrenologists agree that crecent people of Urdu/Babylon had no need for hats.
(13:07) Gurg: Friezes upon the Great Wall of Appalachia, artifically aged to appear over 3,000 years old, depict a caste system in which the lower-castes were forced to wear more and more hats as the upper-casts could not possibly don the great multitude of hats were forever ordering from the hat-making-caste.
(13:07) Gurg: It was a vicous, jaunty cycle.
(13:08) Ben: *edit Urdu is a language from a completely different area. Ur was the city from Mesopotamia.
(13:08) Libstrom: I am not knowledgeable enough to comment
(13:08) Gurg: The hat is its own language.
(13:08) Gurg: PERFECT!
(13:08) Ben: I am hat-illiterate.
(13:09) Gurg: I think you can change the topic, if you wish.
(13:09) Libstrom: Hmmm....
(13:10) Ben: I'm the topicoligist here! Are you licenced to guide discourse?
(13:13) Libstrom: I just said something out loud that sounded very bad
(13:14) Libstrom: "The only way for her not to be a stranger is if she comes."
(13:14) Libstrom: >.<
(13:14) Ben: lol
(13:14) Gurg: She better bring a hat.
(13:15) Libstrom: I'm dying laughing right now
(13:17) Libstrom: Ok I'm done dying now...please continue...
(13:17) Ben: I'm imagining a yellow rain hat, like for a fisherman.
(13:18) Gurg: See, I was thinking of those Dutch hats. The really tall cone ones.
(13:19) Ben: lol
(13:20) Libstrom: In Isabel and I's conversation the sentence was perfectly normal....but, leave it to me to take it out of context.
(13:21) Gurg: Quit taking it out.
(13:22) Libstrom: I need a hat
(13:23) Libstrom: In other news....
(13:25) Ben: Stimulus package.
(13:32) Gurg: In the late 1800s, the denuding of the forests and overfarming of the land created massive swaths of bare earth. Exacerbated by a decade of drought, the autumnal high winds swept the plains mercilessly. This was known as "The Hatless Time."
(13:33) Libstrom: Now I know how Penny feels
(13:33) Ben: I think we should be bullish about the Amazon, we burned and farmed North America to within an inch of its life.
(13:35) Gurg: No thank you Ma'amazon.
(13:35) Gurg: The cursed river flows two directions, despite every law of physics decrying it.
(13:37) Ben: Is this the Illinois river connected to the Missisipi?
(13:38) Gurg: Ben, this is Searching4Truth, not DoneFoundTheTruth.
(13:38) Libstrom: hahahahahahahaha
(13:39) Gurg: Everything I say is a lie.
(13:39) Ben: We should do a live action version of the famous paradox.
(13:40) Gurg: Maybe we're already not doing it right now.
(13:40) Ben: I wouldn't know what you aren't talking about.
(13:41) Libstrom: :-\ I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment
(13:41) Ben: Stop being down on yourself! #libbyisawesome
(13:41) Gurg: I don't believe you.
(13:42) Libstrom: I don't believe him either...
(13:42) Libstrom: #Libbyissometimesawesome
(13:45) Gurg: A Slovakian communications satellite was knocked out of orbit by a grapefruit sized chunk of space debris. As it fell to Earth, its scanners picked up extremely high levels of awesome in the vicinity of Libby. It found some comfort in this, and transmitted the information to Alpha Palmetto, a distant binary galaxy. It felt no fear as it crashed into the red dirt of the Namibian desert, frightening a local goat.
(13:46) Libstrom: Hopefully not a fainting goat...
(13:47) Gurg: The goat did not comment, as it had fainted.
(13:47) Libstrom: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
(13:48) Ben: Where were the Checklo in all this?
(13:48) Gurg: And fell into a goat-sized bed. When it awoke, goat milk and cookies were on the tiny night stand next to it. Then work called and told the goat to take the day off to focus on goat stuff.
(13:49) Ben: You just yell like a man and eat garbage. Chill.
(13:51) Gurg: The Checklo could be reached for comment, but refused to speak in any known language. They would only click the knob of an ancient black-and-white TV set. Every channel showed Fox News.
(13:51) Gurg: The TV's power cord dangled in the red dust, plugged into nothing.
(13:52) Ben: I plug the power cord into a grapefruit.
(13:52) Libstrom: Some people say that humans should not drink other animals milk because it's not natural, and they use the example that cows don't drink goat milk...but, in all reality, how often does a cow have the opportunity to drink a goat's milk?
(13:53) Gurg: You are turned into a sky whale. Is this awesome? Y/N
(13:53) Ben: Y!
(13:53) Ben: I mount the sky whale, excelsior!
(13:54) Ben: I think some people do drink goat milk, libby, or at least make cheese.
(13:54) Ben: And if it isn't natural, how come my genes make lactase, an enzyme specifically made to digest milk? That's pretty damn natural.
(13:55) Gurg: You receive the +5 Baleen of Baleful Blades. Super-effective against ogres and mournful dirges.
(13:55) Gurg: Humans naturally put everything in their mouth.
(13:55) Ben: lol, too true.
(13:56) Libstrom: Oh
(13:56) Libstrom: I see.
(13:56) Gurg: Consider the lobster.
(13:56) Libstrom: I thought this was going somewhere else...sorry
(13:56) Libstrom: please continue
Saturday, January 02, 2016
A Deal's A Deal
The artistic thing to do would be to make this deliberately obtuse. Try to seem deep and mysterious; brushed by the feathers of the heralds of the gods. It is cold, and I am weary. The story can tell itself.
The night my dog died, I couldn't sleep. Every story of the house reminded me of her. The first floor when she was a pup, confined as she was by the staircase and her strong but short legs. Her deep dark eyes shining up at me as I ascended to sleep. How her tail would wiggle as she slept with her chin on the first tread, anticipating in dreams the family's descent.
The second floor she mastered by stubborness. I hadn't loved her until she peeked into my study. The fire was low, and I was about throw into it my entire manuscript when she tried, and failed, to leap into my lap. Pitying her pudgy belly and deep gaze, I picked her up. She sat still for a whole minute. Stoic, she sniffed at my overly-romantic tale of love and deception, sitting stillborn next to my typewriter. She whined, and pawed at the keys.
"deft"
Deftly, good or ill, be quick in your actions. (I wrote, and from here on I will)
At the end of our lives, we do not tally up the right or wrong of things, but the why. Thus, be deft in your actions, swift in your judgement, that those of us waiting to react can do so.
Tallies are for the scorekeepers. We, the privileged few, are the players. Given our lines, we can but interpret, and wiggle an eyebrow or two in defiance of the text.
That is what you taught me, silly pitbull puppy. And if I weep now, it is for the loss of you, and not because in all my intellect, I taught you nothing that you, blind and eager to love, already knew.
The night my dog died, I couldn't sleep. Every story of the house reminded me of her. The first floor when she was a pup, confined as she was by the staircase and her strong but short legs. Her deep dark eyes shining up at me as I ascended to sleep. How her tail would wiggle as she slept with her chin on the first tread, anticipating in dreams the family's descent.
The second floor she mastered by stubborness. I hadn't loved her until she peeked into my study. The fire was low, and I was about throw into it my entire manuscript when she tried, and failed, to leap into my lap. Pitying her pudgy belly and deep gaze, I picked her up. She sat still for a whole minute. Stoic, she sniffed at my overly-romantic tale of love and deception, sitting stillborn next to my typewriter. She whined, and pawed at the keys.
"deft"
Deftly, good or ill, be quick in your actions. (I wrote, and from here on I will)
At the end of our lives, we do not tally up the right or wrong of things, but the why. Thus, be deft in your actions, swift in your judgement, that those of us waiting to react can do so.
Tallies are for the scorekeepers. We, the privileged few, are the players. Given our lines, we can but interpret, and wiggle an eyebrow or two in defiance of the text.
That is what you taught me, silly pitbull puppy. And if I weep now, it is for the loss of you, and not because in all my intellect, I taught you nothing that you, blind and eager to love, already knew.
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