i wake in the night with a rumble in my gut and a soulless sense of wandering and that feeling that grabs you down in the diaphragm in your belly and says nothing but security is a lie you tell yourself anytime you might believe it but really all you know for sure is you're gonna die someday.
the things that warm me from this kind of bone cold chill are few. One of these is a simple truth as fragile as any other, and hints that my type A persona is a deep and abiding trait if any is:
I love my job.
That is all.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
mom
My coworker, who also lost her mother at an early age, recommended a book to me and lent me her copy. It's called Motherless Daughters and I have finally begun to read it, crying intermittently. Every now and then I have to put down the book and sniffle for a minute or two before continuing.
A couple thoughts occur to me here. One is that this may or may not be appropriate blogging material. I just got a facebook account and have realized that it is not an appropriate forum for seemingly any quality of meaningful interaction, with the possible exception of party organizing. As an adamant sagitarian, I see this as a meaningful interaction. But any expression of genuine emotional or intellectual import is confined to a meager word count and has the aura of being taboo.
Why, now, as I'm losing my father, am I compelled to mourn my mother? When I actually write the question out the answer seems obvious. I am not eagerly anticipating the sense of being alone. But I am anticipating it, and in this anticipation I find myself missing the dead. Where is my dog? Where is my grandmother? Where is my mom?
The other thought that occurs to me is that this process is boring. I can eye it with a kind of intellectualized repose and say, yes, this makes sense. This is quite probably the part in the story where this occurs. But can't I skip ahead to the good part? I can't explain this any further. It seems like the dull and obvious truth of my tumultuous emotion. I can't possibly imagine why I'd write a long sad blog entry.
This is a blog entry about my mother, or what is left of her as such, which is to say my memories. This is one.
This one is about the time we went shoe shopping and I wanted a pair of shoes just like the ones I was wearing. Always this is how this story went. I have several memories of shoe shopping with my mother. She was always the one to take me shoe shopping. Always I wanted a pair of shoes just like the ones I was wearing, only bigger and newer. I only actually got my wish once, because we shopped at a shoe store that stocked new styles continuously at discount prices. I wanted pink shoes, but there was always an entire aisle of pink shoes. I liked velcro, and was especially fond of the shoes with the little lights in the soles.
My mother was very patient with me. She would put the shoe on my foot and push down on the toe. She would make me wiggle my toes. She would tell me to walk around the store. She would tell me to jump up and down. It would take a long time, this process. It always felt like a big deal.
One time we were in a hurry, and I was being a hellion, and was making a lot of noise and skipping around the store. How old was I? Six? Seven? Five? My mother kept threatening to give me a spanking. She kept threatening to take me outside and give me a spanking right then and there. But we both knew she had never ever hit me, and I ignored her. She threatened to do this all the time. And as I came skipping around the aisle she swatted my bottom, very lightly, as if there were a mosquito she was trying to kill. As if she didn't really want to kill it. And I burst out crying at exactly the same moment as she burst out crying, and we were both crying and holding eachother there next to the pink shoes. And she said she'd never do it again, and she was sorry, and I said I was sorry and we cried.
I remember the last time we went shoe shopping, because we came home and my mother discovered that I could fit into her shoes. My mom had tiny feet, smaller than size five, and I could almost walk in them comfortably. For some entirely unfathomable reason, this made my mother cry, which I thought was very funny and sad. I told her not to cry and I hugged her.
A couple thoughts occur to me here. One is that this may or may not be appropriate blogging material. I just got a facebook account and have realized that it is not an appropriate forum for seemingly any quality of meaningful interaction, with the possible exception of party organizing. As an adamant sagitarian, I see this as a meaningful interaction. But any expression of genuine emotional or intellectual import is confined to a meager word count and has the aura of being taboo.
Why, now, as I'm losing my father, am I compelled to mourn my mother? When I actually write the question out the answer seems obvious. I am not eagerly anticipating the sense of being alone. But I am anticipating it, and in this anticipation I find myself missing the dead. Where is my dog? Where is my grandmother? Where is my mom?
The other thought that occurs to me is that this process is boring. I can eye it with a kind of intellectualized repose and say, yes, this makes sense. This is quite probably the part in the story where this occurs. But can't I skip ahead to the good part? I can't explain this any further. It seems like the dull and obvious truth of my tumultuous emotion. I can't possibly imagine why I'd write a long sad blog entry.
This is a blog entry about my mother, or what is left of her as such, which is to say my memories. This is one.
This one is about the time we went shoe shopping and I wanted a pair of shoes just like the ones I was wearing. Always this is how this story went. I have several memories of shoe shopping with my mother. She was always the one to take me shoe shopping. Always I wanted a pair of shoes just like the ones I was wearing, only bigger and newer. I only actually got my wish once, because we shopped at a shoe store that stocked new styles continuously at discount prices. I wanted pink shoes, but there was always an entire aisle of pink shoes. I liked velcro, and was especially fond of the shoes with the little lights in the soles.
My mother was very patient with me. She would put the shoe on my foot and push down on the toe. She would make me wiggle my toes. She would tell me to walk around the store. She would tell me to jump up and down. It would take a long time, this process. It always felt like a big deal.
One time we were in a hurry, and I was being a hellion, and was making a lot of noise and skipping around the store. How old was I? Six? Seven? Five? My mother kept threatening to give me a spanking. She kept threatening to take me outside and give me a spanking right then and there. But we both knew she had never ever hit me, and I ignored her. She threatened to do this all the time. And as I came skipping around the aisle she swatted my bottom, very lightly, as if there were a mosquito she was trying to kill. As if she didn't really want to kill it. And I burst out crying at exactly the same moment as she burst out crying, and we were both crying and holding eachother there next to the pink shoes. And she said she'd never do it again, and she was sorry, and I said I was sorry and we cried.
I remember the last time we went shoe shopping, because we came home and my mother discovered that I could fit into her shoes. My mom had tiny feet, smaller than size five, and I could almost walk in them comfortably. For some entirely unfathomable reason, this made my mother cry, which I thought was very funny and sad. I told her not to cry and I hugged her.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
my new favorite artist
Aaron's niece has just recently turned four and is now a real little person. She is drawing real things now and had me label one of them for her. It is on the refrigerator and it goes like this: Supercat is getting the jelly bagel before it falls into the river!
She likes exclamation points.
That is all.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
I am losing my memory
I am noticing that my childhood is leaving me slowly, the many memories I once had fading. What do I remember of being a child anymore? It's a strange feeling having the sense of my lifetime dwindling, even as I'm living it, like a candle burning from both ends.
I've long recognized that I remember much more of my childhood than most other people. For a long time I felt this was one of those unspoken but definitive characteristics by which people are classified. I imagined that for those who could not remember their childhood, their conscious memory is of being relatively adult. They recall having popped into existence, say age ten, and charging forth into the world to create a destiny for themselves. This is how I imagine the experience. I can't be sure. But I have polled people throughout my life, friends and acquaintances, and have noticed that those of us who recall those many long years at the whim of the giants surrounding us--we are different. It's not that we have lived longer in a sense or are more experienced per se, but we recall being so utterly helpless that we used to poke ourselves in the eye. It's almost like a memory of an entirely alternate existence. When I see a baby with red eyeballs from poking itself in the eye accidentally, I don't think, oh looky wooky it's a little pumpkin; I think: you poor bastard. That sucks.
The introduction into human existence is one of prolonged inability and powerlessness, a struggle for mastery even of the muscles in one's arm. And after this introduction, the story which begins to unfold is of such a different quality that it is almost a completely different story. Or, at least, one would like to believe this is so. It has occurred to me before that most people don't remember their childhood because of a compulsion to suppress it, and they've blocked it out. Or perhaps it simply seems so irrelevant because it's so divorced from the realities of daily life that one forgets it, like algebra. Sure there are those people who remember algebra and insist that it's useful in their daily lives, but for the rest of us who have dutifully forgotten it, this is a rumor told by eighth-grade teachers. It's a lie perpetuated by the minority of people for whom the math of daily living might mean something, the people for whom eighth grade was relevant.
I remember being prelinguistic and understanding a good bit of what adults said. I remember my mother had a friend with a baby boy, and she would bring him over and we would 'play.' I hated him. I hate hate hated him. He would chase me and I would crawl as fast as I possibly could, with him trailing after me, and when he would catch me he would pull my hair until I screamed and screamed, and then the adults would come running, wondering what might possibly have happened. Trapped in my inarticulate state, I would cry and cry. I would look at him and wonder if he knew I hated him. One day, it occured to me to pull his hair back. It's strange what a grandiose leap this was. Of course I was caught, and my mother was shamed, but none of this mattered to me in the slightest. The hateful boy went away. It was wonderful. I remember other discoveries as startling and amazing.
When it was time to take baby pictures, and my parents would dress me up and take me to the mall, and some lady would have funny little puppets and toys to rattle, and as soon as I forgot and smiled, she would take a picture and the bright light would scare me and hurt my eyes, and I would start screaming and crying. And then she would hold up the toy to take another picture, and I would look at her with total incredulity, like really? You think I'm going to fall for that again? And then she would switch toys, and I would be amazed by the new one. And then I realized, she's just using different toys for the same evil purpose! Don't be fooled by the new shiny object! The flash will still come and hurt your eyes! Don't smile, look away look away--
I remember the epic long hours in preschool, trying to kill boredom. What happens if you eat sand? What happens if you run around in circles really fast? What happens if you punch little Billy in the face? I remember talking to a stranger and the teacher yelling at me, and the stranger and I both turned to the teacher and yelled back at the same time. He's on the other side of a fence. What's he going to do?
And that one evil daycare teacher that caught me stealing a piece of tape, and her cop boyfriend was coming in to talk to us that day anyway, so she lied to me and told me he was coming to arrest me and take me away. And he came and talked about how cops are nice to little kids and they're around to help, and told us that prisoners don't really eat bread and water. And then she told him what she had said to me, and how I'd cried and cried, and he told her that was a horrible thing to do and he broke up with her. And I was like, snap. Take that. Oh wait, I still have to see you every freakin day.
What memories have I forgotten? Which ones have already passed into the ether? When you forget them all, do you breed?
I had a conversation about childhood memories with a friend who could dimly recall his own birth and we discussed the one truly blessed thing about having had a terrible childhood, which is that everything else is pretty awesome by comparison. Any day, no matter how bad, I can always think, at least I'm not two years old. That sucked.
I've long recognized that I remember much more of my childhood than most other people. For a long time I felt this was one of those unspoken but definitive characteristics by which people are classified. I imagined that for those who could not remember their childhood, their conscious memory is of being relatively adult. They recall having popped into existence, say age ten, and charging forth into the world to create a destiny for themselves. This is how I imagine the experience. I can't be sure. But I have polled people throughout my life, friends and acquaintances, and have noticed that those of us who recall those many long years at the whim of the giants surrounding us--we are different. It's not that we have lived longer in a sense or are more experienced per se, but we recall being so utterly helpless that we used to poke ourselves in the eye. It's almost like a memory of an entirely alternate existence. When I see a baby with red eyeballs from poking itself in the eye accidentally, I don't think, oh looky wooky it's a little pumpkin; I think: you poor bastard. That sucks.
The introduction into human existence is one of prolonged inability and powerlessness, a struggle for mastery even of the muscles in one's arm. And after this introduction, the story which begins to unfold is of such a different quality that it is almost a completely different story. Or, at least, one would like to believe this is so. It has occurred to me before that most people don't remember their childhood because of a compulsion to suppress it, and they've blocked it out. Or perhaps it simply seems so irrelevant because it's so divorced from the realities of daily life that one forgets it, like algebra. Sure there are those people who remember algebra and insist that it's useful in their daily lives, but for the rest of us who have dutifully forgotten it, this is a rumor told by eighth-grade teachers. It's a lie perpetuated by the minority of people for whom the math of daily living might mean something, the people for whom eighth grade was relevant.
I remember being prelinguistic and understanding a good bit of what adults said. I remember my mother had a friend with a baby boy, and she would bring him over and we would 'play.' I hated him. I hate hate hated him. He would chase me and I would crawl as fast as I possibly could, with him trailing after me, and when he would catch me he would pull my hair until I screamed and screamed, and then the adults would come running, wondering what might possibly have happened. Trapped in my inarticulate state, I would cry and cry. I would look at him and wonder if he knew I hated him. One day, it occured to me to pull his hair back. It's strange what a grandiose leap this was. Of course I was caught, and my mother was shamed, but none of this mattered to me in the slightest. The hateful boy went away. It was wonderful. I remember other discoveries as startling and amazing.
When it was time to take baby pictures, and my parents would dress me up and take me to the mall, and some lady would have funny little puppets and toys to rattle, and as soon as I forgot and smiled, she would take a picture and the bright light would scare me and hurt my eyes, and I would start screaming and crying. And then she would hold up the toy to take another picture, and I would look at her with total incredulity, like really? You think I'm going to fall for that again? And then she would switch toys, and I would be amazed by the new one. And then I realized, she's just using different toys for the same evil purpose! Don't be fooled by the new shiny object! The flash will still come and hurt your eyes! Don't smile, look away look away--
I remember the epic long hours in preschool, trying to kill boredom. What happens if you eat sand? What happens if you run around in circles really fast? What happens if you punch little Billy in the face? I remember talking to a stranger and the teacher yelling at me, and the stranger and I both turned to the teacher and yelled back at the same time. He's on the other side of a fence. What's he going to do?
And that one evil daycare teacher that caught me stealing a piece of tape, and her cop boyfriend was coming in to talk to us that day anyway, so she lied to me and told me he was coming to arrest me and take me away. And he came and talked about how cops are nice to little kids and they're around to help, and told us that prisoners don't really eat bread and water. And then she told him what she had said to me, and how I'd cried and cried, and he told her that was a horrible thing to do and he broke up with her. And I was like, snap. Take that. Oh wait, I still have to see you every freakin day.
What memories have I forgotten? Which ones have already passed into the ether? When you forget them all, do you breed?
I had a conversation about childhood memories with a friend who could dimly recall his own birth and we discussed the one truly blessed thing about having had a terrible childhood, which is that everything else is pretty awesome by comparison. Any day, no matter how bad, I can always think, at least I'm not two years old. That sucked.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
How I stopped biting my fingernails.
When I was seventeen I went to France on this France trip with a bunch of other French-speaking high school kids. It was a school trip for three weeks, and we toured all over the place and ate French food and did French stuff and it was really fun and amazing.
Up until then, from the time I could reach my mouth with my hands, I would chew my fingernails down to my nubs, down to the quick, so they'd bleed. I would nibble furiously, uncontrollably. I tried to stop, but failed.
My mom got this gross stuff when I was a kid and painted it on my nails. It was just stuff that tasted bad and didn't wash off well, so it discouraged kids from biting their nails. I can still taste the stuff if I think about it. It didn't help. I grew to like it, nasty and terrible-tasting as it was.
Why do we do these things to ourselves? In France, after two and a half weeks of whirlwind adventure, back in Paris again, I remember waking up one morning and realizing that I needed to cut my nails. I asked one of the girls in my room if I could borrow her nail trimmers, and then I asked if she had any tips on how to cut them. She was like, why? And I realized, it was the first time I'd ever actually cut my nails, in my whole life.
Why did I stop biting my nails? I don't know really. The dramatic change of scenery and environment and the sense of disorientation. Maybe. I realize there are the things that happen, and there are the things we say to ourselves afterwards about how shit goes down. On some level, even the narrative is a kind of lie. How I quit biting my nails is I went to France. It doesn't sound real when I say it like that, because it's just the truth rubbed raw of all those other details that might muddle or muck it up. It's why I say the key to a good story is omission. But I don't know, and never have known, if this is a good story. I don't really think it is. There's a moral in it somewhere but I'm not sure what it is and I'm not interested in telling it, and maybe that the only human interest it's really got. That and it's true.
Up until then, from the time I could reach my mouth with my hands, I would chew my fingernails down to my nubs, down to the quick, so they'd bleed. I would nibble furiously, uncontrollably. I tried to stop, but failed.
My mom got this gross stuff when I was a kid and painted it on my nails. It was just stuff that tasted bad and didn't wash off well, so it discouraged kids from biting their nails. I can still taste the stuff if I think about it. It didn't help. I grew to like it, nasty and terrible-tasting as it was.
Why do we do these things to ourselves? In France, after two and a half weeks of whirlwind adventure, back in Paris again, I remember waking up one morning and realizing that I needed to cut my nails. I asked one of the girls in my room if I could borrow her nail trimmers, and then I asked if she had any tips on how to cut them. She was like, why? And I realized, it was the first time I'd ever actually cut my nails, in my whole life.
Why did I stop biting my nails? I don't know really. The dramatic change of scenery and environment and the sense of disorientation. Maybe. I realize there are the things that happen, and there are the things we say to ourselves afterwards about how shit goes down. On some level, even the narrative is a kind of lie. How I quit biting my nails is I went to France. It doesn't sound real when I say it like that, because it's just the truth rubbed raw of all those other details that might muddle or muck it up. It's why I say the key to a good story is omission. But I don't know, and never have known, if this is a good story. I don't really think it is. There's a moral in it somewhere but I'm not sure what it is and I'm not interested in telling it, and maybe that the only human interest it's really got. That and it's true.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
a cynical kind of day
If I'd known what kind of day I'd have when I woke up this morning, I might've skipped it altogether. Though I suppose it was an important one, full of new information and enlightening tidbits. I was supposed to run a workshop this afternoon an hour outside of town and it didn't happen because of seized bearings, someone else's busted arm and a rather large photojournalistic editing project. But these are merely the interesting details in what is otherwise a long and boring story.
I did not give any workshops today. I spent the day in doctor's offices and cars and other people's lives, and here I am in the relatively reclusive anonymity of my relatively unread blog, doing that potentially shameful thing akin to scribing a self-referential whiny diatribe on a bathroom wall. Everybody's doing it.
Psychic prediction: in the years to come when the neoliberal capitalist agenda becomes increasingly user-friendly and transparent, the concept of rights will be seamlessly fused with the concept of commodity. Today, if you have enough money, you can travel to Amsterdam from the U.S. and engage in activities there that are otherwise illegal as a U.S. citizen. In the future, perhaps a greener future where the fuel to fly you to and from this place are spared, you will merely purchase the right to enter an amsterdam zone on the end of your block, much like a door charge for a bar with a liquor license. Your id will be checked on the way in, and then you will be permitted to engage in activities which are not legal outside the building. The cost will be costlier, but theoretically the right to buy it will be available to everyone.
Citizenship will be phased out slowly as passe, the recognition that nation-states have been messy and outdated will be commonplace. Zones of appropriate rights will be established but will no longer be dilineated by borders. Fences will do. All people will be theoretically free to circulate, provided they have accumulated the capital to trade for the right. For some rights, the cost will be so exorbitantly high that only the concentrated capital of several lifetimes of labor will purchase it. You may not even know what these rights are, because you have no amassed the capital to imagine them.
Psychic prediction: tomorrow morning I will wake up and eat some toast and coffee. I will google the news. It will be raining. I will go back to bed and revel in holding very, very still for a long time. Sometimes, I will blink.
I did not give any workshops today. I spent the day in doctor's offices and cars and other people's lives, and here I am in the relatively reclusive anonymity of my relatively unread blog, doing that potentially shameful thing akin to scribing a self-referential whiny diatribe on a bathroom wall. Everybody's doing it.
Psychic prediction: in the years to come when the neoliberal capitalist agenda becomes increasingly user-friendly and transparent, the concept of rights will be seamlessly fused with the concept of commodity. Today, if you have enough money, you can travel to Amsterdam from the U.S. and engage in activities there that are otherwise illegal as a U.S. citizen. In the future, perhaps a greener future where the fuel to fly you to and from this place are spared, you will merely purchase the right to enter an amsterdam zone on the end of your block, much like a door charge for a bar with a liquor license. Your id will be checked on the way in, and then you will be permitted to engage in activities which are not legal outside the building. The cost will be costlier, but theoretically the right to buy it will be available to everyone.
Citizenship will be phased out slowly as passe, the recognition that nation-states have been messy and outdated will be commonplace. Zones of appropriate rights will be established but will no longer be dilineated by borders. Fences will do. All people will be theoretically free to circulate, provided they have accumulated the capital to trade for the right. For some rights, the cost will be so exorbitantly high that only the concentrated capital of several lifetimes of labor will purchase it. You may not even know what these rights are, because you have no amassed the capital to imagine them.
Psychic prediction: tomorrow morning I will wake up and eat some toast and coffee. I will google the news. It will be raining. I will go back to bed and revel in holding very, very still for a long time. Sometimes, I will blink.
Monday, June 15, 2009
drinking out of bags
I was out with a friend of mine the other night, talking about sad stuff on a step somewhere, drinking out of a bag. There was this kitty that had followed us for a couple blocks and we pet her and she was hangin around us. She was a needy little kitty, still a kitten really, all black with white socks, very friendly. Prone to meowing. I was watching while we talked, and people would pass by and stop to pet the cat.
What is it like living in a world full of giants who want to scratch your back? They call you over and rub you behind the ears. All kinds of different giants, who don't necessarily talk to eachother or look alike or get along, but they all seem to like you.
I was watching these people and I felt okay about them. I kind of got this warm fuzzy feeling watching all these different people walk by and pet the cat. And I sort of felt like we had this unspoken comaraderie, just us among the conspiratorial cat lovers of the world.
I was reading about Iran, and the protests about their election, and I had this kind of awkward realization, feeling how humbled and awed I am by that many thousands in the streets. I believe those people. The sheer image of that many people makes me believe, instantly, before I even know what they have to say. I know it's potentially fallacious because the whole premise is ad populum, but that's the democratic shtick I guess. It's a potentially fallacious one. I see those pictures and my eyes tear up. I want those people to get whatever they want. I believe it can't be malicious, whatever it is that brings that many people together.
I find it interesting when I stumble across a belief. It often strikes me as a realization more than anything else. I just notice that I believe something. And I guess ultimately, I'm still really optimistic about people en masse, as individuals. I think we're doing something terribly wrong, but I believe we have a really incredible potential for doing things right.
What is it like living in a world full of giants who want to scratch your back? They call you over and rub you behind the ears. All kinds of different giants, who don't necessarily talk to eachother or look alike or get along, but they all seem to like you.
I was watching these people and I felt okay about them. I kind of got this warm fuzzy feeling watching all these different people walk by and pet the cat. And I sort of felt like we had this unspoken comaraderie, just us among the conspiratorial cat lovers of the world.
I was reading about Iran, and the protests about their election, and I had this kind of awkward realization, feeling how humbled and awed I am by that many thousands in the streets. I believe those people. The sheer image of that many people makes me believe, instantly, before I even know what they have to say. I know it's potentially fallacious because the whole premise is ad populum, but that's the democratic shtick I guess. It's a potentially fallacious one. I see those pictures and my eyes tear up. I want those people to get whatever they want. I believe it can't be malicious, whatever it is that brings that many people together.
I find it interesting when I stumble across a belief. It often strikes me as a realization more than anything else. I just notice that I believe something. And I guess ultimately, I'm still really optimistic about people en masse, as individuals. I think we're doing something terribly wrong, but I believe we have a really incredible potential for doing things right.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
All together now.
I want to do away with the concept of the past life, and the future life. I have a proposition, a supraconcept: the simultaneous lifetime.
I've been reading this book about these kids, and there are thousands of them, who have these distinct and vivid memories of past lives. They remember their houses, their phone numbers, their spouses, their children. And they can call them on the phone.
There are also those people, you've probably heard of them, who get regressed through hypnosis to some past life or other. But some of these cases have been debunked on the basis of such things as people remembering being two different people during the same period of time.
I have these dreams, and in these dreams I am two or three people, or four or five. I am all of them at the same time. And these dreams and I, we say why not? If you are taking as a fundamental possibility that the soul can be transferred between people, and that it maintains memories of distinct people and places and numbers, then why is the concept of linear time the sacred cow? Bring it to the slaughter. You are that cow (and the butcher, and the baker).
This too solves the intellectual quandry of there being more of us alive now than there have been ever before. Because we're just reincarnating here over and over again, for some undefined reason, crowding this place and time in some orgiastic feast of the multiplicitous self.
Think about it next time you're in the corner mart buying beer at two in the morning, right before the legal cut-off time, and you see that guy who's all shaky and sickly in front of you in line. He's buying tv dinners with his Oregon Trail card and you're a little worried about him but in your relative misery you think, almost against your will, at least I'm not that guy. But you are that guy. And he is you.
I've been reading this book about these kids, and there are thousands of them, who have these distinct and vivid memories of past lives. They remember their houses, their phone numbers, their spouses, their children. And they can call them on the phone.
There are also those people, you've probably heard of them, who get regressed through hypnosis to some past life or other. But some of these cases have been debunked on the basis of such things as people remembering being two different people during the same period of time.
I have these dreams, and in these dreams I am two or three people, or four or five. I am all of them at the same time. And these dreams and I, we say why not? If you are taking as a fundamental possibility that the soul can be transferred between people, and that it maintains memories of distinct people and places and numbers, then why is the concept of linear time the sacred cow? Bring it to the slaughter. You are that cow (and the butcher, and the baker).
This too solves the intellectual quandry of there being more of us alive now than there have been ever before. Because we're just reincarnating here over and over again, for some undefined reason, crowding this place and time in some orgiastic feast of the multiplicitous self.
Think about it next time you're in the corner mart buying beer at two in the morning, right before the legal cut-off time, and you see that guy who's all shaky and sickly in front of you in line. He's buying tv dinners with his Oregon Trail card and you're a little worried about him but in your relative misery you think, almost against your will, at least I'm not that guy. But you are that guy. And he is you.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I had this dream last week
And in the dream I was in this class that was a kind of psychology course, only it was "in the field," meaning that the teacher was explaining some neurosis or another and then we would watch the patient interacting with other people in a coffee shop or some such environment. And we were all in the coffee shop together. Every now and then the teacher would pause everything but the class, and would just narrate to us, the students, what was going on.
We had just seen a couple of exciting cases of common neurosis, and were in the midst of a paused coffee shop, when the teacher began explaining some background on the next case we were going to visit, which was in another location. He explained that the next case we were going to look at demonstrated the remarkable psychological vulnerability of a child who had undergone early childhood trauma, some specific trauma like nearly drowning. It was explained that later in childhood this person would be likely to take on unfulfilling jobs. We were then magically transported into the environment of this person in an unfulfilling job, and just as the teacher was unpausing reality, I raised my hand to ask a question.
"Excuse me, but I thought you said we were going to study childhood trauma, looking at the effects of early childhood trauma at a specific point in the child's growth later on."
"Precisely," said the teacher. "This child is age 26. Manifesting this neurosis at the most typical age for these symptoms to appear."
"But he's 26, he's not a child at all. He's an adult--he's well into adulthood."
At this point the other students in the class laughed nervously, in a manner that implied I had not only forgotten to do the reading but was demonstrating this fact in the most embarrassing way possible. The teacher said simply, "Of course he's a child. He is a child of 26," and then he leaned forward and emphasized the next point, as if we should all be certain that it was in our notes. "We are all always children."
And then I woke up.
We had just seen a couple of exciting cases of common neurosis, and were in the midst of a paused coffee shop, when the teacher began explaining some background on the next case we were going to visit, which was in another location. He explained that the next case we were going to look at demonstrated the remarkable psychological vulnerability of a child who had undergone early childhood trauma, some specific trauma like nearly drowning. It was explained that later in childhood this person would be likely to take on unfulfilling jobs. We were then magically transported into the environment of this person in an unfulfilling job, and just as the teacher was unpausing reality, I raised my hand to ask a question.
"Excuse me, but I thought you said we were going to study childhood trauma, looking at the effects of early childhood trauma at a specific point in the child's growth later on."
"Precisely," said the teacher. "This child is age 26. Manifesting this neurosis at the most typical age for these symptoms to appear."
"But he's 26, he's not a child at all. He's an adult--he's well into adulthood."
At this point the other students in the class laughed nervously, in a manner that implied I had not only forgotten to do the reading but was demonstrating this fact in the most embarrassing way possible. The teacher said simply, "Of course he's a child. He is a child of 26," and then he leaned forward and emphasized the next point, as if we should all be certain that it was in our notes. "We are all always children."
And then I woke up.
Monday, May 18, 2009
They've got a concrete that eats CO2
I just can't find any other way to effectively post this puppy. So here it is, and I'm sorry to make you cut and paste:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/31/cement-carbon-emissions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/31/cement-carbon-emissions
think Cyborg Manifesto
I wanted it to be possible to do a search for "Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway and to have this video come up. Now it is. Perhaps this is another manifestation of the Cyborg Manifesto.
my other blog is a blog
I had this travel blog for a while, and it had a purpose, which was to document my travels. This, it did well. After my travels had come to a close, I made several attempts to continue my blog in some alternate vein. This, I did poorly.
Somehow it made more sense to abandon my blog than attempt to alter its fundamental character. I felt as though I were attempting to graft a sequel onto an otherwise complete book. Not just that, but a sequel which was a novella about rain and coffee shops onto an action-adventure book. I felt an unspoken pressure to maintain a narrative thread, to delve into the excitement of the latte. The risk here is compromising the integrity of the initial project by poorly incorporating vague themes and premises. I'm thinking Star Wars here.
And now I am starting a blog, with my name. My given name. Should I do this? It fills me with a kind of shallow dread, the paranoia one feels after leaving the gas on. I've googled my name before, and I am what comes up. To the best of my knowledge there are two people in the world with my name, and I'm pretty sure that other one was just a mispelling. She looked too much like a Marcy or a Louise. Maybe a Diane.
Lately I've found myself reading lots of blogs, over and over again, because people write about things that are informative and of interest. I find these blogs through google, because I have some question, and a real person wrote an answer. This is one thing compelling me to start a blog again, because I want to be involved in this big question and answer game. I read those other people's blogs and I feel better about humans, and I get the answer I need, and I want to thank that person but I never do. I hit the stumble button.
I took this online survey that made me feel like a total loser a couple weeks ago. It asked me if I was one of those people who passively participated in the internet, merely looking at things that other people created, or if I created any content. I reread the question several times because it seemed to virulently biased, meaning it made me feel inadequate, but I was forced to conclude that the question was well-written and fairly objective and I was imbuing it with with judgement as I was judging myself. I was like, damn, I should start a blog again. I should make some youtube videos. And, as referenced in the previous paragraph, I should answer me some burning questions.
So here it is. Whatever it is. I'm just going to put a bunch of stuff on it from the past few months that made me think, gee, if I had a blog I'd post that. And then it will become something.
The really unnerving aspect being that my other blog had a purpose, as it was a travel blog, and this one doesn't. I'm just writing it, and then it will be written and I'll know what it is. I feel like there should be some fundamental parallel I could draw here between traveling and living in a place, but I don't know if there is. If nothing else, it's just something completely different.
Somehow it made more sense to abandon my blog than attempt to alter its fundamental character. I felt as though I were attempting to graft a sequel onto an otherwise complete book. Not just that, but a sequel which was a novella about rain and coffee shops onto an action-adventure book. I felt an unspoken pressure to maintain a narrative thread, to delve into the excitement of the latte. The risk here is compromising the integrity of the initial project by poorly incorporating vague themes and premises. I'm thinking Star Wars here.
And now I am starting a blog, with my name. My given name. Should I do this? It fills me with a kind of shallow dread, the paranoia one feels after leaving the gas on. I've googled my name before, and I am what comes up. To the best of my knowledge there are two people in the world with my name, and I'm pretty sure that other one was just a mispelling. She looked too much like a Marcy or a Louise. Maybe a Diane.
Lately I've found myself reading lots of blogs, over and over again, because people write about things that are informative and of interest. I find these blogs through google, because I have some question, and a real person wrote an answer. This is one thing compelling me to start a blog again, because I want to be involved in this big question and answer game. I read those other people's blogs and I feel better about humans, and I get the answer I need, and I want to thank that person but I never do. I hit the stumble button.
I took this online survey that made me feel like a total loser a couple weeks ago. It asked me if I was one of those people who passively participated in the internet, merely looking at things that other people created, or if I created any content. I reread the question several times because it seemed to virulently biased, meaning it made me feel inadequate, but I was forced to conclude that the question was well-written and fairly objective and I was imbuing it with with judgement as I was judging myself. I was like, damn, I should start a blog again. I should make some youtube videos. And, as referenced in the previous paragraph, I should answer me some burning questions.
So here it is. Whatever it is. I'm just going to put a bunch of stuff on it from the past few months that made me think, gee, if I had a blog I'd post that. And then it will become something.
The really unnerving aspect being that my other blog had a purpose, as it was a travel blog, and this one doesn't. I'm just writing it, and then it will be written and I'll know what it is. I feel like there should be some fundamental parallel I could draw here between traveling and living in a place, but I don't know if there is. If nothing else, it's just something completely different.
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