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.

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

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.