Mars is pulling away from its closest approach in 60,000 years. Summer is drawing to a close. None of this is important mind you. It just is. That said, I think I'll be a little more factual and a little less effusive (some would say pretentious) for awhile. It you miss the obscure, odd, convoluted and confusing entries; hop over to my livejournal, they'll be kept there for a short while. Speaking of which, and consequently reversing my just uttered pledge, I've been thinking about journals in general. The problem with journals is that they aren't. Journals I mean. Journals are a daily account of events. They are periodicals. They are supposed to be factual. This, what you read here, this is a diary. I don't really like the ring of the word diary, so at the risk of being pretentious (and using that word way too much in one paragraph) I'm going to retitle this page, memoirs. As soon as I get a change. Really. Just you wait.
Okay, now that my mind has stopped derailing like a runaway Amtrak train, we'll get on to business. Carol's leaving for Spain tomorrow. :( But she'll be back in a week. :) Labor Day weekend, I'm going down to Fraizer Park (never trust my spelling) to our childhood vacation home. Should be a pretty interesting weekend. Stay tuned for an update. And on that note, I hope you all have a great Labor Day holiday.
How often we begin a story (or a thought, which to me is like a short story), with clear destination or not, only to have the story hijack its own destiny and determine its own conclusion. Perhaps analogously, our lives, in which we are both author and protagonist (and what if you weren't the protagonist of your own story? *multiple threads spin wildly off*) seem to take their own direction and we are merely at the reins of a wild stallion, barely in control as we are flung headlong into the future.
How beautiful it is to see a story start in simplicity, and ever so gradually, as the sun lavenders the sky at eventide, and end in metaphor, pregnant with parallels and analogies, ready for the careful reader to be uncovered. Perhaps our lives are like that. In the beginning, there is no meaning, just a setting of tone. As we develop our storylines, we learn to find our own voices and our own central themes. As we come to the close of our stories, we find that they have written themselves an ending and if we were faithful to ourselves, we are content with it.
Life is a story. I wonder if it would have meaning if there were no one to share it with.
Here we go again: Fierce Competition: How does this phrase define American culture and values. In America, it's always about being the best, having the best, what is best. Best quality, best value, best in show. In America, it's about hierarchy. If you accept the theories espoused by Deborah Tannen in her book You Just Don't Understand (or for those of you less sociologically inclined, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) then you know that hierarchy is a traditionally male trait. Whereas women are comfortable and are more inclined to accept each others as equals, men are compelled to find out who's better.
How does hierarchy shape our thinking? our culture? our values? From the time we first understand the difference between good and better, it is instilled in us to seek out what is best. But how do we know what is best? How do we avoid wasting our precious time and go directly to what is of highest quality? Media. We depend on books, magazines, advice columns, editorials, reviews, epinions ... all to tell us what we should buy, what we should eat, what we should strive for, what we should be. Thus we fail to learn to judge for ourselves, what is good for us, what we think is beautiful, what we think is worthwhile.
What bothers me is the diminishing diversity of thought. Why do we all eat at the same places, read the same books, watch the same tv shows? Why are we such a culture consumed by trends? How we break out of this? How do we break our internal hierarchy? Isn't it a simple change in perspective? Not so. As you move from better and best, you realize the fading line between right and wrong. (Not good and bad, mind you.) What is the right thing to do? What is the right choice? What is right? How do we cope with a sea of right choices, when all we've ever known is one thing as best?
Paralyzed by the changing world around us, afraid of the vanishing lines between what we once perceived to be right and wrong, moral and immoral, black and white, gay and straight ... it's more than a way of choosing, it's a way that we define ourselves. It's a way that we go out in to the world and determine who's better, who should be doing this, and who shouldn't be doing that. Race, gender, gender roles, sexuality, morality, values, value, quality ... it's how we survive. But survival is just a prolonging of exisitence. Another thing that they teach you in America is to succeed. How do you define success? By better or by best?
Tony's Mind, Part II:
A friend of mine sent me this link(Caution: It's about 12 mins long and requires a high speed connection) Briefly, it's one wireless company's vision of the future. A future where it is possible and commonplace to transmit three dimensional holographic images of loved ones. Not exactly a novel idea, but one that started me thinking about Some time-honored science fiction concepts. What if it were possible to record a memory of someone? Sort of like the movie "Strange Days" if you've seen it. What if it were possible to create an artificial intelligence around those memories? Again, sort of like "A.I." if you bothered to see that. What if it was common practice to create one of these "recordings" every time someone passed away? How much closer would we be to speaking with the dead? What if one day we raised a generation that never knew what it was like to be able to "communicate" with the dead? Imagine knowing your great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents. Imagine being able to communicate with them. Everyone you've ever known, wanted to know, everyone you've ever lost, preserved for all time in simulation. What would happen if people never learned to grieve?Last night, Joe hosted his somewhat-annual food day. It was, as someone commented, the best five-and-a-half hour dinner I'd ever had. On the menu was, oysters and caviar atop a tapioca sabayon, live scallops with watercress and turnip in beet juice on the shell, monkfish with sweetmeats, lobster pot pie, and fried chestnut dumplings with cream and marscapone sabayon... or something like that. :) Thanks Joe, for a wonderful meal. Almost makes me want to cook something ... almost.
Delinquency:I’ve been delinquent from my daily duties. It should suffice to say that I’ve been pretty busy with various things these past couple of days. Among them, reuniting with old friends, reaffirming hidden truths, self-reflection, sacrifice, you know … day to day stuff. Anyway, if this is all to oblique for you, I think you may have mistaken me for someone else. In any case, some of this will become apparent in the coming days, so consider this one of those annoying teasers that end certain teen dramas that are so popular on tv these days.
An example of how Tony’s mind works: I started thinking about getting a PDA. I never liked the idea of having to learn a whole new script to communicate with my new toy so I started wondering whether or not there was voice recognition software for handhelds. Wouldn’t that be great, I could do my writing while standing around waiting for the bus (if I ever took the bus that is). But what would my writing be like if I used spoken words instead of written ones? Would my phrasing be the same? My “voice”? I know for certain that my level of diction would be different. I doubt I’d throw in words like chiaroscuro or oevure (mostly because I have difficulty pronouncing them with out sounding foolish). I’d have to throw punctuation out the window. Strange. Of course, that’s where we’re going aren’t we? Eventually we’ll all speak to our computers instead of using keyboards and mice. How will our day to day communication change? Will our level of diction continue to degrade? These are the things I think about when I try to choose a PDA. Non-sequitor, ne?
I feel like I’m in a scene from the Matrix. No, not one of the slick ones where time slows down. But rather, that one scene, the only scene where you see Keanu Reeves’ character, Neo (or if you prefer, Mr. Anderson), at his desk. The cubicle is empty and the computer is off. A sense of total purposelessness at work. Of course my computer is on, as I am current squandering company time (hey, I’m on break!) typing up this entry. My desk is crowded with a great many things, some of which are supposed to be done before I leave today. And yet, as I catch glances of myself in the darkened background of my AutoCAD program, I see the same desperation, the same desire for something to happen.
I still feel pushed. I need to turn the metronome down, allow myself to feel the tempo of the click, click, click. Give my fingers a chance to hear the notes fall in their perfect places. I need to relearn to walk, before I can fly.
If I have made mistakes in my life, thenI'm wolfing down some tasty KFC as a unread copy of Fast Food Nation, lent to me by Carol over the weekend (for which, in return, I invited her along to my friend Carol's trunk show, consequently prompting her, to buy a very nice dress, the expense of which she will inevitably blame on me), sits idly in my car. Hopefully I will make it up to my body by bagging my lunches soon.
This weekend was an interesting mix of contradictions. Meeting new (in the vis-a-vis sense, though less so in the virtual sense) friends and saying farewell, good journey, to old ones. Waking up exhausted after a night of dancing, to a sunny Sunday in Castro Valley; cruising leisurely through the mid-afternoon cascading mists of Pacifica. Watching SATC while sampling gourmet finger foods, watching Iron Chef while enjoying a home cooked meal. And after that, enjoying the strange feeling that not much happened this weekend, and yet so much did.
I had the sudden impression that my life was a oft-practiced run in my favorite Chopin piece, Fantasie-Impromptu. One first inspection, tremendously complex, with it's hemiola and syncopated accents, moving at a break-neck speed. Yet, on dissection and study, reasonably fluid, predictable. Why then do I have this tendency to rush the passage? The impulse to change the tempo, so that my fingers can not keep up with my mind; the keys come crashing to a halt, and I begin again, and again, and again. Mistakes, repeated, practiced, habituated, become my signature. But they are not. I will not let them be. Slow down. Begin again.
I remember my first Tau Beta Pi Officer's Retreat. We had driven up to Tahoe just after the start of the Spring Semester at Berkeley. The snow fell frequently throughout the weekend and we ended up spending more time trapped in the solitary cabin than skiing on the slopes. On the second night, we were plunged into darkness as the power went out. There, amidst the snowfall, gentle as the creeping footfalls of a deranged criminal, and trapped in the sinisterly sudden nighttime, we began telling ghost stories. With only a couple of weakening flashlights to go around, we wove tales strange, gothic, grotesque and arabesque, as we, one by one drifted off to sleep.
I heard a newscaster say of the East Coast Blackout, that many people were milling around in front of their apartments last night, talking and even meeting people in there buildings that they had not met or seen in the years that they had lived there. And so, catastrophes, if they can be called such, often yield the strangest results.
This week has been marked by an utter lack of accomplishment. Which does not mean it was uneventful. Dinner on Monday at the Claremont Cafe, where I got a surprisingly good and very reasonably priced chicken salad. Rock climbing and 186 on Tuesday, where they screwed up our orders, but the food was still good. Le Cheval and American Wedding yesterday -- I thought it was fun, Carol thought it was the worst of the three.
Ever since Saturday I've been having these headaches. I went to sleep on Saturday extremely early because if I hadn't I think my head would have exploded. Considering how much I hate cleaning my house, I think that would have been bad. But every day since I've been feeling dizzy. I don't mind so much, it doesn't really affect me that greatly, except that if I'm going to feel dizzy, I'd like something from it, like a good buzz or the satisfaction that I've given blood, or something good. Okay, maybe the dizziness is affecting my writing, because lately, I've gotten more and more non sequitor.
I managed 6 out of 10 of the things I had planned to do last week. Not bad, but not great either, since I had purposely set my goals low. Ah well, as is said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. (Bonus points for people who know what movie/book I’m thinking of.) Hopefully I’m on my way to a better me. I did manage to finish something that I hadn’t expected to finish so soon and that is the latest Harry Potter book. A worthy successor to the series if you ask me. Of course, depending on your take on the books that may mean a number of things, but in any case I think it’s true.
I went to my cousin’s baby shower this past weekend. It was good seeing her, as well as my other cousins, again. Of course she looks very different, but you’d expect that. Sadly, she and her husband moved back to the bay area 8 or 9 months ago, and I haven’t managed to visit them in SF even though I go there quite often. It also marked my first ride in my sister-in-law’s new (used) car. She found it through craigslist and negotiated everything by herself. Go Lila! Lastly, I met my soon-to-be roommate. It’ll be nice having some one around now and then. The house is pretty empty when it’s not overrun with hordes of people. :)
The day after. It almost seems as if everything is normal. But like all relationships, it’s hard when you know it’s over. It’s hard to look people in the face who you know have only a few days left here. Hard to know that you’re to one that’s going to continue on. Hard to know that even these feelings of guilty are an offense to the people who have to go. Well, I’m going to try to spend the day thinking that all these people are going to find a better place to be.
Sigh. I’m not doing too well on my list of things to do before Friday. I was in Home Depot yesterday, paralyzed by the number of options available to me for getting new door hardware. Then there’s the idea that I just take the existing locksets that I have and have a locksmith re-key them. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
It seems that lately, I’ve been in restaurants and shops that have had problems with pigeons flying inside. I figure inside a shop is a better place that flying above my car or my head though, so I didn’t mind. I like the way a bird looks just after it’s landed. The perfect way their wings fold to their side. Smooth and sleek, I think they are just about the right shape to hold in my hands. I like things that look like my hands would fit nicely around them … alright, I think that’s enough sharing for one day.
4:00pm
Nearing the end of the day, the office is a void. Devoid of spirit since I walked in this morning. Devoid of bodies as the end of business looms near. Those cut were given the option of taking the rest of the day off with pay. Unlike some high tech companies that I know of, the people will most likely be back tomorrow to serve out the rest of their time, two weeks. Again, unlike some private companies, many of these people will still have jobs, owing to union rules. Some will not. There were many names that I didn't expect to hear. People that I used to greet heartily in the morning. In fact, the guy I walked in with this morning ... gone. The secretary I was upset at yesterday for screwing up my memo ... gone. And yet, I can't help but think that for the most part, the cuts were more logical than I had expected. Not wholly logical however. After all, I'm still here. :P
9:00am
Post-illness euphoria hasn't hit yet, though I was in codine-induced delusions about it before I went to sleep. Today I'm not coughing as much, but I still don't feel 100%. Doesn't help that today is a very muted day at work, so unlike any other. Layoffs here happen about once a decade and this time the news is spreading like a virus. Slowly, as the sun weaves its way past and thru the intermittent cloud cover, people are being called up to the Human Resources Office to receive notice. I wonder if this is how it happens everywhere. I think the phrase, "It's just a job." is almost always a lie.
I promise to have captions up on those pictures soon. I'll try to name all the people in the pictures, which will be especially helpful since I don't think that anyone at my party (besides yours truly) knew more than 20% of the people there (that's 16 people if you're counting) ... well, maybe one other person.
Today I feel like my body is turning itself inside out to get rid of all of the nasties. Bleh. I'm hoping the day gets better, cause if it doesn't I may not make it to the afternoon. In which case I may not make it to climbing, which would really suck. Anyway, I posted the pictures from my party in a wholly unglorious way. Hopefully, I'll have some time soon to spiffy it up.
My body's at work, but my mind is still in bed dreaming of a day when I'll be better, hopefully tomorrow.
I almost forgot. All pictures are courtesy of Brian Lee and his awe inspiring Canon 10D. As such, please do not share or republish any of these pictures, on the Web or otherwise, without his express permission. See bottom of linked page for more information.
And entire weekend gone and I still haven’t gotten around to posting those pictures. Well, what can I say? It was really too beautiful to stay indoors struggling with .css stuff. Hopefully the gorgeous weather will stay through the week. Unfortunately, I caught a bug on Sunday and I’ve been struggling all day today to focus. Maybe I’ll take a nap during lunch; I definitely should have called in sick today. Oh well, my only consolation is by the time I went to sleep last night I felt awful, flu-like even, but by morning I was at least able to get around.
I think this week’s theme should be: Stop procrastinating. To that effect here’s my to do before Friday list:
1. Buy new lockset for garage (So that I have keys to my own garage.)Uncharacteristically, I'm updating on a weekend. Perhaps because I feel the need to break some bad habits. Perhaps because I just feel the need to write something down even though I don't have any ideas right now. We'll see what comes of this. I've recently stumbled across a blog which had me slack-jawed, wided-eyed, in awe. I don't know whether it is the honesty, the sheer romance with which the writer portrays his life, or the elegant darkness of the webpage; but it is in a word, captivating. I wonder if any artist realizes the power in what he or she produces. Walking around MOMA yesterday with Carol, seeing the new Marc Chagall exhibit, I wondered as I read the descriptions on the wall, what sort of chutzpah it takes to believe that one's art can change the word. I wondered if we should all have that much belief.
People have been asking me, "So when's the next party?" To be honest, I don't really know. Aren't you all tired of my house? I guess that's a pretty silly thought, who gets tired of somebody else's house? In truth, I'm a little embarassed to invite people over and have the house looking exactly the same as before. Maybe after my new roommate moves in in October ... that way at the very least there will be more furniture ... and more frightening ... more people on the guest list. Maybe I'll send out the evite one week in advance so only the people who really don't have any other place to go will come. That idea tickles something in me.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"