Friday, eighteenth week after Pentecost
Reviews! Because what what, you probably couldn't stop me if you tried.
First review: Alligator! Results: Delicious! Chickeny texture, but much more flavorful. Good in stir fries for sure, I imagine gumbos also.
Next! Teach Yourself PHP with MySQL, by Nat MacBride. Loved it! Well-laid out, well-written. Amusing, educational, I read it like I read novels, barely put it down. Picture of adorable kitten on cover. Mad cheaps, too. Perhaps I should czech out more in the series. (NB: Changes ensuing! Some already here, what's the address of this page?)
Finally! Nobody Scores! I like the art, and I love the premise. The comics can be read in any order, as continuity of character is preserved between episodes, but continuity of causality is abandoned. Everything ends poorly for everyone, everytime. My favorite is this one about bad ideas. I also liked the one with the minions.
Stay tuned for next time, when I may or may not pass judgement on an entire geographic region! Objective standard, over and out.
Thursday, seventeenth week after Pentecost
The scenario: there are three students working in the maclab. Additionally, one computer has been password-locked by a user. The rest of the computers are unused. A few are, as usual, not working. A young man enters, a computer scientist, looks to be about second, maybe third year. He immediately walks to the one locked computer. When he realises that the screen is locked, he looks around in confusion for a moment. "I'm no fool," he says to himself. "I know what to do with a computer that isn't showing the login screen. I'll press CTRL-SHIFT-backspace and restart X!" And so he does.
As he sits down and begins to work, another young man enters. This man is somewhat older, and is casually carrying a backpack. Looking around at the lab as he enters, he stares at the first man. He begins to stride toward his target, quickly at first, and then more hesitatingly. Finally, he is standing behind the other man. He clears his throat quietly, and says, "Did you..." and pauses, as though unsure, and then continues, "...restart this computer?" A look of confusion can be seen on his face.
The first man looks up at him, his innocent expression marred by a tinge of confusion. "I thought no one else was using it."
The older man, murmuring a polite dismissal, shoulders his bag and walks away, his steps and posture unsure. In this fashion, he proceeds out the exit, shaking his head.
Tuesday, fifteenth week after Pentecost
So all summer, Brian and I have been reeducating each other, naming albums to hear and books to read. Brian's recomendated reading: I, Lucifer; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; Satanic Verses. My own selections: Hart's Hope; Foucault's Pendulum; Lucifer's Hammer; Oedipus the King and Antigone; Moby Dick. Sense a theme? Brian's not ready to relinquish Verses yet, and I'm still in the thick of Moby Dick and Antigone. I get involved in what I read. I nearly wept for Oedipus, and I was both affirmed and offended by Klosterman. Most of Pendulum I had to read in small chunks.
Add to this movies and music. Reality Bites, on Klostermann's recommendation. We had to pause that one, go out to the porch for cigarettes. Boys and Girls in America, alternately as flagellation and intoxicant. Señor Smoke, as warning and oracle. No, as a mirror, dimly. Before the move, Amy Ray, Aimee Man, Amy Winehouse. The Gothic Archies, also from Brian. Snow Machine, which would have made me want to weep regardless.
Tonight, I made the mistake of acquiring the rest of the The Hold Steady discography. It's too much, too dense, and I can't stop. Months ago, I read The Crying of Lot 49. Maybe you understand. I don't even know when I started anymore.
Lately, I've had a lot of people ask me about turning into a dragon. Lately, I've been reminded over and again that this might all be a dream. (Lately, I've been having lots of recurrent dreams... again.) I've had conversations about living life all over. Even the Wii asked me about erasing my past. Just now, I think, if I woke up on the floor in seventh grade, I wouldn't remember anything I've learned. Dreams always escape, leaving me hungry. I never remember the important parts, the keystones, the turning points.
I never remember anything.
Labour Day
Today I celebrated Labour Day for the first time in my life. It was very confusing. Everyone was having barbeques and other gatherings, mostly outside, right next to each other, but not together. Everyone was complaining about having to work in the morning, and I couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't thrown the parties the day before, instead. The bank was closed, but the bakery and the beer store were open. Several people insisted to me that it was the last day of summer. I don't really understand why this is.
It's a holiday to celebrate unionization, right? There must be something I'm missing.
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
I am constantly vexed by my inability to make a proper sandwich. This inability has its roots in the fact that I don't own any bread. Constant vexation!
Furthermore, there appears to be nowhere in the immediate area where I can buy a sandwich, with the lone exception of a coffee shop that will sell me a tiny, tiny sandwich at a double-sandwich price. Accursed hipster price-gouging!
Thus I am doomed to a sandwichless existence, which, since I don't have any other food either, means I pretty much don't ever eat supper. Grr, hiss! Alas!
Internetsless IX
Four hours is always the worst. In four hours, I will once more be graced by the gifts of Hermes, will hold in these same hands the strings of the aether, which I will tug as I wish, thither and hither, just so. Our lady of earthly knowledge will hear once more my pleas, my ones, my zeros, and will deliver unto me that which I desire: music videos, php tutorials, and webcomics.
And yet the light blinks red, mocking and taunting, withholding my once and future ping. And I can really only read so much Eco in an afternoon.
Internetsless VIII
Spending all my time thinking about what I want from a woman, from love, from life, I never once thought about what I've already asked for. Focusing on the past and future, I occluded my own past. I'd forgotten that I'd been here before, because as soon as I wasn't, it didn't matter. I'd forgotten, and I still can't remember, but I know my own beautiful handwriting.
I want someone who wants to do interesting things, and probably make out afterwards. Paging through old notebooks as I unpack and organise, I read:
I want to be wanted. No, that's not true. I like to be wanted. What I want is a beautiful girl who is not my sister. I want someone strange, someone I don't understand. I like to be wanted, but what I want is a girl that will take walks with me at midnight, at two in the morning; a girl that I can fall asleep holding in my arms and wake up with a kiss. I'm back to the too-familiar theme of not wanting to fall asleep alone, not wanting to sleep in my own bed. It's not as bad here, sleeping in a bed that will never be mine, but I still don't want to sleep there. Maybe it's just restlessness.
I've been here before. Sorting through scraps of paper, I find something I do remember writing, a list of qualities to find in a woman, ranked into the tiers of necessity, desire, and mere preference. In need of revision: cooking and dancing deserve higher positions. Finally, just now, I remember telling friends I wanted a nice, Christian girl with good hair. All four qualities were important. Still a good guide, if I wanted a girlfriend. I don't. I don't think I do, anyway.
I want two things. I want to start on getting married and making a family, but I'm guessing at best as to how it's done. I also want the above, the going to shows and parties, the make-outs. That I'm not entirely sure how to do, either, but I'm having a lot of fun figuring it out. I reject the notion that either goal could assist the other, but I'm willing to see if I can have them work in parallel.
All those kids in high school who didn't date, I thought they were crazy then. I think they were crazy now, because only someone crazy could have come to those conclusions without having the experiences. But dating, maybe it isn't so good. Too independent to ask my parents to arrange a marriage for me, distrustful of strangers, embedded in a society that seems to have forgone courtship, what's an aspiring groom to do? Until I figure that out, I'mma keep flirting with any girl that takes my fancy, buying them drinks and making bad decisions.
It's been suggested to me that bad decisions are the only ones worth making.
Feeds: