when hangover meets short-timer syndrome

1.
me: help i'm trapped in an infinite loop
crush: i'm going into "another damn meeting".
me: bah.
crush: quitter!
crush: linguist!
crush: watch your "language"
crush: !
crush: this is not an IM
me: ceci n'est pas une im
me: c'est une pipe
crush: where's my confounded pipe?

***

2.
me: i am trapped in an infinite loop
me: send help.
heather: hans' mom invited us to some shakespeare comedy thing. we said a big fat no
me: (the correct answer was: "break;")
heather: is that like.. walkie tlakie talk?
me: no, it is how you terminate a loop
me: break;
heather: ha ha!
heather: i was like 'breaker breaker. ten four little buddy. check out the hooters on that lady driver!"
me: over&out

***

3.
me: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: deep
me: i am trying to get someone to say "break;"
ken: i was jiving with the philosophical meaning more than the code reference.
me: i hear ya. that was the original sentiment
me: then it morphed into my own little game
ken: but, if you really wanted a 'break' you should have said:
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
ken: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
me: ctrl-c
ken: thanks!

***

4.
me: i am trapped in an infinite loop. send help.
devin: ctl-c
devin: ctl-c
me: ohhh not bad
devin: ctl-c
devin: did that ack?
me: resources returned to system.

upon aging another year

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

...

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

...


This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

...

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

...


Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,
It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,
Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?

...

Ever the hard unsunk ground,
Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever
the air and the ceaseless tides,
Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real,
Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that
breath of itches and thirsts,
Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides
and bring him forth,
Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life,
Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.

...

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

...

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

--walt whitman, song of myself, verses 1, 2, 19, 24, 25, 42, 51, 52

an early reflection

it's good to live with these people. after a really frustrating day i like coming home. the law student is back from her summer away and she has taken up residence on the guest futon. the unknown quantity is just returned from vancouver. last night i came home and found cosmic and the enigma (who is less enigmatic these days) rearranging furniture in the living room so i went in to help. it went a little long but now the room is beautiful and opened up, huge windows with christmas lights framing them. it's a place that feels good to be, it's one more part of the house to settle into.

tonight i went grocery shopping and returned with cherries plums melon apples eggplant squash mushrooms potatoes yogurt tofu dried beans and multigrain cereal. hippie commune food, you say? fine, i like hippie commune food. and after an hour of sitting in the kitchen laughing over something someone found in the back of a drawer and hearing about everyone's day and eating vegan stew and fresh fruit, i felt sort of human again. i felt sort of alive again. and i'm looking forward to being able to spend more time hanging around home.

my plant is doing very well too.

you had me at heidegger

h: why?! why are you so dumb?!

because the week was too intense. i got scared.
let me back up.

but where do i start? "i think i like someone" is as good a place as any, but how do you ever really explain these things? he thinks etymology is sexy. i had written him off as uninterested or improbable but suddenly this week it turned and his tentative comment (charmingly hedged with "i don't mean to be bold") built to a flurry of overt flirtation on friday and one of those oblique "what are you doing tonight?" conversations where "i'll go if you go" is unstated but implied.

and i'm realizing now how much of a struggle it will be to stay forward when the other person, whoever it is, comes forward. i don't have trouble as long as they're hanging out somewhere back in the safety zone but all of a sudden there he was and i didn't know what to do with it. i felt preemptively tired and defeated and i wanted to go home. so i said i really would like to go but i have so many papers i need to grade, and i went home.

hence the "why are you so dumb" and trust me i had asked myself the same question about three hundred times by then.

this amorphous, pre-"yes" time is terrifying. i have felt it before, i feel it always, even with david. especially with david. so although i am tempted to blame it on having been really really fucking hurt last time...i know it's more fundamental than that.

and do you know that i have never done the normal meet someone, like them, flirt, go out kind of thing? or if i did then i was in another relationship, or they were, so it was just an exercise in frustration or betrayal. i am the master of these deep intense friendships that one day shift into something more. but this is different.

i don't know him very well, and he doesn't know me very well at all. we've never had the "past relationships" talk. or the "what are you looking for" talk. no blurted confessions of love or deep tortured longing. i haven't tested him musically. and i know this is the most normal thing in the world but to me it feels all out of order.

add to that the fact that i just moved and then my house was broken into and i'm leaving my job in two weeks and then starting school after another couple of weeks. everything is transitioning where for so long i was just waiting. months or even years of waiting for it all. and that was frustrating but it got a little comfortable too. now here comes everything and part of me is like woah wait, and i just want to lie down and put a pillow over my head.

it will pass.
but in the meantime i might be a little bit dumb.

new roommates p.s.

THE DOG

7. the dog. belongs to mama bird. a little pug, shaped like a sausage, makes a chirpy gurgle like a gremlin when he wants your food or your love. probably the only sane one here.

my new roommates

THE GIRLS

1. cosmic lovechild. she studies consciousness at a school for integral studies and does web design. she fights species extinction, she has a cat, she wears skirts over her jeans. an impossibly cute, impossibly high-energy little pixie wisp of a thing. i can't tell if she knows that she's beautiful or not. one of the baby birds. crazy, but loveable.

2. mama bird. dating a manipulative guy with anger issues who lives in chicago. socially responsible financial investor by day, bisexual polyamorous pagan in her off hours. smart, funny, interesting, really cute. my ally in the fight for bathroom liberation from disgustingness. crazy, but hides it well.

3. unknown quantity. i've only spoken to her once, and she's been out of town on a meditation retreat since i moved in. she is from canada, though, which bodes well. possibly crazy, i'm not sure yet.

THE BOYS

4. lord of the dance. he's not of legal drinking age, and he moved to the bay area for capoeira. it was his greatest love until he met his girlfriend, who will be leaving for college next month. last weekend they were supposed to have sex for the first time (she is a virgin) but he accidentally got "extended pleasure" condoms. they are called extended pleasure apparently because they contain benzocaine, a topical anesthetic. his little soldier went numb and that was the end of that. one of the baby birds. crazy frustrated.

5. the enigma (summer subletter, will leave when the law student returns). studies literature, in the bay area for the summer to work on a film. likes computer games, exercising, and bondage apparently. eats an incredible amount of food. crazy in that way that someone might say about him one day "but he seemed so quiet..."

6. the short-timer. about to move into sf where he will be going back to school for his teaching credential. doesn't say a lot, except to cosmic lovechild. never around. might be crazy, but that's irrelevant for our purposes.

cyclic

what i thought was this:

we all feel alone.
and we are.
and we aren't.

and the planet spins and it really doesn't care whether we're alone or not. time doesn't care and math doesn't care and art doesn't care. i care and you care, maybe, but i would say we're in the minority, all things considered. it's a kind of death, a kind of decomposition, and that is the most natural thing in the world; it happens on a cellular level, a species level, a social level, a planetary level, a stellar level. everything falls apart and then comes together again, in some form or another. given how normal it is, i wonder why we so fear our own fragility?

somehow that didn't seem too comforting.

***

i ended the day in a dark mood. i have to write soon about my new roommates, and i will, but the cosmic lovechild one was here when i got home and she said "did you have a good day?" no, said i. questioning look from c.l. i think it's just that i'm really ready to be done with my job, said i.

that was easy because it's true and easy to digest. when you don't want to talk about something, just tell the truth but not all of the truth. (as if one could ever know all of the truth.)

anyway it's good that i live with people because now i'm in my room after an hour and a half of talking to c.l. as i made chana masala, the fragrance of which has permeated the entire house. my hands are stinging because i diced several jalapenos and the sensation connects me to something vital, something that makes everything else sting less.

i'm going to start charging you a "blogtime remuneration fee"

this month i discovered that my cell phone bill was a bit higher than usual so i went to investigate the "usage charges". did you know that cingular charges $1.50 per directory assistance call? a buck fitty!! that's an egg&cheese bagel at lee's!

also, have you read the list of their fees? many of them are very defensively titled: "federal universal service charge," "state public utility surcharge" (read: it's not our fault you have to pay this).

then there is the mysterious "regulatory cost recovery charge." now, i'd really like to know what a "regulatory cost recovery charge" is. because to me it sounds basically like a "fee fee." a "we want even more of the meager dineros you earned at your soulkilling deskjob gratuity," if you will.

but it's okay because who needs directory assistance, anyway, when i have such helpful friends:

amy: where do you suppose i might be able to buy rabbit ears for a television?
amy: or whatever the modern analogue is
will: haha.
will: i have no clue.
will: ebay?
amy: you don't think like radio shack or something?
will: sure.
amy: best buy maybe?
will: dunno.
amy: i'd just like to be able to get network tv
amy: which should be possible
amy: i'm not gonna get cable service at the new place
will: ok.
amy: but when i turn my tv on it's all "please connect the antenna first"
will: i see.
amy: well thanks for your help
amy: you've been invaluable
will: no prob.

now, if you'll excuse me, i have to go to the bathroom.
i hope cingular doesn't charge me a "mandatory municipal elimination charge" for that.

a life that was, that no longer will be

tonight i closed and locked the door to my old apartment for the last time. and, in doing that, closed the metaphoric door on a piece of me&david. maybe the last piece.

yeah, it hurts.
but sometimes hurting is okay.

all night i've been hearing in my head this song...

these are days we dream about
when the sunlight paints us gold
and this apartment could not be prettier
as we danced up there alone

this tv's old, the color's fucked,
you see the difference in the shades?
but the green's still close to green, my love
and i believe we are the same

and we’ll stay like this, all gold and green
light collects and projects your heart on a movie screen
and if you close your eyes we will always be
the way we were that night you crawled inside of me

and you slept in my blood the way you sleep now
the quietest hush has consumed this house
and when the doctors have gone and you sweat through the bed
with the pictures and the pills they piled around your head

just rest now

and in a moment you'll know everything
was it all a dream? it’s too vague now to recount
an outline of the one you loved
in a life that was, that no longer will be
stands above you as you sleep

inventory part two

another flaw: if i want something and get it, i am terribly likely to second-guess the wanting. not because the thing changes, but because having it makes it somehow less compelling. did i really want that? i don't know, maybe i didn't really want it as much as i thought i wanted it.

but if i don't get it, then i am eternally convinced that i wanted it more than anyone ever wanted anything, in the entire history of the universe.

also maybe i'm a little overly analytical.
(internet: "you don't say...")

inventory

it occurs to me that one of my flaws is that i go around most of the time looking for something to make life beautiful with mystery...when in fact it already is.

too bad so sad

it's really a shame that i can't write "this paper sucks ass."

it's also a shame that i can't post some of the funnier excerpts to my blog. oh the burden of being ethical! woe, swoon, and all that.

getting punchy now.

this is not my beautiful weekend

two lemon drops and one anchor steam should not leave me feeling like this the next morning. spread out over several hours, as they were. i meant to just go for one drink as usual but for my coworkers after-work drinks are serious business. they want you to stay, they pay for your drinks (i still can't figure out how i always get away with this and i feel vaguely guilty, but only vaguely). they pressure you but only when you actually want it, it seems. and i usually do. i enjoy being corrupted.

now i have a long weekend ahead of packing up everything i left in the old place last weekend (my god, was that just last weekend?) and figuring out what to do with it all. and cleaning the old apartment and the new bathroom (my nemesis, my bathroom) and then as a reward for all that hard labor i get to finish grading papers which i blew off for the last few nights because i am dumb.

okay, i need breakfast.
i need coffee.
i need to go.

unmoored

this will be my fifth night sleeping in this room and i haven't quite figured out who i am in this place. i say this and the voice of everything i have learned says "you are you anywhere anytime anyhow, you are you." and i say back "but if everything is fluid then the shape of me is a little different here and now and like this."

that is not what i meant.

dear reader, i am only a contrasting pattern of pixels on your screen. you are a whisper of electricity. you, like everything else, are mostly space. i mean, have you seen the model of an atom? how much space is in there? you are made of three trillion times that much space. if you could be compacted somehow into solid matter, i wonder how big you would be. a tiny hard little piece of corn, probably smaller even.

because you are so small i can tell you that sometimes i worry that this is all wrong choices piled on more wrong choices.

that is not what i meant either.

i just meant to say goodnight, internet.

an insult this civilized is art

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

--Charles Babbage

missing

i miss heather.

i also miss my phone charger.
where are you, little phone charger?

i have so many papers to read and all i want to do is go buy plants for my room. yes, i'm going to try again with plants. hopefully this time i won't turn them into potpourri on a stick, as i am wont to do.

if i tell you it won't come true

san francisco is a small town. whoever it is you're conflicted about seeing, you'll bump into them eventually. i saw mine today...he was skateboarding across market street near montgomery bart station. i recognized the shape and movements of his body first, then i recognized his shoes. something about the shoes got me. i stood there at the top of the stairs down into the bart station for a moment, people streaming by on either side of me. i think i was holding my breath.

it affected me more than i would have liked. but that's the thing about this stuff. it scars over so it's harder to get to, but when something finally touches that hurt place, it feels as bad as it ever did. and i felt alone, and i have been alone, and maybe i'm getting a little tired of alone. i think i am more than this.

and i wanted to go home and dissolve, and i could have. but instead i decided to be around people so i went to this bbq and there the universe provided what i needed in the form of atsuko. she is an old japanese woman and i have had several talks with her and i think she's fabulous. so tonight she asked me when school starts and then she talked to me at length about how she keeps a diary and recently she was looking through and counting her blessings (she has 12 currently) and realized that she can attribute them all to her higher education. and that she can attribute that in turn to her grandmother, who raised her. and she talked about what higher education had given her: a center, a self. she said it doesn't even matter if you get married, if you stay single, or if you divorce...if you learn something, study something, strive for something, your life has purpose.

afterwards i went to school to pick up my first grading work. this big packet of papers that i know some kids poured their hearts into and suddenly the job of evaluating them seems weighty, and a little daunting. but it was so great to walk across a dark moonlit campus and use my own keys to get into the building, to get into my office. "i am a grad student!" i proclaimed to empty air.

at 11:11 a.s said "make a wish" and i did.

new home

so i may have gone a bit overboard on the "turkish flea market" characterization the other day. it's funny how much better a place feels once there are familiar things around you. i told dre yesterday "home is where your stuff is." i guess that's fine, as long as your stuff is fairly portable (or you are fairly stationary, which i am not at present).

woah someone just drove by outside rocking the sir mix-a-lot, i'm having a high school flashback, hang on...

okay, so. right now "home" is a second floor room in a north oakland co-op. this room is big and atticky, with two side walls that rise straight up from the floor about 2.5' and then begin to slant inwards, meeting in a high point over the centerline of the room. home is made of corners and triangles, i like it. the room is divided into areas so one nookish corner has my bed, the bigger area has couch & coffee table & tv (i don't plan to get cable but i can't give up my dvd habit), and there is another nook for desk/bookshelves/study area, and a big walk-in closet.

number of friends who helped me move:
6

their compensation:
bagels and cream cheese and everlasting looooove, baby

first home repair project:
install new curtain rod and curtains (completed last night)

second home repair project:
swap the doorknob & latch/lock mechanisms between the main room door and the closet door, so that the main room door will latch & stay shut (completed this morning)

how much i love my leatherman:
so much

number of times i have bonked my head on the slanting walls:
5,734,498