September 2006 Archives

i and i am whole again. stronger, uglier, quieter, a little backwards, but whole again.

i and i am new again. cleaner, sharper, stronger, a little slow, but new again.

i and i am here again. bigger, smaller, fearless, a little away, but here again.

i have more to say, more to write, more to listen, but now that veg is back i must go out.

all is cloudy shade
hallucinogen aids code
contentment with world

it's pants proving ground week.

or double week.

my mission is this: to wear every pair of pants in my closet and if i find anything i don't like about them, toss them into the goodwill bag.

it's one thing to rifle through them and decide "oh, i'll probably wear these some day" and quite another thing to actually wear them and realize they obscure my fantastic ass.

two in the bag already, and these honkers that made the rifle-cut will be in the bag by this evening.

rictor-veg moved back into town, and got a temporary corporate apartment at 555 <some street>, unit 203.

isn't that special?

it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x13.

went to the asian place by work and got a different cut than i asked for -- par for the course at that place. still, i guess it looks good. wanted to grow it out on top and maybe have a mushroom look or something. sadly, all i got was a "handsome" look, which i guess is okay, since it jives well with my newfound lack of a scragbeard.

SUCKAZ

there's a new link to "reviews" up there at the top of the page.

right now there are two categories of reviews: "coffee" and "unrelated". the coffee section is for coffee related reviews, and the unrelated section is for reviews not related to coffee.

maybe once in a while i'll indicate on the blog that there are new reviews, but probably not. the reviews page will show the 2 most recent reviews (dated) from all public categories.

direct url.

enjoy.

happy birthday, my love.

and many more with us together.

your gifts will arrive 2 days late :)

I came upon Victor sitting beneath a tree by a stream. Behind the tree was a tall, stone cliff, smooth and unclimable. It towered far above blocking out any direct sunlight. We were lit by clouds of reflection.

The stream was cool, I discovered, dipping my toes into its gently babbling path. There were smooth rocks on the bottom, slippery and bright with quartz. Clear water flowed around my ankles, easing my mind and soothing my sore arches. I hadn't been to this part of the woods before, and I was surprised to see Victor here. I was expecting someone else.

Victor looked up, noticing me for the first time. He smiled at me.

"How long have you been here," I asked.

"I'm not sure, it seems like forever," said Victor.

"Did you follow the stream?" I asked. "I didn't see your footprints the way I came."

"No, I didn't come that way," he said.

"Then how did you get here?"

"I was always here," said Victor. He wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Weren't you?"

"No," I said, "I just got here."

"I didn't see you," said Victor, "and I've been here a long time. Are you sure you just got here?"

I looked down at my feet, submerged past my shins now in the stream. I was barefoot. I looked around, but I didn't see my shoes. In fact, I could not picture my shoes at all. I wasn't sure that I'd ever worn shoes. Behind me, the stream meandered lazily into a dense forest of tangled branches and damp, fallen leaves. It didn't look like the sort of place I'd venture without shoes. It didn't look like the sort of place I'd traverse without leaving prints. But I saw no footprints.

"I came from there," I said, pointing back into the forest.

"Nonsense," said Victor. "Where are your shoes?"

I shrugged. "I don't think I've ever worn shoes," I said. "How about you? Where are yours?"

Victor glanced at his bare, leathery feet and grinned. He was wearing only a pair of short shorts. I don't think I'd ever seen Victor without a shirt on before this. He was sitting with his back up against the trunk of the tree, his legs stretched out toward the stream, but not reaching it. His hands were raised above his lap, and they were moving. I hadn't noticed before then what he was doing, but now I studied his movements closely. His hands looked entirely empty, but they grasped and moved as if they were not. They went through all the motions of carving something, an invisible something of some length.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm making a telescope," he said.

I nodded. A telescope would be a good thing to have. When we were younger, Victor and I had come out to this forest, away from the lights of the city, to look at the stars. That seemed so long ago... but I knew it had only been last week.

"We were out here last week, looking at the stars in your telescope, were we not?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so," said Victor, "because what you say implies that we left here at some time. We have not. We've always been here."

I thought about what I'd said, and what Victor had said, and I began to see the sense of it. Of course, we had not left our spot by the stream. Where would we go? The stream, the tree, and the rock. That was the extent of our world, and it always had been.

"When will it get dark?" I asked.

"Dark?" said Victor.

"Yeah, dark," I said. "How will we see the stars if it is not dark?"

"Ah," said Victor, smiling again. "You'll see. Come out of the stream, sit over here by the rock."

I looked down. The skin on my feet had begun to shrivel from the cold of the stream. I stepped out onto the grass and shook the droplets from my toes. Some of the drops sailed through the air, landing in the stream, causing ripples that elongated and flowed away into the forest. I followed them with my eyes, until they were gone.

Victor was doing something with his hands. He was seated with his back against the tree trunk, his legs outstretched, his hands poised above his lap. He held nothing that I could see, but he stared intently at his empty hands, moving them around one another, grasping at air, carving away at invisible wood with an invisible knife. His concentration was intense, and it drew me in. I stared, rapt, at the motion of his hands. Carving, turning, carving, turning. He went on like this for what seemed like hours, and I did not grow tired of watching him.

The leaves in the forest behind me rustled. There was no breeze, no reason for there to be movement. But they rustled, and whispered, and spoke to us in the language of the forest. They told of visitors, transient but permanent. They spoke of passing ages, lifetimes measured in infinities, seasons measured by the movement of galaxis. The leaves spoke of a visitor. The visitor spoke.

"What are you two doing here?" asked Margie.

I kept my attention fixed on Victor's hands. He had moved from long, lengthy strokes to short, precision scrapes. He was rotating his wood rapidly while detailing the ends. I answered Margie's question with a question: "What do you mean?"

"How did you get here?" asked Margie.

"We've always been here," I said. "Just like you."

"That's not so," said Margie. "I just arrived."

"Really?" asked Victor. "Where did you come from?"

"The forest," said Margie.

"Where are your shoes?" asked Victor.

Margie said nothing, and the leaves spoke again. This time, there was a breeze. It was warm, coming out of the forest and toward the rock, opposing the flow of the stream. From the corner of my eyes I could see ripples forming on the face of the water, moving glacially toward Victor and his invisible telescope. The ripples became farther and farther separated, and then stopped.

"What are you making?" asked Margie.

Victor did not answer. I didn't think she was talking to me, for I was not making anything. I did not answer.

"Are you coming to sit down, or what?" asked Victor.

"All right," Margie and I said, our voices mingling. I turned as I walked toward the cliff-face, and saw Margie. She wore nothing, I sensed, yet I could not see her nakedness. Her feet were bare, and she left no imprint upon the grass as she walked. We reached an empty spot by the rock wall and sat.

"The stars will be out soon," I said.

"It's going to be dark?" asked Margie.

"No," said Victor.

"How will we see the stars, then?" asked Margie.

"I don't know," I said.

"What's he doing?" asked Margie.

"Nothing now," said Victor. "I'm finished." He closed his knife with one hand, putting it on the grass by his leg, where he'd be sure not to lose it. He blew along the length of the newly carved telescope, his powerful breath reaching across the grass and into the placid stream. He shook the telescope off, and slapped it against his knee to remove any shavings. "Ready?" he asked.

"To see the stars?" asked Margie.

"That's right," said Victor.

"But it's not dark out," I said.

"Look behind you," said Victor.

Margie and I turned around to examine the face of the rock wall. It was smooth for as far up as I could see, uninterrupted gray rock towering far above. But directly in front of my eyes was a hole bored into the rock, perfectly round, and perfectly dark. It was wider than my thumb, but putting my finger inside it I could feel neither end nor air. I had no idea how deep the hole was. It emitted no light.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's part of my telescope," said Victor. "Watch."

Victor rolled onto his feet and walked two steps from his tree over to the hole in our rock wall. He inserted the end of his invisible telescope into the rock. "Have a look," he said.

Margie went first. She positioned her eye at the end of the invisible telescope and peered through the hole in the rock face. She gasped. "What is it?" she asked.

"Stars," said Victor. He looked at me. "Your turn," he said.

"All right," I said. Margie stepped aside and I put my eye before the hole. I closed my other eye and focused my open eye through the lens of Victor's telescope. I saw darkness, bursting with light. Unimaginable globes and swirls of pulsating white and blue light whirled across my vision. Stars, galaxies, nebulae. Celestial bodies limitless and bright, all sweeping before my squinting eye, leaving trails of brightness for brightness to devour. I saw far into infinity, beyond the reach of speculation, beyond the dreams of imagination. I saw movement beyond the stars, where stillness should reign. My soul was startled. I pulled back.

I looked around. I was standing by a rock wall that stretched immensely into the sky, blocking out the sun. I was illuminated by cloudlight and forest mist. A tree grew next to a stream which meandered lazily into a dense forest. The leaves of the forest whispered secrets to me in a language I had heard uncounted times before but had never learned to comprehend. They seemed to be laughing, rejoicing, singing with joy. They were welcoming me.

I had been in this place forever, I thought. I remembered no time before this place. Only the tree, the stream, the forest, and the rock. I examined the rock. There was a hole in it, a little bit wider around than my thumb. I put my finger into the hole to explore, but I felt no end to it, no breeze to suggest another opening, no dampness to suggest depth. I wondered if I could fashion a device to see through to the other end of the hole.

Someone had left a pocketknife on the grass by the trunk of the tree. I took two steps over to reach it, and sat down, my back against the trunk, my legs stretching out toward the restless stream. Next to the knife was a long stick, hollow and rough. If I could carve a little off the circumference, it might fit through the hole and provide me with a view of the other side. I wondered how I had not noticed the knife and stick before. I'd been here so long and had never seen them.

I picked up the knife and the stick and went to work.

allergies have knocked me down.

i'll get back up but it might take a while.

as always, i seem to feel that the cause is something in my crummy apt, and not the outside world. though, truly, the cause of it all could simply have been that i inhaled ten tons of pollen on my sunday run.

ugh.

"after that outbreak of e. coli, jack in the box took their teryaki beef bowl off the menu," said the mook.

"why?" i asked.

"it must have taken too many steps to prepare. that's too bad, it was good," he said.

"what do you mean too many steps to prepare? you mean they couldn't get through all the steps to make the thing without sticking their hand in their crack? you're telling me they're over there in the kitchen, and they're like, 'okay then... step 10, sprinkle rice on top. step 11, with both hands, flip bowl over. right. left hand, there it is... right hand... oh, snap! it's in my ass again!'"

mook laughed. i continued.

"so the head office hears about this and do a study and find out that on average their workers can't go 12 steps without sticking their fingers up their asses, so they removed all items from the menu that couldn't be made in less than 12 steps."

mook continues to laugh. i join in but go on.

"this spinach thing is probably the same. the guys on the line are like 'okay... now... wash, toss, rinse. wash, toss, rinse. wash, toss, rin-- fuck! sorry, my hand's in my ass, stop the belt!"

i am an atheist jewish VALIS-gnostic discordian pre-thelemite crowlean chaos magickian follower of Crom.

also, i'm popeye.

i was moving some of 203's stuff out of one closet and into another when i came across several of her shoes.

into my mind popped: "they're like shoes, only smaller!"

"so you're going to go 3 months with half of your closet entirely empty?" asked 203.

"yep," i said. "if i were a clever person, i bet i could fashion some sort of metaphor from that fact."

while i was recently visiting my folks, my mom brought out a folder of My Old Crap, and it contained a printout of an email from my collge days.

i'd discovered a cache of emails before, saved my my most excellent mother, but this one had slipped my attention then.

when i read it i was blown away. not only did the email provide a time-capsule-like snapshot of my senior-year diet, a fine example of my developing (or possibly fully-developed) writing style/voice, and a foreshadow of my subsequent fatness and spendiness, it also contained the story of the discovery of my sacred beach! holy crap!

so i had my mom copy it and mail it to me, because i'd forgotten to do that myself while i was there, because 203 was with me and things tend to slip my mind when that's the case.

but send it she did, my most excellent mother, along with a 20 dollar bill, for some reason, and a note describing a scorpion-related-hallucination. and here for your enjoyment, dear reader, is the email in full:

the email in full

Notes:

on the way to the peak of mission peak i encountered a couple.

"there's a snake on the trail back there," she said.

"a small one," he said.

"could be a rattler," she said.

"or a gopher snake," he said, "they look alike."

now, i personally don't know what a gopher snake looks like and i don't especially care, because a gopher snake is no danger to me. however, i can identify a rattlesnake and i've survived several pretty close encounters. in my humble opinion, however, someone who can't tell the difference between a venomous rattlesnake and a harmless anything-else should not be using the word "rattler", since it implies a familiarity that such a person clearly lacks.

when i arrived at the top i found some kinda post with tubes in it and a trio of asian girls looking through them. later i'd see the same trio of girls failing to start their car right across the street from mine. i felt bad for not offering assistance, but then, i had no assistance to add (and they didn't ask). anyhow. i wanted a lunch spot away from the crowds so i continued a couple more yards past the peak. i came across a blanket, and upon the blanket, a yuppie picnic basket. you know, the kind with fargen wine-glass holders in it. it was open and unattended. behind some rocks were a girl and a dude, and i assumed it was their basket but didn't know why they were away from it. i continued on and found a spot.

while i was chowing down on my sangwich, the couple behind the rock (now fully in my field of vision) ducked down behind the rock, so they couldn't be seen from the basket (though they could see the basket). i figured they were going to surprise some friends or something. the dude pulled out a camera and a couple approached. i recognized them, i'd passed them on the way up (it's what i do).

they get to the basket and she seems happily surprised. her dude hugs her and she hugs him back. the couple behind the rocks still haven't shown themselves. i continue munching on my sangwich and turn away. the next time i look back, they guys behind the rocks are still hiding, but the dude is now down on his knee, the girl is looking totally stunned, and he's fiddling with her finger.

"holy crap", i thought.

nobody else on the peak seemed to be noticing. they were too busy looking at smog and san jose and crap to notice the real action.

after she apparently said yes, the folks behind the rocks showed themselves, greeted their friends, and then departed. i finished my sandwich with a big smile on my face. how cool that i shared -- in a tiny way -- in such an important moment for two total strangers.

no, not total strangers. though i said not a word to them, they're my people. i wish them the best.

40 days would have been a vacation for us. We had to muck about for 40 years just trying to get the rain server going. For years it just rained bread, and the Manna pages were completely useless.

oh lord.

all righty. so. i wanted to start up a very detailed coffee roasting + tasting log so that i can keep track of which beans and roast levels i like and thus introduce a little more consistency and sanity into my procurement processes.

or something.

anyhow, so i tackled the technical problems and got the db and web interface up and running, though not polished. more on that later. somewhere along the way i realized that one of the most important terms for describing coffee flavor is "acidity". here's what Tom has to say about it:

"Acidity. Acidity in relation to taste has nothing to do with acidity in terms of the gnawing pain in your stomach. Acidity in coffee might be described by terms like bright, clear, snappy, dry, clean, winey, etc. Coffees without acidity tend to taste flat and dull, like flat soda. Acidity is to coffee what dryness is to wine. Different varietals s will possess different kinds of acidity, like the wine like high notes of some African coffees versus the crisp clear notes of high grown coffees from the Americas. Unpleasant acidy flavors may register as sourness. Dark roasts tend to flatten out acidity. This is a key term in coffee tasting!"

Got that? Key term in coffee tasting! Only one problem: I've been home roasting for ages now and although I know that Kenyans are sposedly more acidy than Malabars, I couldn't really say with confidence that I understood the concept of "acidity".

one thing i did know, though, is that the longer one roasts a bean, the less acidity is left in the bean.

so, i devised a simple experiment: take a single bean (a kenya estate peaberry, because kenyas are known to be high in acidity), roast it to City, Full City, and Vienna, and identify "acidity" as "that which is present in abundance in the City roast but pretty much gone in the Vienna roast".

Since I'd be roasting small amounts of beans, I brought Smokey (my Fresh Roast+ 8) out of the closet and tried to remember how to use him. I think I used too many beans (3.5oz) because it roasted way too fast -- less than 5 minutes to Vienna. No matter -- the roasts themselves are likely suboptimal, but the point of the experiment is to identify relative differences, so as long as the profile is consistent (if not optimal) I figured I'd be okay.

I figured right.

The differences between the roasts are dramatic.

The City roast is bright, fruity, sweet, floral, and full. Now, none of those terms mean anything to someone who doesn't understand them (i.e. me yesterday) but swing by some time and I'll show you what they mean. This was a truly fantastic cup and I think my roasts in the future (at least of Kenyas) will bear far away from second crack.

The Full City+ roast is caramelly, fuller bodied, syrupy, and retains a little of the floral brightness of the City roast. It was very easy to identify the "ah, this is the characteristic that was diminished" characteristic and declare same to be acidity. Although the cup was not as bright, it was still one of the better cups I've ever had.

The Vienna roast I underextracted, fearing it to be charcoally. It is a bit charcoally, but that's a result of my nearly-uncontrolled superfast roast. Still, it wasn't bad at all. Chocolatey, filled with spicy black-pepper, it had none of the brightness of the City. Again, this helps enormously in identifying the flavor I'm intending to ID. This was also a very good cup.

So, conclusions:

This particular bean is amazing, producing an excellent cup at all roast levels, even when roasted poorly.

Smokey might actually produce a better cup than the SC/TO roaster. I must attempt to speed up the SC/TO roasts (no problemo, I don't roast on max heat) and see how it is. Remembering back to previous roasts, I've gotten acidity from my beans but it's usually not so pleasant as the stuff I got with today's City roast. That may be on account of the particular beans used, but it may also be that my roast is too slow (or something else entirely).

I should stop roasting to Vienna. I knew that, but I kept forgetting. Just Say No!

I now know what "acidity" is and can proceed to populate my coffee database with accurate cup evaluations.

The peppery/spicy notes that I often notice in darker roasts are probably transmuted acidity.

Now i'm jittery and ready for a hike.

"every day is like survival/you're my lover not my rival"

lucky me. my lover is also my rival.

this is why we will both continue to be awesome.

i think i've seen some/all of these before, but it makes no difference: i'm still laughing out loud at most of them.

"These people are so beautiful and happy and peaceful. Let's destroy their machine-god and teach them how to kill and screw."

omfg. bwahahaah!

"YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD
You don't suppose this episode is meant to be some sort of allegory about 20th century earth, do you?"

har. har har! HARHARHARHARHARHARHAR!!!!

okay party people, that's about 3500 words posted in one day.

to everybody (all threes of yous) who wondered where i went: i'm back!

at least until i depart again next weekend...

and then upon return, get caught up in the last-ditch bachelor party life with Rictor-Veg.

but once i've settled down into the monotony of pre-marriage-cohabitation, then it'll be blog-city!

this morning, while lifting, i had a thought. a (crucial) passage from a (fictionalized-autobiographical) story i wrote returned to my mind and i contrasted the pertinant emotional payload of the passage with my current situation.

of course, the current situation came out more favorably.

a couple months ago i'd sometimes/often make comparisons between my previous and current relationships. i do it far less frequently, now, which is proper, because my current relationship is not a reaction to my previous. the current one stands on its own merits, and would have had it come first. but i find that inevitably, i will draw comparisons. i don't particularly like that i do, because, even though the comparisons always come out with the unsurprising result of the present being more favorable than the past, still, such comparisons are unfair not only to make, but probably also to talk about. it gives the impression that i obsess about such things.

and so, to prove that i do not obsess about such things, i obsessively wrote a run-on sentence saying that i do not obsess. <golf clap>

anyhow, in the spirit of full disclosure, of which i am a great fan, here is the passage:

The kiss came to an end, but the embrace did not. Marcus held Oz tight against him, and put his head on her shoulder. Their faces touched, and he marveled at the warmth and softness of her skin. This time, though, the embrace was different. Marcus felt something new coming from Oz, and this new... emotion... was duplicated in his own heart.

Sadness, but not exactly. Heartache. Mourning. A strange feeling, Marcus had never experienced it before - either on his own, or directed at him. It was a sadness in the present, projected backwards in time from the future. A melancholy now, anticipating some sorrow or loss to come.

Like a mother's last embrace before sending her son off to war, thought Marcus.

Oz drew him in even closer, and the strange new feeling swelled to an unbearable intensity. Something terrible loomed just over the horizon. Something... permanent. Unavoidable.

The last, desperate, defiant embrace of two lovers trapped atop a burning building, thought Marcus. Two people who wish their embrace to last forever, but know that it cannot be...

(source)

yes, yes, i know. the writing is embarassingly melodramatic, but then, when i lived it and wrote it, so was i. here's the point: when Marcus held Oz, he felt -- he intuited -- that the relationship was doomed. now, in the context of the narrative, Marcus is actually a projection of Oz's mind ("a
sadness in the present, projected backwards in time from the future") and he is sensing that the relationship has already ended. in the context of my very own Real Life, though, the feeling was there just the same, only it wasn't time-travel-nonsense, it was intuition.

at the time i had the feeling, i didn't trust my intuition. trust is a thing that's best served cold. no wait, that's revenge.

sorry.

trust is a thing that must be earned. my intuition in such matters had not withstood tests, and so i gave my relationship with real-life-Oz the benefit of the doubt. i know this is true and not ex-post-facto memory shennanigans because i documented my intuitions and my distrust thereof in my Private Journal.

later, when i had more data, i came (perhaps foolishly (the very use of that word still fills me with negative emotions -- directed at myself. if the discussion that sprang from my use of the word "foolish" wasn't warning enough to me, i don't know what would be (i do know -- honesty))) to trust my intuition.

my intuition told me then that things wouldn't-couldn't-shouldn't last.

my intuition now tells me... different things.

it tells me that i am fortunate beyond my own comprehension to have stumbled into this new life i've got, and it tells me that i don't need or want it to end.

my intuition's been giving me nearly constant thumbs-up since early may.

(incidentally, my intuition told me not to write this post, but i did anyways. ohs well.)

(incidentally, the thought, such as it was, that sparked this all occurred to me in a flash as i glimpsed my own bare belly. i imagined 203's touch on my belly-skin, and missed it intensely. from there, my mind riddled me the portentious question of whether i missed her or simply missed belly-rubs. the last time i answered such a question i answered it dishonestly, with much justification and hand-waving. this time, though, there was no hand-waving. i missed (and miss) the person, not the belly-rub.

but i miss the rub, too.)

Disclaimer: Not intended for human consumption. Will be long, boring, impenetrable, incomprehensible, and mostly incorrect. Serves as a good example of blog-as-secondary-storage for memory as opposed to blog-as-place-where-people-other-than-me-can-find-interesting-writing.

Right. That out of the way, on with things.

Note: Several of the features of the spiritual vanity bracelet were products of design and forethought. the better features were not. as with life itself, the bracelet exhibits emergent properties and with contemplation reveals deeper, unintended (consciously) meanings.

construction and physical appearance of spiritual vanity bracelet
the dingus itself is a large arm bracelet, much larger than my wrist and prone to falling off my hand if i'm not careful.

Conan: The riddle... of steel.
Thulsa Doom: Yes! You know what it is, don't you boy? Shall I tell you?
 It's the least I can do. Steel isn't strong, boy, flesh is stronger! Look 
around you. There, on the rocks; that beautiful girl. Come to me, my child...
[the girl jumps to her death]
Thulsa Doom: That is strength, boy! That is power! What is steel 
compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your 
body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. 
Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!

my prospective lunchmates drawn away by the allure of (horrible) free food in the cafetorium, i found myself having a silent lunch with my notebook and pen. between the three of us, we attained a solid headstart on the weekend's work.

<golf clap;>

my baby likes the scotch.

that rules.

she says my 15 year old laphroaig tastes like a forest fire, and that that is a good thing. whatever floats your boat, hon. i explained to her last night that the defining characteristics of laphroaig and its ilk, aside from names that are somehow even more impossible to spell than they are impossible to pronounce, are "icky", "gross", "industrial waste", "scorched dirt", and that i like them very much as well.

last night i came close to finishing my first bottle of whisky, and then i decided i'd rather get a good night's sleep so i poured the final shot back into the bottle. i don't think that's legal, especially the way i did it, which was to pour it back into the glass to make sure i'd gotten some into the bottle. yep, i did -- pour it back into the bottle again. that could have gone on all night -- pour, verify, pour, verify -- but i decided to go to sleep.

still, it's my understanding that not many folks enjoy the smokey, oily, peaty scotches, and that even fewer of those are wimmins, not to mention that few enjoy neat scotch, and even fewer of those are wimmins. it might just be that i've stumbled upon a rarity of a wimmins. who knew?

after december, i shall surely no longer have the problem where i never finish my bottles of scotch.

hey, i haven't blogged much lately, have i?

i got LOST: season 2 and watched the entire season in about 3-4 days. i have a messy apt that needs cleaning. i am busy at work. i have a birthday gift to obsess about, several nerdy side projects, and just the usual time-consuming self-upkeep. also, i'm writing some long really boring piece that i've been working on for a week although when i post it you'd never have known it took so long. but i think i'm getting back into it.

lucky youse!

my wife-to-be can trounce me at scrabble. not only that, she does it effortlessly, with her signature giggly grace while i struggle and grump.

this is disconcerting because i consider myself a reasonably smart fellow, and figure that scrabble is the sort of thing which a reasonably smart fellow should easily master. At the very least i should enjoy some sort of natural-intelligence-bonus to my playing ability. But no, I suck. And what makes it worse is that she still thinks I'm a smarty-pants. Why can't I win at a brain game then?

No, I've gone from being a nerd to being a jock, that's all there is to it. Few make the transition, but I think I have.

Hah, I kid. I'm no jock. But I will beat you up and take your lunch money, dork.

Because I am who I am (Popeye? or yhwh? reader may decide) I am determined to take something away from every experience. Also, because I am who I am (Popeye, for sure. how could i be yhwh? but i have no tattoos, so maybe I am yhwh after all. but i have no burning bush (oh, thank god) so really i could swing either way) i often have a lofty goal but fall far short of attaining it.

my lofty goal is this: to either get better and win more consistently, or be a more graceful loser (i found last night (and 2 weeks ago) that laphroaig makes it easier to be both graceful and a loser). it's no good to be grumpy and bitter, that's just lame.

the funny thing is, i'm happy she beats me. it's a long-term challenge to me to get better myself. it's proof that she's no dummy herself (if we take as given that i'm not, and that anyone who can beat a non-dummy at a brain game is themself a non-dummy) (or even if we don't take all that, i had other proof) (she picked me, that shows intelligence of a high order). i'm happy that she beats me, and that she'd rather play scrabble with me than watch tv, and that i can look forward to many years of not-getting-stupid because i'm struggling to exercise my brain against her.

but all this happy comes the next day, while she's mopping up with me i'm far less happy and it comes out embarassingly. i'm working on it.

i talk about my humility in various places as if i've got some. maybe i do sometimes. but i am pretty disappointed in the lack of humility i display when playing scrabble, whether i'm winning or losing. so, as i said: working on it.

until i get distracted ;)

finally, my religion gets some respect in the mainstream media. for too long the solar system has been dominated by lesser gods and fuckin cartoon characters.

that's right, i'm a little behind in the news, not to mention my blogging, but when i notice things, i notice things. oh yes, do i notice things. they demoted that stupid dog and dedicated a planet-like-body to the goddess of discord.

hail yes!

(need i point out that this is the "mysterious planet X", i.e. planet two times 5?)

(also, it's bigger than the stupid disney planet)

Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
I've lived all over the world
I've left every place

Please be mine
Share my life
Stay with me
Be my wife

Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
I've lived all over the world
I've left every place

Please be mine
Share my life
Stay with me
Be my wife

Sometimes you get so lonely

now, if i am to live up to the bar set by the reputation of my middle-namesake, i must confess that loneliness did have some part to play in my proposal. in fact, were i to attempt to live up to my own boasts of cleverness and honesty, i might say that deep down, all marriage proposals stem from loneliness in one way or another.

lonley and i go way back. we're pals. we're comfortable with one another. we get along just fine. but the lonely played only a part in my decision, which i think about constantly, though sometimes more often than others, for example, when i'm in the county where i proposed, scouting out wedding locations and listening to bowie sing "be my wife". such circumstances might be conducive to thinking about my own marriage. they might, indeed.

but loneliness isn't why i asked. i asked because i didn't want to have a fortress of solitude any more.

wait, that sounds like loneliness. it's not. i asked because i didn't need a fortress of solitude any more. i can be with her instead of running away to brood. i really can.

forever.

i had a number of "missions" for my trip. i completed two out of three, and the second one i completed in an unexpected but satisfying manner. the first was the well-known mission, namely, to scout out a wedding location and gather statistics to forewarn the guests as to the difficulty of the ceremonial walk. the second two were not advertised, though together they comprise a (lame) birthday gift. i'm halfway done. the first half is entirely unguessable, but the second half is eminently guessable.

i can keep a secret, i just need to occasionally relieve the pressure by hinting. hint!

my spiritual vanity bracelet has been anointed by the pacific, consecrated on no less a holy site than my very own fortress of solitude. that means, simply, that it will not be remade. i removed it and felt still its presence.

that last sentence is really very important. metaphorical, even. wow!

I woke up in a tent this morning and then went to commune with god. i communed with him in my horrible scottish accent, which sometimes gets so confused that it begins speaking in an irish accent. he didn't have much to say in reply, as usual. maybe he doesn't speak scottish.

I woke up in a tent this morning after having failed to find my assigned campsite last night. that's okay because, as i said to the one i will marry, even a crappy night in a tent is a pretty good night. even if the tent isn't as nice as hers, although it is freestanding, which itself is very nice, because it can be put up extraordinarily quickly, especially if it's got clips instead of sleeves, as mine has because it's awesome. to the max!

I woke up in a tent this morning because i like camping and i'd been reminded of that by the one that i will marry. that was nice of her. she's a nice person. that's why i will marry her.

dear lord, i'm channeling kurt vonnegut!

kind of. he's not actually quite dead yet, i suppose, so i guess i can't channel him. well, i tried. anyhow, where was i? oh yes. i was leaving. bye now.

"I am my own religion," I said.

"Oh shit," said Victor. "This is going to be all philosophical and talky and shit, isn't it?"

"Yeah, maybe," I said. "So what?"

"I thought this stuff was supposed to be all fiction, you know? Action-oriented. Imaginitive. Fuggin interesting, man. Nobody wants to hear your armchair philosophocations. Bring on the weird drama!"

"I don't remember ever stating a goal for this stuff, other than to have something to write about. Sometimes it's lighthearted and sometimes it's heavy. And sometimes, you've gotta take the bad with the good, you know?"

"Like hell," said Victor, beginning to rise from his seat. "I'm outta here." Victor's departure was cut short by the safety belt fastened across his lap. He looked to his right and saw another row of passengers, strapped into their seats in the cabin of an airplane. Victor looked at me as I grinned.

"You bastard!" he said. But Victor doesn't give in so easily. He reached for the in-flight headphones and plugged them in. He fiddled with the armrest controls and changed the channel. He changed the channel again. And again. And again. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger. He took off the headphones and repeated himsef. "You bastard!"

"Moi?" I asked, raising my eyebrows in faux-innocence.

"It's fuckin' Vanilla Ice on every channel!"

"Fancy that," I said. "So you've got nothing else to do but listen to what I've got to say, hm?"

"I don't have to like it," said Victor.

"You never do. So, where was I?"

"I dunno, I wasn't listening."

"Fortunately, I was. I was saying that I am my own religion," I said. "Do you know what it is that defines a religion, or, for that matter, any sort of culture?"

Victor paused to think for a moment. As much as he loves to bitch and moan about listening to my armchair (or airline-seat, as the case may be) philosophizing, when we get right down to it, he's a good thinker and enjoys the departure from the ordinary. I looked out the window while Victor continued to come up with an answer. Far below us were endless stretches of brown, featureless desert. A long, straight road bisected the desert, leading from nowhere to nowhere. We seemed to be following the course of the road. Our shadow ran along it and darkened the lanes. There were no cars to observe our passage. I wondered where our flight would take us.

Cute, I thought to myself. Our discussion will ape our travel in this very airplane, tracing a mostly deserted road through barren desert, starting nowhere in particular and ending nowhere in particular. And when it's over, we'll just return to where we started, probably none the wiser.

Victor decided he'd had enough time to ponder the question. "Symbols define a religion," he said. "Symbols define what is in the religion and define what is in opposition to it. The adherants of a religion all know the same symbols, so they can communicate with one another."

"Not bad," I said. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

"Great," said Victor. "So we're done."

"No, because here's the thing," I said. "Those symbols are, well... symbolic. They don't mean anything by themselves. They're pointers." I thought about this for a moment. What points? A finger.

" Do you know the koan of Gutei and the finger?" I asked.

"No," said Victor.

I cleared my throat and recited the koan. "Whenever anyone asked him about Zen, the great master Gutei would quietly raise one finger into the air. A boy in the village began to imitate this behavior. Whenever he heard people talking about Gutei's teachings, he would interrupt the discussion and raise his finger. Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. When he saw him in the street, he seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and began to run off, but Gutei called out to him. When the boy turned to look, Gutei raised his finger into the air. At that moment the boy became enlightened."

"What the fuck!" said Victor.

"Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard the story. I didn't understand it until I had a little more life under my belt, and even then, I think I only understood it by hearing a hint. Anyhow, the point is this. Gutei's finger is not important, it isn't the message. Gutei's finger is a symbol. It points to enlightenment. When the boy stopped being distracted by the pointer -- when he stopped mindlessly imitating Gutei's pointer -- he was able to see beyond the finger, and he was enlightened."

"Uh huh," said Victor. "So we should all cut off our fingers and be enlightened, right?"

"No, not at all. The story of Gutei and his finger is a finger -- a pointer. It's a symbol and it's pointing in the direction of enlightenment. It's Zen but it's not special. All religions have symbols and they're all pointing somewhere, if you can figure out how to understand them and see where they're pointing."

"Some religions are big," said Victor. "The Catholics, for instance. They've been around a while. They've got a lot of symbols."

"Even the new ones have a lot of symbols," I said. "That's the way it is. And the real fun part is that lots of the symbols don't point anywhere at all."

"That's why I don't bother with religion," said Victor. "It's a mess of made-up bullcrap and conflicting messages."

"That's too bad," I said. "You're painting all religions with the same brush. There's more to religious symbolism than pointers and signposts. Religious symbols provide a framework, too, for categorizing and comprehending experiences. This is especially true in the western magical tradition, which isn't really a religion so much as a really big and complicated set of symbols pointing... well, somewhere. The idea is that once you've built up a sufficient lattice of symbols, the structure itself becomes an even grander symbol, pointing the way to enlightenment, union with god, conversations with supernatural beings, and what have you."

"That's fantastic," said Victor. "Maybe we'll get back to that stuff about the bogeyman later, but I see what you mean about religious symbols being used for comprehending life."

"Yeah?" I said.

"Yeah, like when people attribute to gods events which they cannot otherwise understand. Wars, hurricanes, famines, football victories, and so on."

"Hm," I said. "That's sort of what I'm getting at. Not exactly, though. Human beings like to find meaning in their lives, right? Well, one way of finding meaning is to equate experiences with religious symbols. Since religious symbols supposedly point the way to god, people can then relate just about any experience to the god of their choice."

"Remember after September eleventh that photo of the smoking WTC that supposedly looked like Jesus?" asked Victor. "Or that photo of the two girders that melted or snapped or fell or whatever and ended up in the form of a cross?"

"Exactly," I said. "People searched through the rubble -- literally -- looking for symbols that they could use to fit the disaster into their framework. Things get a little muddled, though, because symbols require interpretation."

"Right," said Victor. "What does the cross in the rubble mean? Christ sanctioned the fall of the WTC? Christ is against it? A cross by itself is ambiguous."

"Well, yes and no. It's not so ambiguous in itself. The Cross represents Christ, and Christ is one of the good guys, always. Even if you're a Muslim or a Jew, Christ himself isn't really a bad guy. His followers, sure. But not the man himself. Anyway, it's the context that's ambigious. What's an unambiguous symbol of Good doing at the bottom of a rubble heap where thousands of innocents died? Is it an apology? A 'whoops, my bad!' from god himself? In the original testament, after the Flood receded, god threw out a rainbow as a promise -- a symbol -- that he wouldn't wipe out humanity again, since he felt badly after having done it. That was very similar: a symbol of good at the end of a mass-murder."

"The differece," said Victor, "is that we had Moses to interpret that rainbow for us, and we have nobody so trustworthy to interpret the cross at the WTC."

"Yeah," I said.

"Yeah."

"So..." I said. "Still sorry we started this conversation?"

"Yes," said Victor. "When are we landing?"

"Landing?" I said. "I still don't even know where we're heading."

"Great."

"Indeed. So, where were we? Ah yes. Not all symbols point directly to enlightenment," I said. "Some just point at other symbols. A daisy-chain of symbols leading from nowhere important to somewhere very important."

"You could even say that about the cross at the WTC," said Victor. "The cross points at Christ who, in turn, points at the Father. Depending on who you ask, Christ is important only because he's a symbol of the greater God."

"Or something like that," I said.

"So how are you your own religion?" asked Victor.

"Not yet, we're not ready," I said. "First, let's think some more about frameworks. People are really hung up on assigning meaning to events in their lives."

"Yeah, of course," said Victor, "because otherwise the world would be a totally random, chaotic, impenetrable, terrifying place. If things just happened randomly there's no chance of anyone being in control."

"Right," I said. "So events themselves become symbols, pointing to some higher order organizing force, whether it's a god or fate or luck or whatever. I'd say that over a lifetime, people tend to build up a framework of symbols. No, maybe a net is a better analogy. When the net has incorporated enough symbols that it's got a heavy mesh, then when a passing event intersects a person's life, it gets caught in the net of symbols and is interpreted as having meaning."

"The more symbols you've got woven into the net, then, the more likely it is to be dense enough to catch a given event."

"Right," I said. "Do you have a lucky number?"

"No," said Victor, "I don't believe in that sort of thing."

"Me neither," I said. "My lucky number is 817. It's been my lucky number for so long that I don't even remember why it's my lucky number."

"Fascinating," said Victor.

"Yes," I said, "it is. I use it for the lottery, for passwords, for lock combinations. Anything that requires a number. Do you remember how I met Margie?"

"The uh... off road, right?"

"Yeah. Do you know what her license plate number was on the jeep at that time?"

"817," said Victor.

"Close. N8174U."

"So her plates got caught in your symbol net, huh? The number means something," said Victor. "But what?"

"Ah, that's where it really gets interesting. Symbols, generally, don't have any intrinsic meaning."

"Like a cross."

"Right. A cross itself is just two lines. You've got to know the history of a particular cross from two thousand years ago for any given set of intersecting lines to be meaningful."

"Right. Now, what happens with a symbol like the number 817? Or any symbol, even the cross, for that matter? Where do they get their meaning?"

"Well," said Victor, "consensus, I guess. Enough people start interpreting a symbol in the same way, and it comes to have an accepted meaning. Enough people associate a cross with Jesus or a swastika with the Nazis, and those become the 'standard' meanings for those symbols."

"Exactly. Once enough people start agreeing on the meanings of a set of symbols, and creating symbol meshes out of those symbols, and interpreting life in terms of those symbols, you've more or less got yourself a religion, complete with religious iconography."

"817 hasn't got a 'standard' meaning because only you attach importance to it," said Victor.

I looked out the window again. We were lower now. The lonely stright two-lane highway had turned into a lonely straight four-lane highway. In fact, it wasn't so lonely any more. There were cars traveling in both directions. Odd, since the volume of traffic heading opposite to us would indicate that I should have seen more cars the last time I checked. I wondered where they all were going, and whether they'd exit before the road became narrow.

"And now you see what I mean when I say that I am my own religion," I said.

"You mean that instead of adopting any of the widely-available ready-made symbol nets, you create your own, replete with random superstition and illogical associations."

"Precisely," I said. "I don't like to let other people do the work, so I place no reliance on Virgin or Pigeon."

"Cute," said Victor. "I recognize it."

"Thanks," I said. "Anyhow, as you said, I create my own symbols, or weave existing symbols into my mesh. And since I'm also in charge of the interpretation, they mean whatever they want, whenever I want."

"How flexible," said Victor.

"Quite," I said. "That's the point. In my own personal search for meaning in life, I'm not bound by any pre-existing symbol systems."

"So nothing has any meaning for you, at least not for very long."

"On the contrary," I said. "Once I've taken meaning from a thing often enough, it comes in itself to have enormous meaning. Even if I started investing meaning into the thing only as a joke."

"Like your so-called magic underpants, for example," said Victor.

"For example, yes."

"You've worn them so much that they've taken on a whole new meaning."

"Something like that. Do you know that I have three holy sites?"

"Is one of them Jerusalem?"

"No."

"Thank god," said Victor.

"One of them is Mecca, though," I said.

"Good luck visiting," said Victor.

"It's never a problem," I said. "Fortunately, my Mecca is in California."

"Fortunately," said Victor.

"But you see," I said, "I've invested so much... well, for lack of a better term, 'spiritual energy' into these three places that they're as holy for me as Jerusalem is to a Jew, or at least, they're as holy to me as a place can be, given my beliefs."

"Or lack of beliefs."

"Right. These places, as holy sites, would be appropriate for a burial, or a naming, or a wedding, or an invocation of god, or any sort of business you'd conduct at a holy site."

"As opposed to a church."

"Which would be inappropriate," I said, "because?"

"Because a church is not part of your symbol system."

"You've got it."

"I wish I hadn't."

"Well you have, and you can't get rid of it."

"Well," said Victor, "I'd love to hear more, really, I would. But this is my stop."

He pulled the cable, and as the cable car came to a stop, he got off and walked up the hill. I waved to him from the window. He saw me waving and stood still. He raised his arm and pointed his finger into the air. I smiled all the rest of the way home through the desert.

last friday i made a spiritual vanity bracelet. it has a number of shortcomings:

1 - it's too big. i need to use different spacers so it will not keep falling off. also, i should have stretched the internal thread a bit before tying it off.
2 - some of the wrapping on the tail is coming undone. i attribute this to the fact that i've never done one of these before and had no guidance in the matter besides my own spiritual vanity.
3 - now that i've had time to consider the symbolism of the thing, i think i'd prefer some different colors for different parts. the visible parts all have appropriate colors/symbolism, but the internal thread (which is visible because it stretched) should probably be changed.

i might actually buy some more thread (the cheap component of the thingy), some new spacers (or remove a couple of them, i think i could get away with just that) and remake the thing.

saw a pair of pants in the pants pile. "self," i said to myself, "those look like a nice pair of pants constructed from an agreeable fabric. why do we not wear them today, self?"

"self," i replied, "that's a great idea. i, too, am pleased by the apparent texture of the fabric and would be happy to have those pants rubbing against my naughty bits throughout the day. shall we not pick them up and put them on?"

"we shall," i agreed. so i picked them up, and, much to my dismay, discovered that although the fabric is indeed as nice as i had perceived, they would not fit me on account of i am not a 5 foot tall woman.

nuts!

new link on the blog: wedding plans. up there in the banner. updated today.

i am becoming more like my beloved 203.

i came close to reserving a room at the holy econolodge for this weekend's trip to the fortress of solitude.

instead i booked a campsite. i haven't car camped alone in forever, that is to say, since my hikamping adventure began some time ago.

but this trip isn't all fun and games, it's a fact finding mission, too, gathering intelligence for the wedding. i've got to scope out the area as i've never scoped it out before; looking for bathrooms and easy-access trails and measuring elevation change and things like that which probably won't even be useful. still, has to be done, and what a place to do it, eh?

normally i'd treat myself to a fancy dinner when visiting, but this time i reckon i'll have camp food for dinner, or, worse, subway. yum!

but of course, this all ties in with what i said initially.

not to mention tying in with another flash of bathtub insight: lately, just as i get around to settling into my routine, my routine changes. oh well, such will be my life.

once again, i am diminished.

but i have tasks. reminders are everywhere. i am energized, vitalized, and ready to get stuff done. and i haven't even had my espresso today.

what will make 4 months seem like a day?

i will.

the beans needed 1 more day of maturation and a little more twiddling of rocky. now i've got him dialed in, and silvia's adjusted to a good temp, and i'm getting a cup full of spicy pepper.

i'd prefer a cup full of chocolate but at least it's not a cup full of water. and, as i recall, this blend yields more pepper than choco anyhow. if i get back into espresso i'll be getting a new blend.

that's if.

espresso is my gift, my curse. it's clearly my muse. i write and write and never sleep. i couldn't sleep last night. sure, that's mostly because today love comes to town, but there was some component of espresso influence there, i'm sure of it. espresso speeds me the fuck up and makes me write like mad. after a couple shots, i am the great cornholio.

but it's my bane as well. i nearly killed myself in the gym today because i was going too fast and not thinking. i hadn't had my espresso yet but i still blame it. and then i iriitated the heck outta my skin shaving, also prior to the espresso, but still i blame it. its influence spans days.

when i'm drinking the stuff regularly i become obsessed with the equipment. i could get a better grinder, but i know that there's not much improvement to be had over PID silvia, at least not for a reasonable price. still, i lust after $3000 worth of kit to make a single 2oz drink once daily. insanity.

and yet... there's something about the pursuit of 2oz of perfection that makes it worth all the insanity.

insanity and i are close pals.