this thing is mine

There are a lot of artifacts of my youth that my dear Dad has stolen for his peculiar museum. Books, models, marbles… it doesn’t much seem to matter, he just collects everything he can get his hands on. It doesn’t matter if it was mine, either, he just picks up everything that has some element of history to him.

The watering can, I’m stealing. So sorry. It’s petty, I know, but it is a thing that I made with my own hands for my mother. It’s copper, and a bit battered by time, but it’s surprisingly well made, I think. And it wasn’t made for him, nor shall he have it.

It’s a small victory, and a foolish one, but it is mine. It is a thing to call my own. I’m taking it. Love you, Dad. Fuck off and die.

i have a mind again

You would not think that would go missing, but I think it had. I’m not sure what was running me for the last year or so, but it was a barely functioning simulacrum of a human being. I’ve been spending time with people. It hasn’t been terribly pleasant. But I feel rebooted, kick-started, alive again.

It’s a curious thing that we mostly already know what is right. And we avoid it, to the best of our abilities, because it’s unpleasant. We don’t want to exercise, to eat the right foods, to bathe, to deal with all the random crap that seems to be the basis of existence.

The problem is, it really is the basis of existence. Avoid it all, as I’ve done with some reasonable success, and you find out that you aren’t there any more. Or you don’t, because you aren’t there any more.

There was some twit who posited that the unexamined existence is not worth living. Ignore that. There is possibly some value in examining your existence. On the whole, though, your existence is its own thing, in its own right, and does not require examination. Just do it.

the bone museum

My folks have both been archivists, in their ways. They were or are obsessive collectors of things. Mom collected people and connections, mostly, with a side order of artifacts. Dad collects artifacts, with an extra helping of memories. He lives in a very fancy museum. Very neat. Not a place for children or pets.

twitches in advertising

Hulu has been running advertising in web versions of TV shows, in a probably confused attempt to employ antiquated revenue streams for new media.

This results in traditional horrors, such as the Intel series of commercials, which repeat and repeat the same old drones about how creative and innovative they are, and end in a nauseating group harmony where everyone is chanting to the corporate beat. Ant music, indeed. You can hear the larvae squirm.

More interestingly, it has also created a new Visa credit card commercial: this program sponsored by Visa, with no further commercial interruption. Lord knows why Visa would think anyone else would ever need to hear about it again in the first place but, for a commercial-free program, we bless you.

It all piles together

Today, praise the Lord, my father and his wife are out of town for the weekend. I’ve walked two miles for cigarettes and hard alcohol in celebration. And, lo, these are not acceptable flat, desert miles, in the comfortable 110F sun with minimal humidity. These are up and down hills, in humidity approaching 90%.

The Soviet Experience of the Community College

In order to make myself more generally marketable in my field, I am attempting to take some courses at my local community college. It is turning out to be somewhat of a surreal experience. They are noticeably less efficient than the local DMV, and it is often quite a guessing game as to what they have in mind.

To apply to this college, you must enter an application by computer. This application then must be printed out and taken to the college administrative office which, after making you wait indefinitely for a clerk, will ignore the mandatory print-out and go directly to the computer application. In the event that there is any error in the application, you must fill out a new one at the computer, and print it out, and get back in line.

The spring was gray and everlasting

Well, pardon me, but this is no Phoenix. It’s chilly and raining again. The region is thinking of Spring but, not with any great focus or enthusiasm.

The equally dismal economy is, for a wonder, actually affecting me for once. My career specialties are a bit obscure and, to some extent, dated. I’ll be taking classes to brush up a bit.

A significant portion of the available jobs requires SQL, a tedious and powerful (indeed, powerfully tedious) database management language, so that will be a useful emergency option to have at my disposal. Filthy business, though. Database programming smells of mildew and mothballs. It degrades the soul.

In the meantime, it’s all about eBay sales and small-time consulting contracts. It’s a living. Sort of. Barely.

Aging and shutting out time

My dear old Dad, who is approaching 70, told me a bit more about his mother recently. She was a very curious woman, to my tastes, and I don’t mind hearing more about her, although I don’t know that she’ll ever make much sense to me.

Seems she had a taste for music but, she really wasn’t about to deal with all those newfangled buttons you had to press on CD players and that sort of fancy tech. So, my Dad went out and around and about, and eventually bought her a simple stereo unit that had old-style knobs and quaint analog controls.

He’s not sure she ever actually used it. It was still just a bit too much tech…

The Beagle Has Landed

“Here we are, and here we are, and here we are again,” as Grandma used to put it. I’m not sure what she meant by it, exactly, but it’s hard to deny the truth of the message. And here I am.

Chilly and damp Virginia, not so far from Washington, D.C., is still struggling with the notion of Spring, and taking the “April showers” bit well to heart. Most days, it’s rather miserable out. I am just starting to become accustomed to the chill and humidity. The latter, at least, is more kind than Phoenix’ relentless dry dustiness; my skin and nose rather appreciate it.

Great absurd rafts of things need doing, preferably a year or so back, but– that being impossible, at this point, I am doing my best to learn to breathe underwater and underground. I’m sure it will all work out all right in the end. Probably.

“Mother is the necessity of invention.” That goes for Dad, too. I love the old boy but, I don’t want to live near him for a nanosecond longer than necessary.

There’s something wrong with me

…an old friend had certain physical problems, mostly manifesting as a back problem. He could prevent them by regular exercises, which he didn’t do. This never made sense to me.

But, I confess, I have certain mental problems, mostly manifesting as withdrawal from the world. I know certain techniques that would tend to resolve them. Somehow, I just can’t bring myself to bother.

Confusion, revolution, resolution. Somewhen, there will be an answer. When and what, now, that remains to become clear.