December 2004 Archives
I wish I could say something of comfort or importance - but everything seems so dismally thrown since 12/26. There is a word that has been popping up when people attempt to explain how they are feeling or rather what they aren't able to feel. I have seen it on several other blogs I've been reading and used it myself in passing conversation the past few days. The word, it seems, is employable only in extraordinary circumstances. fathom. It is such a beautiful word, marvelous and wondrous in its sound. Like a mantra, fathom. Biting your lower lip, opening up your windpipe, licking the tips of your top front teeth and pulling your lips in again as the last bit warms like a fire in the belly. There are technical terms to signify these sounds; but to feel it yourself, as the word dances about in your body and consciousness, is much more intimate.
Fathom
Searching around in the outer limits of the internet it is somewhat disheartening to continually run up against a lack of solid etymological references. The Oxford English Dictionary is subscription based. There is the online etymology dictionary, but I find their entry disappointing. More intriguing is the description for the creative writing seminar: autobiographical impulses at the Art Institute of Chicago. There the implications of the origins and history of the word are noted when it is written:
...what we know we are able to embrace -- we can close our arms around the object of our attention, our affection. The "fathomless" is that which we cannot hold -- literally.
It isn't a surprise to find such a rich description here. My love affair with the word began in an American Lit class where the headline of the syllabus provided the course number, time and other standard information -- but was bedecked beneath by a title: Fathom's Down. We were to sound into the depths of these books, taking measure, plunging into them and emerging baptised in their lessons and ideas. In that particular class our professor would often spend a portion of the lecture time reading -- and when she took to Melville's Billy in the Darbies (from Billy Budd my monomaniacal obsession) and read that line, "Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep." I'd swear I'd heard not a sweeter, more serene sound. A siren, she.
Fathom.
So here I am. Rambling on. I wanted to say something in a world where so many have gone silent. It has sickened me to see some of the headlines. Not the numbers. Those have me stunned. It is the stories that tell of trapped fashion models, or try to relate to 9/11. It is the blatant racism that is ringing out in certain comment areas on other websites. It is a disregard for the situation. The numbers dwarf the personal angles in coverage. This is colossal. This far outweighs anything many of us have ever or will ever see.
Unfathomable
Tonight I will ring in the new year with friends. I will be merry. I will raise a glass at some point. I will wish for the best with the rest. I will think about many things. I will feel alternatively fortunate and guilty -- likely one after the other. But I will never be able to fathom what has happened and will continue to happen over the next few weeks on the other side of the globe.
Be safe tonight.
(you can watch my brother make his floor if you wants)
We'd hoped to mosey on outta here by 9:00am, but the snow has yet to let up. By the looks of the doppler - the tail is passing over us now -- and then it'll be out into the chaos with us.
It's still pretty flaky out there right now.
I hope all the flakes are off the roads...
Looking out the back window into the mess -- three doe and a hawkish beast have already emerged as brown streaks across the white range...
.wav files will play in your stereo, car stereo,, anywhere a cd can be played. The only reason they were being passed over for mp3s was to save file space (I knew about compression, but didn't really understand "lossless" what with flac ogg vorbis and what not -- google still hasn't managed to explain the alternatives. Wouldn't it be great if google incorporated a little bit of the wikipedia mentality into its searches. Similar pages and beyond?. I found this out after spending a buncha time downloading shorten files only to convert them to mp3's...
the meaning of zeitgeist. or the pronunciation. The first time I saw it was on Flickr.
boxing party.
kerning. [via bluishORANGE]
The "Internets" teach me so much -- and yet make me feel so stupid.
Those weather channel people are having a blast. Those fluid movements of the arm, up and across certain regions of the United States are movements usually reserved for performances of Swan's Lake, or the Nutcracker -- as may apply.
Hypothetically, now that I've finished with the classes, the finals are all handed in and there is nothing required waiting to be done, I should be relaxing.
In the starkest of realities, finding myself free to let my brain roam about other valleys, I see that the surrounding mountains are very steep and it will take a lot of effort to get my thoughts into higher places. The facade of industrious behavior has melted and I'm sloshing around in its slushy remnants. I have way too much time to think about where I am and what I am doing here and is it really possible for me to get where I want to go and so on. I look to the skies, into the swirling powders, clutching at my head in an effort to deny the call of the Costanza that whips within the winter winds.
By the time I got through with the first 170 questions on my final final, my brain was done. I didn't complete the final 3 questions concerning SQL queries. I only managed to nail the first before I realized that in order for me to pen the query, I'd have to understand what it is exactly that the exam wants me to find out. There was a lot of muddy language about invoices and line items coupled with abbreviated headers like l_item and p_price and my business language wasn't up to par at that moment. I don't know how much success I had with the first part of the exam either. I'm very much disappointed with myself -- which just digs the valley deeper. I know the material -- but I succumbed to testing anxieties.
The holiday season isn't helping. The commercial aspect of it makes me feel inept. I'm working on gifts -- it's supposed to be the thought that counts -- but it looks like most of you who will be receiving anything -- cards or whatnot will be receiving them late. Like...real late. Like...if ever late.
The joyous feeling I'm describing here is further amplified by the knowledge that after tinkering with the .htaccess -- it appears that most of the 700+ visitors we'd been seeing daily were actually robots bent on marketing male enhancement products and other bits -- so much so that earlier today -- when the count was at about 530 passers-by or so -- less than half were unique -- and over 365 of those robots were leaving behind 403 errors. (A 403 means they're forbidden by me to see anything here -- though they aren't here for the sights. They are here only to leave their slime like the trail of the snail -- which glistens in cyberspace in the form of a hyperlink to their respective vendors in my referral stats -- which I haven't figured out how to stop.)
Yes -- these robots act as if they would like to speak. They feast upon the cgi files - drawing that bandwidth brink ever closer -- encouraging the illusion of readership in the false forms of ghost visitors. It is all too exhausting. It is almost enough to step away.
Where will those steps lead? I already fear the toils of reaching the lofty peaks but even finding a rock in which to press my weight upon so that I have some support in my stretch and gra is somewhat dizzying. Should I retreat into the past for a few days of diversion? I wonder whether or not doing so would just illuminate further the Costanza I've become? I wonder constantly whether any of this matters at all -- and how I can possibly erase my name from the "internets" before it comes back to haunt me. Doubtless, it already has. And the fear has set in.
Somewhere out there, my 7th grade teacher has her evidence. She loves the fact that she was right, that I now must realize that you are all laughing at me, not with me. (I'm reminded here of that line in Happiness, where Joy states: "But I'm not laughing." Although that was reversed -- where they were laughing with her and...oh...never mind. It was just a moment of levity until I realized that Joy is simply the feminine Costanza.)
That's that. I just needed to let some of that noxious gas that's been poisoning my being loose -- into the void. I thought it might do something for me. Blog therapy isn't what it used to be. There used to be a wonder to it. Escapism. Now it seems I have nothing to return to.
It's funny, after writing something like this -- then looking about for a while and coming across something similar -- but not quite the same...Tom: on breaks, endings, process, divisions and great grand narratives....
I really wanna see Gremlins right now.
Ok. Nuff face time.
CNN screengrab originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro
To put into context:See me
As Mark (oh, excuse me) Willi has been churning out Dangler hit after Dangler hit I thought it might be proper to let you know that I am still working on mastering the Barty / Daft Wangler / Cunning Finagler archives in between other projects in the hope that I can piece together a...errrr...box set for the holidays...
As proof -- I offer a short snip of what I came across tonight...
Behold the mighty rock power of --- ummm...I really wish we had agreed on one band name --- rockscream.mp3 [right click, save target as]
Feel free to convert that to a .wav file and use it as your startup sound...
What's wrong with me?
-chick patty
-salami
-spicy banana pepper rings
-hot bbq sauce
-onion roll
-cheetos
-sprite
I can almost here you retching...I don't blame you - I was feeling adventuresome -- too bad I couldn't find any marinated olives. It kind of makes running in circles obsolete, doesn't it?
What have I been doing?
A lot of .htaccess work to get rid of bogus iama-spam-site.com refers.
What am I being neurotic about today?
Actually - I freak on this many days of the week. I leave a comment on somebody's site late at night -- when the brain has stopped functioning -- (in the olden days soaked in alcohol, now just suffering from fatigue) -- only to wake the next morning and realize how off I was in my ruminations. Something about approaching the witching hour that leads me to spread my synapses across the internets. Then I spend the day squeezing my palms together, actually fretting about something I wrote to someone I don't even know and will most likely never meet.
It's not like I'm writing bad things, or snotty things, or insulty type dealy-o's -- it's just that more often than not -- like hearing your own voice recorded -- you find yourself recoiling after reading something you wrote when you weren't fully awares.
For instance -- just moments after posting this -- I'm slightly concerned about the impression I'm giving when I describe my makeshift experimental sandwich. Please don't hate me.
What's my Techie question of the day?
When I 403 somebody -- am I succeeding at blocking them from getting at my refer logs? (Probably something I can figure out when I check 'em tomorrow.)
Looks like they still show up in the access logs - but if you ipwhack 'em you can keep 'em out of the referer logs. Pretty geeky, eh?
What am I about to do for the rest of the day?
Hit the books. Studying for the finals next week in my CIS classes. I'm taking two A's into the homestretch - and don't wanna slack it.
What am I thinking about as I'm writing this?
Why do I even think anyone would find this remotely interesting?
Finished reading this a few days ago but either haven't had the time or have been too lazy to take it off the bookshelf in the sidebar. In either case -- there are some books on that virtual shelf that are gathering actual dust. This is a rendering of an early interpretation - nothing is set in stone. As the story's imprint settles and begins to absorb future texts - the mould will surely change. To be brief:
Catch-22, at least in its early chapters, is a reiterative exercise. Early conversations involve characters speaking lines only to have those same lines repeated by one or more of the other participants in the conversation. This tactic, in my reading, created an insurmountable distance between characters gathered in close proximity. We are impenetrable. Or as is wont around here: "You don't know me."
Finding the same utterances at the bottom of the page as found at its beginning made a case for scanning instead of reading -- but I drilled my eyes across even the most tedious of passages. Perhaps in the context of this being a war story of sorts, this was intended as an illustration of how, as human beings, we are unable to completely understand each other - even though we generally share similar ultimate desires. We are saying the same thing - each in our own way - and we are trying desperately to get people to listen.
That's one take on it.
This drilling down into mimicked conversations, with its horrific monotony, served only to make the detailed passages that much more exhilirating. I didn't jot much down in the black book as far as quotes are concerned. The attachments I formed with the text surfaced themselves as great gobs - entire passages or chapters - rather than a line here or a line there. Yet the one note I did make serves almost as a summary for the story:
The clinging, overpowering conviction of death spread steadily with the continuing rainfall, soaking mordantly into each man's ailing countenance like the corrosive blot of some crawling disease.
The story seems generally concerned with forcing humanity into an acceptance of their own mortality - which even when realized we still shrink away from.
Would I recommend it? Sure. You should probably read this before you die. And you will die. Don't try to run away from that. Try to realize it. It makes weird things happen in your brain.
I read this book because Vonnegut loves to mention it in many of his interviews.
I read this book because you are supposed to read this book.
I read this book because I felt, upon thumbing its spine on the library shelf, that if I didn't get it inside of me there would arise somewhere in this world a situation I wouldn't be prepared for.
I read this book because I could.
I read this book because it is relevant.
I read this book because I wanted to.
If you're so inclined -- there is a closer reading of the text that I intend to peruse when I have the opportunity over at "In a Dark Time...The eye begins to see,". It's a site that's been around for a while -- but only recently surfaced in my reality because of this book - and my google search for nurse sue ann duckett.
The New Year will probably bring with it a seperate page for these little excursions...though my seestores advice: "Read what you want now because once you start school..." makes it sound as if there won't be any need for it.
Paid a visit to the entrepreneurial geek's lair today: the Build Your Own Computer store down the street. My lappy came back from the Best Buy Geek Squad service I'd had done a few months back missing 3 screws. The touchpad is now virtually inoperable unless the laptop is in my lap -- or the lower left corner is held firmly between my thumb and forefinger.
While cruising the aisles in search of the proper size screws and some rubber feet for the bottom of the lappy -- I overheard one of the geeks working tell a customer, "Yeah, just go to Mozilla.org and download the Firefox browser. That should help a lot. I've been using it for three years now and it works like a charm." My ears perked up and I walked to the end of the aisle to cast a glance. Yup. Geek.
After returning to my browsing, he continued in his pitch:
"So what kind of ISP do you have?" And after explaining what ISP meant and looking over the befuddled customer - he went on to ask/demand, "You're not using AOL, are you?"
Yeah. It was awesome.
(I'm still without my supplies -- the geek guy later came over to tell me that I'd do better at the hardware store and Radio Shack. And it should here be stated that I embrace my inner geek -- and celebrate the geek in others. Do not denigrate the geekdom - something I fear the Best Buy/Geek Squad Union has a talent for.)
Thought I'd take a picture of the family tree and throw it up here since I've had a few distant cousins drop me lines occassionally asking if we're related. Be sure to check on all sizes and blow the other pictures up -- this one is kinda outta focus so I took some smaller shots of the areas -- as noted when you see it on the Flickr site. So if you're reading this on the blog -- and you're curious -- give the pic a click (or just click here) and satisfy that curiousity. If any family members wanna send me some updates or what not -- feel free. This tree has outgrown its paper borders -- and there are events missing on here, like my my Aunt Jeanie's recent passing and my Seestore's wedding that haven't been included yet...It might soon be time to spend an afternoon expanding these borders...
Who's overreacting now Sony?
Some people say that runner's high is extremely addictive. There's always been so much talk about the euphoria and the sensation and the this or that or meesh meesh meesh of runner's high.
This afternoon when I stepped into the shower following my run I realized that I might have a problem.
I realized that I might have a problem when I glanced up into the steamy water lines streaming from the showerhead and began to see droplets emerging in front of my eyes.
A second realization followed -- and several small puddles soon formed on the bathroom floor as I stepped out of the tub and removed my glasses.
Wasted.
