Question Du Jour

Inspired by donnelly66′s question of the day, I ask:


Who do you most regret having met? Ex-lovers, ex-spouses, ex-anythings are out of bounds. No romance. Purely social.

Fold Different

I’m a serious MacGeek. Or rather, I’m seriously geekish about Macs.

Anyway, I ran across a referfence to a bunch of paper-craft Macs you can make. The page is in Japanese, but the links are in English.

The 550c is cute (there’s a 540c sitting next to my new iBook), but I have to wonder: What’s the challenge of making a IIci out of paper?

Vivre La Difference!

Tired of being young. Want to be an old fart who can say shit and people say, ‘eh, he’s just an old fart.’

I once wrote a story that’s long since lost, about an old woman watching young men court the woman who lives in the house across the street. I never really understood why I put it in that perspective; the story’s about one of the suitors and how he differs from the others. But now I think I have a clue. It’s because the elderly get to exist outside of ‘normal’ society. At least in our culture. They’re allowed to observe, and report their findings back to everyone else, which is why we lock them up in old folks’ homes. We expect older folks to offer sage advice, whether we intend to listen to it or not. That’s part of their role.

I was about to say that I’ve always felt older than people around me, but that’s not true. I used to feel older than people around me, now I’m just overtly smug. And having made it past 30, I’m happy to be part of the group the young people can’t trust.

For some reason the movie ‘Logan’s Run’ resonated with me. Never mind that it’s post-apocalyptic science fiction, and therefore On Homer’s Radar, but that it’s basically set in a giant shopping mall of a world. You get killed when you turn 30, due not only to overpopulation, but also because old people ruin the aesthetic. They’re a buzzkill. Not only do old people remind you of your mortality, they also remind you of everything valuable you’ve thrown away in order to live in opulence. You’ve sold your future for a present that isn’t really all that satisfying.

I’m thinking about this because I just saw a really good episode of a very strange TV show called ‘Waiting For God.’ It’s a show about a pair of really old folks in an old folks’ home. It was made by the BBC, but even so, can you imagine how hard it must have been to pitch? “Yeah, so it’s these two bickering old people, he’s an optimist, and she’s a pessimist, and they bicker and cajole each other. And they live in an old folks’ home.”

Anyway, this episode ended with the pessimist woman getting back into the swing of being a pain in the ass by saying, “We’ll show you for not putting in curb cuts!” Which made me laugh because, well, anyway. It did. See, my mom has, over the past few years, been changing from someone who doesn’t need a wheelchair into someone who does. And while going through that change, she’s noticed the attitude with which society treats the disabled, be they elderly or not. And since she’s a writer, she writes about it. And since she’s a loudmouth, she complains about it. I say, “Mom, congratulations! You’re an activist!” and she says, “Oh, no, I’m not an activist…” as if I had just called her a Nazi or something.

‘The disabled’ get it even worse than the elderly. As much as people don’t seem to want to be reminded that they’ll be old, too, one day, they’re twice as disinclined to want to be reminded that they might be old and in a wheelchair. Or worse, young and in a wheelchair. But being in touch with my mom while she’s going through this has given me a new perspective on it: The degree to which you tune out what’s merely different about people for fear of its unpleasantness is the degree to which you, yourself, are disabled by your preconceptions.

Which is to say: It’s not so bad to be young and in a wheelchair. And it’s not so bad to be around young people in wheelchairs, or old people in wheelchairs, or old people without wheelchairs. In fact, it’s not so bad to be around anyone at all.

Burke-Gilman

OK, so the rain did finally go away. Yesterday and today present cloudless skies.

So what I did yesterday was ride the Buke-Gilman Multiple-Use Trail from it’s western end in Ballard to it’s eastern end in Lake City Park, where it becomes the Sammamish River Trail.

The trail used to be a railway, and with its gentle slopes and meandering curves, it’s the perfect conversion to a bike/hike/skate trail.

Traveling along the trail, particularly between the Sand Point area and Lake City Park, it’s easy to believe that there’s no traffic problem in Seattle, and that everyone here lives in lakefront property. Cool air from off the lake and shade from the trees, travel through the backyards of extremely quiet neighborhoods, and the occasional park or spot to sit and enjoy the view. It’s all very nice.

I Must Be Getting, Like, OLD Or Something

I was just sitting on the john, finishing someone else’s crossword puzzle, when I had a sort of insight into something which I thought was kind of interesting.

The crossword conundrum was this: What’s a four letter word for ‘English baby carriage’, with these letters: PMA_. So I looked at the M cross word, because obviously it was wrong. The clue: ‘Howard and Brown.’ Someone had put MOES. Now it just so happens that the O and the S worked with their cross words, but the correct answer was RONS.

But… How can someone not know ‘pram,’ especially given the P and the A?

And then I saw it: The logjam of words between us all. You don’t know the word ‘pram,’ so you assume it’s an acronym with an exceedingly clever clue. You know Moe Howard, but you don’t know Ron Howard. You know just enough to make your situation worse.

And then, riffing on this theme, I started off on how public figures often use words to disguise the truth instead of revealing it, giving you a half-completed crossword with just enough wrong answers to screw you up.

And then, from there, a new theme: Maturity. There are all kinds of ways to measure maturity, but ultimately, maturity is a judgement on your part about someone else. The baseline for measuring it is your own understanding of yourself and others. You don’t know Ron, but you know Moe, and that’s why it’s as safe to assume PMA_ as it is to assume that you know what’s best for other people. PMA_: the stand-in for your multiplied ignorance.

A multiplied ignorance that is inversely proportional to how much experience your neural system has had with the world. And there’s no more sure-fire way to elicit the sneers of the young than to tell them they’re ignorant.

So somehow I finally got to Rush Limbaugh, the archetype of how much value this society places on the multiplied web of ignorance. In Rush we have an example of all our failings, and because he displays those failings for all to see, he’s rewarded financially.

So perhaps the lesson here is: Your failings are a party thrown in honor of being human. Invite other people to your party, and they’ll love you.

And then I lit a candle for humanity, and also to mask the odors.

Come Again Some Other Day

Oh no. Two days of rain in a row.

That means it won’t stop until next March.

“Buck up, little camper… Youv’e survived Seattle fall and winter three times now!”

Yeah, but that which doesn’t kill me just toys with me like a cat with a mouse.

I saw a documentary tonight on PBS called Life And Debt. It tells the economic story of Jamaica in the age of globalism, the WTO, and the IMF.

Well worth seeing if you’re at all curious about how globalism affects ‘developing’ nations. It’s not just good information, but also a good movie.

And what the hell. Since I’m swiping stuff from ian-l, I’ll include this.

Remember, kids: Always capitalize Sex, even as you fight capitalism!

I’m sick of seeing my neurotic ramblings at the top of the list whenever I do the Xanga. So I’m adding this, which I think is horribly funny.

just_margie and voice were interested in what I had to say about autism, so I thought I’d write some more about it.

This site does a better job of explaining than I could. It shows a list of some of the syndromes and disorders that make it onto what is known as the autism spectrum. The list includes OCD, Asperger’s Syndrome, and catatonia.

Being officially undiagnosed, I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I might be taking all the bullshit I pull on myself and attributing it to a nonexistent syndrome. In that sense, autism is my scapegoat. So keep that in mind if you decide to read further.

There are two mes. At least two, but it’s easier to think in terms of smaller numbers. The autistic me doesn’t just crave the known and familiar, it fights tooth and nail to get it. Like a habit gone bad. A monster habit. This part of me only gets a sense of safety in a few places: when I’m alone, when I’m driving, when I’m falling asleep and dreaming, when I’ve given myself over to some kind of abstract thought (being philosophical, programming computers). ‘Safety’ in this context means ‘situation where stimulation is mediated.’ If I sit down to watch TV, for instance, I’m in for at least four or five hours of staring at the screen no matter what’s on. Why? Because it’s one thing, as opposed to many; a glowing screen that mediates an experience of a subset of life.

The other me craves the new. It desires exuberance and craziness. It’s like some extreme celebrant at the bacchanale of life. It has to be, in order for my life to take on any meaning other than sitting alone and watching TV for five hours. This is the part that got me to my first Crash Worship show, got me any job I’ve ever held, and attracts me to a slowly-widening circle of freakazoid acquaintances. It keeps showing me how, in many ways, society has a worse case of autism than I do.

The struggle between these two factors is what makes me me. An astrologer friend of mine explained once that all my planets are square all the other planets, and that’s a perfect metaphor for how my life happens; inner conflicts are decided by a kind of combat between these two parts. Needless to say, this consumes a lot of energy. In the moment of this conflict, I look to other people as though I’m being indecisive or unable to grasp the obvious, while in fact the two major motives inside me are engaged in a power struggle. We’re not talking angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. We’re talking the neurological version of an epic war movie with ten thousand extras killing each other on the battlefield. But to the world, I look a little slow on the uptake. Were I to present more obvious autistic traits, I’d look courageous and inspiring to the neurologically-typical, but instead I look like a loser.

I’m tired of making do with this situation. I live a relatively comfortable life thanks to support from my parents, but it’s frustrating to have people ask questions like, ‘What do you do?’ Well, I’m hyperliteral about small-talk, I obsess over things, I avoid people, I mourn my disability, and I yearn for a life I will never have. How about you?

Sorry to be a downer, but, well…