I won’t be travelling by train, it turns out. Mostly because I am, apparently, a naive poopyhead who thinks the world revolves around him.
See, for some reason, part of me wants to fail miserably at making this trip happen. I’m not sure why, either. I’m looking forward to so much of it, and the rest isn’t threatening at all. 
Whenever I travel there’s usually a resistance to getting underway, but it’s never been so large as it was this time. It lasted for a whole month. I’ve been ‘thinking about’ this trip since the end of October; part of me just plain couldn’t get on board with the idea, and making reservations tonight (yes tonight, the 18 of December, I finally made reservations), I can’t help but think of that part of me as still kicking and screaming.
In the past, I’ve been able to forgive myself this sort of thing. But this time I’m not allowing it. It’s not a mere accident; it’s a pattern. This isn’t the first time. It’s something I do to make myself miserable, and I’m tired of being miserable. I had every opportunity to make exactly the plans I wanted, travelling around the country on a train, getting drunk and writing short stories and REALbasic plugins, for not so much buckage. Now I’ll be stuck on a BUS for 18 hours, and later that day, a PLANE for three hours. All because I suck.
Don’t you feel sorry for whoever ends up sitting next to me?
So in honor of my latest travel plan fiasco, and in order to get some perspective, I’d like to ask:
What was the worst trouble you ever got into by procrastinating?
Answer by Wednesday, 3pm PST, though.
Month: December 2001
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Forgive me for totally geeking out about this, but a company call SkyCorp is launching a web server satellite into space this year. I found out about it from the Mac angle, because the server will be Mac OS X.
SkyCorp is already selling space on their web server in space. -
In case you were missing prestonmarkstone, I found him. He hasn’t had much to say since early November, though.
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Hover
He’s 15 or 16 that kid. No one knows what to do with him, least of all himself.
He left high school because the pressure was too great. He hates his parents because they represent his lack of independence. He’s too ashamed of himself to have close friends.
At night, he goes for long walks alone through the same suburbia he saw from the roof of the elementary school so long ago. He wanders anonymous through the schoolyards, down the well-lit quiet streets, across the highway, through the tiny patch of forest that hasn’t been developed yet.
There’s a park he likes to go to. It’s not much besides a big rectangular pseudo-meadow, its precise geometry determined by how many homes weren’t developed on the land. It’s ringed by the homes lucky enough to have been built. There’s a pair of soccer fields, a nonsensically winding paved footpath (the sort of design that looks good on an architect’s blueprint but has no place in reality), a playground area, nonsensically planted trees (to go along with the footpath), a tennis/basketball court. Every aspect of this park is designed with a purpose in mind; there is no wilderness here.
In the northwest corner of this park, there’s a break in a chain-link fence which allows a pedestrian access to the satellite parking lot behind a shopping mall. And his favorite thing to do when he goes out in the night for a walk is to wander around the empty parking garages of the mall.
The mall is the most unsuccessful mall in the history of the city in which he lives. No one goes there to shop, even at Christmas time. It’s inconvenient, impersonal, ugly. He thinks of this mall as his own. He watched it being built on the very ground of another mall he would explore in this very same way when he was younger. One must doubt the wisdom of whoever built the least-successful mall ever on the very ground where another unsuccessful mall once stood.
But he loves parking garages that are empty. They’re husks; places designed to store the shells of hermit crabs when they do their shopping. Purely utilitarian. There is no beauty in a parking garage. There’s cold cement, a coat of paint made to last, an arbitrary numbering system for lost patrons. Glaring lights, empty stairwells.
In later years, he will come to appreciate the poetry of the shopping mall and the parking garage, but for now, in their empty state they remind him of post-apocalyptic movies he’s seen. He imagines himself leading his people to the best parking garage after the bombs drop, where they can defend themselves against mutants and power-crazy militants. A strange violent conflict in a strangely silent world.
He never acts out any of these fantasies; they all happen in his head. He’s just walking quietly through a parking garage for no apparent reason. The security guards don’t care about him. He thinks that maybe they recognize him and give him room, but they probably aren’t even aware of his presence. He’s learned how to hover, how to avoid detection by standing more still than people typically do. He’s transparent by simply being nondescript. He’s a ninja of the obvious.
He climbs the empty stairwell. Steps echo. The tallest of the two garages is four stories. At the top, the metal door creaks, a satisfactory echo down the stairs. He’s careful to make sure the door doesn’t close all the way, or else he’ll have to walk down the ramps.
He’s on the roof of the garage. The mall to one side, the windy rumble sound of the freeway to the other. The trees are tiny, the houses, the streetlamps, the security guard’s car, the movie theater nearby, the highway. Small and manageable. He stays there for an hour, just looking.
He’s alone, because it’s better that way.
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I haven’t had much to say lately. I’m preparing for a trip to Texas, and I’m filled to the top with a sort of fruit smoothie of emotions.
On the one hand, I’m jazzed to see my family, their kids, my Houston friends, some Xangans. On the other hand, such jazz-ed-ness tends to transform into a certain kind of dread inside me; it’s my own self-sabotage removing the risk of disappointment by creating a preemptive disappointment.
So I’m trying to stay a little bit inebriated, mostly on junk food and chocolate.
I’ll be travelling by train. It turns out that Amtrak has a rail pass sort of thing that’s pretty cheap. The main restrictions are that you have to do all your travelling within 30 days, and visit Canada and ride on their VIA rail system. So in mid-Jan, I’ll be visiting Jasper, in the Canadian Rockies. Hopefully I’ll have bux to rent a car and drive to Banff for a day or two. -
I Believe In Peace
Is peace the space between atoms? Is it the eye of the hurricane? Is it the moment between songs?
Does peace live in our hearts and minds? Does peace walk next to us when we know the way? Does peace wait for us after our long journey?
Who makes the watch peace wears on its wrist? Does the river of peace come from a glacier or an underground spring? When peace shows up, does the party start, or does the party end?
Is peace the exhaltation of your innermost being, or is peace the result of the mortification of your desire? Do you govern peace or does peace govern you? Is peace a buzzkill?
Is peace a gateway concept, like beer is to hard liquor? What’s the danger of peace? What threat does it hold?
When peace comes knocking at your door, will you invite it in, or send it packing? What could you really lose by inviting it in? What could you really lose by sending it packing?
When did you last think a peaceful thought?
How did you know? -
Just want to point out: LeisureTown has changed format.
Plenty funny stuff, all plastic bendy animals.
