Saturday 25 October 2003 12:07am
I'm having a particularly lonely evening, for some reason. I rode my bike about a half mile away, through some industrial park and onto the grounds of the mva. The goal was a truck-based taco stand, where I was able to get 2 tacos and a soda for $4.25. One day is sort of beginning to blend into the next; I'm not sure what happened when. Ana is away in logan, visiting her family. She called today from a payphone -- I wish she were here.
Maybe I need to start watching television again; at least it ate up the time. I went food shopping, and got this new chicken marinade: chinese chicken. Does my life qualify as parodically depressing? Maybe.
I never picked up a newspaper, by the way. I set out, and then thought it might be better to wait for the Sunday classified ads. Then I'll find a job.
10:48am
Today is the day I must motivate myself to go out and ride my bike to the store and buy a newspaper with the famous ~*~*Sunday CLASSIFIED*~*~ ads in them. So then, the way it works is (as far as I can tell): all of the employers who really count put in their ads in the Sunday classified -- or at least, Sunday is the day when new ads tend to first appear. So, everyone grabs a copy of it on early Saturday morning -- WAIT A SECOND! I just had a brilliant insight. If one could get their hands on a Sunday classified as early as it came out on Saturday, scuttle off back home with it, and prepare resumes in time for the Saturday mail delivery, s/he would be a made wo/man. Maybe that's what I'll do...but it's really very hard to get up and do things, especially when I can bathe in the soft radiation of my computer monitor all day, EDITING MY BLOG DIRECTLY IN UNIX LIKE A BADASS. You know you're jealous, human. Don't deny.
Ok, I'm going. What I'll do is: wait until my chinese chicken is sufficiently dried out -- maybe 20 minutes or so -- to require another basting. Then, I can readily spare the 30 minutes or so that is required to bike to the store, and not miss any basting-opportunities. See? Managerial problem-solving. Any employer would be lucky to have me. Cunts.
8:44pm
Oh man, today was the day of physical activity. I biked over to giant to get the Sunday classified ads, and then to the library to return my books on tape and get two new books (a big unix reference manual and 'the cathedral and the bazaar' by eric s. Raymond. He's a pretty serious asshole, but he writes well and has some very good social theories). Then, when I got back, I found helen in my living room again, talking to my mom. We went on yet another walk, this time around seneca lake. I'd say we went three miles or so -- hardcore. So, then I went home and effectively nullified my efforts by eating roughly two pounds of chicken thighs. I made this chicken that's so good it's practically useless as a subsistence item, since it's impossible to avoid devouring within days or even hours of its emergence from the oven.
So tomorrow, I look through the classified ads. My plan is to pick two jobs to apply to, and really put a lot of effort into the cover letters and application processes. I have a theory: that employers use convoluted and obfuscated application procedures to weed out employees who aren't willing or able to follow directions and do what they're told to the letter. So, it's extremely important to pay careful attention to the idiotic procedural minutiae in the want-ads, and follow them like the book of romans.
I talked to ana tonight -- she called me from logan. Her mother is now saying that she's not allowed to skip out on the family holiday and come here for thanksgiving. I'm not too worried -- if worse comes to worse she'll simply scuttle off without mom's blessing. But I think her mom will reconsider, given enough time to mull it over. Her mother is really kind of crazy.
My mom, who gives me a food allowance, forgot to give me money. So, I'm munching on her bread, and I plan to munch on her apples without shame or remorse as the day draws on. Later in the day, I will head to the grocery store with my remaining $5 in cash, and maybe pick up a newspaper with the classified ads in them. I think that's rather morally upstanding: buying a paper with the classified ads in it with your last $5. Well, if I have an extree, I'll get some fruit and eat it in the parking lot. I think I'm getting the hang of vi, finally.
I keep thinking of that job at the bank, and I really think I would like something more...but maybe this is a good place to start, considering my shaky work history. Ok, I think I'll apply -- I guess I need to get my resume together. Scary stuff.
Of course, typing 'i guess I need to get my resume together' and actually doing it are two different things. Getting a resume together represents a notable example of the most deplorable sequelae of living in THE MACHINE. THE MACHINE demands that you fill out forms. When I say 'forms,' read 'papers that are intended to grease the chutes of societal procedure for you.' and when I say 'fill out,' I also imply deciding which forms to fill out, in which slot to drop them, and when to drop them in those slots. Getting together a resume is clearly an example of filling out forms. The process doesn't necessarily have to involve a sheet or sheets of paper to fall under the umbrella 'filling out forms.' for example, calling the bank to check on your balance by phone is an instance of 'filling out forms,' as I've defined it.
I think a lot of the resistance I encounter when trying to motivate myself to do things, especially things that I don't really want to do, comes from my inability to focus on individual parts of the task at hand. Taking it a step further, the resistance might be conceptualized as my inability to 'live in the now' (as eckert tolle might phrase it). In other words, I'm too focused on the imaginary construct of the future.
I think that sometimes making a list is just about the worst thing one can do. My family is famous for making lists, for spending hours curled up on the couch making lists of things that need to be accomplished, and then never doing any of them. I think the best thing is just to mobilize -- simply to do it. Which is what I'm going to do now.
Well, I did it: I applied at the bank. I put my resume together and everything -- now, I'm having the same feeling I did when I applied for college, back in 1993: that I set my sights too low. And indeed, I was accepted into every college I applied to. So maybe I need to pick up a paper and start writing people cover letters. I think I'd like it at an ad agency, or maybe a newspaper. Something like that. If I can't take it anymore, I can always unload with a shotgun. Just kidding. Maybe.
thusrday 23 October 2003 4:27pm
Today, my activities of note were riding my bike to the bank, grocery store, and post office. I rode to the bank to see if I could finagle my way into some new checks. A while back, I ordered new checks, and in a fit of liberal paranoia I told them to omit my address from the checks, which is really pretty silly inasmuch as anyone to whom you write a check will have your address on file to begin with. But I did this, and faithfully, my checks were printed, sans address. A few weeks later, having had time to dwell on things for a while, I realized the sheer lunacy of this maneuver, and decided to rectify it. Specifically, my plan was to go back to the bank and feign total ignorance: 'hello...i ordered new checks from you, and low-and-behold there's no address on them! Now, why would any sane person order checks with no address? Clearly, I'm a sane person, as evidenced by my bike parked outside your establishment on which I have blanked out all the brand-names with black electrical tape.' anyway, I got new checks, free of charge. I even got to talk to the branch manager, who was smart enough to hold a conversation with. She said I should call her and ask about a job. I might indeed.
Then I went to the grocery store, and bought stamps, an asian pear and a bunch of grapes. Then, I biked to the post office, mailed my student loan payment, mentally updated my account balance, and sat in front of the post office with my bike, eating grapes in the mulch.
Now I'm trying to set up this spam filter on my unix account, and it requires all kinds of procedural direction-following, the kind that my head injury makes kind of problematic.
9:15pm
Ana and I are talking about moving in together, pregnancy notwithstanding. She'd withdraw from school, and move in here with my mom and me. My mother has already approved it -- it'd just be a matter of asking her again (unfortunately, I didn't get it in writing the first time). I'm a bit concerned about what ana and I would do all day; obviously, we'd both have to find jobs, and maybe even pay my mom a bit of rent. We could both save up, and then buy a car and/or rent an apartment. I don't think we'd need more than one car between the two of us; one could obviously drop the other off at work.
For some reason, vi keeps mysteriously entering command mode. I'd use emacs, but it's just so enormous that I can't justify running it on a public access bsd system. I'd already done my part in reducing software bloat by switching from pine to mutt; now moving from emacs to vi is the final step in my inevitable adoption of virulent unix-ish memory-trimming. Well, if I really wanted to be frugal, I'd use pico, but I just can't deal with those carriage-returns. I think maybe it'd be good to move through the vi tutorial one more time. Yes, definitely; I've been trying to finish this paragraph for what seems like the past 20 minutes.
Wednesday 22 October 2003 9:16pm
I was denied access to 'my' computer all day today because my mom was telecommuting. So, I filled the day with playing trumpet and guitar, and then biking to the bank to give them literally about 30 pounds of loose change. They mail it out to be counted, and then it gets deposited, supposedly sometime next week. Also, the bank pilfers $5 from you. I met a girl at the bank whom I went to umbc with -- we made a typical move: I approached, grinning, ready for a handshake, but she enforced a hug. This is always happening to me. I don't think I'm a very huggy person with people I don't know all that well, but they are always attacking me, and then I feel sheepish and antisocial for not instigating the body contact immediately. Anyway, the significant thing about this chance meeting is that she has a job -- she went to the same school I did, and she has a job. I don't. I was really upset the whole way home, and complained to my mom and helen about it (helen had stopped by on her way back from work).
This girl was an art major as well, with one critical difference: she learned graphic design, whereas I learned 'imaging and digital arts.' I'm still not 100% certain what that is.
I don't think it's too much to ask that I have a decent office job where I'm not debased as some kind of secretary and where I don't have to work weekends. Maybe that's just not realistic, but I don't see why other people my age can get these jobs and I can't.
I can't help but think that most of the problem lies in my particular major -- it was clearly marketed as a web-design major, because saying it was a fruity dada art program wouldn't attract the state-tuition rednecks that attend umbc in droves. The key to getting students in the program is to convince everyone that it's a webdesign school. I really would like to get my hands on the person who came up with the program name and course titles. Suffice to say, I was never even taught html, let alone flash, dhtml, server-side programming or perl.
This is all fine if it's supposed to be an 'art' program, but students shouldn't be lured in by marketing the program as pre-professional training for web-development. Well, I did learn one thing: I was programmed with a deep-seated mistrust and hatred for capitalism, which as we know is very helpful in the job market.
And, may I add, my student loan payment is due in three days.
Tuesday 21 October 2003 10:36am
My worst fears about blogging have been realized: I sit here at the computer, staring at the screen, and my first impulse is to write about how I'm typing my blog, because that's literally all I do (use the computer). Well, if you get conceptual and high-minded, I do a variety of things on the computer. But if it's approached in an existential, action-oriented way, then all I do all day is type and move the mouse around. So, that can be my blog entry every day: typed and moved the mouse around.
ana and I are having typical-couple pregnancy-paranoia, despite the fact that she's on the pill. Based on the minute chance of birth control failure, we're making plans for impromptu marriage, moving to canada, and naming the baby. This is a dance that couples have been doing for time immemorial: emergency preparations for unplanned pregnancy. Pregnancy is such a catastrophic, life-changing event that I shouldn't be willing to play lottery with it, no matter how remote the chances. I think condoms are more reassuring, simply because one isn't faithfully relying on some mysterious, internal, biological mechanism, but is rather physically stopping the sperm from going anywhere. It's a philosophically more comforting method of birth control.
Obviously I'd prefer it if ana weren't pregnant. But if she is, then she is, and the situation will have to be dealt with. So there's really no sense in worrying about it, although it's difficult not to. Of course, I'm sure it's much harder for ana not to worry, since the situation is more immediate and visceral to her (it's her body).
It's possible (even likely) that all this fretting and mental energy being expended on pregnancy is completely ridiculous -- that ana is taking (and has been taking for a good while) a reliable, proven birth control pill, and that pregnancy in this situation is not realistic. I think the 2% of instances of sex while the pill is being used that do result in pregnancy might be a result of improper use of the pill (skipping doses, inhaling it as opposed to swallowing it...i don't know).
I need to go food shopping today, so I'll ride my bike out and get as many groceries as will fit in my backpack. It's turning out to be what appears to be a pretty nice day, judging from the fact that there are leaves blowing in the wind and sparkling with cloud-filtered sunlight. In other words, I really have no idea if it's a nice day or not. Mid-October in Maryland is kind of a climatic nether-region -- a true realization of the chaos theory omnipresent in weather systems: it could be any temperature outside. Literally, anything. But I sense that it's probably in the 60's.
I get the feeling that people check the weather a lot not to find out what the weather will be, but rather what the weather is. Which is pretty funny, inasmuch as they could stick their head outside and thusly save the information superhighway some bandwidth.
I might come back later and write some more. I can see how downloading this blog.html file might rapidly get out of hand, if I write this much every day. I guess that's why greymatter and movable type exist: to make blogging easier by facilitating comments, archives, etc. Real men hand-code their blogs. Grunt.
8:13pm
Here I am again, after having biked to cvs after ana reported seeing an over-the-counter male fertility test in athens. I asked the pharmacist at cvs, and then the pharmacist at the food store; neither had heard of such a thing. Both sort of gave a vibe of an inner smirk as they shook their heads. So, naturally I assumed that either ana had misread a package, or this was some example of appalachian mountain-voodoo. However, ana later showed me a January 2003 article that confirmed the availability of this thing. I felt sheepish. Sometimes I think I treat ana like a little girl, when in fact she is just as smart and capable as I am.
10:09pm
I'm getting realy tired. I woke up this morning fairly early; people have remarked on how it's sort of strange the way I keep such a regimented and markedly diurnal sleep schedule, even in the face of destitute, unshowered unemployment. But the thing is, I can't sleep during the day. If I go to bed at 4am, I'll still wake up at 8am, and then feel like I have to sneeze and take a crap for the rest of the day. That's basically what my body does when it doesn't get enough sleep: it becomes really hypersensitive, as manifested by a feeling in my nose that I have to sneeze, and in my colon that I have to dump.
This is an experiment in blogging. However, I don't know what to write about. Maybe a good exercise would be to avoid smiley faces, noises like 'hmmm' and 'arrgh,' and I guess stream-of-consciousness rambling in general. Also, I'm going to try not to use '...' to avoid punctuating anything thoughtfully. Maybe this blog can serve more to keep my writing chops up, and not let them fall prey entirely to instant messenger and the kind of underdeveloped thoughts it fosters. But it's hard, in a way, to write something when you're not talking to anyone. That's one thing that AIM has done for me: it gives a fluid dynamic to writing, and makes writing interactive. In that sense, it's been a very good thing. But it sort of lessens one's ability to use writing as a static communication tool. Here I am, typing this, and I don't get any sense of interactivity from it; I'm not sure why I'm bothering to write this at all.
Maybe it's even better that I'm editing it directly on the server. The advantage of FTPing files is that it gives you a backup copy, an offline, desktop version of your website. But with this method, the files aren't backed up. Which is ok, since it's a blog -- the value of it is in making a dynamic, day-to-day presentation. So if all of my data is lost, that's ok. I don't think it will be; I trust the unix servers at sdf.lonestar.org a hell of a lot more not to do unexpected, horrible things than I do my own little wintel box, xp pro notwithstanding.
Byrd, purcel and handel are pretty much it as far as british composers go. And handel doesn't even really count, being only a naturalized englishman. Fuck you. I know what you're thinking.
Today, I woke up at about 9am. I configured my muttrc file to reply immediately without prompting to keep the same subject and recipient. I wrote a couple of emails. I made and ate a bowl of pasta. I browsed the web. I chatted with ana on my secret screenname. I played maelstrom. I can see the value of writing down everything you spend when trying to live by a budget; the same principle can be applied to time-management. If you write down and are forced to examine the specific ways in which you squander your conscious hours, you tend to spend them less frivolously.