Hey, Emily, how's your work going?

Why not take some time out to punch the funny monkey???

Does this work?



The fate that awaited it.

Another ridiculously hectic day at work, mostly dealing with fallout from the aforementioned system upgrade, luckily the only problems from the electrical storm were some glitchy networking equipment in Easthampton, still tidying up from my time away, doing bureaucratic busywork for my annual review, etc., etc.

Need to leave a bit early today so I can come back later and reboot some stuff, think I might go down the street to the new record shop & get some records. Note to self: remember that your car is in the work parking lot not the home parking lot.

Would really like to have a genuinely diverting conversation some time soon, anyone feel witty?

Why everybody is so obsessed with imminent disasters when the actual disaster is ongoing and longstanding (for ~600 years at its epicenter) is a constant source of puzzlement. Yesterday I did, I think, manage to facilitate the redirection of books to libraries destroyed by recent social unrest in Monrovia, maybe they'll serve to keep the looters warm again next time. Me & my dead works.

Looks like a no go on the 6/6/06 rock party, drag, don't shake me Lucifer, you are all I receive. Still hopeful for 7/7/07 tantric ritual exorcism of the demons of 8/8/88, let me know if you'd like to participate. Future historians (from another galaxy? mutated squid? welcome and thanks for your interest) note the popularity of numerology and occultism among the obscurantist, esoteric sects of the New New Left. It's the feast with the beast of the Mau Mau.

Hello?

Echo?

A sudden downpour & multiple nearby lightning strikes (each making it even more likely the evening will involve me rushing across the street to help my coworkers shut down computers) have driven me back from my attempt at solitary walking to my obsessive laptop based multitasking, no way for an ungainly primate to find roots and berries, but try telling him that, he'll probably scream and rush at you, flailing his arms wildly- best to just pass by as quietly as possible, avoiding eye contact.

Nice podcast, Matt.

Generally frown upon linking random web crap, but thought maybe you could use some despair, help yourself, I've got lots.

So incredibly sweaty that it's probably time for all you sweat fetishists out there to make your move as there is unlikely to be a better opportunity. Installed yet another air conditioner, this time in Tanya's room which had to be over 100 deg at the time, her old one, she found when she tried to activate it, had died during the winter like so many others. Then walked the dog in the prestorm oppressiveness.

Work was excitingly overwhelming with a week and a half of untended server mess to clean up and the rest of the IT dept out for the day in order to do a system upgrade tonight. Can't remember most of what I did, but I was pretty busy.

Could probably provide great prophecy due to extreme disorientation of senses if anybody needs any apostates roundly denounced or fates forebodingly foretold, genuine disheveled appearance, abstracted mien, reasonable rates.

Your future, your health, your money

Your future, mild-blowing
Your future, mining engineer
Your future, minute bell
Your future, mithridate mustard
Your future, mongoose plant
Your future, moth ball
Your future, Neo-celtic
Your future, nine-knot
Your future, ninety-seven
Your future, nubbin disease
Your future, oil heater
Your future, oil silk
Your future, pagoda stone
Your future, Palaeo-christian
Your future, palmella stage
Your future, paradox gun
Your future, parting tool
Your health, Mi-le-fo
Your health, Mocha-stone moth
Your health, mortar boat
Your health, mosque swallow
Your health, mouse barley
Your health, near-fighting
Your health, nimble will
Your health, nine-knot
Your health, nipa sugar
Your health, noble fir
Your health, Non-mongol
Your health, novel maker
Your health, odd-fangled
Your health, oil cellar
Your health, out-of-tune
Your health, Paleo-amerind
Your health, Pan-britannic
Your health, paragonite schist
Your health, parasol pine
Your money, mimic thrush
Your money, mis-see
Your money, modern-practiced
Your money, Mongol-galchic alphabet
Your money, N station
Your money, nail bit
Your money, nap hand
Your money, Navaho blanket
Your money, nut palm
Your money, ogee doorway
Your money, ohm-mile
Your money, old-womanly
Your money, orchid family
Your money, organ blower
Your money, pack road
Your money, Pan-celtic

Slept like crap, wonder how much of my attitude to life is shaped by my inability to sleep normally. Maybe it's an experiment of some kind? OK, so we've seen that it really fucks people up when they have trouble sleeping from infancy, can we stop now?

Too tired to enact the anxiety I was feeling yesterday over my reinsertion into the daily grind- maybe I'll get lucky, fuck something up really bad at work in a sleep deprivation induced breach of best practices, getted canned & finally get some sleep.

Noise music drove most of the bad thoughts from my head, but now it hurts, think that's the humidity/air pressure though, not the music. Had some nice little chats with folks at show, diminished sense of being engulfed in pure evil. Anyway, no longer in panic/horror state, just kind of glum, don't want to go to work in the morning.

Ran into T walking Peretz on my way home from show, headache + low light made for interesting stroboscopic effect on crazed tail wagging, nice to feel appreciated.

T brought home interesting pastries from a Korean bakery, Yi Soon, in Allston. The coconut one was especially enjoyable. Maybe will have another one now.

Oh, while I'm being 'political,' could I ask that we please drop the whole 'homophobia' thing. Honestly, folks, we're not doing anyone any favors by packaging a simplistic and largely false psychological analysis into the term for something so dangerous. In my view, 'homophobia,' like any other cultural content, is both arbitrary and overdetermined- arbitrary because the only real 'reason' for its reproduction is its prior existence, overdetermined because it is accompanied by a wide variety of motivations, images, narratives, etc. to assist the victims of the reproduction process in implementing it on themselves. So let's get real, people.

Feeling quite tempted by reverse solipsism again this morning.

When are political agitators going to get over the idea that people have been fooled in such straightforward ways? My sense of what's going on is more like: really stupid people have been fooled in the imagined ways, most people have been fooled as follows: it's ok for the stupid people to believe x, because it serves y purpose which they would never support if they were told what they were actually supporting, where y can take on an astonishingly wide range of values. What's to be done?

Tweet, tweet, tweet,
I am a little birdie,
Sweet, sweet, sweet
Is my song.
Beat, beat, beat
The gongs of war and massacre-
Meat, meat, meat
for us all.

My hopes for a lasting Cherry Blossomification of my consciousness didn't pan out, sadly, and I'm back to the familiar one man fantasia of suffering, come & see, come & see. It's not any of that garden variety Lovecraft meets Beatrix Potter in a Vietnamese child brothel shit either, much less fantastical & esthetic, just really fucking overwhelming, the total horror going on constantly everywhere that floats on the periphery, informing everything thing I do, sure, but mostly being pretty unobtrusive, keeps drifting into the center of attention & lingering there. Doesn't matter much, it's just feelings & what they're about is so much worse than any way I'm likely to feel, that really, so what? Going to go climb into my isolation box and hope for an orgone recharge, feel free to sing little songs to my voicemail.

Just returned from a long walk with Mr. P through the renewed mugginess of dusk to my newly air conditioned nightmare, quite lovely really- come watch horror movies, I'll make chicken. Feel like I've spent the past several days drinking heavily, fucking promiscuously & getting in street fights, given the mild-mannered temperance of my actual existence this is a bit hard to explain, maybe just the effect of humidity & a slight lack of sleep?

Turned out the Cherry Blossoms only had time for lunch, but the small time I spent in their company should keep my despair-o-meter out of the red for a few days at least. Against my better judgement, I gave Peggy a copy of the cassette I made a while back since she really seemed to want one, ah, I don't really need people to respect me I guess. After they split, I went to J & E's for cake, found out Emily has undergone a food politics ideological shift into 'locally raised, humanely slaughtered' territory, so we went to get some local bacon, she says she's going to make German potato salad.

Still lots of chores to do, and I'm tempted to go out prowling for people to be friendly to, but I feel like shit & my heart is racing, so maybe it'll be a quiet night in, I'll contemplate finitude or multiplicity or something, maybe watch some TV.

No word yet from Peggy, so I got started on chores by reinstalling air conditioner in living room, incredibly sweaty, covered in weird filth, hiking looking worse by the moment. Maybe I'll go to Joel & Emily's and have more key lime pie & tres leches cake instead, more my speed anyway. I should really write a hymn to sweetened condensed milk some time, it's divine.

Ah, John just called, off to the Silver Spoon...

Wow, busy busy busy. Very enjoyable band practice, bbq & saw The Cherry Blossoms last night which was, as always, totally amazing, probably even more than usual since it's been so long since I've seen them, & Josephine Foster, left me feeling all kinds of happy. Joel ended up sitting in on the Cherry Blossoms set, hope he enjoyed it. Supposed to be having lunch with John & Peggy & Josephine, hope they don't space it. Might go hiking with them also, but have all sorts of chores I've been neglecting in the pursuit of fun times, so I'll need to think about it. One good point of going on a hike is that Peretz could come & I feel pretty guilty over leaving him alone for so long yesterday. I do, however, feel pretty wiped out & there are all those chores...

Nice to talk to people who like Chris as much as I do, apparently he passed out from the internal bleeding thing on John's porch, lucky he wasn't driving or home alone or whatever. Still feeling pretty bummed about that.

Anyway, despite that, in quite the mood of general benevolence, so if you want anything, now's the time to ask.

In my invitation to J & E's bbq, I was tasked with asking other people if they wanted to go, but I never really got around to it, so here goes- if you'd like to go to the bbq at Emily & Joel's house in Holyoke around 4 pm today, please feel free; if you need directions or a ride please contact me via whatever communications modality you find most convenient, I will be away from the internet for a little while due to band practice, but will be sure to check in before leaving for the bbq. It would be delightful if you'd come, so do.

Peretz is apparently even more excited about wet newly grown grass than llama traces, my shoulder hurts.

RV that was at the root of my delaying shopping earlier delayed me further on my return from my delayed shopping as the supergigantic tow truck hauling it away, windshield gone, covered with limp Oxbow plant life, was far too supergigantic to turn easily off Pleasant Street toward whatever fate awaits it.

Made a couple key lime pies and started marinating some pork chops for bbq tomorrow.

Very humid, feel damp and itchy, reminds me of being a kid at Whippoorwill Day Camp, appears they've built up the place a bit since my time, wonder if it's still run by the same cultish hippy family and if they still make kids sing their cultish hippy songs?

Gone to bed is the setting sun.
Night is coming and day is done,
Whippoorwill, Whippoorwill,
Has just begun.

Apparently the accident on 91 South was even worse than it appeared to be from the presence of 5 ambulances or else there was another one as it's 2 hours since I drove past it and all 91 traffic appears to be being routed through town, making it impossible to get my car out of my driveway to go shopping for things for the bbq at Emily & Joel's place tomorrow. Walked in the rain to new cooking implement store and got some garishly colored silicone potholders and a new pie slice lifting device to replace the one I seem to have thrown away or left somewhere. Now I'm very damp & steamy.

Yesterday, while waiting to cross the street to pick up some burritos, I overheard an uptight middle aged lady complaining about other people's short attention spans. I was really tempted to grab and shake her and demand that she take some responsibility for the state of things. Honestly, what is it people are supposed to be paying attention to exactly anyway? As someone afflicted with an excessively long attention span, I can testify that it isn't much help, who knows, even more disorganized perceptions than are currently the general rule might be a real boon.

I feel like I should really be doing something to foster oppositional civil societies in postcolonial environments, but aside from the obvious mass air drops of Moomin books, I'm not sure what would be most effective. Maybe I should be ratcheting up my technical competencies as extremely and rapidly as possible and heading off to Africa to do network deployments and training. I'm not sure what portion of the population needs to be made into melancholic sysadmins to instantiate a Fourieresque wonderland, but I imagine there's a tipping point somewhere- lemonade seas here we come.

Speaking of melancholy, anybody know where I can lay my hands on a copy of the Panofsky/Saxl book 'Saturn and Melancholy'? I'd really like one.

So the former field across the street is destined to become a senior citizens' center, could be worse I guess, it's made Peretz take a bit more of a philosophical attitude about it as he enjoys the oldsters, construction noise will no doubt drive us all nuts for some time to come. Ah, Russian movie I've got on involves a pet turtle, lovely.

Glad to be about done with driving back & forth to & from Windsor, though the morning 45 minutes of music has been nice, looking forward to getting back to my normal pedestrian lifestyle. Also longing to be back with my friend Blanket, show last night was fun & distracting, but went to bed way too late, had a bunch of dreams in which I was someone entirely different, need to work on that.

Despite my soon to be achieved status of penetration testing specialist, my phone still isn't ringing off the hook, what gives?

Spent most of my lunch break driving CT back roads, listening to tunes, had a very positive effect on my mental state. Looking forward to getting out of my head for a bit at show at Flywheel later, it's scary in here.

Several more penetrations today, it's already getting tiresome, thank goodness it will all be over tomorrow, no regrets, I keep telling myself.

OK, kids, for extra credit correctly position and relate 'Mr. Blue Sky', 'Big Sky' and 'Who Loves The Sun?' on the emotional phenomena homunculus. For additional bonus points outline the relationships between this triad and the previously described complex. Successfully identify and position songs I have not yet mentioned and I will personally affix a golden eye in the center of your forehead and open it with a kiss.

So yesterday, while I was out, giant earth-moving machines ripped up all the grass from the field across the street where Peretz likes to play. It'll be time to move out into the hills pretty soon- Joni, you should come visit when that happens, I think you'd find we have a lot in common.

Speaking of that, I've been thinking for a long time of constructing a four dimensional emotional phenomena homunculus (loosely modeled on the somatosensory homunculus) whose surface is entirely enscribed with pop songs. 'Big Yellow Taxi' would be floating, tethered by weak associative links, somewhere near where 'You Are My Sunshine' has been incised with a razor on its hideously broken heart, with psychic filaments trailing up and into the future to 'Satellite of Love' and downward and into the past to 'Early Morning, Cold Taxi'. It gets very complicated quickly, obviously, but I'll keep working on it.

Rushed back from class to try to figure out some performance issues on a web server, didn't make much headway, I'm afraid.

A throbbing pain in my right temple (not enough sleep? too many stimulants? not enough water? yes! yes! yes!) notwithstanding, I then spent the last sunlit hours outside trying to read Poe, but ended up mostly getting involved in conversations with people instead- I think this forcing myself to write more regularly is making me into a bit of a chatty Cathy, oh well, not like anything I could do would alienate people a whole lot more than usual. Expressed some political sentiments (fairly unusual), talked about upcoming shows, discussed user interface design superficially, spoke up for Poe despite what some say against him, etc., etc.

A little hard to get my eyes to focus and the space bar is sticking, the sacrifices I make, and the ungrateful wretches just gulp it down and go right back to what they were doing. You'll regret it all some day.

Since at least one of you was curious, I just penetrated that w2k I had my eye on, in three different ways, actually. Gonna go have a cigarette & some lunch now.

The level of effort I put into ensuring the daily publication of a newspaper, given my attitude toward news (which, if you don't know, is more like Karl Kraus than Noam Chomsky, with some touches of Matthew Arnold) is a... well, is irony ever really all that delicious? I suppose if you for some reason actually find it so, you should really look me up, as I would be an unwonted cause for delight.

Have the rates of complaint about the lack of irony and sarcasm tags begun to diminish or is it just my imagination? Are the 'limitations' of html training a generation of more sophisticated readers? Or do people just not care anymore (about understanding other people correctly, I mean, not in general, I know they don't care in general)?

Another way for Noams to say, oooooooooooowaaii...

So more on Boym: the more I read of her book, the more of a sense I get that many academic books in the humanities are like chill out rooms at drug parties, that is, to a large extent and among other things, their weaknesses are their primary strengths, the comforting rehearsal of familiar references wafting by like an old fashioned love song, playing on the radio.

Also, I don't think I mentioned my experience with the other fed, military intelligence (haha), in my class. On my lunch break on Monday, I was sitting on my car's hood reading the Situationist tract I purchased a few days back and he was across the parking lot, smoking. I got a very strong feeling that he could see into my brain. More generally, the class environment is causing all kinds of doubled or tripled consciousnesses, my various roles in the world brought into intensified contrast, mild panic, what the hell am I doing here? I should be (or am, simultaneously) making love on a mountaintop; writing a sonnet; baking cookies; telling jokes; curled up in a fetal position in a warm, dark place; hanging with Peretz; talking to my mom about life; playing a video game; maintaining a web site; monitoring server logs; reading; sleeping; dreaming.

Anyway, I'll come up with a time for the first book group soon, probably at E & J's place, let me know if you'd like to join in, we'll head for the mountaintop after, if you'd like.

Just got back from being taken out for drinks & dinner by Joel & Emily in celebration of E's completion of a ten hour interview process, sounds like she'll probably get, but maybe doesn't want, the job. In a bit of a stretch for me, I went with the crowd & had a cosmopolitan, maybe it will make me moreso, if possible.

Took advantage of the inevitable downtime due to slow people in my class today to dash off a variety of highly personal missives, would post them here as well, but they would inevitably be a letdown, stylistically mostly. If an increase in confessional tone or content is required, feel free to drop a line to that effect. Driving in CT sucks.

OK, got to pay attention to Peretz & read some Svetlana Boym now.

Being shown an 'entertaining' computer animated introduction to tcp/ip networking, oh now the instructor is trying to jump ahead to something 'interesting' or 'significant', wish it was a filmstrip, where's the bookworm poster? The hang in there kitten? Oh, the video I've been watching is available at http://warriorsofthe.net, enjoy...

So, thanks to my hard-charging, head-shaven 'pen testing' teacher, the week has become a death march, starting daily at 6am. Got to hop in the car soon and hope my favorite tunes + lots of nicotine = happy times.

One of the 6 books I've been reading, Svetlana Boym's 'The Future of Nostalgia', while prone to many of the failings of academic books generally (resembles, or more likely is, a thinly masked agglomeration of literature reviews, class papers, journal articles; wit & clever phrases used to mask intellectual laziness, facility, dishonesty, etc.) is still a lot like having a conversation with somebody who shares a lot of my preoccupations, something which doesn't happen very often these days. Like the man says, "It's hard to live in the country, in the present state of things."

Been back at my longstanding analytic of the concept of 'cool', it's a puzzler, no question about it. Consider, keeping in mind that the function of a concept is to slice the world into bits, the myriad senses of "not cool" or "uncool". Something to keep in mind, kids, maybe something to keep away from. Here's the thing- you & me, we're the slimy part on the bottom of a natural sponge, the live part, the part that makes the rest, the part that'll be scraped off and discarded before it's stocked in a market.

Love you folks, keep up the good work.

Peretz has developed a grim and total fascination with the spot where the llamas were on Saturday, I do hope it's nothing unseemly. Each time we have gone out today he has dragged me to said location with a determination of unrivalled intensity. The area is then subjected to a minute, forensic even, examination, accompanied by vigorous tail wagging and snorting. It's quite something.

I've been thinking, if, as seems likely, my virtually posthumous existence will unfold as a mirror image of my prior one, I should start having fun again in about 25 years, something to look forward to.

Irritating man who has taken to knocking on my door late at night and hitting me up for money just returned and I sent him away again, the same guy was coming & knocking on Devon's back door months ago wanting her to take him to an ATM, honestly, I know a lot of strange people, but what the fuck?

In the process of making homestyle frozen orange chicken, won't the children be pleased? Feel kind of dizzy, too much smoking? Too much life? Maybe I should be more equanimous, or ecumenical, or economical in attitude or at least in its expression, maybe I should just leave it alone. What do you think, high in the sky, a trail of glittering radiance fluttering out behind? Is it too much?

Funnily enough, everybody says 'pen testing', no doubt it's just simpler to say. Uranus hasn't come up yet, but I'll keep you posted on how they pronounce it when it inevitably does.

Penetration testing training underway, lots of shaved heads & a fed in the room. Slept like crap due to obsessive ideation relating to the crappiness of this mortal coil (not the band, I've got no problem with the band), anyway need to come up with more ways to bring the happy times to me & everybody else as level of despair has far surpassed the spice of life level.

Maybe it's just the lengthening daylight hours making me a ball of nerves, I don't know.

Nothing remotely technical covered so far, how long can this go on?

Just got back from walking Peretz, chilled through, that cold front wasn't joking. Maybe this is all the dream of a tribal elder exposed on a mountaintop, it would explain a lot. Pity I won't be coming back to tell the little ones of my glorious visions. Everything is stark lines and dull discomforts, being an agent of general semiosis and conduit of the five realms isn't all it's cracked up to be, never mind, never mind.

OK, so this business with Chris has made me almost unbelievably upset, been crying, feeling like I'm going to throw up. All the shit going down lately is just too much for me, I guess. Why won't it stop?

Dark skies outside all of a sudden, torrential rain just started again, and I hung my head and cried.

So I just found out that my dear friend Chris won't be playing here next week due to losing about half of his blood through an ulcer a couple of weeks ago. Pretty bummed about it. John & Peggy are still coming apparently. Let's figure out a way to send Chris a bunch of $$$, his med bills are gonna suck and he is a curiously distorted wave of pure moral beauty.

The burning continues...

After a job-related hiatus from serious reading, I'm back to reading 6 things at once and it's causing the same messed up, semi-ecstatic mental state it always does; am become a sacred fire; feeling frisky, mentally and otherwise; alert for things to destroy- anybody want to play?

At work alone, listening to the Zero Boys, giant a/c unit still clearly audible over headphones- quite a beautiful sensation really, slightly chilled in short sleeves. Ah, now it's Joy Division. Will try to broadcast the awesomeness of this experience to you all via the astral plane, so make an effort to stay attuned.

Ah-whee, it's one of those Mu songs, more music please, Element #30...

At work archiving old ads to dvd, feeling kind of funny, warm & tingly, a wave of general benevolence toward all my friends, real & imagined.

I want to set up a little lending library somewhere, I wonder who will let me?

Emily & Joel have purchased a new couch & loveseat, advancing my reading group plans.

Went to a very odd show last night at PACE, included little girls playing rock music who were so much better than I could ever hope to be that the future looks almost rosy. Guy who runs PACE turns out to be a sort of pleasant doppelganger, same first name, Jewish, grew up in Tennessee, parents are molecular biologists, humanities background, now does computer stuff. Our humanities backgrounds are a bit divergent however, with his in theater. He told me about the CMS he developed with his brother & I played a theater geek style word game with him & his family. Also behaved in my typically alienating manner toward people I really like, sorry about that, I've got problems.

Wow, burning these dvds is taking forever, I'm going to be here for a while...

So just had odd experience checking out DISTORT!, the new punk record shop in the Maplewood Shops, guy browsing the cd bin next to me was buying the Frothy Shakes record and I'd never met him before. We had a pleasant chat, sadly he's about to move to L.A., dropping my local fan base back to it's normal count of 0.

I'm thinking maybe I didn't express sufficient urgency in my penultimate post, but a combination of corporate malaise, a rapidly deteriorating world political situation and the recent entry of almost all local cultural outlets I care about into seemingly irreversible death spirals has really got me revved up about getting this war machine on the road, so let's form like Voltron, shall we?

So the tent sale is on at WEBS and there are llamas in attendance. They both fascinated and confused Peretz, maybe you'd have the same reaction?

Was quite beautiful out just now, but grey skies are returning, please don't take my sunshine away.

OK, so, media production cooperative- what I'd like to do is build up a shared infrastructure for media production and distribution here as this would, in my view, create 'efficiencies' enabling a greater volume of production (I went to a corporate meeting yesterday, sorry). I incline toward understanding the term 'media' pretty broadly, with a slight emphasis, due solely to issues of practicality, on mechanically, electrically, electromechanically, electrooptically, etc. reproducible artworks.

What I, personally, can offer currently in this regard is web hosting, assistance in web development, access to somewhat outdated nonlinear video editing equipment, assistance with computer equipment and training in its use. I'm also willing to front or even just give money for related projects to people I know and trust. (nota bene: if you don't know any of my email addresses or phone numbers, you're almost certainly not someone I know and trust)

Things that I see as desiderata for this project include: nicer a/v production equipment, print making equipment, better scanners/printers, duplication equipment, dedicated facilities, possibly dedicated staff. It would nice to come up with some actual profit streams for this (most of the things I want to do are at best break even propositions), I suppose pursuing web dev work is one option, sadly I don't much enjoy it.

So, please, anybody who's into this kind of stuff, talk to me about it and we'll make stuff happen.

Well, that was a waste of time.

Headed off to Concord with my boss at ~10:30AM, got back about 15 minutes ago. Only real work I did was attend a two hour meeting that was mostly a vendor presentation for products that are far too expensive for the company to ever remotely consider buying. Had a nice Thai lunch, a pleasant time chatting with my boss, enjoyed the view from his mountaintop home in Charlemont, lots of driving in the rain.

The more exposure I get to corporate environments, the stranger they seem. I don't understand how anything ever gets done, no one knows what they're talking about- it's time to start a media cooperative, who's with me?

Oh also, my brother was teling me yesterday about books he was cataloging for his job, all mid-19th Century accounts of desperate frontier criminals. I think we should OCR them and start Project Rutentutenberg.

"Alone Again/Or" has apparently taken to stalking Emily, only with her it's in restaurants. First while getting her tartar sauce at the Fish Hook here in town, then later in the cafe/restaurant in the Montague Bookmill. Discovering the nature of the ensuing uncomfortable social incidents is left as an exercise for the reader, but please, for heaven's sake, whatever you do, don't break the chain!

Oh, while I'm on the subject of things that really piss me off, could somebody please give or get or find this person a job? If a personal recommendation helps, she's one of the best, smartest and most interesting people I know. C'mon, you'd be doing yourself a favor. If you won't do it for me, or for yourself, do it for Art.

And while you're doing things for Art, why not go here and fill out their nice letter of support form, then go here and give some money.

Is it something in the water around here that makes so many of the people around me act like spoiled, petulant children? Is it some kind of 'artistic temperament' thing? Is it the logic of late capitalism at work?

More likely, it's just something about me that inspires all sorts of vague, inarticulate negativity in others (there's probably actually nothing vague about it, not that there's any way for me to tell).

There's a lot I'd like to get done, and while I'm perfectly capable of doing things myself, it would be a lot more fun, and, I think, a lot more effective to collaborate more with other people, but every time I try, it's like swimming in treacle with somebody at the side of the pool trying to push me under with a skimming net. Fuck.

Anyway, it's my first day off during the week in a damn long time and apparently I'm going to spend it feeling angry and frustrated.

Feel a little better already- went outside for a cigarette, and apparently the psychotic assholes at the trout hatchery didn't kill all the local blue herons as I saw one flying overhead.

So got out of work early, have tomorrow off, due to working excessive hours over weekend and the past couple of days and needing to drive to NH to meet with my corporate masters on Friday, groovy, right? Well, not so much...

Had fun earlier anyway, went to hang out with Emily & go to the now open W. Springfield Rein's (everyone working there seemed very normal and pleasant), didn't even let "Alone Again/Or" coming on the moment I got into my car throw me, but since getting back home everything's gone south in a pretty serious way- so irritated, upset and sad that I feel like I might puke.

It'll probably be better later, usually is. Not to discourage anybody from sending presents or anything.

So I woke up this morning, slightly chilled, feeling like an endless procession of mice had crawled into my mouth and died over the course of the night, and Peretz arrived, wildly assumed a variety of yoga postures, made keening noises and generally set a standard of affectionate friendliness against which I, frankly, just don't measure up. Sorry everybody.

Later, on our morning promenade, I was thinking about writing a novel about Churchy LaFemme, but no doubt the estate of Walt Kelly would intervene, again.

Been thinking quite a lot about turtles generally, the baby turtle rescued from setting cement, the whole tortoise and baby hippo thing, of course- then there was this girl I used to know, who did this thing with her tongue. She'd say "Order Squamata, lizard" and dart her tongue in and out quickly between pressed lips, then "Order Chelonia, turtle" and do the same thing, only much slower.

Been thinking a lot about the extreme sabotage I practiced on myself throughout my 20s, and on the whole, I guess I'm pretty ok with the results. While the options I foreclosed look slightly better in retrospect, honestly they don't look that much better and I think spending my formative years tormented and desolate has pretty much guaranteed that I won't turn into anything I despise all that much. Plus, it's provided lots of material for my researches into the adequate representation of boredom in narrative.

That my room is, quite literally, underground, full of machines and cultural debris, is, I think, a testament to the effectiveness of my methods.

Proposal: reading group where the assigned reading is not to be discussed or mentioned in any way. Suggestion for first selection: Kafka's "The Burrow". Anybody up for it? I'll make cookies or something. Could this be the way to reinvigorate T.E.A.S.?

Spent all morning slogging back and forth from work to home troubleshooting a remote connectivity issue, resolved now, and I'm slowly drying off. Now I'm off to move 25 or so computers up front from the loading dock, squishing in my soggy shoes.

Here I am again, with my little stick, drawing smiley faces in the rubble...

Poke, poke.

(sits on the hood of a torched Chevy Caprice and sings)

What makes you so special?
Well I say so, well I say so.
What makes you so special?
I don't know.

(giant horribly mutated birds consume singer)

On my way to a sushi place (where there was apparently a stabbing earlier today) to meet Joel & Emily, I was forcibly reminded of why I almost never walk into town on my own street by a vigorous splash from a harried commuter. The water mixed in my hair with the powder from the drop ceiling I was running cable through this afternoon, making a delectable post-industrial gravy. Also got a check from my cell phone company refunding the deposit (note of caution to impressionable youth and potential suitors: years of bohemian lifestyle = lousy credit) I had to make last year to get my work-mandated cell phone. That's right kids- over a year in Squaresville, as a nine-to-fiver, as a chump.

Tired as hell, but still basically the same nervous, bookish schoolgirl (the others talk behind their hands, "Will she ever come out of her shell?" Thought bubble over head: "Maybe I should try contacts again...") you all 'know' and 'love.'

On the early watch again, choppy seas, queasy, longing for shore leave in some seedy SE Asian port. Permanent damp infiltrating my chakras, who wants a waterlogged kundalini?

Hope my boss's shoulder gets better soon.

Between all the bagel buying and dog walking and book and record shopping in the rain, I've given myself a pretty serious chill. Wrapped in a blanket dreaming of a fancy dinner with a delightful conversationalist.

Went out into the rain in search of an early Levinas essay, "On Escape", which I learned had been translated recently from the links at the bottom of the wikipedia article I linked earlier and "Genesis" by Wendy & Bonnie. Didn't find either, but had nice chats with Cooper & Kevin and got a nice, easy to handle paperback copy of "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" as well as Vaneigem's "Cavalier History of Surrealism". Ordered the other stuff when I got home, noticing in the process that "An Antarctic Mystery", Verne's sequel to "Pym" had come back into print last Fall, must get a copy some time.

Still running off cassettes. Meanwhile, having bagels with Peretz while we discuss the duties and obligations of the Jewish male in contemporary society. Peretz feels that a return to careful Talmudic scholarship has been made more, not less, imperative by the death of God, while I have been making a case for a sort of purely secular post-Levinasian ethical perfectionism, which Peretz, lacking the concept of an other, disapproves of quite trenchantly. I'm sure another bagel will smooth things over between us- please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

So I thought I'd taken care of my weekend work routine yesterday, today I slept in a bit, was just settling in to my coffee, when kachunk, the power goes off then comes back on fifteen seconds later, I start scurrying around checking the servers here, the phone rings, it's the editor at work, the power's been off there too, go over there, check a gazillion things, wait for a reporter to come back so I can make sure he didn't lose any work, am back with my coffee now, have to make sure all the stuff came back up right on my servers...

OK, so the streaming server didn't start up right, fixed that, everything else seems to be in order. System administration is a continuous act of love.

Courtney just pointed out to me that the dialogue I recount overhearing here, is also reported by one of the participants here. La lala la la la, feelin' groovy...

Just made a pretty slapdash cassette to give away, oh well, a fun way to spend a Saturday morning anyway, duplicating now. I'm afraid my efforts to resist my perfectionistic tendencies, like my efforts to resist my manipulative tendencies before them, may have finally gone too far.

Oh, wow, "The Lost Boys" is on TV. I took a poetry class when I was 17 with a girl who wrote a poem about flying with the Lost Boys. She also wrote a poem that included this:

The blood ran down her arm
Like the toothpaste did when she brushed that morning.

Note to self: take more poetry classes.

So more about the Gêlatinous Çube thing. I am, in fact, actually looking for members for an effete prog band. This band has, in my mind, anyway, a dual conceptual basis: first, the Amon Düül II lyric, "And they went into a rainbow and lived there many years" and second, a recurring dream of my prepubescence in which I was rescued from this world by a delicate elfin princess. Something to consider, anyway. I think it might work out well as I really like a song I wrote a long time ago about another recurring dream.

On the recurring dream front, I've also been having these really odd sex dreams lately, maybe I'll write about them later, in any case, I think they're more Laudable Pus-type material.

Allergies, shit. On the plus side, a possible recruit for Gêlatinous Çube.

Apparently I have caused some concern or confusion, do I seem emotionally fragile to you? Anyway, don't worry about it, however I am, it's always been this way. To put it more simply, or directly:

I am a playful pussycat
made of a million precious stones,
each stone an eye turned sideways or aloft,
a city you've never lived in and never will.
Such is my skill
that even seasoned harlots gasp in admiration
as I pass with a flourish.
I can't leave well enough alone.
I am a playful pussycat.

Insane giant, well-meaning but clumsy, doesn't know own strength, seeks intense mystical experiences for incorporation into future art and/or political projects. Serious replies only, no New Age bullshit.

Just took Peretz for a walk, he's soaking wet, I'm soaking wet, and both of us love all of you with a sincerity and a fervor born of long suffering. Come by for a visit & we'll prove it.

Anyway, which way out of the hell dimension? Eternal life & bliss certainly not required, but preferred. Anyone got any pointers?

Got out of work a bit earlier than my usual for Friday and walked to town in the pouring rain to get beef momo from the Tibetan place which were surprisingly amazing as always. Should really go there more often. Tried to find some records after, but no luck.

Benadryl and a good night's sleep have left me feeling more able to cope, so if you've been waiting to tell me your troubles, feel free and I'll get right on it. Just set up web hosting for a W-S Burn website, don't think there's anything there yet, but when there is, you should check it out as they're awesome (Steve, if you happen to be reading this, please come play here some time, I'll make Mattar Paneer if you'd like).

Weighing whether to go see Michael Hurley & Feathers at the Bookmill tonight or to stay home and be supportive. Feel free to use comments as an informal online poll to assist me in resolving this moral dilemma.

Alright, since my last post I've gone from just feeling crappy to being incredibly bummed out and judging from the reactions of everyone I've told about it, you really don't want to know why.

Went to see some music for a little while anyway, Dan & George playing records, there was more to come, but I had to get home and deal with stuff. Got some ginger ale on the way home, very refreshing.

OK, so the good natured sleepiness from earlier has evolved into a light headed wooziness. I'm therefore spending some time at home going over server logs. Maybe the dampness of the past few days has encouraged some life form I'm allergic to to be fruitful and multiply?

Also, a friend of Tanya's has a supposedly litter box trained 5 month old white bunny to give away (the guinea pigs aren't getting along with him apparently). Anybody need one?

Well, just received confirmation for my Certified Penetration Testing Specialist course week after next, hopefully they won't reschedule it again, I know how disappointed some of you were last time. Also hope I get a tshirt or at least a button...

Woke up with my right arm feeling all tingly, maybe a rare neurological condition? Dare to dream, right? Also the coffee isn't really doing it for me this morning, could somebody swing by my office, sneak up behind me and pop a balloon or something?

A pretty fun evening, went to the pupusaria in S. Hadley with T, Joel & Emily. The place is pretty uniformly great (avoid the salad) and cheap with consistently weird service (waitress forgets 20% of order, leaves all silverware together on one corner of table, our check was written in childlike print on a little square of green paper) , everyone within 100 miles should go there as often as possible. Also managed to pass off some cheesecake on J&E, even Peretz had a little. It was really fun.

At the same time, of course, I had this whole other consciousness going on, floating dark irritability, hyperawareness of my own overly mannered behavior, strange fascination with my boredom with myself, some really high-level, analytically sound despair- the usual business. All the while finding all kinds of things funny that aren't or wouldn't be to you anyway and having every pop song ever written, well at least 5 or 6 of them, running through my head in a gorgeous, ecstatic harmony.

I am a beautiful flower, and it's Spring.

Weirdly busy at work, no doubt neglecting things which shouldn't be neglected... do you feel neglected?

Wish there was some music or something to go see, feeling fidgety, will probably just go wander the moors with Peretz looking dashing and romantic (Peretz that is, I will be appearing in the role of the mysterious but strangely familiar tramp).

Anyway, the cheesecake was all I could have wanted it to be, but no one came to have any- maybe you're all on diets or think I'll butcher you and hang your meat to cure in my basement or something, whatever, it would still be worth it & there's still some left, so think about it.

Oh, wow, Tanya's gone to get coffee for me, I can lie back and watch the ceiling vibrate.

Wrote most of a fairly long poem in my head earlier at work, but have lost most of it since. It was about postapocalyptic mutant bunnies building a rocket ship to go to the Oort Cloud...

I remember

They trundled out their autofac and started shooting capsules back
To sterile Earth, soon live again, thanks to infusions of nitrogen.

but not much else. There was also a good bit about a little floppy bunny finding and translating "Where Comets Come From" but I can't remember the actual rhymes. Sorry folks, work is a bitch.

So, Tanya had this oral surgery last week and is only allowed to eat 'soft' foods for two weeks. Yesterday, I decided that pretty much the only soft food much worth eating was cheesecake and starting trying to figure out where to get some that wasn't fluffy or powdery or too vanillay or (horribly) all three (try Stop N Shop for this experience). Anyway, hadn't had much in the way of thoughts about how to approach this problem beyond the longshot of the place in Holyoke which replaced Finely David's and which I noticed the other day advertises itself as a 'New York Style' deli but which looks pretty uninspiring when I hear from Emily via Joel, who I had earlier consulted on the issue, that a Rein's Delicatessen is supposed to be opening today in W. Springfield, on the rotary where the Ground Round used to be. Emily seemed to believe that their cheesecake might actually be good. So got in the car, picked up Joel & Emily, found out that Emily was interested in going to Rein's original location in Vernon, CT if the one in W. Springfield didn't pan out, drove down 5 to W. Springfield, got onto the rotary in question & spotted the place, looked empty, but parking lot full of cars. Parked, front door was open, but no customers inside, weird cult-like happening (new employee training?) going on in back. Uniformed guy inside mouthed "next week" to Emily. So we went to Vernon. Anyway, so the place is pretty ok, nothing spectacular, but the pastrami actually tastes like pastrami, the rye bread has the right texture, etc. Everyone working there seems to have some kind of vague disability. Emily only orders a side of mac 'n' cheese, Joel gets this monstrous turkey/pastrami/chopped liver thing. The cheesecake is pretty good, too and I notice they have frozen Carnegie Deli cheesecakes in front, which I like even better. So I get a slice of the inhouse cheesecake, a frozen Carnegie cheesecake and some chopped liver. Got home a little later than I would have liked and had a weird dog upset I'd been gone so long/really excited about the chopped liver experience on arriving home. Tanya seems happy, I'm happy, gotta go to the store to buy coffee now or tomorrow will be difficult. Also, tomorrow, if anybody wants cheesecake, the frozen one will have thawed and you can have some.

Much has been made of the effect of porn on the minds of fragile youth, and while I've never thought that it was all that bad, I admit from my own youthful recollections it can be quite dizzying. Less attention has been paid, however, to the effect of porn spam on the tender poetic sensibilties of sysadmins- without further ado, then, An Ode to Youth:

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Just went to look at some art, first at Eastworks where it was "Gallery Night," but apart from the show at Peanut, which, of course, rocks, but which I had already had a pretty thorough look at, the stuff on display was, to put it charitably, pretty uninteresting. Then I went to Flywheel to see "Psychantasy" which was colored pencil drawings of fairies and distressed looking people in allegorical situations. While the artist is an art therapist and the work suffered from the impoverished view of the human situation typical of the psychotherapeutic movement, some of the drawings were quite striking, especially the one with a baby doll like figure emerging from a gaping wound in a woman's shoulder. There were also some interesting effects achieved with glitter. You can look at some of this stuff online here, sadly I can't offer any hope of good glitter effects.

Overheard there, approximately:

Middle aged woman: You should publish these in a book...
Artist: Do you really think so?
Middle aged woman: Oh, yes, many of these images are very powerful.
Artist: It's my dream, but I don't know how. Who would publish them?
Middle aged man: It would be cheaper to print them yourself, do you have a printer?
Artist: It's always been my dream to have them printed in a book, each with a poem...
Middle aged woman: Well, then, you should write a poem for each one...
Artist: I already have so many poems...
Middle aged man: You would have to scan them in, could someone show you?
Artist: Most of them have already been scanned into the computer.
Middle aged man: Then you could just print them out.
Artist: It's my dream, it's my dream...

Almost started crying on the drive home, "I could be in love with almost everyone" indeed.

Well formatted that newsletter anyway, here, you can read it if you want.

While I was doing that, Peretz decided it would be fun to shove his food and water bowls around on the kitchen floor. I think it might be because I accidentally put out a 2nd breakfast for him, but I'm not sure I did, hmmm.

OK, dog is walked, everybody's happy. More pressing things to do:

1) Get CDs from Bill to put on web
2) See if Bill has any recordings of that Italian horror movie sounding music he was playing a while back, if so, use some to score short video
3) Get CDs from George to put on web
4) Make html version of current Reader to Reader newsletter. While I'm at it why don't you

and help take the country back from the cretins. Literate poor kids are dangerous poor kids.

So much to do and I'm not doing any of it:

1) Start a reading/movie watching group for Gilles Deleuze's Cinema books
2) Figure out the best way to have regular outdoor show/picnic events here when the weather's fine
3) Start effete prog band (working name Gêlatinous Çube)
4) Write 1000 articles for web about Soviet Bloc and Japanese pop cuture
5) Write a pulpy scifi novel a week for ten weeks
6) Find more ways to be social that don't involve dealing with hip kids
7) Further investment in local art production infrastructure

These are all on hold for at least 15 minutes, got to walk the dog.

Did an unexpected performance of a Frothy Shakes song earlier with Moscow Mule, this one, if you're interested. It was pretty fun and seemed to go over well (was told it was 'rad' which is probably the nicest thing anybody's said to me lately), but I couldn't really tell how it sounded, oh well.

Bad escapist science fiction tv, here I come.

Apparently, My Dad is Dead have put a bunch of their old albums up for free download. If you get this one, put it on, point a fan on high at your face and close your eyes, it will be almost exactly like riding around in a car with me in the early 90s. If anybody gets the shivers, let me know.

More free dummycakes:

Want to be out in the sunshine (that's you!). Just returned to work after giving ride to oral surgeon/running errands for work combined junket. The surgeon was apparently pretty free with the N2O, good times. On the downside, the prices for the crappiest mouse pads available appear to have doubled while I wasn't looking, has there been a run on foam rubber in anticipation of the apocalypse or something? Why wasn't I invited?

I'm a big idiot, observe:









Thanks George!

Magical world of the perpetual headache continues, which would be a great opportunity for indulging in the pathetic fallacy, if only my beloved readers could understand that headaches are more like weather than feelings.

Went to check out performance/comix thing downtown which was pretty ok, but would have been better if everybody there who wasn't Jess didn't make me feel totally self-conscious and uncomfortable and if the gay utopia speech hadn't been delivered in a twangy revivalist manner which managed to really piss me off despite being totally harmless. Anyway, if anybody is actually headed to the gay utopia, I'd be happy to come along. Also there was a pretty good video bit with an onion puppet. Would also be happy to be your onion puppet, if that's your thing.

Weird stressful things at work which can't be disclosed due to the Official Secrets Act- yoiks! I'm a professional!