2004.05.11
I woke up with a bit of a tune ssticking in my head...took me a while to realize it was this little ditty from Hey, Hey 16K, kind of a tribute to the early 8-bit home computers, UK-centric though, so it's interesting to see what they had and we didn't...WARNING, catchy little tune. I kind of liked the knuckle cracking simulator by the same guy.
Quote of the Moment
You know, kids, Drew's head is just like a piñata. If you hit his head enough times when he's sleeping, candy comes out. Well, first blood, then candy. Keep hitting.
Introspection of the Moment
So I've been trying to use this time for some introspection, taking the experience of divorce to try and learn more about myself. Here's a thought that just crystallized: for me, roughly speaking, nothing is sacred. Which ties into me not having a sense of privacy, maybe it ties into not having made a big deal about my romance with Mo.
Lately I've been trying to figure out where this view came from, why my sense of "this is sacred, untouchable" is so much less formed than with some other people. Maybe it's the church I grew up in? The Salvation Army has a pretty terrific roll-up-your-sleeves approach to religion, very non-mystical. We don't take communion, don't baptize with water; you're expected to establish your personal, unmediated relationship with Jesus Christ and then get to work being a member of the local church community, taking part in the big metaphorical and literal war against sin. Relative to, say, the Catholics, there's a lot less mystery to it. And I always got to see behind the scenes anyway, as a child of the ministers, and then as a member of the band and active participant.
But there's so little sacred in my life...not even stuff like my divorce or the death of my dad is taboo for the occasional macabre joke. (Which he would likely would have appreciated, he had some similar inclinations to dark humor himself.) I try to be respectful of other people's "sacred spaces", with varying levels of success. I think my strongest sense of the sacred and spiritual comes out in this passage from Henry Miller's "Tropic of Capricorn": (pardoning the sexist language.)
There are no "facts"-- there is only the fact that man, every man everywhere in the world, is on his way to ordination. Some men take the long route and some take the short route. Every man is working out his own way and nobody can be of help except by being kind, generous, and patient.Kind, generous, and patient. That's what I aim for, but sometimes my own way to ordination is slow and painful itself.
Maybe I need to get better at setting up sacred spaces, at drawing certain boundaries, at following certain rituals. I dunno!
Geek Note of the Moment
This is the first kisrael entry from my new cute iBook. From my living room, no less...I went ahead and got my wireless mojo working again. And sitting on the couch and hitting the Internet is what this laptop is all about for the time being.
It's a little intimidating being such a newbie all over again. Mac definately is a bit different of a paradigm...more "app" based than window or even document based, I guess I'd say. I still need some time to form my final opinion. In the meanwhile, I think I will be more able to empathize with my mom and other non-techies I help out from time to time. (Or maybe I'll be worse..."look, I learned this in a day or two, why can't you??" Hmmmm.)
It has been a long time since I've had a new laptop. I mean a long time...I bought this one great Tandy 1100FD laptop in 1991 or 92...it had no hard drive, and an odd (but readable) gameboy like CGA screen, but with a very decent text processor hard-wired in, so I was up and running very quickly. I used it to take notes in class, which made me something of a freak back then, but hey...I had notes I could read afterwards. In 1995 I bought a cheapie "Mitac" laptop, 486, 16 shades of grey...ran Windows 3.1 ok, and I could use its little track ball to do diagrams (as well as school logos.) I used Mo's 1999 VAIO and her much more recent Dell, but that's about it.
Ok, this is a really boring entry. But...it is on my new laptop, and that has got to count for something, right? Right?