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Posts for the date of Friday, February 28, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:01 AM |
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I think my brain has finally fractured into a million separate beings and are living separate lives. I have no control over them.
In fact, I’m not sure they even want me around anymore. A revolt may be on its way.
How do I know this? Well, take into account my current reading. Or, shall I say “readings”:
James Gleick: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
Neal Stepenson: Diamond Age
Cory Doctrow: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Gunter Grass: The Tin Drum
JP Donleavy: The Ginger Man
I’m currently working my way through five books, one of which I’ve already read. I look at that list and I wonder, what connection do these books have? In one respect, they are all surprisingly funny. In another, they are not related remotely.
So, that’s when I decided that I have five people living in my head. And I’d like you to meet them:
Dexter: Hi. I’m Dexter and I’m currently reading the Feynman book. I’ve never owned a pair of pants that went past my ankles. I’m an insufferable nerd who can’t get enough discussion of the finer points of gluons. I just wish people would stop hitting me.
DiRK: Greetings. I am DiRK. I like Neal Stephenson because he is smart and funny. I wish I knew how to meet girls. Did you know that a Hinerian can fart helium? I’m still trying to figure out the biological and chemical implications of that fact. Yark. Yark.
Chet: Hey. I’m Chet. Cory Doctrow’s book RAWKS man. It’s friggin’ funnier than any other friggin’ thing I’ve ever friggin’ read. I did it all for the whuffie! The whuffie! And you can take this whuffie! Rawk man!
Frank: Gunter Grass’ story is a rich allegory about the post-war society and feelings of loss that many Germans had to deal with while rebuilding their world and living with the scars of their past. Poignant, funny and strange, The Tin Drum is one of the classics of 20th Century European literature.
Gary: I’m frightened that I enjoy the exploits of Sebastian Dangerfield, considering that he is an ass. Does that make me an ass?
Later tonight these five men will join together and collectively vote one of their fellow split personalities out of the psyche. That outcast will forever wander through the portions of the brain that are not used searching for latent powers (knowing full well he will never find any). That is, unless DiRK uses him for one of his horrifying genetic experiments.
If I’ve ever made a case for medicating me . . . I think it’s now. I’ll take Thorozine with some Paxil on the side! I want the Thorozine heated, but not the Paxil.
Gary’s going nuts! Now’s your opportunity to discuss it!
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Posts for the date of Thursday, February 27, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 3:07 PM |
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Sorry gang. I was messing with my template. Oh joy oh fun. And it didn't do what I wanted it to. I'm sure it would, if I had time and patience. I have neither.
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Posts for the date of Wednesday, February 26, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:01 AM |
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I was sitting at my computer yesterday afternoon fretting over the flurry of emails I was receiving from my client. It was unending and I actually spent six hours answering questions. I felt as if I were being indicted for something. Not that the company was accusing me of anything, but I just felt I was under investigation.
Matilda came up to me, wrapper her arms around my neck and sobbed. Now, unless you are a parent, specifically a dad, you don’t realize that when your child hits seven she doesn’t normally wrap her arms around your neck and really hug you. Especially if you are a dad. In this scenario there are two possible things she’s looking for: permission or comfort.
In this case it was clearly comfort. She didn’t say anything; she just crumpled into my arms and cried quietly. Not her normal dramatic crying, but real sorrow.
Real, pained sorrow that came within a deep well insider her child’s heart. Her friends quietly told me that she and another girl had a fight and the other girl left.
No questions. No advice. I just held her and let her calm herself.
A child’s heart is so delicate. They puff themselves up and try to prove themselves as mini-adults. But, when things come crashing down around them, they can’t hold it together because they do not understand at all. Why did this happen? Why did the universe bite back?
It takes us so long to learn that things don’t always work out. But what does that really do to us? A few relationships burn us and we find out we should know better. So instead of being trusting and open we close ourselves off and become suspicious of others. We know they seem nice. But in their hearts lurks a horrible darkness that is bent upon destroying our lives.
Come on. We’ve all been there, there’s no denying that. But if you look at a child, before they’ve sucked up their parents’ fears and prejudice or they’ve caved to peer pressure to ostracize, they accept other kids. They seek them out.
Watch next time you’re in a closed situation with a young one. Another kid will enter and the two will circle each other like predators. They size one another up, and decide who is the dominant child. The leader approaches the other and says, “Do you want to see this truck?” And they are off. It wouldn’t matter if the kids looked different, smelled bad or had ten arms. In the moment they’d play together.
It’s when the concept of real friendship comes up that the pain arrives. Once a friend burns you, it makes it a little more difficult to jump into that next friendship. Those bastards.
It’s funny, though. Friendship, the one thing we all seek out and tell everyone is the most important thing is the first thing in our lives that makes us suspicious of other people.
Weird, huh?
Discuss
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Posts for the date of Tuesday, February 25, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:28 AM |
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Alert the press. I have taught the baby how to make coffee. I have the world’s first accomplished fifteen-month-old barrista. And, perhaps, the cutest barista in existence because she says “Da!” to everything.
It all started when she was quite bored and it was time to make my evening coffee to facilitate my day’s unwinding. I find a good cup of Costa Rican, combined with good company (my lovely, witty wife) and a good DVD (Farscape recently) really makes an evening worthwhile. So, before we take the kids upstairs for the bedtime ritual and our daily installment of whatever Lemony Snicket book Matilda and I are reading (Starting “The Hostile Hospital” tonight) I make a pot of the good stuff.
Now, by good stuff I don’t mean the coffee that you can buy in the bins at your local grocery store. No, this comes from a very small specialty shop run by a husband and wife team who, I think, may be planning on leaving me the store when they die. When I went to pick up coffee at the supermarket, it was done so anonymously. Like I was soliciting a caffeine-laced hooker in a dark back alley and I told her my name was Billy Pilgrim. When I go to my little store they call me by name, talk about how cute my kids are and how beautiful my wife is. We joke. We argue about politics. It’s an hour trip minimum to get a few pounds of coffee. When we buy a house this summer I know that no matter where I live, I’ll make the trek for this coffee. It’s that damn good. One sip and you’re crying with joy. Plus they have 40 non-flavor, caffeinated coffees to choose from. Thems good slurping. It’s the best way to get my C8H10N4O2.
Anyway, the night I taught the baby to make coffee she was in a particularly bad mood. Now, it wasn’t because she was disagreeable or had a bad attitude. Rather, at that age life actually becomes overwhelming by the end of the evening. Think about it. You don’t really know anything for certain. You can’t even be sure that you have hair. Nothing is a constant except that your pants suddenly get soggy every few hours. You’re not sure why. Food is mush, and everything from carpet to dirt to paper actually tastes good. Plus, to top it all off, you can’t figure out what the hell anyone is saying. An odd word here and there, sure. But to communicate with the giant creatures who imprison your body in cloth and wipe you constantly? Impossible. Here’s what it sounds like to the little ones:
“Blahblahblahstopblahblahnoblahblahblahcookie. Gabba gabba hey.”
So, Gertrude was tired. She wanted to turn off the world and give her poor little brain a rest. And who could blame her? She has a weird family.
“Gertrude, do you want to make coffee with Daddy,” I asked, thinking there was no chance in hell that she would. Dads are like the smelly person you work with. You recognize their brilliance, but you simply don’t want to spend time with them until they hit 70 and suddenly become interested in fishing and skeeball. So the fact that Gertrude stood up, giggled and ran to the kitchen amazed me.
For various reasons. One, that she wanted to spend time with me that didn’t involve wiping her snot in my hair and two, that she knew where we made coffee.
When I met her in the kitchen, she was standing and pointing to the freezer, where we keep the good beans. Hmm. She knows where we keep it. That’s not good.
The first time making the Joe was a little rough. She ran away from the grinder, drooled into the grounds and hit me in the face with the scoop. But she closed all lids and put the coffee back for me. As time went on she knows when to get the filter, when to turn on the grinder (she does it herself) and when to turn on the machine. If she were a little taller, say about four feet, she could be doing this all on her own.
I’m just happy to have these few moments alone with my baby. I get to share in her joy of learning how to do something that requires finite motor skills while enjoying a nightly ritual that I find an integral part of my day. It’s soothing. Plus we share all sorts of hugs and shouts of joy. Or shouts of “Da!” depending on who’s doing the talking.
Now, I know what you anti-drug people are thinking. You think that it is wrong for me to give this baby a positive association with coffee. Because that will eventually lead her down the same slippery slope that lead to my own addiction.
“I don’t know doctor,” she’ll say to her rehab therapist, “I always knew my dad was different. I mean, he actually phased in and out between corporeal and solid. I had no idea that he had so much caffeine in his system that it had affected him on a cellular level. Now he’s entered into a temporal shift and spends most of his days bouncing around a quantum timeline that allows him to visit various times in history. He seems happy because he finally got to see every episode of Hogan’s Hereos, but is that anyway to live? Besides, he owes me money and because he isn’t solid he can’t pay me back. He just laughs as he phases out of this plane of existence and tells me to clean my room.”
But to you caffeine Nazis who think that I’m frying my brain by drinking so much coffee I say . . . Well, I forgot. But the whole thing isn’t about caffeine.
No, the next step is teaching Gertrude how to make teriyaki chicken. Then rice. Then to do the dishes.
Because damn it, I’m tired. Somebody has to do this work and I don’t think she’s been pulling her weight around here.
Discuss
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Posts for the date of Monday, February 24, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:05 AM |
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Well it has been forever since I’ve actually updated this page, hasn’t it? I wish I could say that I’m writing something blazingly hilarious today to entertain and inform you but . . . it wouldn’t be true. At least we have the new groovy discussion links at the end of every post, right? Go ahead and use them. They’re fun. And healthy. Discussion my pathetic life is good for yours.
After so long working on all of these projects, I’m afraid I’m a little dried up as far as writing is concerned. I could sit here and write, “I hate deadlines. I hate pressure. I hate paper cuts. I hate working so many hours in one week. I hate kung-fu wombats with Chinese stars. I hate it all.”
But that would be boring, wouldn’t it.
In my down time, which has been spent getting caught up on television shows I was never able to watch, like Farscape and Six Feet Under, I have been doing some serious soul-searching.
Not my own soul. That would be boring. No, I’ve been looking at other people’s souls. And let me tell you people something. Clean them! There’s nothing worse than a soul with a gross mustard stain on it.
In truth, I have been doing some soul searching. For one thing, do I want to be a freelance editor forever? Not particularly. I would like to extend my life into the writing arena. But that takes work. And I’m tired. I know I should do it. But I have somewhere around 400 typed pages to go through and hammer into a book. That’s a lot of editing. I hate editing. It’s boring boring boring.
I think I also want to write a novel. The fact that I lack ideas for a novel isn’t holding me back. It never stopped Steven King or John Grisham, so why should I worry about it?
They say that you should write what you know. Okay. Well, let’s see what that comes out as:
A freelancing family man spends his days alone with no human contact. As time goes on he realizes that the people on the radio are his friends and he starts having conversations with them. One day, when he’s had way too much coffee, the radio talks back. Frightening consequences ensue.
No. That wouldn’t work, would it? Let’s try it as a Science Fiction book:
A freelancing space family man spends his days alone in space with no human contact. As time goes on he realizes that the buzzing sounds on the Quantum Waves are his friends and he starts having conversations with them in space. One day, when he’s had way too much space coffee in space, the radio talks back. Frightening consequences ensue. In space.
Nope. That’s not that good, is it. How about a supernatural story:
A freelancing family man, with a dark secret, spends his days alone with no human contact in dark secret. As time goes on he realizes that the voices in his head are his friends and he starts having conversations with them. One day, when he’s had way too much coffee after performing strange cult rituals involving Alka Seltzer and Sudafed, the radio talks back with dark secrets. Frightening consequences ensue. With werewolves and monsters and killer clowns. And the dead coming back to life. With knives.
No, that doesn’t work either. Wow. Am I boring or what?
Either way, I need to find that creative spark and start writing again. I think I want to play with some fiction and, to be honest (and geeky) I think I want to write Sci Fi. I enjoy world building and I think that it has a wonderful potential for humor and allegory.
So I’m going to sit here today and figure out what to write.
And frightening consequences ensue . . .
Discuss
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