How did it know? Also, I thought he was blocked.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
Emerson opens Nature by saying "Our age is retrospective." He meant to say that our constant reflection and emphasis on tradition, religion, and the pervasive myth that all the good, important thoughts have already been thunk removes the possibility of unfettered experience. We rely too heavily on what his sometimes disciple, Walt Whitman, called "spectres in books." Funny, I've already quoted two and I'm barely three sentences in. We don't understand the real because were so vested in its representation. In the "unreal."
Tonight, our professor asked us to discuss "real" moments in our lives. Someone mentioned death. Someone mentioned moving. Someone else, currently pregnant with twins, mentioned the moment she met her first child after giving birth. I didn't raise my hand except to interject that concerts (which someone else mentioned) were largely representational because we've been trained to watch the screen and not the tiny person on stage. This was met with "yeah, well, the sense of community feels real." It's just that though. We think these huge things: birth, love, death are real when they're illusory.
Hinduism has a word for it, Maya. A kind of "there is no spoon" mentality that says that everything we can see, touch, taste, hear, smell, consider, hate, love and so on, doesn't actually exist. It's part of the cartographer's map we stretch across existence (to pull in yet another spectre.) It looks pretty real. It feels alarmingly real. But it covers and belies a reality we'll never know. "The desert of the real" (Baudrillard, not Morpheus). I like that. It means that no matter how awful things get--they don't actually exist so there's no point in killing yourself over it. That's simplifying it to a preposterous extreme, but it helps you get to sleep at night.
I suppose if there is a reality, it isn't in the big ticket items. Birth and death are surreal. We've never really learned how to handle either. If love were real more marriages would last. Moving? I don't even know what to do with that. Nature? Once, for Dr. Van Noy's Creative Nonfiction class, I wrote an entire essay around a duck I saw on the New River. Two other people saw the same duck and wrote about the decoy that had washed up by the shore and was floating between roots. What do I know of the realness of Nature if I can't distinguish it?
Then again, the afternoon after I had an abortion, I ate the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had. There was nothing especially different or better about the noodles or milk or cheddar. They were just unencumbered. I'd spent the previous three weeks--between finding out I was pregnant, finding out I was too far along to legally have an abortion in the state of Virginia, and actually driving into D.C. two days after Christmas with Nicole to have it all done-- unaware of my own body. Really, you could argue I'd spent 15.5 weeks completely detached from the day-to-day goings-on of my own body, but I didn't know about it. I had trained it to bleed so it kept bleeding. My body was in revolt and playing host and I had no idea. How was I supposed to recognize a duck from a decoy? What have I ever known of reality apart from that macaroni and cheese?
*on a semi-related note, for weeks after the abortion I couldn't get "Hills Like White Elephants" out of my head. I missed pretending it was really about a lobotomy. Then I decided that I should eventually have an experience I cannot immediately relate back to something I have read. Perhaps, instead, I should just stop reading quite so much.
Tonight, our professor asked us to discuss "real" moments in our lives. Someone mentioned death. Someone mentioned moving. Someone else, currently pregnant with twins, mentioned the moment she met her first child after giving birth. I didn't raise my hand except to interject that concerts (which someone else mentioned) were largely representational because we've been trained to watch the screen and not the tiny person on stage. This was met with "yeah, well, the sense of community feels real." It's just that though. We think these huge things: birth, love, death are real when they're illusory.
Hinduism has a word for it, Maya. A kind of "there is no spoon" mentality that says that everything we can see, touch, taste, hear, smell, consider, hate, love and so on, doesn't actually exist. It's part of the cartographer's map we stretch across existence (to pull in yet another spectre.) It looks pretty real. It feels alarmingly real. But it covers and belies a reality we'll never know. "The desert of the real" (Baudrillard, not Morpheus). I like that. It means that no matter how awful things get--they don't actually exist so there's no point in killing yourself over it. That's simplifying it to a preposterous extreme, but it helps you get to sleep at night.
I suppose if there is a reality, it isn't in the big ticket items. Birth and death are surreal. We've never really learned how to handle either. If love were real more marriages would last. Moving? I don't even know what to do with that. Nature? Once, for Dr. Van Noy's Creative Nonfiction class, I wrote an entire essay around a duck I saw on the New River. Two other people saw the same duck and wrote about the decoy that had washed up by the shore and was floating between roots. What do I know of the realness of Nature if I can't distinguish it?
Then again, the afternoon after I had an abortion, I ate the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had. There was nothing especially different or better about the noodles or milk or cheddar. They were just unencumbered. I'd spent the previous three weeks--between finding out I was pregnant, finding out I was too far along to legally have an abortion in the state of Virginia, and actually driving into D.C. two days after Christmas with Nicole to have it all done-- unaware of my own body. Really, you could argue I'd spent 15.5 weeks completely detached from the day-to-day goings-on of my own body, but I didn't know about it. I had trained it to bleed so it kept bleeding. My body was in revolt and playing host and I had no idea. How was I supposed to recognize a duck from a decoy? What have I ever known of reality apart from that macaroni and cheese?
*on a semi-related note, for weeks after the abortion I couldn't get "Hills Like White Elephants" out of my head. I missed pretending it was really about a lobotomy. Then I decided that I should eventually have an experience I cannot immediately relate back to something I have read. Perhaps, instead, I should just stop reading quite so much.
Friday, June 19, 2009
I am slightly concerned that my Netflix queue does not say good things about me
It feels like I've included a number of the titles on this queue as a means of atonement. I might be intellectually over-compensating.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Adventures in forced interaction
REENACTMENT OF AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION AT LAST NIGHT'S DELIOUSLY AWKWARD NO DOUBT CONCERT:
Ex-Boyfriend: I should take one of those flyers since I used to have to do that job. Oh well.
Me: Yeah, I used to have to be the person who took pictures of you doing that job.
Ex: Hey you got shows out of it. John Mayer?
Me: And Brett Dennon.
Ex: Yeah, how do you like that in your face?*
*this is an approximation of what he said, it did involve "in your face" I just can't remember the exact wording
Me: Actually, I would like John Mayer in my face. That would be quite nice.
Ex: [scowl].
Me: Ha, see what I did there, I turned it around on you. [dances to lighten mood] See that? It's my turned-it-around-on-you dance.
(editor's note: was the dancing excessive? Yes, probably. Was the other dance I had to do to avoid the turned over trashcan while doing my intended dance hilarious? Yes, I believe, enough to make up for the preceding.)
Ex: [scowl].
The concert last night was fantastic and lent an ironic level of hilarity when forced to sing along to No Doubt next to my ex-boyfriend. Then again, Gwen and Tony do that every night.
Ex-Boyfriend: I should take one of those flyers since I used to have to do that job. Oh well.
Me: Yeah, I used to have to be the person who took pictures of you doing that job.
Ex: Hey you got shows out of it. John Mayer?
Me: And Brett Dennon.
Ex: Yeah, how do you like that in your face?*
*this is an approximation of what he said, it did involve "in your face" I just can't remember the exact wording
Me: Actually, I would like John Mayer in my face. That would be quite nice.
Ex: [scowl].
Me: Ha, see what I did there, I turned it around on you. [dances to lighten mood] See that? It's my turned-it-around-on-you dance.
(editor's note: was the dancing excessive? Yes, probably. Was the other dance I had to do to avoid the turned over trashcan while doing my intended dance hilarious? Yes, I believe, enough to make up for the preceding.)
Ex: [scowl].
The concert last night was fantastic and lent an ironic level of hilarity when forced to sing along to No Doubt next to my ex-boyfriend. Then again, Gwen and Tony do that every night.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Has all the reading made me age prematurely?
On the Metro this evening, while reading "The Cult of True Womanhood" for class and giggling silently to myself, I heard a voice I vaguely recognized. Admittedly, I first thought it was my very married next door neighbor chatting up an intern. Once I actual caught a glimpse of the guy, I realized it was the law student who'd looked me up on facebook, asked me if I wanted to catch This American Life live, never got back to me about the show only to run into me at 2 AM one U St. on Saturday night and never talk to me again after that. D.C. is an alarmingly small town sometimes. While he and the intern were chatting it up I did my best to keep reading and hide behind my hair (owing to magical ever-sagging pants and a noticeable umbrella absence this morning, I was in no position to pretend to be cute in public.) I managed to refocus my attention on the article, again to the point of giggles. I must have looked up smiling because I caught the attention of an older gentleman (40? 45? He had retired Marine hair and wore IT sneakers.)
It is possible that inferred flirtation from my smiling glance upward and immediate diversion. I've read that this maneuver is often adopted by girls who know what they're doing. I most assuredly do not know what I am doing. Two stops later, Sargent Orthopedic Shoes came over to me with his card, scribbled on it a request for coffee.
While I'm flattered and appreciate the balls it must take to do something I'd need an entire bottle of Irish whisky to accomplish, this whole appealing to the Grecian Five set isn't my thing. I'm starting to worry that these men think I am older than I am. Significantly older.
He also has a really ugly business card. Horrible, easily bent card stock and a terrible graphic.
In other news, while walking to the Mason bookstore today, I thought the man in front of me might have been Jason (I really should have given him a nickname.) He was grey in the same places, wore remarkably similar clothing, and walked the same way. By the time I decided whether I was alright with this man actually being Jason, he turned a corner and clearly wasn't.
It is possible that inferred flirtation from my smiling glance upward and immediate diversion. I've read that this maneuver is often adopted by girls who know what they're doing. I most assuredly do not know what I am doing. Two stops later, Sargent Orthopedic Shoes came over to me with his card, scribbled on it a request for coffee.
While I'm flattered and appreciate the balls it must take to do something I'd need an entire bottle of Irish whisky to accomplish, this whole appealing to the Grecian Five set isn't my thing. I'm starting to worry that these men think I am older than I am. Significantly older.
He also has a really ugly business card. Horrible, easily bent card stock and a terrible graphic.
In other news, while walking to the Mason bookstore today, I thought the man in front of me might have been Jason (I really should have given him a nickname.) He was grey in the same places, wore remarkably similar clothing, and walked the same way. By the time I decided whether I was alright with this man actually being Jason, he turned a corner and clearly wasn't.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Ok, scratch that. Reverse.
Last night, on a corner in D.C., standing in front of a mobile curry stand, I met a person I only know through Facebook. It should be the other way around, shouldn't it?
Sometimes I think this contact degree-removal we encounter as a result of being inundated with electronic means of communication (and constantly choosing those safe encounters over the messy, physical in-person ones) will kill us before we run out of oil. Or it'll turn into Demolition Man and we'll only have sex through headsets. That will also kill us off.
(on a tangentially related note, I had been worried that my habit of only picking what I deem to be the most attractive pictures of me for my fb profile was giving the Internet a warped vision of what I actually look like. Apparently, I do look like that. Or enough like that that I can pass for facebook me.)
Now to finish this paper and figure out what I'll read on my break. Eco? Borges? I could go for a little PoMo.
Sometimes I think this contact degree-removal we encounter as a result of being inundated with electronic means of communication (and constantly choosing those safe encounters over the messy, physical in-person ones) will kill us before we run out of oil. Or it'll turn into Demolition Man and we'll only have sex through headsets. That will also kill us off.
(on a tangentially related note, I had been worried that my habit of only picking what I deem to be the most attractive pictures of me for my fb profile was giving the Internet a warped vision of what I actually look like. Apparently, I do look like that. Or enough like that that I can pass for facebook me.)
Now to finish this paper and figure out what I'll read on my break. Eco? Borges? I could go for a little PoMo.
Friday, May 1, 2009
You're right. That does put it all in perspective...
Yesterday, after I incorrectly merged what I thought was a duplicate account (two accounts, same, uncommon name, same field, similar interests. I was 90% sure it was the same person), I was called into my boss's office and told that while this was something that is a giant hassle to correct and I should never do it again, in the grand scheme of things it wasn't a huge deal. This was her reasoning:
We've merged around 18,000 accounts since I [boss] started. This has only happened like four times.
Yes, that makes me feel so much better about my mistake. about 17,996 times better about it. Thanks.
We've merged around 18,000 accounts since I [boss] started. This has only happened like four times.
Yes, that makes me feel so much better about my mistake. about 17,996 times better about it. Thanks.
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