Jason Stackhouse and His Engaging Lies

Glenn Beck a pedophile?

2010-11-13T12:17:00.003-05:00

Why is Glenn Beck taking to the air to deny an interest in child pornography? To my knowledge, no accusations have been made.

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201011120014

National Coming Out Day

2010-10-11T00:01:00.004-05:00

My father's gay. That gene skipped me, for which I am selfishly grateful; hard enough being a pervert in America without being homosexual, as well.

He never had a chance. Adopted by half-insane Catholics*, raised in an atmosphere of constant head-fucking and crushing guilt, he lacked even the words to conceptualize himself as anything other than diseased and damned. This was before queers had TV shows and media stars, before Stonewall... When his family and society told him what it meant to be gay, theirs was the only answer he had. He was a fag. A fairy. A half-man who could be beaten, tormented, and even raped without consequence.

It broke him. Internalized hatred twisted everything he touched, including our own relationship.

I wonder: had he another answer, would both of our lives be different? Even were it a matter of changing one stereotype for another, something so trivial as thinking, 'I'm gay, I guess I'm stuck in the cultural industry' instead of, 'I'm a faggot, I'm damned and worthless', who would we be today?

I'll never know.

Today is National Coming Out Day. Today is the day we flood our media channels and public squares with a new answer: being queer, trans, bi, or just plain kinked means that straight sex doesn't do it for you. And that's all it means.

Really. It doesn't mean you're better or worse than anyone else, it's not a pathology, it's not a sin. What two (or more) consenting adults want in bed should have nothing to do with which rights they are afforded under the law, their treatment in the community, or their status as human beings.

That's just true. That's my answer.

*Not an indictment of Catholics, but an indictment of -these specific people- whose madness happened to grow on a Catholic trellis.

Fake? Yes.

2010-10-05T15:53:00.002-05:00

Nonetheless:

Beats the hell out of a test pattern. Back soon, me lovelies.

Ah, memories.

2010-09-07T11:17:00.002-05:00

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility."

- Edward R. Murrow

Below this quote, I wanted to share a few words about fear, civics, and beating a dog with a stick. Instead, I found myself writing an essay about the transition of my nation's government from a Republic to a Something Quite Else... Text clipped from this post pending further development; it's a bit of a monster.

Hearing this, he became Enlightened

2010-08-22T10:48:00.002-05:00

I found my daughter stretched out on the floor of her room, still, limbs splayed. She breathed and her eyes flicked to me as I entered.

Suppressing a blip of atavistic panic, I sipped my coffee and waited.

"I'm playing dead," she said.

I nodded. "Why?"

"I was wondering what it felt like."

"Most people are at least a little curious about being dead," I said. "What brought it to mind?"

"Nothing, really," she said. "But once I'm dead, I won't be able to think about it. So, I've gotta do that now, while I'm alive."

"Makes sense," I said. I put my coffee down on her bookshelf and arranged myself next to her.

We rotted, awhile.

"Boring," she said. I grunted.

She sat up and scratched her back. "I don't want to die, then," she said.

Memory's a funny thing

2010-08-11T16:07:00.003-05:00

I thought I wrote a song in a dream. Not so much.

When something pops out of my head, Athena-style, I usually Google a few key phrases to deflect accidental plagiarism. I appears that, in my sleep, I spontaneously remembered... this?

Well there was an old woman and she lived in the woods
Weile weile waile
There was an old woman and she lived in the woods
Down by the river Saile

She had a baby 3 months old weile weile waile
She had a baby 3 months old,down by the river Saile

She had a penknife long and sharp,weile weile waile
She had a penknife long and sharp,down by the river Saile

She stuck the penknife in the baby's heart weile weile waile
She stuck the penknife in the baby's heart,down by the river Saile

Three hard knock came knocking on the door,weile weile waile
Three hard knocks came knocking on the door,down by the river Saile

Are you the woman that killed the child weile weile waile
Are you the woman that killed the child,down by the river Saile.

The rope was pulled and she got hung weile weile waile
The rope was pulled and she got hung,down by the river Saile

And that was the end of the woman in the woods weile weile waile
And that was the end of the woman in the woods down by the river Saile

(Source: http://martindardis.com/id172.html )

In Monday night's version, it was a penny she stuck in the baby's heart. I dreamed a rapid battery of child's questions to the woman who sang it to me... Yes, the child died, no, she wasn't sure what the woman gained by doing so, yes, a guard (?) took the old woman and made sure she couldn't do it again, no, she wasn't the old woman in question...

(Ah. A guard = Gardaí. See? Writing things down, it helps.)

What was my childhood like, exactly? I'm intensely curious...

Too easy

2010-07-14T12:05:00.001-05:00

"Two scientific studies have suggested a field of Vatican Radio broadcasting antennas north of Rome may have caused high rates of cancer in the area."

Raffaele Capone, who heads a residents association in the Cesano area, said: "We hope that it will be removed from our territory so that we can finally live in peace."

Some residents complained the transmissions were so strong they could hear radio broadcasts through their domestic lamps.

Link to BBC story

Well-scried, Mr. Gibson

2010-07-09T09:40:00.003-05:00

The news is already ancient, in Internet Years, but it regards something dear to my heart. Take it away, WSJ:

In the latest development, U.S. government scientists say they have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered.

[...]

The HIV antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known in the scientific literature as Donor 45, whose body made the antibodies naturally.

Two dear things, actually. One is biomimicry, the other something for which I'm sure there's a perfect word in German. A ResonantFictionalDetailThatBecomesTrueAndSavesTheDayButWasn'tQuiteAPrediction.

My weather report

2010-07-05T14:23:00.001-05:00

Concrete TV and cheap beer, with the possibility of classier forms of dissipation as the evening progresses.

New record for Shortest Traffic Stop

2010-07-05T01:58:00.002-05:00

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"It's 3am and half the country's drunk. The odds were pretty good."

"All right, drive safe."

First and last word on Twilight:

2010-07-03T02:47:00.001-05:00

Team Sarasti. Meat is for eating.

New NOAA Oilpocalypse Impact Study

2010-07-02T13:09:00.001-05:00

released, with summary available here. Highlights:

* The coastlines with the highest probability for impact (81 to 100 percent) extend from the Mississippi River Delta to the western panhandle of Florida where there has been and will likely continue to be oil impacts.

* Along U.S. Gulf of Mexico shorelines, the oil is more likely to move east than west, with much of the coast of Texas showing a relatively low probability of oiling (ranging from less than one percent in southern Texas to up to 40 percent near the Louisiana border).

* Much of the west coast of Florida has a low probability (20 percent down to less than one percent) of oiling, but the Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a greater probability (61 to 80 percent) due to the potential influence of the Loop Current. Any oil reaching this area would have spent considerable time degrading and dispersing and would be in the form of scattered tar balls and not a large surface slick of oil.

* There is a low probability of shoreline impacts from eastern central Florida up the Eastern Seaboard (20 percent diminishing to less than one percent). Potential impacts become increasingly unlikely north of North Carolina as the Gulf Stream moves away from the continental U.S. at Cape Hatteras. If oil does reach these areas, it will be in the form of tar balls or highly weathered oil.

The vector sum whistles a happy tune

2010-06-30T09:39:00.002-05:00

A conversation held in kisses, a new source of work, cancelling an anticipated trip, enacting vengeance, needing to enact vengeance, draft progress on a stubborn tale, the smell of fresh coffee, good beer with a better friend, a series of banal nightmares, mysterious hardware problems, watching a stranger decompensate, looking for rent money, gorgeous weather...

Mood is a flock of tethered birds.

Another image post

2010-06-17T08:22:00.002-05:00

via grinding.be

Pardon my fixation on collapse imagery, of late. It's been that kind of week.

Losing Arizona

2010-06-14T19:11:00.002-05:00

It's official:

Demonstrates care for self and others

2010-06-13T22:01:00.001-05:00

Some nights, I want whiskey and cruel laughter. I stay home and write, cause alturism is how bread's buttered.

The Hills have an Eye

2010-06-01T17:47:00.001-05:00

blinkblink

2010-05-31T18:31:00.001-05:00

Oh, the Internet. I remember this...

today's challenge

2010-05-24T08:54:00.001-05:00

is to end the day debt-free and with 4k words in the Vats.

has a Droid

2010-05-22T17:22:00.003-05:00

Where's the betting pool stand for Time to Gratuitous Rooting? (Hint for ya'll playing the Home Game: I don't crack my toys open until thwarted. If it ain't broke, etc.)

"It's BP's rules, not ours"

2010-05-20T06:58:00.001-05:00

Coast Guard 'Under BP's Rules'- CBS News Video

Kelly Cobiella reports that a CBS News team was threatened with arrest by Coast Guard officials in the Gulf of Mexico who said they were acting under the authority of British Petroleum.

I've no time for further comment or research on the subject this morning. I'll look into it when I get back to the grid and post what I find.

Morning thoughts of an ape in its underwear

2010-05-15T08:57:00.001-05:00

I've been a human for almost thirty years and raising a child of my own for five; one thing I know for certain is that toys and gadgets don't make the child. They're at best entertaining or convenient, at worst a distraction from meaningful contact and play.

Quoth the Great Grand Grifter: "As above, so below".

We're children, yet. Of our 250,000 years of history, only 10,000 are even somewhat remembered and perhaps 500 years understood and contextualized.

We don't need flying cars, or their motorcycle-analog jetpacks. Cortical computing, ubiquitous digital awareness, these are interesting and dangerous toys. Nanobot colonies in our blood, eating viruses and tumors and shitting rainbows... Useful stuff, in an age of cheap travel and industrial contaminants, but no substitute for meaningful contact and play.

Our development requires two things: a more humane, sustainable socioeconomic system and a thriving biosphere. In children's terms, we must learn to share, play nice, and not shit on the kitchen floor. That's where we are and what we need; without learning these lessons to our bones, we've not a chance in hell of making it off this rock.

I love humans. I do. I dream, fitfully, of my descendants singing and making babies under alien suns, in habitats spanning entire systems. Of knowing and seeing and loving entire universes beyond my dim, ancient comprehension. But I also see us falling in with a bad crowd, so to speak. Dying in a soulless, decaying suburb in a world of 'em, whatever potential we possessed in our youth sacrificed for drugs and shiny, shiny toys.

Just can't write nice things

2010-05-02T19:28:00.001-05:00

I just don't know how, it seems. Reading back over my logs (what our ancestors referred to as 'journals' or 'diaries') of the last several weeks, I'm struck by how brainlessly cheerful I sound.

What I know is, I've been a miserable bastard for years. It's only now, finding contentment and joy, that I see the difference.

By the way

2010-04-27T08:38:00.001-05:00

Peter Watts is Free

David Nickel posts:

I type this from the basement of the Quay Street Brewing Company, where manager Mike Ziegler has kindly let me post this.

Sentencing is finished. Judge Adair dismissed any thoughts of jail time, made Peter pay a fine, and shared wisdom about the respect we must afford police.

But never mind that. No jail time. We are celebrating for a bit at Quay Street, then heading home.

Watts's sentencing today

2010-04-26T07:30:00.001-05:00

Cross your manipulators and watch this space.

A post in name only

2010-04-24T23:10:00.001-05:00

One of those nights I may never discuss.

It'll creep into the work; everything does. But something about tonight, finality cloaked in the banal... There is something wonderful and profound in simply carrying on.

Frustrating, too, when saying goodbye is forbidden by context.

Aww.

2010-04-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

Anthropomorphism has limits: snails are not good kissers.

As you gaze into the Abyss...

2010-04-19T21:20:00.001-05:00

... you get bored and make shit up.

Filter-feeding

2010-04-19T20:33:00.001-05:00

Currently Listening: David Eagleman's presentation Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilization.

Stuff I'm Looking At:

Hot Malware on Malware action. What it says on the tin.

BoA Employee loads custom malware onto ATMs. A long-standing dream of mine. The modern American landscape is covered with honest-to-God-module treasure chests. Damn and blast my commitment to good behavior...

Guardian interview with Philip Pullman. I love his work and will craft a supervillain in his image. Laura Barton's eye for character is noteworthy, as well.

Kids these days.

2010-04-17T19:12:00.001-05:00

My daughter knocked over our dining chairs while "trying to teleport". Kids and their powers, no respect for quality furniture.

Flexing my ignorant solipsism

2010-04-16T21:43:00.001-05:00

New Scientist Made Me Happy, today:

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

[...]

Yet it does seem to be moving – and fast: its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light. Such apparent "superluminal" motion has been seen before in high-speed jets of material squirted out by some black holes. The stuff in these jets is moving towards us at a slight angle and travelling at a fair fraction of the speed of light, and the effects of relativity produce a kind of optical illusion that makes the motion appear superluminal.

Choosing not to examine the evidence, for now, and in the face of alternate explanations, I elect to believe the M82 event is a noisy means of warp travel. That gives me aliens AND possible FTL.

I consider this an Article of Faith. Challenge me and I shall froth upon thee with terrible righteousness, as unto a refiner's fire.

They scout for the jellyfish

2010-04-14T12:10:00.003-05:00

Snakeheads can release up to 150,000 fertilized eggs per year, breathe air, climb trees, and grow up to a meter long.

They are a successful invasive species in a growing number of regions.

That's it, really. Do you need more?

Don't Think of a Brown Envelope

2010-04-13T09:58:00.001-05:00

"Building Roman" is in the wind. I indulged my obsessive nature only so far as to compute an estimated response time (avg. of forty days for rejection, eighty for acceptance with this particular venue) and set a calendar alarm on my laptop. Until it goes off, my mind's on other things.

There's the Eternal Academic Contract to catch up, and "Persistence" is coming along, so I've no shortage of more relevant targets. I'm considering another day job, as well; not that I've given up on the freelance work, far from it, but I could do without the additional stress of an unpredictable income stream. Doing a household budget when your monthly income may range between 0 and 2x (where x is "enough to get by") is an exercise in faith.

"Persistence" is tons of fun, so far. I'll have something for Fire Team Beta in the next week-or-three... So long as I can manage to not think of a brown envelope.

Does a Stackhouse tweet in the woods?

2010-04-10T18:33:00.001-05:00

When it turns out there's cell service in the Blue Mountain Wild Forest, yes. With a chuckle.

Today, we explored a few square miles of the southern edge. I'd never been there, before; it's new growth, thick and disorienting. We left a ghost trail of improvised blazes, made of fallen branches or scratched on the ubiquitous slate.

View Larger Map

Yesterday's fun-n-games was a trip down memory lane (the historic driving tour of Stackhouse's formative Mountain Period), with a stop at Kaaterskill Falls:

View Larger Map

Still one of my favorite places. "Rip" is set in the Kaaterskill Wild Forest, and I've fond memories of climbing the falls with good friends (before we went our own ways, or stark raving mad, or off to the mountains to cuts trees and make children).

In which I 'shout' to my 'home persons'

2010-04-08T22:17:00.001-05:00

Thanks to James Curcio, Unusually Purple, and Bianca Lindblad for their feedback on the v3 draft of 'Building Roman'. The story should be ready for submission within the week, in no small part to your efforts.

'Persistence' has a proper structure and direction, now... After a bill-paying stunt in the word mines, I'll have time to bring it up to beta. Anyone interested in beta reading, please drop me a line within the month.

(Mostly talking to my facebook contacts with this one. Based on the search terms that bring new regulars to this blog*, I welcome the silence in my comment threads.)

*I'm watching you, too. To you, there, in Nevada, with the komatsu plan: we are similar, but not the same. You act, I will out you. Behave. It's how this "civilization" thing works.

Oh, and roads.

2010-04-07T16:44:00.002-05:00

Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield. I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they're sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind. I won't repeat those arguments -- they're here and here -- but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

(Greenwald selected for his link collection.)

This never ceases to amaze me. Really. Repeat after me: killing is the State's fucking job.

Territorial integrity. Monopoly of force. This is not a moral judgment, but a statistical one: I am safe in my bed, at night, because States declare the power of life and death to be theirs, and theirs alone. Murder and brutality is restricted to paid specialists.

Do I like that? I like that my personal odds of being murdered or brutalized are much lower under the State system than other forms of human organization. Is it 'right'? That's an entirely separate question.

Expecting a State or a corporation to act as a individual-equivalent moral agent is foolish. It's not in their nature. We can -force- them to behave so, to a limited extent and for a little while, but what is a hanging offense (see what I did, there?) for us is -inherent- for them.

This sounds hyperbolic, but we've raised and harnessed a demon with these States of ours. There are advantages, to be sure, but don't be surprised when they turn and bite.

"Death Comes to BloGTK" is a lousy title

2010-04-06T07:30:00.002-05:00

Q: If you had a chance to meet the author of your favorite book, who would it be and what would you ask them?

A: Jorge Luis Borges. "How is this possible?"

Though I don't have a favorite book by Borges, or even a favorite book. It's unlikely that meeting a writer of fiction will get me any closer to the writer's work, in my experience. The opposite effect is sometimes noted. Writers of fiction, as I understand them, are writers because they can get closer to you *as marks on paper* than they can any other way. They cannot sit and tell you. If they could tell you, then why would they write? They cannot explain. They do not know, that way. They know transiently, at best, in the act of marking paper.

The insight's William Gibson's, the emphasis is mine.

In which I start titling posts and ask a question

2010-04-03T11:35:00.001-05:00

I've really, really gotta update the How I Do It section... Trouble is, after the Great Dry Spell, everything I've written is either:

* contract ghostwriting
* in Submission Hell
* crap I keep around for parts

Item 2 poses an interesting question: posting work online that I'm currently submitting to Check-Writing Parties would mean one less category of rights I can sell, right? But how relevant is that?

I've no idea, really.

The standard Argument from Exposure is a compelling one, but is most often advanced by people who aren't writing checks for a living. Anyone have an experienced read on this?

2010-04-02T20:26:00.003-05:00

"Americans who are too fat to walk are considered disabled and the government issues them with little motorized scooters so that they don't have to suffer the indignity of crawling to the all-you-can-eat buffet on their bellies. This is considered progress."

- Dmitri Orlov

The original post is (typically) insightful, but this made me splort my tea.

2010-04-01T17:59:00.001-05:00

Well, that didn't take long. The damn white board's out already...

2010-04-01T16:45:00.001-05:00

I've got five more hours in the day and no projects pending. (Well, there's one, but the deadline's months off and I'm not feeling the academic ghostwriting thing, today.)

Time to play...

2010-03-23T17:31:00.000-05:00

2010-03-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

One more evening of mental idleness before I get back into it. FN v2 is due in a week, "Building Roman" is holding at 75%... And they can damn well both stay that way for another twelve hours.

Fresh coffee, a good book, and a proper meal. I'm doing it alone, but that cuts out the small talk and extraneous facial expressions.

It's a good night, and rainy. I'm closing with the weather, cause I'm no Barry Lopez.

2010-03-20T11:44:00.000-05:00

Mm. Ow.

Running for coffee and eggs. I dreamed last night that a twisted, lumpen Baby Jesus pissed acid into my eye sockets, then woke to find it (mostly) true.

2010-03-19T12:15:00.002-05:00

Watts, in his own words:

First off, I have no complaints about my lawyer: Doug Mullkoff did a great job. He blew the guards’ testimony out of the water at every turn, highlighted the appropriate contradictions (e.g., Beaudry claims he charged in because he saw the handcuffs in Behrendt’s hand while Behrendt herself said “I never got to the point of trying to handcuff him”; Behrendt on the stand claims she told me to get away from the car while her written report to ICE makes no mention of that; numerous other inconsistencies between the testimony of the various guards, and between their spoken vs. written claims). The whole ludicrous claim that I “choked” Beaudry ended up a complete nonstarter. Even the “aggressive” and “assaultive” stance I was accused of adopting, upon cross, turned out to be me just standing there with my hands open at my sides, not making any moves whatsoever. Doug caught it all, and shone a light on it.

[...]

The statute itself? Now that I have complaints about.

The press has frequently characterized the charge against me as “assaulting a federal officer”. The alleged (and discredited) “choking” episode has been repeated ad nauseum. Here at the Sarnia Best Western I don’t have the actual statute in front of me but it includes a lengthy grab-bag of actions, things like “assault”, “resist”, “impede”, “threaten”, “obstruct” — hell, “contradict” might be in there for all I know. And under “obstruct” is “failure to comply with a lawful order”, and it’s explicitly stated that violence on the part of the perp is not necessary for a conviction. Basically, everything from asking “Why?” right up to chain-saw attack falls under the same charge. And it’s all a felony.

2010-03-19T12:08:00.002-05:00

What? WHAT?

Toronto author Peter Watts has been found guilty of assaulting, resisting and obstructing a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer

Jurors returned the verdict today in St. Clair County Circuit Judge James Adair’s courtroom. He faces up to two years in prison when sentenced April 26.

Watts, 52, was crossing the Blue Water Bridge on Dec. 8 when he was stopped for a random inspection after paying his toll on the American side.

This is completely impossible.

I'm on the road tonight to MA, so I'll be unable to collate information as it comes in. I imagine Peter will appeal, and if so, he will need scratch for his defence... Work the web, find the effort, and throw your shoulder to it.

I will post more as I am able, and as facts develop.

2010-03-19T07:56:00.001-05:00

To best suit your Internet habit, I stream my nonsense into a variety of outlets and formats.

Jason Stackhouse and His Engaging Lies is my blog, entries from which are syndicated into Facebook as notes and my tumblr as links with summaries (Stackhouse's tumblr).

If you want to add me on Facebook, ask. If I recognize you, or enough of our mutual friends, I'll accept. (Jason Stackhouse on Facebook)

I'm on the twitter as @trackhouse, and my tweets echo onto tumblr, Facebook, and a sidebar on my blog. They may go farther than that, I've forgotten.

Straight-faced freelance writing contacts can reach me through my wordpress resume. Yes, it's a very boring page, featuring neither tits nor blasphemy.

I *think* that's it. I have vestigal presences on myspace, vox, and perhaps others. That's all I care to scrape up and post, this morning.

2010-03-19T02:18:00.000-05:00

I'm a big believer in organization.

Mostly, however, I believe in organization the way Christmas-and-Easter types belive in Jesus: as an distant, nebulous force which solves problems and distributes prizes.

2010-03-19T02:03:00.000-05:00

I set out to write the Golem story, finally, and ended up creating a family of neglected monsters in search of a Frankenstein.

2010-02-12T13:19:00.001-05:00

ROFL means what you think it means, but I've always read it as the sound of explosive vomiting. So, yes, you're all straining puke through your grins, and yes, I'm laughing about it, too.

2010-01-29T13:12:00.004-05:00

One of our local madmen- I've no name for this one, it's a nomad- broke my concentration by bellowing, "Bitch! I will fucking murder you!" beneath my window. Murdering women, bitches or otherwise, is officially Frowned Upon within my area of responsibility*. I slipped down and around the west face of the building to check.

I'm not sure if it's good news that he was threatening a sandwich. I watched him a for a few moments, confirmed this, and went back to work.

Perhaps I hold other madmen to an unreasonable standard, but insanity such as his strikes me as tacky.

*Defined as a roughly dome-shaped volume of space, 200m at the base, positioned wherever the hell I like.

2010-01-22T00:40:00.002-05:00

I dreamt the world's conflicts were staged, a warrior caste conspiracy to feed their masters special effects in lieu of blood.

2010-01-20T00:17:00.002-05:00

I know I've been doing a lot of quote-dumping lately, but this is resonates just now:

Step by step
All the happy Saints go marching in
And if one of those Saints step out of line
He'll have to start again
Cause Jacob's golden ladder
Get's slippery at the top
And many a happy-go-lucky saint
Has made that long long drop

If I'm late don't wait
Go on without me
I may tarry awhile
Cause I need to know
Before I go
How come the Devil smiles

Jesse Winchester, "Step by Step"
Stream or download here. If you like it, pay the man.

2010-01-16T20:52:00.000-05:00

via Bruce Sterling @ Wired

2010-01-16T18:09:00.004-05:00

Psst, Kids! This is how you do it:

The rest isn't nearly so photogenic. Once you break story, it's time to divide each point into scenes. Some use notecards for that, with one scene (or potential scene) per card, but we're a good 200 meatspace miles from each other. Online doc collaboration it is.

(Again, for facebook folks: images and embeds don't tend to transfer. View such things at Jason Stackhouse and His Engaging Lies.

2010-01-15T17:25:00.001-05:00

From the narrow window of my fourth-floor room
I smoke into the night, and watch the lights
Stretch in the harbor. In the houses
The little pianos are closed, and a clock strikes.
And all sway forward on the dangerous flood
Of history, that never sleeps or dies,
And, held one moment, burns the hand.

W.H. Auden

2010-01-13T12:49:00.002-05:00

Part of my post-relationship ritual is to marvel at the impenetrably subjective nature of human experience. Togetherness exists, contact exists, then our experiences diverge... Sometimes without our knowledge, sometimes with unclear (say rather, little consensus regarding) proximate cause, and most always to mutual recrimination when the two versions are compared.

Separated, we frame histories from the vector sum of current emotional need, self-validation (or abuse, tastes vary), and those little nagging hints, rarely acknowledged, that we may have Done It Again.

I marvel at the trap, then set to work.

The only way out seems to be self-awareness. Brutal honesty. To forget my former partner's real and imagined misdeeds and ask myself, have I been here before? Is the whole course of this thing familiar?

If so, there's work to be done. Maybe I'm choosing the same, ill-suited relationships, over and again. Maybe there are sabotaging patterns, scars, mines, lurking in my attitudes and emotions. Tulpas, by which I repeated fuck myself out of a good thing.

Maybe I did this to myself, despite subjective belief to the contrary.

I say 'mine', 'my', 'I', but it really does take two. Or three. Or an entire network of friends, with their own motives, passions, flaws, subjectivity. The exercise is useful, no matter where you point its business end.

We all do this shit to ourselves. We're all, to an extent, impregnably self-righteous and wronged, every time. That only serves to reinforce the blind spots and baggage, the behaviors, the insanities that got us here in the first place. So, it all starts again... This guy was a bastard, this guy was cold and irrational, this guy wasn't a partner. This woman was controlling, this woman was a froth of dizzying, contradictory passions, this woman was a gorgeous mess. They were self-righteous. They never listened, loved, supported, understood, at least not enough.

This time, it'll be different. This time, you, you're perfect...

Eight times of ten, it's bullshit. Validating, affirming, bullshit.

Isn't the interregnum between relationships best used ensuring we don't do it all again?

2009-12-17T17:19:00.003-05:00

I came across this in the comments to a post on Charlie Stross's blog detailing his latest fun-filled Win7 upgrade experience. The entire post, comments and all, is more than worth a read.

The above-linked comment, by L2GX, brought a cheek-spraining smirk to my face:

In general Sony's engineers seem to have the free hand in designing the prettiest, friendliest, most well-built machines possible. They get to develop advanced technology, or buy it from competitors at any price. At the cutting edge of consumer electronics their design process has the grace and elegance of a tea ceremony.
Their products have a soul.

Then, at a certain point during development, the engineers take their slick, shiny prototype up to the thirteenth floor and leave it on a massive smoked glasss table in an dark, empty conference room. They go home silently, and drink sake in a melancholy their wives cannot understand.

Back on the thirteenth floor, a team of crack marketeers emerges and starts handicapping the prototype. They add bloatware that links to unyielding vaporware websites, disable hardware for unlocking in future updates, install seven gigs of designer screen saver 'introduction' movies. They disable any meaningful way to use the device without buying into a distributed network of an occult protocol.

Meanwhile the CEO's stalk each other in bamboo rooftop forests, their katanas gleaming with the blood of intra-corporate informants as they search to battle for supremacy.

At home the engineers try to forget what could have been. At one point they have drank enough sakes to allow themselves to cry a single, desperate tear.

EDIT: I see that TNH flagged the same section over at Making Light around seven hours ago. I show my belly and await the peace of Cloacina.

Come to think of it... She'd make a convincing Lady of the Tubes. Teresa as Cloacina? Anyone?

2009-12-17T10:53:00.002-05:00

Garrison Keillor Will Die, by Abe Sauer

In July’s PBS documentary The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes, Keillor says, “You die, there’s a sort of decent grief, a few people really do suffer from your absence but the impact on the greater world is not that big. You do not leave a big hole. They dig a hole and they put you in it.”

And it is exactly this humor with a shadow, these pithy takes on death (especially his own), that leave us chuckling at the abstract rather than quietly pondering the sincere. He will die. (As will we all.)

2009-12-13T22:14:00.002-05:00

"The Queen woke when he disturbed a curtain, after which he sat on the edge of her bed talking to her for about ten minutes. The Queen phoned twice for police but none came. He then asked for some cigarettes, which were brought by a maid."

The Michael Fagan Incident

2009-12-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

Basha just got a social media game that requires in-person keyfob authentication to be added to her network. Or, so it says on the box- we've been fending off friend requests all damn night.

All the fob does is store those meatspace friend requests until your next logon, where it'll synch with your avatar's friend list. Box copy to the contrary, anyone you encounter in the game can friend you with a click.

I'm not complaining- yes, my daughter's 4.92 years old, but I'm not Stranger Danger crazy enough to demand in-person key exchange in order for someone to chase acorns and run fairy-themed FedEx quests online with her. I'm posting this because...

Huh.

You know what? There's some funny shit on YouTube. Go watch some.

2009-12-09T15:12:00.002-05:00

Now is really not the time for my connection to start crapping out every few minutes. I'm in the middle of three negotiations, waiting for materials, and researching LSI for a large-ish content writing project.

Perhaps most importantly, I'm trying to watch this:

(If you're getting this as a Facebook note, embedding won't work. Here's a link: "The TV Show" by Sugimoto Kousuke.)

Coilhouse linked to it yesterday, I believe. That place is a wunderkammer of gorgeous alien hotness. Go, read. Buy.

I would, if I could get anything to load today. Comfort blogs, we all have 'em.

WTF, Hermes. You're fired. Cloacina's in charge of the Internet, now.

All hail the patron Goddess of Shitty Pipes!

(Waits, hits reload.)

Well, look like that worked. Mark this as the Day It Changed: Cloacina is among us.

2009-12-01T18:02:00.003-05:00

Confiscating knitting needles and bottled water in order to secure the State implies that all we need in order to topple the State are knitting needles and bottled water.

2009-10-27T22:05:00.002-05:00

Oh, McCain... This anti-net neutrality push is exemplary GOP horseshit. Apparently, we must act to preserve the right of telecom companies to stifle innovation and choke the golden goose before net neutrality... um, does all that by preventing them from doing it.

The Internet Freedom Act. Very nice.

2009-10-24T21:49:00.003-05:00

Well, well. I've put on the suit.

You'll find everything (barring a few pending testimonials) about this new, business-oriented Jason Stackhouse here: http://jfstackhouse.wordpress.com/

I would never abandon you, my darlings, but a man's gotta eat something other than your most guarded thoughts.

2009-10-14T23:22:00.002-05:00

I'm out in the cold, freebasing nicotine and bouncing between tabs.

To my left, I'm idly watching an attempt to patch together a new form of contagious cognitive hallucination: the This Man meme, coming soon to a navel-gazer near you.

I'm still chuckling from something I read in the Theories section of the above page: apparently, the conceit that This Man is some manner of dreamwalking psychic has less scientific validity than that he ("He", I suppose) is the Creator of the Universe. There's a whole pallet of cans of worms in that one...

To my right, I'm looking at the new RNC website. Not because I care to watch the GOP continue to not get it in spectacular ways, but because I'm stealing their color pallet. Long, boring story there. I won't trouble you with it.

Left and right of center, I'm looking at personal injury law websites in Texas and California. It amazes me how terrible the copy is on these sites, but a few of them have the marketing and linkbuilding aspects -down-. I'm taking notes.

In other news, I'm kludging together a 'clean' web presence for corporate clients. You, my dear ones, will continue to receive the unadulterated Stackhouse you deserve. I think this site still feeds into the old Syndication Monster, as well as posting my updates through Facebook as notes. That, I'll have to do something about- filters, filters.

For your cognitively dissonant pleasure, I'll link to Clean Me as soon as the bolts are tightened. Waiting to score one or two more copywriting clients for testimonials and samples... It just doesn't do to launch a site with no content, after all.

And that's my evening. How was yours?

2009-10-07T11:10:00.004-05:00

Your semi-irregular hunk of obsession follows:

A Case of "Subjective" Fregoli Syndrome

In the classic type of Fregoli syndrome, the affected person believes that another person's mind can inhabit the body of another person. We present an unusual presentation of Fregoli syndrome in which a patient believed that copies of his own mind inhabited the bodies of others.

Contrast with the more typical Syndrome of Subjective Doubles.

==

These two have little to do with my current obsession, but may spark your own:

Shared Delusions of Doubles, in which good ol' folie a deux leads to a mother-daughter Capgras adventure.

Cotard's in another classic, submitted for your approval. (Wikipedia on Cotard delusion, where the affected patient believes they are dead. Sometimes 'I'm a spirit and this is Hell' dead, sometimes 'my insides are rotting, I'm a shambling revenant' dead.)

==

I'm searching for a subjective misidentificational delusion that oneself _is_ the doppelganger, the intruding clone. That you've woken up in another person's life, in their skin, and had best avoid detection.

2009-09-23T23:30:00.002-05:00

Raimondo di Sangro, labor unions, geometry, the guild system, and proof of paternity.

First to connect em all gets a lollipop, if you're local. Prize subject to substitution or evaporation without notice, void where prohibited.

that post where stackhouse ranted about killdozer

2009-07-30T20:22:00.005-05:00

Stretching the fingers, but strictly with my door closed. I'll use this space as a long-form tumblelog until I've something better to share.

(The concept, here, is that I leave the text field up, wander around the net and my brain thinking about something or other, and post it when I'm bored or on to something else. Structure and readability aren't considered; the format's more web hobo stew than essay.)

==

I'm thinking about the Granby Killdozer Rampage of 2004.

I am reliably interested by three things: human ingenuity, the power of the individual, and the extension of common impulses to their pathological extremes. Marvin Heemeyer is an intersection.

(Let us please take as writ the disclaimer that I do not endorse, glorify, or get chuckles out of the going on of rampages.)

==

Some still images of the damage, and of Killdozer's exterior.

The machine used in the incident was a Komatsu D355A bulldozer[8] fitted with makeshift armor plating covering the cabin, engine and parts of the tracks. In places, the vehicle's armor was over one foot thick, consisting of concrete sandwiched between sheets of steel to make ad-hoc composite armor. This made the machine impervious to small arms fire and resistant to explosives; three external explosions and over 200 rounds of firearm ammunition fired at the bulldozer had no effect on it.[1] National Guard units were placed on standby orders by Governor Bill Owens for possible anti-armor support.[9]

For visibility, the bulldozer was fitted with several video cameras linked to two monitors mounted on the vehicle's dashboard. The cameras were protected on the outside by 3-inch shields of bullet-resistant plastic.[1] Onboard fans and an air conditioner were used to keep Heemeyer cool while driving and compressed air nozzles were fitted to blow dust away from the video cameras. Food, water and life support were present in the almost airtight cabin. Heemeyer had no intention of ever leaving the cabin once he entered; the hatch was permanently sealed.

Wikipedia: Marvin Meemeyer

Denver Post slideshow of the Killdozer's interior.

The Discovery Channel spotlighted Heemeyer's rampage, but reality programming gives me brain-hives. You're welcome to find it yourself; the show was called 'Destroyed in Seconds'.

I recommend the original local news footage, instead. I had my sound off when I found it; the commentary may induce idiocy.

(Odds are, the Reader's Digest Condensed Closed Captioning would be "he smashed something, he's fucking crazy, police can't seem to stop him, omg he smashed something else". Scrawl that on a post-it, slap it below your monitor, and you're covered.)

==

I keep returning in my thoughts to the celebration of "Heemeyer's War" as a cultural response. (Typical example, payoff in the final paragraphs.)

Just once, now: Building Killdozer, entombing oneself inside, this was not a revolutionary act. But the average man lives in such a tizzy of imagined violence and actual emasculation that the thought of knocking over banks and crushing patrol cars while the police scratch their asses warrants a change of underwear. Wire that up to the American belief in the redemptive powers of violence and catastrophe and you get "Heemeyer's War".

Probably doesn't hurt that Killdozer's a sealed vehicle. The fantasy -itself- contains a safe, isolated, insulated spot from which to have a REALLY IMPRESSIVE TANTRUM.

==

One man's careful, pathological craft made this happen. Our goals, our little obsessions we're so afraid to realize: is it anywhere near so difficult as welding up a homebrew Ogre?

(Ogre! Glad you asked.)

==

Building Killdozer may not be a revolutionary act, but it is beautiful. Not the ends, but the means-to-the-means: the monomaniacal thirst for the power of the thing that drove Heemeyer through those long nights, the craft and discipline and commitment of the act, THAT is a thing of wonder.

(And echoed in so many studios, on so many keyboards, practice rooms, gyms, workshops...)

2009-03-15T08:55:00.002-05:00

I've got my weight in query letters to write this evening, once the Heir's asleep. Today's challenge is familiar: prevent obsession with the night job (begging strangers to solicit manuscripts) from messing with my day jobs (dad, working stiff).

2009-02-15T09:09:00.000-05:00

Happy day after Valentine's, all. Everybody come through alive?

Twitter eats the blogging bug.

2009-02-13T09:01:00.001-05:00

Twitter eats the blogging bug. Travelers beware.

Test.

2009-02-13T07:33:00.001-05:00

Test.

2009-02-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

I'm old. It happened.

I regret nothing. My kids are smarter than I ever was, my work brings me contentment, and watching the seasons change my valley grounds me happily in the world.

(Age also means living long enough to see your most secret kinks go mainstream. I've traded breath control and bondage tips with a knitting dominatrix while our children played trains at Barnes and Noble. Got some good slow-cooker recipes, too.)

Youth isn't wasted on the young. You twits can keep it :)

2009-01-25T09:10:00.002-05:00

B opened the blinds at seven thirty and declaimed the Ballad of the Good Papa Who Woke Up and Made Waffles.

I've learned not to argue with my folk hero persona. If it's in the song, I deliver.

2009-01-23T17:12:00.002-05:00

Spotted while decompressing:

Uncle Putin says, "It is my deep belief that the most bitter disappointments usually result from excessive expectations." Another adherent of the Selfish Buddha?

2009-01-16T21:19:00.002-05:00

Kid's in bed, coffee's brewed, place is tolerably clean, and once this posts I'll be out of excuses.

I leave you with this:

(via Mr. Gibson)

2009-01-12T21:35:00.002-05:00

Humans. Gotta love em or they put you in a cage.

2009-01-10T15:58:00.003-05:00

Currently obsessed with: Juana Maria, "The Lone Woman of San Nicolas". (wikipedia article)

I blame Jared Diamond (Collapse, specifically) for this one. After detailing the complete disappearance of the original settlers of Pitcairn and Henderson islands, and speculating as to the subjective experience of their final survivors, he mentions several possible models they may have resembled: Ishi, last of the Yahi indians (been there, mined that), the Belgica Expedition of 1898 (obsessed with that last week for unrelated reasons), and dear old Juana Maria.

It was a cocktail of desolation, hopelessness, and grim persistence guaranteed to set me dreaming.

2009-01-09T21:35:00.002-05:00

Basha's in the tub singing David Bowie covers to her toys. I could while away days discussing her every thought, but it's almost as much fun when she doesn't know I'm listening.

(I explained cartoon voiceovers to her earlier and she clapped like I'd unraveled the secrets of Atlantis. "Huh. That sounds right," she said. "Are you a scientist?")

2009-01-08T23:27:00.002-05:00

You know what the trouble with ubiquitous communications technology is, at least for me? Ubiquitous communication.

Also, wheels. And electric lights. Terrible.

Just ain't Christian.

2009-01-08T00:41:00.002-05:00

Discovered a four hundred dollar check of uncertain provenance in the mailbox this afternoon, then lost a friend (perhaps) and lover (definitely).

I'm going to bed before life gets more interesting.

2009-01-05T18:50:00.002-05:00

ALL DAMN DAY some loose neural connection spat this song into my internal narrative. Over. and. Over.

You think that luck has left you there
But maybe there's nothing
Up in the sky but air

And there's no mystical design
No cosmic lover preassigned
There's nothing you can find
That cannot be found
'cause, with all the changes you've been through
It seems the stranger's always you
Alone again in some new
Wicked little town

-Trask, "Wicked Little Town" (Tommy Gnosis' Version)

I tell you this out of hope. Hope that, if I feed it enough of you poor bastards, this song will leave me in peace.

I don't even _like_ it that much.

2009-01-05T18:14:00.002-05:00

Today begins the week of 'Oh, Shit! The Bills!', a gut-numbing romp of wage-slavery marking the end of the seasonal inversion of values (uncritical love, sharing rather than coerced conformity, hoarding) and a return to grinding one's own bones for bread.

Visitors to participating areas of North America are warned not to visit.

2009-01-04T15:14:00.002-05:00

Apartment is mostly tame. A few feral scraps of wrapping paper and road trip debris in the corners, but otherwise safe. (Only the very young or very old need fear road trip debris until the population breeds past a certain, safe maximum.)

Hot bath, cold beer, late lunch, then I strip mine Mt. Laundry.

2009-01-03T23:49:00.002-05:00

Thanks to everyone for everything, great times had (or nearly so) by all. Even though I crapped out sick in the middle of it all, I'd do this trip again.

Driving back into the Catskills was amazing. The snow's settled, here and there I saw little granite faces and runoff lines among the trees. I rolled my window down and just sucked in colder, cleaner, thinner air than I've had in two weeks.

My cough stopped.

At night, the mountains look like negative space, placid dark clean fucking holes where your lazy Creator left off doing stars and clouds. I used to live up there and I will again.

It's good to be home.

2008-12-29T22:41:00.002-05:00

I'm awake, alive, and well. Finally shaking the Silence which, while productive and insulating, stagnates.

I'm Up to Something, now, and we've no souls on which to have mercy. I'll have enough in the can to start posting fic-bit teasers here by the second week of the new year.

Cheers. Head, ear, and eye protection at all times.

Unrelated:

* _Bodies are Where You Find Them_ is the new Best Title. The mark's set, good luck.
* Peter Watts. Wish I could bind and squeeze his brain, I love it so. Go, find, read. _Blindsight_ especially.
* I miss the hills. West Philly is a layered, bustling corner of it all, but god damn do I miss my hills.

2008-10-24T08:13:00.002-05:00

I go dark for a month, and this is what you replace me with?

There are many research efforts within robotics in path planning, exploration, and mapping of indoor and outdoor environments. Operator control units are available that allow semi-autonomous map-based control of a team of robots. While the test environments are usually benign, they are slowly becoming longer and more complex. There has also been significant research in the game theory community involving pursuit/evasion scenarios. This topic seeks to merge these research areas and develop a software/hardware suit that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject.

Seriously. Can't leave you apes alone a couple of weeks without one of you wiring up a shiny new Terrible Idea.

2008-09-28T12:37:00.002-05:00

Just sold a smoke to a Random Encounter (Panhandler) for twenty cents. This brings my total liquid net up to $2.83.

No real financial crisis, here. I've a job, it pays. But this is the closest I've been to flat in years... Memories. Not pleasant ones.

2008-09-19T15:46:00.004-05:00

How is it that news organizations still refer to 'a hacker, calling himself 'Anonymous'"?

2008-09-19T15:46:00.003-05:00

The absolutely horrible technological society -- that was our dream, our vision of the future. We could foresee nothing equipped with enough power, guile, or whatever, to impede the coming of that dreadful, nightmare society. It never occurred to us that the delinquent kids might abort it out of the sheer perverse malice of their little individual souls, God bless them.

Philip K. Dick, The Android and the Human

2008-09-19T15:46:00.002-05:00

No, I will not talk like a pirate. Rape, scurvy, murder, venereal disease, boats, shitty booze, and the total lack of health coverage are real turn-offs for me.

It's odd what people decide is quirky cool... Talk Like a Malaysian Slave Trader Day, I really thought that one had legs. Spoke to the young people, you know?

2008-09-15T22:02:00.004-05:00

I found the most wonderful, open air restaurant this evening. The theme is interstitial dining. There are no waitstaff. You serve yourself; for points, you cook, though not on site.

Place your meal in a pocket, backpack, or pipe, to taste. I prefer pocket meals- burritos. Apples. Peanuts. Keeps my hands free.

Begin at the intersection of Clinton and John, no less than three hours after sunset. Walk west.

Put your feelers out over the next three blocks. If the city's rolled up its sidewalks, you're good to go. On the third block, you'll see the daylight face of the restaurant on your right, behind a beige picket fence. It looks remarkably like a patio garden, with a gazebo and some tables.

There are two gates and one is locked. It's a doubly-decorative lock, but neither of these is your way in.

Follow the building around to the right. Your path is between the carriage house and the failed billiard parlor.

Avoid the tables and gazebo, now at two o'clock. The sightlines are all wrong... Head across the patio, in a direct line from the left wall of the carriage house. Don't step on the plants.

At the end of curved, slate path, surrounded and partially concealed by flowerbeds and shrubs, there is a single bench with a rough-hewn slate footstool. This is your table.

Your view of the sky is nearly unobstructed; the city's view of you, not so much.

Smoking is strongly discouraged outside the designated area, behind the conifers at your six (while seated).

See you there.

2008-09-15T08:11:00.003-05:00

Mm. Nothing does it for me like 'discovering' a new favorite author.

Everybody? Mary Gaitskill . Mary, everybody.

Dive!

2008-09-14T13:17:00.002-05:00

I don't regret a thing. Some blessings have a shelf life, is all.

There is no fault to be found, no one played false or broke faith. (Save perhaps myself. I knew. I knew it was too soon for me and in the midst of too much for her.)

For a time, I allowed myself to fall in love with a fantastic woman, one of our best. We made one hell of a team, and in another time, would have made a strong, creative, and beautiful family.

Went to the cold place in myself for awhile, last night. Then I slept. Now?

C'est la guerre. I am fine. I am richer for it, stronger.

Though I will remind you, who need reminding- love does not, in fact, conquer all.

Does this mean not to love? Ha, no. That is a child's answer.

It means, you must cultivate in yourself the ability to see some loves as finite things. Bounded. But love, nonetheless, and no less a blessing. Keep it clean, free of regret, blame, recrimination.

Let it take you when it comes, but more importantly, let it leave when it wills. Grasping will choke and change it; then what do you have?

Like the fat guy said: let things go, cause they go anyway.

2008-08-29T17:25:00.002-05:00

Reorienting, normal service will resume.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

Reflect: the world FDR conjures in this speech, can you imagine it? Living there, growing old and fat and slow there?

What have we done? Recalling the stated destiny of our people feels like a worldbuilding exercise.

Three hours sleep and i've

2008-08-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

Three hours sleep and i've moved from 'who the hell am I' to 'let's shake this and see what falls out'. Nice.

2008-08-06T19:13:00.003-05:00

This is not a post from Stackhouse the Pro Who Deserves Your Cash and Attention. This is the other one, no less deserving of cash and attention but certainly raw and personal. Roll with it or click elsewhere, eh?

So much, so much has changed. Mostly for the better, but I'm not always good at Change... I'll try to explain.

Flexibility and improvisation are definitely strong tools for me. If the situation at hand goes from, say, strolling through a department store with my brand new baby on my chest, joking with her mother about putting the kid in a dog bed to save cash, to running for our lives from a mad gunman and the stampede he's created? No problem. (True story and we did quite well for ourselves. Go, Darwin! I earned that kid, thankyouverymuch.)

Am I locked out of my apartment, with the only 'tools' to hand being a US quarter and a gravel driveway? Again, no problem. Again, true story.

Shifting gears, generating novel solutions, learning new skills, thinking my way out of trouble, fast- these are things I'm good at.

Change is different.

I'm talking tectonic shifts, here. Upsets and alterations that grind away in trenches and push up mountains and work their uncaring, unthinking, unswaying ways on every. aspect. of. life.

May 31st. June 1st. Two different men. July 9th, different again. Now?

I don't know what life I'm living right now or who I am. That may sound dramatic, but really it's not... We are none of us a coherent 'I', ever. We are a slipping, shifting consensus of neural structures and their emergent, 'psychological' impulses.

(Need an analogy? You are not a bird. You are a flock.)

When things Change, the kind of Change I'm so bad at, we become different people. When you're hungry, or scared, or speaking a different language, or fucking, or bleeding to death, you are not the person you thought you were before entering that state. The balance has changed. Change the balance, change the man.

(Or woman. Person. Transboi. Ah, shit. Play your own fucking mad libs, I'm on a roll, here.)

Everything is different, now. New, reconsidered, or altered, but nothing is the same.

The only stable point in my life at present is my day job and I've noticed myself drifting more and more into that blue-collar persona in search of safe harbour. I wonder, if I let go and just live there, will it be a better life? Will I stop thinking these thoughts, trace wood grain, and be content?

Ha. Who the fuck am I kidding? Group dynamics to the rescue: in a group setting, humans define themselves as individuals by their differences. In a room full of surgeons, the token woman is more strongly female than she would be in a room full of women where she was the only surgeon.

Hiding will eventually lead me to strengthen the traits I fear losing...

=====

Okay, I've been at the Shop for 13 hours. Fuck that, this, me, and you for good measure- I'm out of here.

More later. Or, you know, next month.

2008-07-19T20:35:00.001-05:00

When they came for the Pokemon players, I did not stand up. I did not play Pokemon...

2008-07-17T12:55:00.002-05:00

"It's curtains for you, Doctor Horrible. Lacy, gently wafting curtains."

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, Act One, Act Two.