Wayne heads out tomorrow. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what my life is going to be like without him around. They say that having a close friend within a quarter mile of where you live raises your quality of life by 40%.
I’ve been lucky to have that with various peoples for almost the last ten years. This upcoming stint at Vanderbilt will represent my first break and I’m terrified of it.
I think my biggest worry is that I’ll find it irresistible to revert back to old patterns. I already find that when I’ve been sitting around for half an hour or so in the room I start to drift down toward the kitchen. I spent much of high school hiding from loneliness in food and ended up weighing well over 200lbs.
The solace I’m hoping to find is in writing. That always served me well in the past. Everything just seems so flat when I try to describe it. It makes sense given the stress in my life, but I fear how long it will last.
I’ve been needing to update for a while. My life for the longest time was about trying to make a change in the world and pursuing that by seeking abandon — freedom from concern about what others think.
I found it, but in complete isolation. For a week or so I moved into the castle in the sky I’ve been working on for the last year. I’ve been finding my way back for the three weeks subsequent and coming to terms with the choices I’ve made.
Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained;
and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restrain’d it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.
The crux of my problem is I can’t stop believing real systemic change is possible. Our political and economic systems are clearly not working well. Who even understands what sort of developmental effects the Internet is going to have on children who grow up with all the information in the world at their fingertips.
A change is going to happen. What I am trying to figure out is what I can do to help. Charging off and trying to do everything myself was a good plot for a book, but it isn’t how the world actually works.
I’ve been cleaning up the mess that I’ve made of my websites trying to figure out how to market a business. I registered a half dozen domain names in the last year including a couple goodones I’m letting lapse. One of the ones I’m keeping is anarchistgrill.org.
It’s for a combination grocery store / communal kitchen / restaurant idea that I have. You get your reservation in the morning and then you collaborate with other people in your timeslot, table, dish to share and way to get it prepared — either by contracting a chef or, if someone in your party is cleared to work in the kitchen, cooking it yourself.
Another part of the idea is that kitchen staff can either buy supplies for meals from the grocery store attached to the kitchen (making them cheap) or if there is a partial item in the kitchen’s food stores they can buy part of an item prorated from another chef (wasting less food).
I like the idea because it would significantly increase the probability I could get some well cooked thiebou diene for cheap if I open the restaurant on H Street in DC which is in serious need of a good grocery store and cheap nutritious food.
Anyhow, as I was deleting the old blog, I discovered I made only a single entry in it exactly one year ago today: 7 October 2008. I can see even in this post the beginnings of slowly screwing up my courage to try to throw my life into a new track.
I’ve been thinking about repurposing this site somewhat. I haven’t been in the mood to write about my personal life for a bit because I feel pretty isolated from the world. I used to really enjoy delving into myself and trying to find some personal truth to express, but increasingly I can’t seem to do that knowing that anyone else will read it without feeling my awareness of their perception slowly shifting my words to something to be consumed.
I’m going to write for 15 minutes and post this. I keep starting over and over trying to write and something about sitting down in front of the keyboard just drains the words out of me. I open my mouth to scream and not so much as a whisper makes it out.
I think part of the problem is I’m afraid to tell the truth. Afraid to admit that I’ve set out to do something and failed.
In the interim, I've picked back up The Impossible Will Take A Little While. I'm trying to find the balance to stay entertained while designing (which I love) and coding (which I don't love so much).
I’ve been spending the day catching up on my TV. I’ve been surprised on what gets by the censors these days. Apparently comedy can be as adult as it wants so long as it is hard to catch.
On 30 Rock, Tracy Jordan is training for his moon mission, when he says, “Computer, when do I get some tang? Also, I’m thirsty. Ha! Wordplay.”
Honestly, if they hadn’t had him point it out as wordplay, I would have missed it.
American Dad went a different route and just said something with lots of slang very quickly. As Steve’s plan to ruin a Bar Mitzvah goes awry, Roger says, “And what Steve won’t know is that I have my own plan. While everyone’s focused on Snot, I’ll be headed to the bathroom to share a doobie with the bus boy in return for an angry handy-j.”
Jenni and I are back home again in Baltimore, and I’m starting my new job of fixing the economy.
Honestly, I’ve been thinking about assassination. I’m setting out to become a peacemaker and peacemakers don’t live for very long. Gandhi managed to make it to 78, but he wasn’t messing with radical Christianity or Islam.
A guy walked into a children’s play in a Unitarian Church in Knoxville and opened fire with a shotgun. There’s just to much crazy in the world for me to ever really mitigate the possibility that someone is going to decide I’m the Antichrist and want to save the world by taking me out.
