Concepts and Compulsions (the third star on the right)

There was a definite shift from the factory perspective to the machine level perspective.  I'm not sure exactly when it happened and I do think it was a shift in the correct direction.  It was a shift that granted more personhood, more agency, more personality to what is continuing.  Obviously the factory still exists and maybe not as obviously the dreaming door is still there near it's basement and used frequently, but not documented as thoroughly as I would like, but that's a matter of preference and amplitude.

The idea of them being up in an office having meetings without me and being forced to listen in to get news of what direction the committee was going grated on me pretty hard and I was getting very upset about not being included on their decisions so I am taking some agency back because I have to live here too and what they make affects me immediately as soon as it leaves the factory doors because I am the consumer primary and the keeper and owner.  The deed's in my name.  Just saying.  I can't have them wrecking up the place and deciding when and where they want to work inside the building and the child is going to do what he will, and I can't keep stopping everything to go look for him (which is easy to say because he's right in front of me now and he won't hold my hand, but I've got his pinky and his pain tolerance is nowhere near mine and it doesn't need fixing or adjustment, it just needs held), but I will because I can't keep watch all of the time and he knows when to sneak out better than I know when to check on him.

I took the map of the warehouse and exploded it.  Took the map of the iron works and exploded it into pieces and came up with a better way to organize and run diagnostics on its ability to function on it's own.  Not off any grid, but function as a thing properly connected and fed by mainlines.  The concept was lurking in the back of my mind and took a back seat to the foundry, the assembly line, but the stock house allowed far too much space for engineering weapons and tools that built better tools for building war machines.  I'm still trying to get the spacing right.  Getting to a point where we know what all of the parts are doing at all times is very difficult and throws error messages and blows out the lights sometimes.  I would like to believe I am getting close to a master approach.

I've adopted a more mechanical concept.  The electric layer and the machine layer.  All into a sandwich.  It's like a massive circuit board with steam punk getting the outside layer to talk to the inside layer. Communications are still a little bit shoddy, but I think I'm getting the response times right.  Or at least more correct and that's more steps in a direction so I'm comfortable with not drowning.  Control itself has not been an issue except in extreme cases or cases that I would call extreme sensory nodes.  Times and instances of overwhelming input from the outside surface that over powered the gears ability to translate it into valid input to the inside surface.  And then it just goes harmonic spitting back weird settings to the machine layer that does not know how to place it in three dimensions that makes sense to the surface and then the surface burps up colors and lights and structures and the entire layout of the city is completely off and the gps sends some bastard down a sidewalk that ends at a cornfield because that road was paved over fifteen years ago and broken up ten years ago and filled in and sodded and there've been 9 annual fairs there and the whole thing smells like carnies and animal poop vaguely to this day.

So now it's all a circuit and machine.  Taking Occam to it to a degree.  Keep it simple, stupid.  It's not a committee, it's a group of parts, pieces, and controllers and they work together at all times.  Yes, not all on the same page, but they are in constant communication despite what I thought before.  They are in constant communication and the child is a hardware addition with poor pin alignment so as he comes and goes and is present or not, he may not always be detected by the system proper, but he cannot be confirmed or denied.  I still do wonder where he goes when he does not register.  I wonder if he is listening or not.  Prick. WHERE ARE YOU?

Anyway, I can't allow myself to be consumed with his location.  I can, but I would prefer not to.  I do.  We love it when he's around.  God, what is he doing now?  WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING.  I'll wait.  It's all I can do.  All any of us can do.  I'll hunt him down.  'S'cool.  But basically I took the time to rearrange components into a different, not necessarily new, configuration that allows for greater mobility and flexibility and diminishes destructive passion.  Never again.  Not yet, anyway.  That plan is under double keyed authentication, minimum.

I've gotten away from paper again.  I don't know how to feel about it because it's not pure laziness.  It's a distaste for the purity to an extant and a feeling of reversion to another extant.  I'm not sure where or if the two can be balanced or with what.  You must commit to one or the other or both will suffer?  No.  There is dual dedication.  I believe it is a problem of efficiencies and developing a left hand where the right hand has become the left and the left the right and I am partially consumed with teaching the right to do the things the off hand was forced to do.  I am okay with that.  That is a matter of more practice only, not malfunction.  Or to put it another way, no abandonment of duties inside the factory.  No idle mills, simply users unaccustomed to their new devices and methods.

I thought back to when I knew something was off with my upbringing.  It happened back in elementary school when Mrs. Hymenlokuvar was rubbing my back in kindergarten when I ran from the station wagon, when I was sure it was okay to run after my mom and pop pulled away, all the way to my seat in the classroom.  It is one of the few childhood (childhood referencing 2nd grade to birth) memories I can recall that did not end in violence.  She rubbed my back for what felt like minutes, but was probably seconds.  I remember her being very weirded out that I could show up for class at table three with a healthy sweat going.  That was when I began to feel something was off.  I liked it though, I remember that.  I remember the soothing nature to it and how her hand felt like it was sucking heat off of me so I could run at a much better temperature and it felt terrific.

When I was sure something was off was when I ... was washing dishes at the sink on Taylor street and my parents were going at it about something I cannot remember.  Something about Barnabus.  Or was his name Barnaby.  I don't know.  He was the upstairs neighbor and we weren't allowed to play with his kids or something, what I do know, regardless of the details is hearing my dad say "he's listening to us" and then them two leaving the room.  It was strange.  I wanted to leave the kitchen too, but I had my assignment.  Learning all of the creaks in the floor so you could get to the bathroom without disrupting them when you had to pee at night and couldn't hold it or when you wanted to talk to your sisters and you had a whole house to navigate in the dark without bumping into anything too loud.

There is some humor thinking back to how hard I idolized kids when I first broke in to college.  "Oh my God, you assholes know everything!"  It's a little bit of time compression helping that out.  They didn't know everything.  Not even close.  Well traveled, well heeled?  Sure.  Capable, adaptable, thorough, and finicky?  Sure.  Closed and open minded by turns?  Also, yes.  As time grows longer and leaps of experience compress, it becomes increasingly clear that my peers are just that and no more.  No apotheosis necessary. Appreciation yes.  I am not just like you, but I will tell you what I fucking am.  Closer to your know how than I have any business being given what we are and what you are and where we came from.  Fuck you, that's "swagger" and tooth.  What's four years to you?  I know what it is to me.  I wish I knew what it would be to me now eight years ago, though.

I'm a fine pilot, if I may say.  I was considering running someone down walking on the side of Will Flynn motorway, but I didn't.  Mostly because I was too far from home to be sure I could get home without being pulled over for questioning about the dent in my windshield and the spritz on my hood.  Sometimes you have to make business decisions.  Plus, I don't have money to get my windshield fixed.  That's just silly money management policy!

I embraced metaphor with all my heart through highschool.  I think that's when communication fault lines could not be written off anymore as being shy or quiet.  I just didn't know how to say it.  Didn't know an effective agent to be my stand in for the person between the person that says what I want to say for me.  That position was vacant for so long.

Don't mind me if I get weak kneed with words.  It's a joy I couldn't experience for a very long time and I am suspect to abuse it.

I wonder sometimes how my Myspace friend DCScompton is doing in Australia.  I loved talking to him.  Since the migration several years ago we lost touch and I look for him now and then to see if he's still kicking.  I would love to move to Canberra.  I don't think I would adjust well or I would slot in perfectly.  America is not overrated at all, but I think we would have made excellent dual adventurers.  I remember asking him about what the compton in his screen name was about and I've been miffed for years because I can't remember.  He was a blast to read, but he jumped ship too and somewhere in migrating computers I lost the note that had the address of his page in it, among other things.

Wonder what my therapist is doing?  I do too.  Jeff is a good guy.  He meant well.  I do wonder how much of it was general altruism and how much was actual understanding.  I never asked him how he was doing or about his family, but I think it was a lot of unspoken understanding that it was none of my business and absolutely off limits for reasons we both knew.

I don't worry about him, but I do wonder about what he kept off the table and why.  Why didn't he offer too?  Was it because I had to be there?  And why did he turn me in that day?  Was it concern or was it a matter more akin to protecting job security.  I don't think he ever really trusted us.  Which is fine.  Understandable.  I have to understand that we didn't really know each other know each other.  He could have, though.  I wouldn't have rejected it.

The tracking signal cuts both ways.  A ping back is a ping back.  Until the signal cuts out.  The keys jingling on your pant loop let you know you are traversing reality and they also let reality know that you are crossing space and you have to be prepared to accept that your recognition is also the key not only to an ignition, but to a gate.

It's the third star on the right, straight on 'til morning, can't miss it.




///Steve Miller Band - "The Joker"  some people call me a lot of things.  there's power in knowing your own name.

Music Post Script

///Sunlounger - "White Sand ...a summer for your winter...........a spring to your autumn... a love to the hate... a watchman at the gate... a mirror for your wall and a witness to your rise and every fall.

Why I'd Rather Be Hispanic, Artificial Self Confidence, and a Root

Walking home from a training day for a job I may or may not have a thought occurred to me: I would rather be anything, but black, in today's America.

Sounds ridiculous right? The simple fact is it is still very uncomfortable being black in America. I mean, think about it, people haven't decided whether or not we can even be called black people or if we need to be called African Americans. At least with Latinos and Hispanic people it's not a choice between obviously politically delicate and offensive terms. Or maybe it is, since I've never been Hispanic or a Latino. Seriously though, every time you refer to a black person isn't there a little twinge in the back of your neck that makes you wonder if you're using the right word, or if you would look worse by using a term that throws racial consciousness in the reader's face, even if it's only for a moment?

Think about the stereotypes. If I were to make a mental list of pros and cons with respect to stereotypes, who would come out more favorably? Sure there are local pockets of better and worse viewpoints (border states, places with "little (insert south eastern country)s", and places with very visible very active gang cultures, but across the entire spectrum of America I feel like black people aren't necessarily losing ground, but aren't really improving either whereas other minorities are either receiving more than token attention or are at least viewed more favorably on the whole. I feel a lot like the very "interesting" back story of white America and black America has made the situation a lot like a landlord who needs a renter to pay on time and shut up about the property's needs and a renter who badly needs a place to rent and can't afford anything else. I guess when I think about the stereotypes, I can see positive ones for most other ethnicities that allow some type of positive integration with society beyond sports, music, sex, and street dance (you know, the things people have to do to support families and build generational wealth and own homes and cars and have stable year to year lives and retire) and absolutely none for the blacks in America.

And it's a little discouraging. It's like the problem of integration was never really solved beyond the physical interface and instead of a defacto solution, patches were administered. Patches were slapped on top of patches and policy plaster was slapped on top of the patched patches until people got tired of dealing with it. Or maybe until the job looked done enough from the standpoint of the people outside of it, but as someone who is a part of the structure of black America it's pretty obvious there are gaping holes in perception that continue to lead to gaping holes in... I dunno. I'm getting tired just thinking about it. It's not fixable. I'm not trying to be fatalist or anything like that, I just have to do my part with my kids to let them know that they do belong here.

That's it! I think I just stumbled on an answer. Black history. Being raised with such a heavy bent toward black history and it's burden on modern history and having to live every year with the idea that I'm permanently indebted to a project of acceptance that will be in progress from the day I'm born to the day I die was a mistake. Historical perspective is a good thing. Having historical perspective hammered into me with a distorted and disproportionate focus placed on the "right" and "wrong" expressions of stereotypes within that culture is what has left me with this feeling of malaise. Black history is important, but not more or less important than American history. It's not a separate story. Having the idea that I'm different and special and separated from America by black history has caused much more damage than confidence boosting good. The short term benefit of confidence has been far eclipsed by the long term effect of powerful feelings of isolation.

I guess the simplest branch, the main root of all of this is belonging may not boost individual confidence, but will ease future growth and development of identity. Telling someone they're special artificially boosts their self confidence. Someone learning they are special through time and experience and on their own allows them to build a lasting self confidence that will not be eroded as soon as the encouraging voices are taken away. Not constantly reinforcing a person's specialness and differentiating characteristics may hurt their self confidence in the short term, but will ease their interactions over time because they will have belongingness as the most basic premise of their relationship to the world around them.

If belongingness is the most basic premise of their relationship to the world around them, then they are free to pursue many more avenues of existence without having to consider questions of perception and practice, and while the questions may be there, they will not be central to the person's identity. If a person's most basic premise is that they are permanently different from the world around them they will, when (not if) self confidence fails to motivate action, be forced to constantly answer and ask and re-ask questions of perception and practice in a never ending cascade of attempts to join a world they can never really be a part of basic their most basic premise of existence is that they are permanently outside of and apart from the world at large.

So I guess the root of the problem with black America is really sourced from within every black American home and public classroom in the month of February. But, don't tell them that. They never seem to take criticism well even from "their own people". Trust me, I know. Responsibility is probably the second branch on the tree of stunted potential.

///Four Tet - "You Were There With Me" Just reminds me of thinking about the future sitting at the edge of an apple orchard and watching shafts of sunlight roll like lazy spotlights across empty fields and after the second hour noticing that the little things on the horizon aren't high tension transmission lines, but are the blades of still windmills.

w33d and all things g00d 12/31/05

Subject : w33d and all things g00d
Posted Date: : Dec 31, 2005 1:28 AM

the romance of the plant continues like a salty porn novel. i dont need it. by no means do i actually need anything to feel good about myself. Im already exploding with more confidence than a penis in a vacuum cleaner hose. the connection to the plant goes deeper to a more sensitive area of my brain than simple confidence. the plant touches my emotions like a muse. a muse of warm confusion.

even if im not able to become a writer and my back up plan of being a high paid professional counter culture male "escort" fails i will still have the plant to romance me in the hard times. i may have to move out of the country to get it cheaper, but for my green lady it would be worth it.

in the best case scenario she'll be my one in a moon mistress and will hopefully complete a sweet threesome with me and my girl friend completing the other two points of the love triangle.

they say all good things come to an end, but we'll just have to wait and see. what no one ever talks about is what happens when the good things end... and having thought about it, i really dont care as long as there is something - someone to see/do on the other side - when "all the good things come to an end" i at least hope there will be someone around who has the means to roll a fucking ridiculous joint and that someone has space in their cipher for me.