Daddy Like. . .


Guess who is going to be far too busy playing with his new camera to get any work done?

I WILL!!!

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

This is a test. . .

This is a test of the emergency meeting overload broadcast system.

AAUUGGH!!!

This was only a test. Had this been a real meeting overload, this shout would be followed by several more of increasing volume, eloquence and vitriol. Then in short succession the following events would occur: resignation of post, giving of the finger to the entire room of superiors in the organizational chart, and peeling out of the parking lot so fast that tires squeal like a string quartet tuning up.

You were going to ask. . .

"Are they worth so much to you?"
"Yes."
"And to me, they are worth more."

Once upon a time, I knew exactly who I wanted. I loved her, I was dedicated to her. Hell, I dreamt about her. She was it. If people asked me to choose (and daily choice was implicit in everything I did) I chose her, every time.

I passed up on more good opportunities than a narcoleptic sprinting through a mattress factory. On more than one occasion I had women throw themselves at me, outright (though I didn't recognize it as such at the time) and looking back, I'm stunned by the nonchalance and detachment with which I rebuffed them.

Now, things are different. After her, there was another. Not one that I would have chosen with the same stubbornness or ferocity, but one that I thought needed me, and one that I would choose with quiet determination because she needed someone to choose her, and that was a way in which I could aide her somehow.

"I think this is not enough. Not enough for two."

At some point while actively choosing the one above, I realized it was a choice that I no longer wanted to make, perhaps one that I had grown to resent through carelessness or my own inability to be patient and strong.

But resent it I did, and so I chose an alternative.

"But sufficient, perhaps for one."

And there is the trick. Because choosing one that was nothing but an alternate for something else led to choosing another alternative, and two years later I've been through so many alternatives I don't remember what the original was. I started starting jumping straight from one alternative to another, having abandoned the concept of 'primary' altogether.

"Ah... you now have --"
"Him."

Now, none of them would I choose, if the question was posed to me.

It isn't just that I would hesitate. I would be completely stymied. Incapable of action. I see each of them as worthy as the next. And I have carefully made no promises. Each one is truly an alternative for a reality that no longer exists.

"I'm sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right? Did you want to finish?"

I would find myself in a permanent holding pattern with the simplest of dilemmas: Which one comes home safe with me, and which do I trust enough to leave behind?

And I find myself having promised them that none of them will ever be chosen. That each would be left on the torturer's rack, to end their lives in quiet despair, dreaming of the hope I never offered them but perhaps always seemed to be just around the corner.

Because it occurs to me that I don't think any of them believe my promises, except, perhaps that first alternate. Who, ironically, might become a second round if fate has her way. And truly fate is the cruelest mistress, and might yet force a darkly humorous twist of this sorry state of affairs.

What is this, an attack of conscience? Maybe. But I've got ten bucks and a human ear that says it won't last long.

"What are we gonna do, clone him?"

Conversation from the television show Firefly. Episode 10: War Stories.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Why I haven't been posting lately. . . [News]

Ok, so this isn't a valid entry either. Sorry guys.

Part of the reason I haven't posted this month is that I've been very busy with new job/new home/new bank/new hobby, etc.

But more than that, Lorelei, my faithful companion, has been dead to the world and completely offline for the last month due to the peculiar setup we're currently using.

[Coax->Cable Modem->USB->PC1->USB->Ethernet->PC2] turns out to be several jumps too many, so with Windows Internet Connection Sharing properly stymied, Lorelei has simply been offline. This means that my music collection and my internet surfing are divorced from one another. Normally I never surf without my music, and it doesn't take long before a song hooks me (or I think of a specific one I want and cue it up) and from there the process of song/essay interleaving is really quite easy*. However, without my music collection, the odds that I'll actually write a 'normal' interleaved post are pretty minimal, even though I've lately had good ideas for several that I'm looking forward to writing.

So I've been letting this space lie derelict for a time. But fear not, the end is nigh! The end of the drought, anyway. I'm going to be moving again in about three weeks, and when that happens I'll be online from a new computer, in a new place, and will begin to rebuild Lorelei, but with significant upgrades to her entire system. In fact, I might even be forced to re-christen her. I'd rather not, but we'll see.

In any case, expect 'normal' operation (or what passes for it around here) to resume in a month or so. Until then, my posts will be mostly snippets like that last one about the quizzes.

*: hit single-song repeat, type what comes to mind, lather, rinse, repeat until all lyrics have been exhausted.

Monday, April 24, 2006

If this comes as a shock to any of you. . .

then you haven't been paying attention.

Your Ideal Relationship is Friends with Benefits

You're not looking for anything serious... just something hot!
And you're little black book (or cell phone) always hooks you up.
You want nothing more than friends with benefits. No strings.
You also don't mind benefits without the friendship!


Normally I don't do quizzes, as you know. But a friend of mine had "marriage" and I *knew* my results were guaranteed, so I couldn't resist. I also happen to really love the little picture.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Bohemian bourgeois

[Note about the delay: I lied. Sorry. I really did intend to update, and then something (mercy or pity, maybe) stayed my hand. In place of the essay I thought you were getting, you're getting this one instead. Deal.]

It turns out I'm bohemian.

This came as something as a shock to me. When I think of people deserving of the title I think of scruffy, rebellious artist-types with passionate eyes, bright scarves, fingerless gloves and an faint scent of opium still hovering about their ears.

So imagine my surprise when I decided it was high time I learned the official definition, and found these:

First:

"1. A person with artistic or literary interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior."

Well damn, says I. That sounds like yours truely with a capital T.

And alternatively a couple more

"3.       a. A Gypsy.
            b. An itinerant person; a vagabond."


Now that sounds peculiarly similar too, doesn't it?

Curious then. And it turns out (while we're on the subject of obscure B words coined over 60 years ago) that I'm Bourgeois as well, since that merely means the property owning portion of the middle class, and I am that also, or will be at the end of next month.

Curious, these two words are not ones I thought applied to me. Turns out they do.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Late in the game.

Sorry about the lack of delays. I was feeling really guilty these last two weeks, but I checked my list of commonly read blogs recently and found that pretty much everybody I read for pleasure has stopped updating lately, so maybe it's just a spring thing.

Expect fresh stuff tomorrow though. I've got an old essay I'm going to post that you've not seen before. Perhaps it will be a thimblefull of shell shock for one or more of you. For the rest of you it probably won't even read coherently.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006