nonsensequitur

Later that very same night, our hero had a seance to contact his dear-departed muse…

 

You are correct sir,
Non-sequitur,
Another train another chain
Of thoughts like so many blocks.
Blink-a-tink-a-link
To the brink
Of another brick wall
Or again a road to nowhere.
Blink-a-link-a-clickety-trick,
The air in here is getting thick
With tangents sign and co-sign
Our names across the sky!
Oh why do I try to fly
When I’m too fat I just fall flat
I was never very good singing scat.
And nevermore will I trod the floor
To knock knock on my muse’s door
And wonder if she will enlighten me
As I type a’tick-a-clickety-snick
And roam at home
Write a pome
While I wait for the brain to reign again.

Safe From My Embrace

This is about a fairly typical episode in my head when it comes to women.

I swear to you, I am surprised I ever managed to get laid, let alone had a woman actually want to be with me. If I ever had “mojo,” as Austin Powers once said, it’s just gone. Even if a woman were actually interested in me, there is nothing I could ever do about it. I don’t know anymore where to begin.

But that has not stopped me from thinking, and wishing. This is about that sad state of affairs that is me right now. 

 

I imagine us entangled, enraptured,
Love like the air around us,
Perfect, obvious, electric.
You lean in for the kiss
You’d take by force if I didn’t give it,
Pulling me into you.

And then the mist clears.
I see the comedy
Of my errors.
The only universe where that embrace
Makes any sense
Is the one in my head.

There’s only one buffoon here,
And he’ll remain silent
About his affections
Lest the truth come out
And blast clean any leftover dignity.
You’re safe from my embrace.

On Pixels And Paradigms (pair a’dimes?)

So last Saturday night, one of my big storage hard drives died. It was from an accidental fall, but I lost over a terabyte of data.

I’ve been working with computers on and off since I was maybe twelve. In the last twenty years, it’s been pretty exclusive. One of the appallingly normal things that happens of course is when a hard drive goes tits-up on you.

At this point in life, I am goddamned tired of it.

I didn’t lose much. 95 percent of what was on that drive is recoverable because it’s stored someplace else–On Apple’s iTunes servers in this case. I replaced the drive with a NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit and will spend the next week or so putting the contents back together.

The reason for this is that Apple started making purchased iTunes content available online. “Stored in the cloud,” in the modern marketing vernacular. When you buy something, it downloads to your computer, and is also available from them directly.

So, when you think about it, what would be the point of storing the media files locally? Part of it is in order to have the content available in a network outage. Sure, we live in an era of robust bandwidth and fast access, but we’re a clipped fiber-optic line away from the dark ages even now.

Also, it’s because there’s part of me that still lives with the old way of computer thinking. All the content I own, I want “near” me. It’s all intangible, but I still gotta have it close. It’s really one of the minor absurdities of this current internet age.

I’ve been dabbling with the whole “life in the cloud” thinking since 2002 when I got my first wireless card for my Dell. When I went back to Macs in 2007, part of the impetus was that much of the software I wanted to use was available online, and open-source. Plus the computer was leaner and lighter than the Windows machines of the period.

Hard drives are finally superfluous, and SSDs are cheap enough to get and throw into your machine, if it didn’t already have one. Back in 2007, I figured most of my crap would be stored online by 2010. It took a little longer than that, but it’s true enough now.

The Macbook Air was a hint of that life to come. The 11-inch machine I got in late 2010 had a 64 GB SSD, 2 GBs of RAM and was in a package smaller and thinner than the last PS/2 keyboard I owned. Astoundingly small. It still gets me how thin and light that computer is.

When Google introduced Chrome OS and the Chromebook concept, the Macbook Air felt like the hardware counterpart of the impossible dream Chrome OS represented, a life lived online. No more computers with vast amounts of storage on spinning disks ready to fail. In fact, the hardware was supposed to become essentially irrelevant.

This video from Google back when the CR-48 prototype was introduced demonstrates this concept in appalling detail. Made all the more sickening when I think Google could have sent ME one of those pilot computers! I signed up and everything. Damn.

Yesterday, Google introduced its newest reference model Chromebook, called Pixel. Now to this point, all extant models of Chromebook followed the example of the CR-48: A modest amount of RAM by current standards–from 2 GB to as much as 4 GB–and a small SSD, no more than 32 GB usually. An internet appliance disguised as a laptop. Acer introduced the C7 which, intentionally or not, was the real steal among Chromebooks, in that you’d buy the hardware for $199 and upgrade the RAM and storage easily and cheaply with off-the shelf components. This was because it was essentially a low-end Windows machine retooled slightly.

Lenovo, Samsung and HP released models of Chromebook that hewed closer to the CR-48 concept than Acer, but all with the subtext that the hardware was not so important.

Enter Pixel. At first glance, it looks a bit like the CR-48 crossed with a Retina Macbook Pro. Gorgeous, well built, faster that the rest of the Chromebook brand, and with a sinus-clearing pricetag. For $1299, you get a laptop with a 12.85 inch touchscreen in a 3:2 orientation (harkening back to the days before wide-screen laptops became all the rage), backlit keyboard, aluminum body, 32 GB SSD, WiFi and an i5 processor. For $1449 you get all that, a 64 GB SSD and LTE access. You also get three years of one terabyte Google Drive space, which if bought separately of course is more expensive than this machine.

The blogosphere and commentosphere have not been kind to Pixel. Those who are unclear on the concept deride this machine as a $1200 web browser. Others actually go so far as to recommend Apple computers as better buys than this machine. Astounding when you realize comment trolls HATE Apple with a passion usually reserved for Obama. Or atheists.

The haters are stuck in an old way of thinking about their computers and their data–that your machine must be completely autonomous, able to handle e-mail, coding C++ and video editing with nary a sweat, whether you actually do any of that or not. In that paradigm, RAM and storage and running native apps are the only things to consider with computers.

This is the mindset that Chrome OS would supplant. Nothing is kept on the local machine. Nothing. Everything is online, so viruses and software bloating are not an issue.

Among those who actually get Chromebook, the pricetag on Pixel is still an issue. Chrome OS was supposed to make the hardware irrelevant. It’s hard to sustain that argument with a $1200 computer. It’s a valid point.

My take on it is, Google brought out a proof-of-concept with basic hardware–an oversized netbook really–with CR-48. It was offered for free because those who received the computer were volunteer testers, and the OS still needed tweaking. The first Acer and Samsung models were pretty much built on the same hardware profile, save for the Samsung Series 550, which was billed as the top-end model with more RAM and a faster processor than the Series 5.

The next generation diverged in various ways from the CR-48 reference. Acer’s was probably the most radical, and definitely the cheapest. Lenovo and HP both brought out machines that also diverged from the original in variously interesting ways.

The common denominator in all of them though, they’re cheap. Build quality is variable, but acceptable for the price.

Pixel is Google’s example of the high end. Most every aspect of this machine, based on the specs, is something we as adopters of the Chrome OS have wanted in a “dream Chromebook.” As I think about it, I believe most all the specs on Pixel were mentioned in Google’s Chromebook forum as things that would make the experience better.

I am using an Acer C7 myself. I got it back in November with the tacit understanding I was going to void the warranty and open the case, upgrading it as much as possible as soon as possible. This now has 16 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD. The upgrade took only a few minutes and required twisting five screws (four for the SSD). It also has a larger battery, answering the main painpoint for the C7, its short battery life.

As I read the specs of the new Pixel, my only concern is the RAM. In Chrome OS, the more RAM you have, the more tabs you can open and leave open in Chrome. On previous models you could have as many tabs open as you wanted. After a period of inactivity however, the OS would purge some tabs in order to open up space, so when you returned to a tab it would end up needing to reload. Also, in my experience with the Series 5, there were also instances of stuttering video which may have been RAM or CPU related (it used an Atom processor).

Well with 16 gigs of RAM, that ain’t a problem. I have 20 tabs open here, of which I access maybe half to two-thirds every day, whether here or on another device running Chrome–a real benefit of Google’s ecosphere. None have needed to reload as yet. My usage is not too different from other Chromebook users, except for the number of tabs. Apparently more than five is aberrant behavior.

Most of my data is online now, spread among several sites for various purposes. Their access is platform agnostic, as it should be. Apple’s is not, as you’d imagine. I am, for all intents and purposes, a denizen of the online world.

Which is why that hard drive dying like it did galled me so much. “Aren’t I past this? Aren’t we all past this?” I asked myself as I ordered its replacement.

Almost, but not quite.

 

Too Tired To Sleep…

One of the things I wanted to do over this short span of days off was to take a road trip.

I love road trips. The sights, the sense of adventure, the singleness of purpose–the only mission is to move further down the road–are most compelling. When I was 22, I moved back to New Hampshire from Arizona, and made that move by car. Almost exactly three days from Phoenix to Peterborough, including some twenty hours of straight non-stop driving from Ohio to New Hampshire. Roadside Truckstop picked up a lot of fresh inspiration in that ride. So too did its author.

So yeah. Love road trips.

I decided what I wanted to do was to go back to Yuma again to see Grandma Duffy’s grave. And Grandpa and my uncle Timmy since they’re all together there. The last time I was there was the funeral, and even then I remembered earlier trips there, like when Grandma and Grandpa would stop in to see Timmy’s grave after church. I think they did that every Sunday, but I do recall going there to see the grave when I was, maybe, eight or nine.

I got an early start, leaving at five in the morning. Dark-fifteen or so. A Red Bull started the morning–ugh…

The sky was starting to light when I had breakfast around Casa Grande and was mainly in my mirrors as I went west on Interstate 8. The expanses around me were flat, except for the occasional mountain or large hill jutting out of the ground here and there. The cowshit smell of agriculture was everywhere for the first part of the I-8 leg. Eventually, you come to the mountain ranges through which I-8 was cut which then leads to Yuma and California in quick succession.

Yuma. Land of my birth literally perchance. Dad was there courtesy of the Military-Industrial Complex (Yuma has a large Marine base), and, arguably, so was Mom, since Grandpa was a State Farm agent with a flourishing business with the Marines, among other things. It’s where everybody happened to be, and where the hospital was where I made my entrance. And Mom and Dad split from there after Dad left the service.

So, though I was born there I have almost no attachment whatsoever to that dull, dreary place. And it’s almost midwestern in its sheer dullness. Duller than Peterborough, whose only saving grace was having old buildings. Yuma, to me as a child, was where Grandma and Grandpa Duffy lived. And, as it’s worked out, it’s where they will always be.

So I went there today. Since I have a new, reliable car, it was feasible. I went to the cemetery, found them side-by-side with Timmy beside (at his parents’ right of course), and sat with them for a bit.

I’ve said this previously, and it bears repeating. I was very lucky to have a living, vital grandparent in my life well into my forties. I have fresh memories of the living Georgianna Duffy where I have old memories of Robert Duffy (Tall. Really funny. Liked to take walks out behind the house in the morning. Let me come with him once.). Most of my cousins never met Robert Duffy, though they’d've loved him.

As far as the Grows, I have fewer memories of Grandpa (Pall Malls. “How ’bout that!” Open casket, terrible jacket, wrong shade of lipstick.) and even less of Grandma (Dorals. Used to do taxi dispatching out of the kitchen at home, complete with the table microphone. Hated my mom.).

Back to the gravesite. There was a small depression that signaled where Grandma was, so I sat next to where her head would be. And, talked. And listened.

Who did the atheist talk to, you ask?

Good question asshole. To myself of course. And to the whispering wind. What else?

A fully atheistic worldview is new in general. And new to me specifically. It’s incomplete as far as handling the death of loved ones compared to a theistic view–which is all about handling death. But I needed to come sit with them.

All I have left of my time with these people are old photographs and aging memories. I can bring Grandma’s voice to mind quite clearly in my head. Not just as she was when I last saw her–bedridden and on morphine–but earlier on, when we’d play Rummikub (“Are ya done yet?! Is it my turn?!”), and even further back, when she’d make sugar cookies, and tell us to not play around in the living room–vinyl-wrapped furniture and white carpets.

I last saw Grandpa maybe 35 years ago, and heard his voice on the phone a few times later on. I see him as the child did–tall, with kind eyes. Oatmeal and half a grapefruit with Tang for breakfast. He’d wiggle his ears while he ate, and Katy and I would laugh. He’d look at us and say to Grandma, “Mother, these kids are saying I wiggle my ears!” And then there was the walk I took with him. I didn’t want to walk so much as I wanted to be with my grandfather. Not much talking as I remember.

Timmy I can picture somewhat. His voice though, I am not sure. He was a good looking boy. Just turned twenty when he was killed in 1975. Long dark hair, heartbreaker face. I was in kindergarten when I last saw him.

Memories. Dim. Dimmer. Episodic. The scraps I have of these people I loved. I needed to sit with them.

I traveled to that place to conjure these people once more in the only realm left: My mind. I do this anywhere else and these are just more mind-renderings. Imaginary friends. Constructs of who these people were to me.

Doing it there, in that silent place where the markers are all flush with the ground to make mowing easier, and the wind blows flowers and offerings about like the detritus it is, it felt more…appropriate maybe? This is where the last physical bits of them are.

And I wanted to sit with them again, I guess. Even if I was the only one sitting there.

So I did for a few minutes. Four-plus hours there, four-plus hours back–and I am so tired I cannot sleep.

I miss you.

Tubing on the Stream of Consciousness

All is quiet on New Year’s Day.

Unless you’re in my head, of course, where the stream of consciousness moves relentlessly towards the sea of heartbreak. Or whatever.

Welcome to Tuesday. It is now 2013, and since I have some vacation days back, I am taking a couple days off. I have some errands to run tomorrow, and a road trip for Thursday. Maybe Friday too. I don’t know.

Today though, it’s me and thee. Or just me.

Making a resolution on New Year’s is cliche. So too, by the way, is not making a resolution on New Year’s. That’s the way of labels. You make one, strive to be different until that very difference becomes another label. I wrote a poem about that one lovely morning in Bookman’s. It ended up in Roadside Truckstop.

In any case, I will not be making a resolution per se. This morning was reading through Confessions Of A Buddhist Atheist (lovely book by the way, I highly recommend it.), and came upon a reference to something called the Kalama Sutta.

The Kalama Sutta is one of the Pali Canon, a set of Suttas (stories or parables) involving Buddha. These were passed through memorization for their first four centuries until written down in Pali in the first century BCE. Whether these various stories happened or not is really not the point–which you Christians could learn a HUGE lesson from by the way. The point is the lesson within.

The story goes that Buddha came among the Kalama people and gave a dhamma (dharma) talk. The question came up about various monks who pass through town explaining their own teachings and denigrating and insulting the teachings of others, which causes confusion among the people. How do they know which one is right?

Well Buddha being Buddha, he tells them to find their own way through.

“Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.” –Kalama Sutta: The Buddha’s Charter of Free Inquiry”, translated from the Pali by Soma Thera. Access to Insight, 7 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel008.html . Retrieved on 1 January 2013.

“Don’t listen to people talk, don’t listen to them selling souls. Don’t listen to me or words from men above.” That’s how Pete Townshend put the same idea in “Time Is Passing.” Who Came First is a brilliant little album.

The point is, you must figure out for yourself what feels right for you, and question everything–everything–without fear. I finally did it years ago as far as religious beliefs and began the journey which led me to where I am: A somewhat militant atheist–with a tinge of buddhist thinking. Yeah, buddhist with a small b.

But nothing was sacrosanct. Nothing was above scrutiny. Even the things that I figured were already decided upon, I would go back to and ponder again. It’s what led me once and for all out of anything remotely Christian and into atheism by way of Zen, since Zen is the most atheistic of the Buddhist strains, and most all of what you find in the Pali Canon and the Dhammapada are ultimately not supernatural at all. Going back to the Kalama Sutta, Buddha never claims he even knows of an afterlife. If there is or isn’t doesn’t matter, he says, as long as you can find solace and peace now.

So this all leads me to today, and resolutions.

I want to get more active. Easy enough–make some time. Get better shoes.

Just do it. Or not.

I want to meditate again. Meditation does not require candles and music. Those are for amateurs. You can meditate in the middle of the market–or in the middle of the call center if they’d leave you alone long enough. You’ve done this very thing before. Pick it up again. Shikan-frickin-taza. Or Thich Nhat Hanh’s walking meditation. Remember how good that felt.

Just do it. Or not.

I want to fall in love. No you don’t. Don’t waste your time with that anymore. If she shows up, she shows up. But do not waste your heart on waiting and wanting! 

Fuck that. Fuck all of that. Your dream lover is just a dream. What you cook up to make you feel better about yourself.

You know this.

Oh. You’re still here reading this? Cool. This is some of what runs through my head from time to time. Only with more occurrences of the word “fuck.” And tits.

I still love you lots though. Those other women mean nothing to me.

Happy Birthday.

So yeah. I am 44 today. There’s that.

I love you all.

A quick aside

I just had the cry I should have had in October 2010, when you left my life.

You did what you had to and you’re better for it. I was too overwhelmed with the loss to do anything but take all that–all you meant to me and all you meant period–and stuff it into a box and put it in a corner. And leave it there. Where it stayed for two years.

Until today. Until this morning when your message came to me at work. You moved on, and you are happy. Engaged. Mazel tov.

Your letter needed a response. I’m sure you don’t agree. But it opened that box I mentioned, and let everything out again. So I wrote. But not *everything*. I’m not a masochist.

I am the long-lost boy, you were the girl of my dreams. And if I were the writer, it would have had the sort of soppy ending we both liked, to be honest.

But i’m not Harry and you’re not Sally and life got messy and stupid and lost.

I lost.

I wish you love and more. But I won’t be at the wedding, whenever that comes. Why would you even think to invite me? Especially given what you really think of me.

You weren’t the only one who was hurt.

Witch ball

Gorgeous creations, these…

A tiny universe,
Iridescent hued
To doppler blue
Or red to pinkyellow
Depending on the light.
Wormhole funnels fall
Fiber-optic thin
In branches
To a hyperspace highway center.

Evil spirits
Don’t stand a chance
Against this sphere of glass…

Do you know…?

Oh yes. The crush. Foolish, dreadful. I have one, you see.

Of course, she doesn’t know. I wish she did, and yet I don’t. Because she will not feel the same way. All the shes in my past, wonderful women all,…

Gee, yeah, they never feel the same way. Do they?

Do you know

I think of you

In my arms every night?

Quiet,

Save for your soft breath

And my thundering heart.

Nothing–

No one–

But us in the moment

Before that first

Tentative kiss.

Last barrier between us

And our passion.

I dream of you.

Do you know?

It’s in my eyes

Every time

I see you.

We could be

Happy together

If I could tell you.

If you knew.

But I know

This wonderful

Hopeful dream–

It would end.

My desire

Made laughingstock

By reality.

Ah yes dear boy.

Too old, too fat.

Too ugly–

Too late.

Whatever she loves,

It will never be you.

Today

Today was overall a rotten day with people I don’t really like. Some people are cool, some not so much. And I have never felt so generally disrespected as I have today. And helpless too. Like I am stuck with no way out.

I have no one to tell who will listen so I tell you.