Jonathan Lethem Writing Quote

Waking up every day totally baffled, that's the condition of the novelist. I don't know what I'm doing today, I must be doing the right thing.Jonathan Lethem

Royal Wedding

Didn't intend to watch it. Was only vaguely aware when it was happening. Ended up watching it.

Such a lovely, marvelous occasion. It was like watching human beings at their very best. All that emotion in England, I felt a little jealous being an observer and not a participant.

The ceremony was pretty close to my ideal wedding. At least the first bit, I confess I had to leave for work long before it was over.

I loved the St Catherine's quote used in the service, "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."

That's a tall order to try to live up to.

Sent from my iPhone from MARTA's Red Line

Glimpse

Every now and then
I will catch a glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
My life as it was meant
Like walking past a television
Having a shock of recognition
Before someone flips channels

Sent from my iPhone

Fragment

I am on the train
the sun rises over the city
glinting off the glass tower
like a promise
no hint of the afternoon rains

Sent from my iPhone

Monday

Monday

Monday here. Sleep is all messed up from staying up very late on Saturday night. I had the opportunity to visit a friend that I don't get to see much and also to have my head crammed full of web development, dot.net, asp, and C# goodness. I felt like my head was going to explode. In a good way. Didn't get home until about two am and made the mistake of getting up and going out for coffee and then breakfast with friends the next day. I tried to nap a bit, didn't really work. And my sleep was all off Sunday night as well. It's Monday morning and I still have to get my head straight.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am not going to get anything accomplished on my ongoing projects today which is frustrating. I will have the chance to show up and be of service and be useful, for which I am grateful. Still I will be anxiously awaiting Tuesday when I can get back to the fun stuff.

I have a full to do list going right now and I am not making as much progress as I would like. I need to just take it one day at a time and keep my feet moving forward. It will all get done eventually if I keep that forward momentum going.

windy night

A big storm rolled in about 11:30 PM. After it blew through the rest of the night was punctuated by random gusts of heavy wind. I wasn't particularly grateful a year ago when I moved into my new house that the first thing my home owners insurance company did was to make me take down an huge, menacing, and mostly dead tree. But after a night like last night, I gotta say, it was a relief knowing that tree wasn't in the front yard.

It was odd. The heavy winds woke me several times during the night, but I awoke feeling particularly refreshed, and even, optimistic. I cannot help but think that the somehow blew some cobwebs out of my mind and spirit. It feels good.

After talking to a coworker yesterday, I decided to get back on the MARTA wagon, or more literally the MARTA train. This time around however, I am not going to catch the bus in front of my house, I am going to drive the few miles down the road to the Inman Park Station. This should cut at least a half hour to forty five minutes off the MARTA only option.

My reward to myself once I get back in shape and lose the excess weight that I am carrying around is to buy a fixed gear bike and use it to get between my house and the train station and on the other end, between the Dunwoody Station and my job.

I did stop by Starbucks to have a latte, surf the Internet, and get a little work done. It's a decent walk from Starbucks to the office. The broken little toe is much better, although still tender. I have become considerably more careful walking around my house, particularly in the dark. I expect this to last for a little while before I forget how painful a broken toe is anyway. 

no power

Wow, sitting in the dark at 6 AM with the power off and no Internet. I feel very unplugged. Although, I do have my iPhone sitting on the shelf next to me and I have already updated my Facebook status with the power outage, so how unplugged am I really. Then there is the matter that I am sitting here typing on a laptop with far more computational power than was used to land man on the moon.  I think I need to do a little more work on my unplugging, although in fairness, this was not a planned period of unplugging. I keep meaning to do one of those, just 24 hours worth, but life has not been cooperating with that.

I suppose given that all the power is out and I cannot really work as m project is on my desktop which is quietly cooling off in the dark corner, I could use this time to meditate. I have the guided meditation on my phone and I know where my ear buds are. It’s the perfect time to get it out of the way if I can get over the distraction that the power could come on at any second. Let’s give it a try.

Okay, I am back and feeling very… oh what is the word I looking for? Self-congratulatory that I took advantage of the power outage and made good use of the time. Okay, now I am ready for the power to come back on. I am waiting. Well I guess the universe has other plans for the time being. It’s still dark outside and honestly I am not sure exactly what time the sun comes up. I think I have awhile.

The cat seems undeterred in wandering around the house in the dark. It’s making the most interesting noises. If this was the end of a horror story instead of a blog entry, I would now end with “at least, I think that’s the cat...”

Okay, really, what part of lights action camera are you not getting?

So, after some more sitting in the dark our intrepid young hero decided to keep his momentums going even without power. Noticing that the sky was just beginning to lighten and one of his resolutions was to get more exercise he decided that a brisk walk was in order. By the time he returned, the power still wasn’t on. With web based training class approaching and no internet connection, our hero jumped into the shower, jumped into the car, and hightailed it to work. (With a brief diversion to Starbucks.)

Quote of the Day

"Fortunately from the outside most people can’t tell rapid exploitation of a belatedly recognized opportunity from deep laid planning." Miles Vorkosigan via Lois McMaster Bujold (Komarr)

thought for the day

"Aim high, you may still miss the target but at least you won't shoot your foot off" Eli Quinn via Miles Vorkosigan via Lois McMaster Bujold (Komarr)

coffee song

where's the coffee
cause i need it hot and black
i got have my coffee
or i'm not coming back

i mean last night was nice
and all, i had a great time
you really are amazing and
i think you blew my mind

but morning is here now
and i gotta get to work
just tell me where you keep your beans
i'm not trying to be a jerk

sorry, i just can't get awake
and i just can't face the day
my brain's is on overload
i'm not sure what to say

it's cause i haven't had my coffee
and the wheels just won't turn
i gotta have my coffee
this truth you should learn

so brew me that coffee
make it hot and black
if you just brew me that coffee
you know i'll be back

cause life without coffee
isn't something i want to know
cause if i cann't have my coffee
damn it, i'd rather be alone

so you work in a coffee shop
sorry i was a jerk
i would like to make it up to you
maybe walk you to work?

A Warning About eBooks (Discovery of Witches)

There is a danger in eBooks that no one warns you about. Yes, my nook has a little pages read and pages remain counter in the bottom right hand corner, but the more involved I am in a story the less I pay attention to it. This can be dangerous. This morning I was innocently reading a Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. It’s a very good book, well written, I got very involved in the story and was quite enjoying myself. In fact I was enjoying myself so much I had forgotten to pay attention to that page counter.


Suddenly I clicked the button to go to the next page and found I was at the end of the book. It’s like that moment of confusion when your car quits responding to your input and it takes you a second to make the connection that this means you are out of control. Then quite often there is a moment of pain while the laws of physics sort themselves out.

I mean I see why the story ended there and if I had seen it coming, I would have been okay with it. I would have put my mental seatbelts on. I mean it’s a perfectly reasonable place to break a longer story. I have no argument with the flow of the story and not much of a complaint that there wasn’t a bigger emotional payoff at the end of what I sincerely hope is volume one of a longer story. There is even something refreshing about a volume one that doesn’t have the simplistic episodic story arch of a television show.

But I feel there needs to be more awareness about the possible psychic injury that can be caused by carelessly reading eBooks and unexpectedly hitting the end. It’s not something that usually happens with bound books where the simple act of holding the book and turning the pages is telling your brain how much story is left in the volume you are holding. Actually this is why I despise long preview chapters in the back of books. To a less degree those have sometimes caught me unawares. But it’s been a long time since I have had a violent collision with an acknowledgements page as I did this morning.

I sincerely hope Ms. Harkness is hard at work writing the rest of the story. If the continuation of the story is as good as its beginning I will happily forgive her the throbbing pain currently behind my temple. In the meantime please read safely and keep an eye on the page counter.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel*

*Amazon Associate Link

nothing starts your day so right

Nothing starts your day right so much as having your beautiful Starbucks barista hand you your latte and say "with love from me to  you."

The Social Network: My Thoughts

I loved the Social Network. It worked on so many levels, from characters, to story, to magically capturing the zeitgeist of a particular time and age. I recently watched Wall Street II and the Social Network on subsequent weekends. I’d had high hopes for the Wall Street sequel since the original, or at least parts of the it, had done such an excellent job of capturing the morality of certain time and place. Sadly it was an abject failure of a movie. I was terribly disappointed, at least until the postman brought my copy of the Social Network which I found to be an enormously satisfying spiritual successor.


In the Social Network I saw in Zuckerberg as a new generation’s Gordon Gekko, one even more terrifying than the original. In Wall Street Gordon Gekko was clearly supposed to be the villain of the piece. But there was something in Gekko that made him this weird kind of anti-hero, perhaps because he embodied so much of what was and is still counted as success in America. He so embodied so much of who we are as Americans, it was hard to see him as the bad guy. We could see him as a bad guy, but secretly or not so secretly, we would love to be him.

The character of Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Network shows what’s changed and what hasn’t in the 20 plus years since Wall Street. Gekko was easier to attempt to demonize because he seemed so motivated by money. It’s harder with Zuckerberg; his motivation seems more to be the success of his idea. It’s much harder to demonize someone who’s had a really great idea and really wants to see it succeed. There is so much of ourselves in our ideas, whether we have written a novel or just come up with a suggestion for the office. A trait shared by both Gekko and Zuckerberg are their willingness to sacrifice human relationships, most particularly friendship and the loyalty that goes with it for the sake of success. But there is something about their drive and commitment to success that pushes me to excuse this aspect of their character. It reminds me of the argument that an athlete’s character off the field doesn’t matter at all, that what matters and has meaning is only their on field performance.

Watching these types of films used to be simpler, the bad guys were the one’s that wore the black hats, betrayed the guy in the white hat, robbed the train, were pursued, and the got their comeuppance in just enough time for the hero to kiss the girl and ride off into the sunset. Then movies came along where you could root for the bad guy because you knew at the end that justice would be served. You could cross your fingers that the robbery would go as planned partly because you knew in the end, someone would pay the price, the moral scales would balance.

However, in the Social Network it’s ambiguous if justice is served. Certainly it illustrates a world where it’s acceptable that success has further diminished the importance of personal relationships, loyalty, and even ethics. The Winklevosses look like complete idiots when they try to complain about Zuckerberg’s ethical behavior. The Dean almost laughs at the Winklevosses and tells them that the ethical code of conduct only applies to students’ behavior towards the school; it doesn’t apply to each other. It’s reminiscent of Gordon explaining to a wide-eyed Bud Fox that he’s in a dog eat dog take, no prisoners world.

The Social Network avoids making any heavy handed judgments. The image of Zuckerberg sitting in the conference room after most of the lawyers have left working on his laptop is one of the most ambiguous movie endings I have seen in a while. Is Zuckerberg damned and alone after all he has done? Or is it the ultimate validation of his success that one of his assisting attorneys, his peer in age and background, tells him he’s seems like an okay guy, and friends him on Facebook? It’s a victory, but I am deeply conflicted about what kind. To me it seems there is potentially something very hollow about it, although it’s not clear if Zuckerberg or society will ever see it that way. Standing alone in the end a field of victory, friends and foes defeated, is Zuckerberg in heaven or hell? One wonders if he will feel the same in twenty years. Has our society really come to the point where putting success over friendship is a socially acceptable decision?

I hope the answer is no, but as Gekko advised Bud Fox in 1985, in this business “if you need a friend, get a dog”.

---

My friend Kris posted some great comments here about an aspect of the Social Network that I have not mentioned. A good part of the movie is about the idea of Facebook, where it came from, who had it, and most importantly, who did something about it. I think that it's easier than we would like to admit to come up with a great idea, but actually doing something with it? Let's just say that for all of his flaws Zuckerburg does possess one of the qualities of the classic hero. He does something. But Kris says this all pretty well.

Valentine's 2011

I don’t fly much at all so whenever I take off, I am struck by how casually everyone seems to take the fact that we’re all up in the air and those engines are the only thing keeping us up in the air. I don’t fit well in airline seats. Then again, I didn’t fit well into my shorts this morning. Since it got cold this winter, my knee started hurting, and I quit riding the bike, (LAME EXCUSES)  my weight has sort of ballooned. I am going to start sorting that out today. I know the routine, I have done it before.

At this moment, I am on the plane, trying to type on a laptop, but cannot get a good angle on the screen. There is just not enough space between me and the seat in front of me. At least it’s a beautiful day and the sun is shining. Not that I can actually see anything from my seat. Whoever designed this stupid plane neglected to put a window next to me. I have just a little sliver of the window of the guy in front of me. I am going to give up even trying to write anything, put the laptop away, and get out the nook.

Oh yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day, I have some thoughts on the matter.

Flashing forward, it’s several hours later, I’ve checked into the hotel, gotten some work done, gone out for some light dinner at Chick-fil-A, and am sitting in Starbucks sipping a decaf-two-pump-vanilla-nonfat-extra-hot-light-foam-latte and contemplating the meaning of life, the universe, women, and everything.

Really I just need to get over my nervousness and just ask some people out already. It seems so simple, I mean the human race has made it this far hasn’t it? Unfortunately the whole process seems to play on  every insecurity I’ve ever had and quite a number I thought I had gotten over. I’m having flashbacks to high school and the one time that I really officially asked someone out. Yes I did get eventually get married without really asking anyone else out ever again... long story. Which shows that it can be done, but with many things in life that can be done, I don't necessarily recommend it.

It was junior year and I think it was homecoming. I got her number out of the class directory and called her house. I don’t remember if I called more than once or exactly how the conversations when, but I remember talking to her parents at least twice. I think the first time they said she was in the shower and the second she had gone to bed and she’d talk to me the next day in school. I thought talking on the phone was bad, you cannot imagine how nervous I was the next day in homeroom when I saw her very deliberately stand up and walk over to talk to me. Panic! I actually have no idea what I said, but I do remember that she declined in a very kind fashion. Even though I cannot remember her name, I do remember her face, and I will always be grateful for her kindness.

I don’t know why I didn’t move forward from that point, but instead of moving forward, I stopped right there. I never really thought of that moment as a pivotal moment in my life, but I guess it was. Just one of those many, many things I would do differently given a do-over, given a do over I would press forward.

Suddenly after writing those last few words I am acutely aware that I have been given a do over, maybe not a magical go back in time and really get to do it all over like happens in books and films, but the messier real life kind of do-over when you figure something out before it's too late and you have a chance to do things differently if you can summon the will. 

Oh yeah, I promised Valentine’s Day thoughts.....I think Cupid is probably hoping that I will come out of my shell and give him a target because he’s having a hell of time with me in this foxhole. I guess I need to be looking for the escalator going up!

awesome

i wish everyone an awesome day today

2011

out with the old
in with the new
no time to be sad
no time to be blue

the old year is gone
the new one is here
no time for regret
no time for fear

for the old has been written
in permanent ink
and the new will start filling
quick as a wink

so take a moment to pause
but don't take too long
for suprisingly soon
another year will be gone

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood.
-John Cheever (found here)

xmas 2010

Well, it snowed in Atlanta on Christmas Day for the first time since 1886, although it was not like waking up to the snow falling on Christmas morning. It was more a mix of rain and snow that gradually changed over to snow over the course of the afternoon. I had lunch with mom and day, opened presents, then we drove over to spend time with the Carrolls in Watkinsville. Fortunately the snow didn't affect the roads and actually made for kind of a pleasent drive back that evening. It was a really nice Christmas,  I received a couple of surprises that I didn't expect and for which I am extremely grateful.

Right now, it's December 26th and I am holed up at home taking it easy. It's a cold blustery day outside (28 degrees) and I see absolutely no need to venture outside the nest.

Christmas

Chirstmas Gifts: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. -Oren Arnold

To all my friends, you have my heart, every bit of it, I cannot begin to tell you how much you add to my life.