RWG

While walking this morning—my new habit, going through my listening list on Spotify—I saw a paradox. A man came up to me and said "I am lying to you like you lie to yourself."

Like a canary in a coal mine he was a warning sign of things to come.

It was cold out this morning, so I was bundled up; I realized that, inside, I was wrapped like a mummy, layers of bandages on top of bandages on top of wounds.

I was listening to The Woodmans—music by David Lang, a composer whom I greatly admire, but not in this case; what I was hearing was oversimplified, overly repetitious and banal. However infectious his other music, this was a disease I was not contracting.

One of my favorite pieces of his—"Cheating, Lying Stealing"—has obvious repetition, but each time a cell repeats, it's altered in some way. The inattentive listener might not even realize, but everyone will perceive its unmechanicalness—irregularly regular.

For the least initiated listeners, this is a relatively easy point of entry, all while keeping it interesting. The Woodmans sounded like film music.

Which, it turns out, it is.

Or was. Whatever tense, it was intended as the score to a film, which leaves it 2-dimensional when you give it your full attention. Now that I know, the jury is still out; now I have to think of it totally differently.

The point of this post, however, is not my new habit of walking in the morning, at the end of night—the easiest way to stay healthy (in the bike racing off-season)—but tools for creativity, specifically the Random Word Generator. Hence all the underlined words.

xmas 2011

in the days leading up to christmas, i learned that i'm nearing the end of my money.

i'm never quite sure how that happens, but it happens every winter, usually not till late february or march.

this year, sooner. was it the bike racing? i did more bike racing this year which means 20-30 dollar entry fees and gas for getting to the races.

or was i just living an unsustainable lifestyle? not that i'm prone to excess, but i feel surrounded by people who don't have to be as careful with money. easy to get sucked along.

fortunately, i had already bought most of the presents for my family, so i didn't have to think about it too much while shopping.

i'm usually a terrible gift-giver, relying heavily on the "thought-that-counts". this year, however, i think i did alright. for my mom, the poetess, i got an international journal of poetry and the granta issue on chicago. for my dad... well, his present started off as something mysterious and impractical and ended up as something practical: roku. not without an air of mystery, the roku streams movies and such (pandora) to your tv. it's how some of my friends watch netflix. for my brother-in-law, the fixins for old fashioneds (whisky and bitters). for my sister, an illustrated history of graphic design in america. and for the kids, books.

the whole weekend, i tried to keep my caloric intake the right side of total bacchanalia but still felt overfull, oversugared, and overserved. every year i think it would be a lot better if i could just do a 3-hour bike ride at some point. but i never do.

christmas day night, i had an insight that i hope to elaborate on later. suffice it to say that i poked around on the internet to find the basic plot archetypes. i found a book that described the 7 basic forms. it looks a little long to read, but there are some good dissections, summaries, and reactions out there on the net.

but let's get to the good part, the result of which is a busted up nose and an emptiness in my belly.

i started to feel nauseous midday boxing day. i thought i was just over-caffeinated or overstuffed on holiday treats but it turned out to be more sinister.

i felt ill on the drive back to the city, where i dropped off my stuff at home and got on my bike. moving, circulating the blood made me feel better. i joined my family at RJ Grunts, the historic restaurant at the edge of Lincoln Park and the only decent family place within walking distance of the zoo. the real zoo, though was inside. hoards of families were stuffed into the 70s-themed tavern, and the possibility of getting a table was in serious question.

we got seated, though, at 2 separate tables on opposite ends of the restaurant. i was back to feeling sickly and deliberated on which table to join. the one, my sister, mom, and my baby niece lily; the other, my dad, my brother-in-law, and my toddler nephew lincoln. i chose the man-table and then had to deliberate on which deep-fried, greasy meat i'd be able to digest.

my choice raised eye-brows: tuna melt. [i never found out if it was good; it's still in my fridge.]

i rode slowly on the way home, not having the energy nor the intestinal fortitude to go fast, choosing low-traffic streets both for safety and quietude.

i considered stopping at the river to unleash the demons in my stomach, but the moment passed too quickly.

getting sick moves in a spiral. you feel on the verge of being sick but then it passes. when it comes back, it's worse but it passes. all the way until you are dozing on the couch, shivering under a warm blanket, concentrating on keeping your lunch inside where it belongs.

when the sweat comes, you know it's over.

made it to the bathroom, calmly took off my christmas-present-flannel, and was nearly ready for the onslaught. only the toilet seat was in my way, which i threw open with such urgency that it bounced, whacking the bridge of my nose on the way down.

it still hurts a little to wear glasses.

i felt so much better. not only was something malevolent inside but i was just full on excess. i felt depleted but ready to start over. not quite ready-ready—i still could only stomach glasses of water—but i knew i was on the mend.

so far today, i've had mostly bread and honey, some weak coffee with milk, and yogurt—starting slowly.

might need to take a nap...

Narrative Arc

Christmas day evening, I was alone in my room-room at home-home and, perhaps through the mysterious interconnectivity of the internet, I got turned on to the basic plot archetypes.

There's a book that came out I'll never read—too many pages—but there are several good summaries and reactions to it on the internet.

For as much as the Romantic Hero wants to be a unique individual, s/he still needs to feel a part of something.

"Yes, we're all individuals!"

Sometimes you're a camel in a caravan; sometimes you're just a camel in the desert.

Sometimes the path gets lost in the shifting sands.

I am both the driver of the caravan and the camels; being your own boss is de rigueur these days, especially if you're trying to do creative things.

And the question has remained unanswered—indeed, unasked: what's my archetype? Hero, Outlaw, Messiah, Vengeful Messiah, Blithe Angel?

Lately, I've felt more like an Outlaw. Potential, however, for a Hero. The Messiah would then go further and transform the world.

I'm not so much into vengeance: lucky for you. The Blithe Angel sounds more and more attractive.

I may be essentially one or all of these things in my core, but I have the freedom to try them all out, to avoid decision.

Indecision is a freedom. And a tiresome state.

Remembering where we've come from helps us see the arc, the trajectory of where we're going.

motherboards

On a whim, in a stupor induced by headcold, finding myself thinking clearly but simply, even more distracted than usual, I got interested in electronics.

It started with the annual winter yen to build a Theremin. Followed closely by the thought: how hard could it be?

Theremins are the electronic instruments from 1950s horror movies, an electronic, hands-free instrument that produces sound based on the performers hands interacting with electrical fields surrounding antennas.

Read about its basic operating principles per wikipedia.

It's one thing to know about Theremins, it's another to know how they work. I want to build one; I want to know how they work.

Which requires a serious dredging up of lost knowledge regarding electronics.

Actually, I never knew much about electronics, though I did well on the EM section of the Physics AP exam.

It's been that long.

Granted we built a robot, but I never got a good understanding of circuits beyond basic principles and simple schematics. A Theremin, it turns out, is pretty advanced.

So I decided to start small. A visit to American Science and Surplus (a wonderland of strangeness) resulted in me being the proud owner of a "My First Strobe Kit", a DIY electronic circuit that requires soldering ("sottering") and whatnot.

The more I think about electronic circuits, the more I don't understand them. How does information flow through them? I'm learning, of course, about resistors, potentiometers, capacitors, and whatever else. Lots to keep track of.

So I started with a problem, how to build a Theremin, which turned out to be too complicated, so I broke it down, and broke it down, and broke it down. Electricity is still pretty complicated, but with this Strobe kit I can at least start learning by doing.

[As if I needed another hobby.]

But maybe this is just a rhythm of thought, a wavelength, that I've been fostering, against all odds: trying to figure out how things work. It begins with identifying the problem and ends with breaking it down into the simplest components. Whether or not I put the parts back together remains to be seen.

Deconstruct first; reconstruct second.

Through this process, I've realized that I don't actually believe in anything. Or the opposite. I believe in too many things, contradictory things, that render them un-possible.

["Me fail English? That's unpossible!"]

For instance, it doesn't happen too often, but there was at least one time on the bike tour that someone asked me about my religious beliefs. I don't know how, but I realized that I both believe in God and in the death of God. I both believe in reincarnation and don't. I both believe in good and evil and don't.

It's like, when I get down to the electronic circuit of my mind, there's all these switches that allow both 1's and 0's.

Which coincides with this book that I'm reading: Erring by Mark C Taylor.

"There is a large, and I believe growing, number of people who find themselves in the middle of such extremes. Suspended between the loss of old certainties and the discovery of new beliefs, these marginal people constantly live on the border that both joins and separates belief and unbelief. They look but do not find, search but do not discover."

So I'm not so unusual. There's always consolation in that.

throwing things into other things

I've been storing up these stories, awaiting the completion of a trilogy. The other day, completion; here they are.

1) It's no secret that I go to Kuma's Corner maybe once a week. Meat, it's good. It's maybe a secret that I used to be vegetarian and, for this reason, have little sympathy for veggies, thinking that that was a phase that I went through and thought better of. Glad I did it though.

Generally what happens is this: I eat something for dinner - neither a mere snack nor a feast - and feel pretty satisfied until one or another of my roommates sends me a text: "House meeting." This, of course, means Kuma's, and it's almost always after 10:30, sometimes 11.

If we happen to be in person, one of us will say: "Yeah, I could wrap my dick around that" which somehow translates to "I'm in." [I'm in = I'm down = I'm up for it... etc.]

So one time a week or two ago, the crazy roommate and the aborted-baby-daddy suddenly said they were going, but I had just opened a beer. Dilemma! I was on the ram's horns, wanting to sit and finish my beer (waste not!) but also wanting to go get some meat.

Solution: bike with beer.

It's not legal per se, but it's not exactly immoral. I draw the line at immoral. Or at least just a little past.

So I'm biking one-handed on the fixie, left hand poised on the brake [safety first!], when, about half-way there [it's a 7-minute ride], I finish my beer and feel an immediate desire to dispose of the empty bottle. I'm feeling fractious and have an urge to just throw it, devil may care. But then, golden opportunity: a dumpster on the other side of the street. Almost like a reflex, I hook-shotted the bottle in an arc over my head.

Draino.

It couldn't have gone any better.

2) My crazy roommate had gone to Florida and come back, was forbidden to come back to the house, and was spending the weekend in a padded room. [At least that's how I picture it.] The day after her institutionalization was C's birthday party. He had a keg of good beer [that still has some left in it] and a barrel for a hobo-fire.

So, now that we all know what a hobo fire is, let's carry on. [We didn't use a blowtorch to make the holes, rather a drill with some hole-cutting attachment.]

Picture this. The fire is burning and people are showing up. I showed up after a concert that was pretty terrible and had drank 2 G&Ts at the post-concert reception. [I ended up way drunker that night and ended up missing my cross race the next day.]

So things are happening, I turn on the music, it's a party.

At some point, we were going to burn this small wicker ottoman that was taking up space in the living room. In honor of clean-space-clean-mind, I'm getting rid of the random junk in our apartment.

Somehow, I decided to try to throw it from the balcony [2nd floor] into the hobo fire 30 feet away. It seemed unlikely to work, but the greatest rewards come from the highest risk. And the best risks are the one you're not attached to (or are ignoring).

First throw! Miss. Just wide. No can, no fire. Close but no cigar.

C throws the ottoman back up to me (wicker is pretty light), I catch (amazing!), and throw again.

No real thought, just a vague amount of preparation.

Draino. Right in. There were only a few orientations that the stool could even fit into the can, and it happened to find it just as it went in.

Someone came up to me afterwards and said: "If that was on Youtube I'd think it a fake."

Not a fake, just being awesome.

3) On Sunday, my chef-friend and I are driving to a bike race (I've learned my lesson about drinking too much the night before and have made it to *all* subsequent races), and we stop at a gas station for some 5-hour energy and coffee.

But I have this cup from last week still in the cup holder and don't have room for my coffee. What to do?! Dilemma!

So I look around for a drive-up trash can. Nothing.

I find one right in front of the cashier but that's 4 feet away from the curb. I drive up and ask him: "think I can make it?" He laughs, I aim and shoot...

Way way too high, like 3 feet. Hit the window right by the cashier and sort of exploded with melted ice from last week's post-race soda. Missed the can.

So I take my foot off the clutch [LURCH, stall...] and go throw it away. Total fail. The lurch even spilled my coffee [a little] in the car.

Then driving away, he's still laughing in fits, I'm trying to drink the coffee. He gets me laughing right as I'm drinking, and I inhale it. Really. Inhale. Not just choking on it, the coffee enters my lungs and I feel this strange sensation like I'm freebasing coffee, the caffeine entering straight into my blood stream.

I managed to cough most of it out before the race and like to think that it was to blame for my 8th place finish in the race. Not too shabby but would have liked to do better.

Trilogy complete.

coincidences

I think I am done talking about the ex-roommate. Then again, that's exactly what I thought about a million times already and, really, after the thousand-and-first time, I started writing about it. So, sometimes excess is for the win.

We had 2 girls over last week to fill the vacancy. One of my roommates had said "No girls." after the last one, but we assured him that not all women are prone to insanity.

Neither of the 2 who came over seemed borderline anything, and we approved of both. The girl interested in a long-term living situation flaked out, and we went with the short-term Scottish girl who's in town for a semester at the SAIC, something about sculptural installation art.

When she was by the house, she told us a sob story about why she had to leave her current place on short notice and under duress. She was subletting from some folks, had given them a security deposit, and they went to Détroit. Then, mid-October, the landlord comes by and says that the folks who skipped town owed a month or two in rent. For some reason, this poor Scottish lass was on the hook for it. So she was being asked to leave. Shitty sitch.

W heard all this and asked for clarification: where exactly was this house she was living in?

Turns out, he knows the people who live on the other half of the house - good friends of his - and he knew more about the sitch.

One of the people who left earned the nickname "The Step-Shitter" due to an unfortunate mess that he left on the steps leading up to the house, probably while on drugs.

That was another thing W heard about the folks who left: junkies. So somehow, through the magic of the internet, this girl ended up at our place.

W thought all this was very funny when he met her, for, he too was on drugs, though nothing so deleterious as heroin. Just hard enough, however, for him to bring up, multiple times, how insanely coincidental it was that she lived with the step-shitter.

So now she lives with us and made dinner last night. Real food! Yum.

In other news, I had a SLEEP burger the other day. Fuck yeah.

finding is the new losing

New day, same topic.

I thought we had moved on. I would have thought the hospital would have figured out her brand of crazy and tweezed it out.

No communication for a while, followed by a rumor that she had stopped by the house. Something about being drunk and talking to C.

Sure enough, it happened. But no one seemed to want to talk about it.

Then I get a text from my friend, the one who set her up with us. (That is, her ex.)

"Did she leave her phone at her house?"

I told him I was sure she didn't come in the house and haven't seen it.

More texts, more insistent, and it comes out that she was, in fact, at our place, inside, and had possibly left her phone.

And by "left", I mean "threw".

No visual proof, but it sounds like, after a heated confrontation with C, she flipped out and, on the way out, threw her phone somewhere in our apartment.

In order to have a reason to come back?

I was set to ignore it, not caring what happens. I have sympathy for everyone - up to a point. Once it's gone, it takes a long time to grow back. Her account is bankrupt.

But today, I was tearing apart the living room in search of her phone.

And then I got into it, moving couches, dusting, wiping the floor in the dark corner where clutter accumulates, and rearranging the furniture situation.

It was, in fact, on my list to do some cleaning/organizing today. I didn't get to my space, but made a good dent in the common space.

And then, after having forgotten the original impetus for cleaning, her phone turned up. The rumors and theories were true: she was over and planted her phone in a fit of drunken rage at random in our house.

She's burned through her allotment of sympathy and now is accruing ire. I'll get her her phone back but she'd better stay away while we forget (and block out) her very existence.