cherubrock

me: It's such a nice day out, I wish we could be outside enjoying the weather instead of being cooped up in the office all day

Pat: Yeah, and when you get out, you only have a couple of hours left to do, what, eat and sleep.

me: Yeah... It's sad when I think about how time just passes you by... I think time flies so fast because we spend 75% of our days doing routine work every single day, and at the end of the day you really only have so little time left... and then you only have 2 days in the weekend to really do the things that matter.

Pat: Girl, you don't know half of "time passing by so quickly" (Pat is in her 60s)... 2/3rds of my life is gone; it's like I was 20 just yesterday.

me: *smile*

Pat: You live each moment, girl... live each moment. It's all about the attitude... doesn't matter where you are, just live each moment.

Discovered one of the funniest sites ever. Click link for more.

Tales of Mere Existence

 

Finally!!! My laptop is back home!!! Wahoo.

The real voyage of discovery

consists not in seeking

new landscapes

but in having new eyes.

- Marcel Proust

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I will be without my laptop... for about 6-8 weeks. They say it may take faster than that. What am I to do? How do I survive without my online link to the world? One needs to be connected, you know... *_*

Fleeting days; beautiful city; cool air; lovely people. Fleeting days, and the everchanging now.

Little snippets of stuff I read and saw this morning that I liked. The image cartoon below is from Hugh McLeod on www.gapingvoid.com, my favorite blog on the web:

 

While reading some of his entries I ran across a link to another blogger who had the entry below on his Zen Blogger Manifesto:

Zen Blogger’s Manifesto

Do not follow in the footsteps of others,
seek what they sought and make your own footsteps.
Write not for others, as there are too many.
Write for yourself, as there is only one.
Subtract before you add.
Listen more than you speak.
Give more than you take.
Make but do not measure.
If you want to change the world, love someone.
All manifestos are dung.

 

Thought I'd share those with you. That's all. I can't really say much else as I am at work, and should be.

:-)

Today has been a strangely serendipitous day for me.

• Just a couple of nights ago, in answering a question about who I want to meet, I wrote that I would like to meet people who are able to live life on their own terms, each day to the very brim. Today, I got a free facial massage from a woman who fit that exact description. While telling each other a little bit about ourselves over the massage, I discovered that she was quite alarmingly one of the most fearless women I've ever met who knew exactly what she wanted, did what she had to do to reach that goal, even though it was a completely un-ideal situation she had to stick out for a while. This is quite cliched, but nevertheless something I didn't expect to hear today over a free facial; she'd said that she never knew if the next day was going to be her hour, so she might as well have as much fun as she could and make the most out of it.
• Over dinner today, while catching up with a girlfriend of mine, we started talking about money and the different obstacles it has brought to our lives. Then the waitress came and brought us a bottle of water, which had the word "wealth" imprinted on it. Then, my friend pulled out a card from a stack that the restaurant provides for every table (it's like a little q&a game you're supposed to play with whomever you're having a meal with), and it had a series of questions on it dealing with money issues, such as what your relationship with money is like; what would you criticize about yourself in relation to finances; are you proud of the way you think about money and what it matters to you; would you treat your friends the way you treat money, etc. Then, my friend pulled out another card and it eeriely echoed another topic that we had just been discussing a minute before. The questions on this card now had to do with the subject of worth, such as (paraphrased): do you know that considering yourself as wrong will put you in a constant state of judgment? Let go of judgments on yourself and see that you are worthy.
• So then of course by this time it felt like a tarot card reading. I told my friend that she probably has talents for it and should think about doing that.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope it'll be a great Thanksgiving weekend for all of you.

I am currently in Indonesia, and the internet connection here at my place is terrible. I think it took 5 minutes just to open Buzznet. lol

Bush was here in town (Bogor) last week and it was like the biggest event of the year. He came on the day of my father's birthday, and all the roads were either jammed or closed, so we couldn't get out at all. Protests were happening everywhere in town, but it was interesting to see the more light-hearted reactions of other locals: villagers/farmers who were here at my dad's factory to sell their harvest were eagerly waiting for the helicopters, and when it suddenly started pouring (our town is nicknamed "city of rain" for good reason), they gushed, "Bush is going to get drenched!" He was supposed to land on a helipad specially built for his arrival, but he ended up landing somewhere else. The locals aren't too happy about that because a lot of the natural foliage had to be destroyed in our famous botanical garden just for this helipad. A ridiculous decision in the first place: all that for nothing.

But that was not what I was here to write about. Let me leave you with some words I ran across recently that I really like, and thought would be appropriate for this Thanksgiving weekend:

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"This book is dedicated to Patricia Fumerton, who, with our daughter, Lian, makes up my closest, most important network. The intellectual interest that Paddy shares with me in the question of history and culture, the tolerance she has shown for the long hours of digital activity I have had to devote to this book...and the fine interweaving of our life... these remind me how precious is human life -- far more robust and fragile, both, than any virtual or 'posthuman' life we now know. In this, my nearest netword, we may not be cool, but we are warm."

- Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information, a book that explores what roles literature and the humanities in general have to play in the face of an increasingly digitized world.

 

"If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival... As we rush to explore the new vistas that cyberspace has made available for colonization, let us remember the fragility of a material world that cannot be replaced."

- Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, a book that deals with the question of embodiment in an information age.

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All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows
No tomorrow, No tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i'm dying, Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad World, Mad World

While in line at Kinko's...

"I don't really care if my glass is 1/2 full or 1/2 empty -- I'm just happy to have a glass." (Joe Farrell)

It's this kind of optimism that I find inspiring in others, and also the kind that I fall into the majority of the time. I'm just afraid of what will happen the day this kind of faith runs out, the glass completely empty, devoid of water, and I may find myself wanting to break the glass.

Quote of the day:

"he is a d-o-g, and I don't mean year of the dog." - mw

;-)

We sat three across on the plane. I was reading Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, and contemplated her discussion on the effects that information technologies have on the printed text (the traditional, physical book), and how the reader -- as well as his/her reading -- becomes modified as well, as he/she comes increasingly into contact with digitized text (e.g., online) instead of traditional print text. Bibliophiles will stress the inherent pleasure and value in the physical form of the book. It was interesting for me, as I was thinking about this particular subject, to see the people next to me -- there we were, sitting quietly in each other's seats, with books in our hands. Three generations sitting next to each other, engaging in the same activity of reading the traditional printed text. A 50-year old mother, a 13-year old son, and I, in my mid-20's. It may not be such an extraordinary or spectacular thing if you really think about it, but that was how I felt as I sat there pondering those questions and looking at my fellow travellers. She was reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and he was reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. We sat three across on the plane: three different generations next to each other, with three completely different genres of books. Suspended in the air, we shared in our quiescent state the fundamental act of reading a book. No laptops, no iPods. It was an example of a simple and beautiful thing. It drove Hayles' point home: "As we rush to explore the new vistas that cyberspace [and other technologies] has made available for colonization, let us remember the fragility of a material world that cannot be replaced." All that is solid may now melt into space as we move into an increasingly digitized 21st century, but some fundamental things are worthy of being sustained.

Before you start saying, "what ugly shoes!", let me tell you the story of these faithful vintage mary janes of mine (and when I say "vintage," I am not kidding: they have been with me for the past 10+ years, and it would be more than that if I decided to keep them). They are the coolest and most resilient shoes I have ever had, and they've even aged to a beautiful dark maroon shade *don't laugh*. I bought them in Melbourne, Australia more than ten years ago; good thing I bought them a size too big. Well, I guess all things must pass, and I feel this is the time to put them to rest. They deserve it, and I need to move on and find a new pair. It won't be the same, and we have been through rain and shine, cold and hot, thick and thin. ha ha... I have had comments ranging from "they're cool" to "they're fugly" and "too chunky and old," but I love you, oh maryjanes. Goodbye.

 

Autumn leaves:

Red trees, adamantine rocks

And you, deathless in the water.

 

Eye, waiting and calling

For the hands to turn:

Build me a city of eternity.

 

This may require some madness;

Faith, a disease.

For every illness there is a drug,

So I, too, shall be prescribed.

 

But as night falls and morning passes,

The widening depths I have dug

Resist medication;

No bridge to break the fall.

 

And so, there are only these:

Growing trees and adamantine rocks

And you, deathless in the water.

 

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and this below is a poem I chanced upon, that reminds me of the same special person I dedicated the above poem to. In contrast to the more sentimental/moody one I wrote above, this one by Wendy Cope is funnier and has a more light-hearted tone:

 

 

Giving Up Smoking

 

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That's easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven't finished yet --
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.

 

 

Today's horoscope! "Have you ever seen a close up picture of a fly's eye? Its surface looks like a diamond, full of facets and thousands of little lenses through which that annoying, little bug can gather a particularly detailed view of the world. Today, your vision is like that of a fly. You will see all the aspects of what's in front of you. Consequently, this is a great day to make big decisions."

Well, I'm a human fly, I say "bzzz bzzz bzzz"... and it's just because I'm a human fly, and I don't know why.

A tribute to my deceased brother: a kind, goofy, protective, humble, down-to-earth, most wonderful older brother. Although we spent most of our adult lives half the world apart from each other, ties that bind can not be broken by time and distance. Even now, we will always be connected. I am glad that he got to live out his dream of becoming a DJ; and indeed he became one of the best in the country. I am still amazed at his talent. Despite all of that he remained true to himself. Tomorrow and tomorrow may creep in a petty pace from day to day, and you may have walked the way to dusty death, but you are in our hearts even beyond the limitations of time. Your life was not a walking shadow; your tale was not told by an idiot; it was full of glory and hope, signifying much love and strength.

 

Cold, windy morning... (I live in Daly City - fog central) Got in to work at about 7:15 am. It was foggy, but I suppose my head was as foggy as - if not more than - the weather itself.

me: It's Friday!

Sharlene: (pauses for a second) Right... It's my Friday, as I work Sundays-Thursdays. But no, Friday is tomorrow. It's Thursday, isn't it?

me: (pause. blank look)

Sharlene: (comes over to give me a hug) Oh honey, you really believed it!

I've had blisters all week from wearing new shoes. I don't mind it, as I want to be able to wear these shoes. So I just bear it, and put on new bandaids each morning. I thought, either I will get accustomed to the pain, and thus be able to live in these shoes, or I will just have to keep stocking up on bandaids. Because I am so conscious of the friction between my foot and shoe, I've had one particular line from Me and You and Everyone We Know play in my head repeateadly throughout the day. It's like I have another voice in my head telling me this every day. Remember one of the earlier scenes where Christine tries on a pair of pink shoes and we see her blisters? Richard, the salesman, then says: "You think you deserve the pain, but you don't." That's the line that has been playing in my head since yesterday; it's kind of creepy how I still have it in my head today. I guess it will go away once I'm not so aware of my pain :). Anyhow, I love that film. I could watch it over and over again. I guess I should thank my blisters for reminding me of that  fact.

I could live in a bookstore. No place is as comforting as a bookstore. Especially when it's cloudy out and all you want to do is spend hours sitting, reading, turning your thoughts inward.

Books, ah books...