home for the holidays

It's the 24th. I'm at home for the holiday, desperately whacking my way through a bug list about a mile long.  Dolly and her male counterharmonic are crooning about the timelessness of this particular Christmas.  Hard to say for a season that's just now starting, but I'm sure that the upcoming December 25th will be memorable.  Thanksgiving is waddling it's way to a close and I'm already wishing it was January 2nd.

I don't want to just get through the next month.  No, I want to transcend it on a cloud of self-actualized oblivion.

There was no turkey this year -- just a ham, some spaghetti squash, flaming coffee, skewered tempers and a movie about infectious diseases.

I didn't give much thought to coming home for Thanksgiving until it had already been mostly planned out beneath me.  Work, cooking classes, food, dinners, friends coming into town.  All I had to do was get myself there.

Now I'm at home, my last night in town and I'm hating myself for not getting more work done earlier in the day.  My dad's on the sofa, reading a magazine, while my sister's off with a mutual friend.  Her and I talked, a few days ago.  We talked about New Years and New York and new plans and old dreams. I cried myself to sleep when it was finally over, distraught over the thought of the coming month.

Well, here it comes. Howdy December.

The shopping cart

Victor worked the late shift at the corner store on weeknights.  The store was an establishment with a small footprint, dingy, occupying a crowded corner on the avenue between 29th and 28th.  The low slant in the awning above the entry way kept most potential customers at bay, not that Victor minded.  There was a small deli counter, where they sold hot pressed paninis and toaster ovened bagels.  That toaster oven was pure genius, in Victor's mind.  It put their establishment a step above the knish place a block and two slanting awnings away that had only a microwave for heating up their potato cakes.

In the mornings, Victor worked as a janitor for the city parks.  Responsible for the cleanliness of one, albeit small, corner of his grand city.  They had given him a set of keys to the trash bins, a broom and dustpan, and a well-starched forest green uniform with creases in the sleeves.

His schedule had a rhythm to it; unchanging and steady.  He'd wake up early, heat up a leftover panini that he had brought home from the deli store the night before, and button up his uniform to make the long trek to the park.  It was a few blocks from the deli, but about two miles from where he lived on the east side of town.  When it got colder out, he'd take his bike, but on a day like today -- sky a tepid blue color from the lifting morning haze -- he enjoyed watching the rest of the city lazily come to its senses.

It was early November, about 5:30 am in the morning.  A cool 53 degrees with a sharp, intermittent breeze that cut through his three-day beard.  The walk was a long one today - he arrived at the park a little past 6:10.  The small plaza that occupied the majority of the park was quiet.  There were a few homeless men sleeping on the benches on the north side of the square, under the large maple tree that shone with its late fall dress of burnt copper.  The meteorologists had been predicting a cold winter, and this tree was celebrating the fact like a spoiled red haired child.  At the other end of the plaza, there was a small walking garden with benches where couples liked to spend their time.  It had a habit of collecting random articles of clothing -- last week it had been a turquoise sweater and a pair of oxfords.  The week before he'd found a fedora and a pair of woman's socks.  The west side was shady, and cool this morning.  There was an almost full shopping cart at rest in the grass beneath the trees, on the western side of the south-central fountain.  There was a slight slope down from the the fountain on the north side of the inner walkways; the cart appeared to have rolled from one end to the other until it came to rest against the stone curb of the central walk and one of the many public trash cans.  It was rusty and heaped with plastic bag bundles of various shapes, all covered with a layer of grime.  There was usually an owner of the cart somewhere nearby, but this one looked as though it had been momentarily forgotten.

Victor took his broom and dustpan off his shoulder and began sweeping the plaza, beginning at the eastern end of the park, and working his way south.  It was 10 o'clock in the morning before he finished his loop, picking up trash and sweeping off the non-occupied park benches.  The day had brightened considerably, cooling off a bit as the morning fog burnt off.  With his broom and dust pan over his shoulder, he began the walk home.  

The next morning at the plaza was quiet again, the overcast sky drizzling melancholy into the early shadows.  The shopping cart from yesterday was still there, knocked on its side in the wet grass, its contents spilled haphazardly onto the lawn.  A ratty blanket and a few stuffed plastic bags were slowly soaking in the drizzle.  A second shopping cart was perched next to the first cart on the walk, with a few bags piled up beside it.  From his side of the plaza it was hard to tell, but Victor was fairly sure they were previously occupants of the cart now toppled into the grass.

He sighed and began sweeping the east side, slowly making his way clockwise down towards the south end of the fountain.  It wasn't the mess that Victor minded so much as the uncertainty.  Regardless of their contents, he assumed them to be prized, if to no one else the their owner.  Or previous owners.  It was commonly known that the majority of shopping cart owners were mentally ill; not so much persons down on their luck as just out on a mental limb that no one had wanted to climb after them on.  

But what to do with them?  One lonely shopping cart was harmless, but once a crowd began to form (of carts, that is), it suddenly became his responsibility. He glanced northward toward the maple shaded trees, then headed in that direction.  

The park's night time inhabitants were no where to be seen this morning.  The cold drizzle and plunging temperatures must have driven them to seek warmer shelter elsewhere.  Victor sighed, and turned, with growing unease, of how to deal with the problem spilling into the grass on the southern end.  

He removed the trashcan lid, and hefted the first of the bundles into the can.  It was surprisingly lightweight, and looked to be filled mostly with plastic bottles -- a few used Coke bottles (though really, you didn't see many of those these days) mixed in among a plethora of water bottles.  Aquafina, Poland Spring.  Victor wasn't sure what those words stood for, but his grasp on the English language was tenuous, even on better days.  In Romanian, aquafina passibly translated to 'fine water'.  Someone had forgotten to leave the space between the words -- as it was it passed for marketer's Latin.

The last of the trash bags disappeared into the waste bin.  These had been a bit heavier than the first, but Victor made quick work of them.  He pushed the carts out of the north park entrance and left them sitting outside the gates to the park, hidden next to one of the entrance posts.  

He returned to finish sweeping.  On his way back to pick up his broom where he had left it beside the trash can, he realized that even the heaviest of the bags had failed to make a sound when tossed in.  Nor had there seemed to be a lack of space, even though he had dumped a full two carts worth of bags.  

The trash can was a more modern design, a tall solid cylinder of heavy molded steel with two large holes cut on the sides to allow trash to be tossed in. Curious now, he removed the heavy steel cover, propped it carefully against its side and peered in.  There was no sight of the bags he had just tossed in, just the billowing black of a newly opened trash bag.  With trepidation, he reached down to feel for the bags he had certainly just placed there himself.  The back of his neck tingled, his ears filled with a rushing sound, and suddenly Victor found himself hurtling over the event horizon of a black hole.

In the plaza, the rain picked up and began to soak through the wooden handles on the dustpan and broom, propped beside the waste bin on the western side of the south fountain.

Bugs under the Covers

Debugging is an artform.  The right debug message, once you've figured out what it means, can save you hours of digging.  If you can figure out what they're talking about, that is.  On the other hand, a badly worded or just plain misdirecting debug statement can waste hours of your time.

Not enough can be said about the right console log or print statement.  Any bug is trivial once you know where to look.

Super Guac

Need a dense, vegan friendly calorie booster? Try this guac inspired super combo.
Warning- its a bit salty, so if possible enjoy with unsalted chips, homemade or unsalted hummus, and/or unsalted miso.
1/2 an avocado
3-5 tbs hummus
1/2 c freshly cooked unseasoned beans (I used adzuki, but black beans would work as well)
1 1/2 tbs miso paste
Optional: few drops lemon or lime juice.

Mash avocado with beans with back of spoon. Mix in hummus, then miso paste and citrus. I didn't have any citrus, but it could use a little. Enjoy with chips!
Caveat: This is so dense, it could float a rock.  But I finally feel full. 
Winning!

Camel Straws

It feels like a rubber band, that loses it's elasticity.  You're pulling back, ready to let fly, and suddenly find a sagging scrap of rubber dangling from your forefinger.  Or when the elastic in your favorite sweatpants gives out, stretching out to hip size and refusing to come back in to meet your waist.  Or the day at the pool that your swimsuit gives out, as you're reaching for the last stroke, the winning pull against your brother.  Droopy suit 'boobs', you discover, are not a part of a victor's garb.  

There may have been 10,000 pieces, but they all fall to the ground as one.  A solid wall of camel and straw.  His knees are gone, strength disappearing as the elastic rubber band of the earth snaps him back down.

All Gravity is is a gigantic elastic band.  Every push up against it, like a bungied fall down a precipice -- yanked back at the other end.

Does it really matter how many pieces that it took?  That he stood for a whole nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine?  He snapped, like an avalanche.

I like to think that he'll be back.  That he'll at some point, get back up.  That he'll realize how little ten thousand is, and talk himself up all 10 hands of camel height.  Never mind that it's harder to stretch a band out than to keep it taut.  Never mind that he's never done it before.

It's all a matter of mind over matter, isn't it?  Isn't it?

Auto bio graph ies

There was a Haxor Skool get together tonight.  It was the first time we all really hung out, away from the classroom, in a mingling environment.  I met someone from UT, and as I was introducing myself, I realized that I don't tell anyone about plan II any more.  And in that, I was, by omission writing it out of my story.  It's ironic when you think about it though.  Most of my college friends and experiences, in some way, were related to plan II.  I got more from plan II, and Portuguese really, than I did from any of the other majors that I profess to be.  Really, it says more about me than "Management Information Systems".  It's a truer representation.  But I'm writing it out...

In a way, Haxor Skool reminds me of plan II.  The people are all smarter than me.  We're all driven, fun, dynamic and interested people with a love for learning.  It makes me wonder what experiences I truly missed while I was pretending to be more than "Plan II".  Because honestly, that's what I am. I am a plan IIer, maybe even more so than a haxorskooler.  I love learning and discussing systems, meta thoughts, psychologies.  I'm obsessed with identities and cultures, almost to a fault.  I want to talk to people about how they see the world, what they think of thinking, how programming is changing the world.

As much as it may, or may not, be a 'true representation' of myself, I am writing it out.  And in the act of doing so I find, by accident really, that I have the power to do just that.  To write Plan II out. With that recognition, comes the realization of responsibility -- that my story is my own.  

To understand why this is so revolutionary, you have to understand that implicitly I'd always expected someone else to be keeping track of my life, writing the life story of me in the memory of someone else.  I'm not sure who; just someone.  So it didn't matter if tonight I didn't explain that I did Plan II, or that I was on cross country in high school, or that I'm trilingual, or one of a hundred other facts about me and my life, someone would know.  They would tell that story, to this person, if I didn't.  My reputation, my story, my history would be told, with or without me.  Right?

Looking around, though I don't see that someone.  And that's just it: that someone doesn't exist. The ghost writer that I've been expecting to find is actually me -- I am the author and bookkeeper of my own story.  My story, without me, goes untold.  But just as amazing, as author,  I have the power to write it as I go.  Not the history part, not really.  What's done is done.  But how much of that affects or is brought into the present, what's brought to light in the now -- that's my responsibility, my power.  No one here knows the whole story of me.  And how can they?  In college, no one fully knew the whole story of high school.  And no one in high school fully knew the whole story of my childhood.  My oldest friend, who's known me since middle school, makes up parts of our history together.  (Literally, has memories of me that couldn't have possibly happened since I lived in a different city at the time).  There is no one that knows the whole history of me.  Not one, single person.  


Just me.


So I have to ask.  If I am the only person who knows my history, how much of it actually matters?  I mean, as we carry ourselves forward in time, what do the people we've met and the places we've been mean?  If you cut all ties, drop your email, shut the face book, change your number, move to a new place, what's left?  


Just you.  But, who are you?  The more I ask myself this, I find that it's not where I've been, or what I've done, or who I know, but the kinds of people that I enjoy spending time with.  The conversations that I want to have.  The food that I enjoy eating.  What I want to do with my spare time.  How I want to interact with the people that I've met on the subway, on the street, at bars, meetups, book clubs.  The experiences that I want to have, the emotions that I want to feel.  What matters, then, is just that - and that is who I am.  That, the things that I want, and that I feel and I experience -- that's me.


The job of recording our stories may be ours.  We are our own bookkeepers, written, if you're smart, in your own identity.  But writing stories, alone, is lonely work.


As a former self said it best:  "True love is that that saves you the trouble of writing an autobiography".   

Remapping my keyboard

I've remapped my keyboard from the normal, QWERTY layout to a more stream-lined layout called COLMAK.

I've only had it converted for a day or so now, but it feels pretty magical. My fingers move a lot less distance to type each word.  COLMAK moves all the most common letters (arst-neio) under your fingers, reducing the amount of stretching your fingers must do to reach the keys. A lot of the minor keys get left where they stand. (So qw/zxcvb).  I'm already up to 20 words per minute with it, and I'm liking the deliberateness it forces onto what I'm going to write.  Every keystroke has to be planned and thought through.

Research has shown that thinking in a non-native language increases the rationality of your thought process -- the jury's still out on whether the same can be said about typing schemas.

For what it's worth, the brain remapping process reminded me a lot of the same pain I went through when learning to separate out Spanish and Portuguese in college. (For the record, that took about 4 months.  I'm in the hours range with COLEMAK still, and it already is light-years ahead, adjustment wise.)  In fact, I would bet that it's largely the same learning process.  The trick, for me at least, is to map over a different part of the brain, or convincing your self this is a new skill almost entirely, so that the old key mappings don't make "logical" sense anymore.  When my fingers reach for an old key, I rationalize why that's not the key I'm looking for.  Something along the lines of "well of course, that's N, the real K is hiding here", and then hitting the correct key. :)