Dreamy cats

I had a dream that you got a cat. I came over unannounced. You had guests. And a cat.

I don't know what the cat looked like.

I know it wasn't you though, it was some other you, some dreamworld you, multidimensional but in other dimensions than reality. I know the difference, now.

And also just that
you don't have a cat.

Feynman

Feynman was born a Taurus so of course the two of you are nothing alike but it doesn't stop me from making comparisons.  You would too, you know.

Feynman was an artist and he knew Mandarin and he kept his time for himself.  Did you know that Maggie gave me a book with a series of lectures by Feynman? Sometimes I wonder how it is that I haven't read and re-read everything that he's written and or said but I suppose that one authorial obsession a year is probably enough.  Besides, I've got this whole book on the Herald Tribune to read.  Someday. Maybe.  Maybe not.

My writing is shit but I don't give a damn. Do you give a damn?  I'm not sure if Feynman gave a damn.  I think it's one of those things where giving a damn is relational to who you're talking to, you know.  I mean, what does it mean to care really.  What if I know the answer to this question but I don't care enough to tell you.

Or maybe I care, too much.

My writing is shit but I'm ok with that.  Sometimes I look back on what I've been up to, writing wise, and I realize that I used to write better.  Or at least, more formally.  And the quality of my ideas isn't necessarily improving, if anything they're less eluciditory.  Or so it feels.

Feynman was probably never a shitty writer. I bet he always just wrote what he felt needed to be written.  The next, logical thing that came to mind.  Or at least, the one that made the most sense at the time.

the time has come, the walrus said. to speak of many things. of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. and if the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.

I have

...seen the problem now. I had thought that it was with you, or in a thing that I had done, but I realize, now, that the problem is in me. Myself. That is the problem. Perhaps you could point to a problematic action, but those, those were just symptoms of the deeper, the root cause.

The first step is seeing. And just seeing. To sit with just seeing, no judging. To just see. And to be, in that seeing, whatever it is.

***

May the G train come shortly, and be with you also, in peace.

Metal meets the rubber; where's the road?

Having a crises about things that can mostly be defined as too much dreaming not enough doing. Sort of. Not enough doing in the right direction.

The rubber has met the metal but it's still a long way off from the road.

What's the problem?  Where's the sticking point? Why are you procrastinating on this thing that you said that you wanted to do, like actually do?

Is it the task or the totality of the thing that's holding you back?  What about this spoken for future are you having trouble coming to grips with?  You said you wanted this thing but now you're not doing the thing. You're not doing the thing.  That's the problem, with everything.  That you're not *doing* the thing.

Bah.

Do you ever think that maybe the time has come for you to stop being uncomfortable.  If discomfort is the only thing that you know, maybe finding a comfortable place to be, like chilling in the what is instead of the what could be, would be a beneficial thing to do with life and time.

What do you say, dog?  Do you?

Dog says it's hot as balls in here and I couldn't disagree.

Wherein I confess my deep and true love for pop

I've been having a lot of good dreams lately. I've also been on what feels like an insane schedule.  In bed after midnight, still wired.  Up before 7am to let the dog out, to go on a walk, to make breakfast, to sit and to write.

I'm tired in the afternoons but I love it.  The dreams come, the mornings come, the evenings... they come.  But they don't go.  They aren't leaving me, I am here and I am awake.

You left Austin months ago. We last spent time together over Thanksgiving, when I was in town for a few hot moments. You gave me some books, and told me about how you were leaving. For real, for good. I wondered what it meant.  You, who had weirdly and yet emptily been there for everything.  Parts of London, Brasil, Atlanta, strange cities, and Austin, always Austin.  But you were packing, you were giving out books, belongings, aprons. You who I joked were my constant, my LOSTiean time-stable person who, if I ever got lost in time, would be the person that I would go to find.

You were leaving. It felt like the end of something.  Like a final goodbye. Like I was shut of all the places that I had encountered you.  Like there was no going backward, not now.  All hopes of being lost in time and then found again, left. Evaporated.

I don't know where you are now.  I don't know that I want to.

Your apron was destroyed by a potty training puppy a few months ago.  The book you gave me, I got halfway through before desisting, as I do most times when confronted with anything that even vaguely resembles deep self-inspection.  It wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, this therapist's idea of a book form of things.

I thought that you leaving meant that I was done with the places that you had found me.  That would be here. That would be there. That would be almost everywhere.

I was wrong.  It just meant that you were done.  You were gone. You were leaving.  You were moving on, and I was just doing what I do -- observing. Seeing, watching you get the fuck out.

That did mean something, but as is with most things, it meant less than I thought it did.

There is love in the tiniest breath of the universe.

I came here because I have a confession.  I love pop. I love country. I love the latino channel. I don't really like electronica, or house, or non-nostalgic rock.  These tastes are strong and have endured.

They will not change, they are as fixed as the stars under which we born.

How about some conspiracy?

Here's some conspiracy for you, brought to you by me, yours truly.[1]

Martha Nussbaum was born May 6th. She is a Taurus. She is a prolific writer, and well-regarded intellectual.  Her first and only husband was a Sagittarius (December 17).

Jane Jacobs is another prolific writer and brilliant observer.  She was born on May 4th.  Her largest foe in the field was Robert Moses (December 18), a Sagittarius.

None of this means anything, but it's kind of fun to have a way to sketch people's lives out on a template that somewhat maps onto something within reach of my own.

I understand people and birthdays and celebrations and what it means for someone to "act like a Taurus".  I don't understand brilliant authors and philosophers and what it was like to be a smart strong academic woman in the 20th century.  But I can understand their birthdays.

Tauruses all remind my of a friend that is no longer a friend, because I did not know how to not let her go.

I spent most of today waiting in line for confession, only to discover that the priest had turned his light off a few hours ago.  I'm not sure why no one passed the message back, down to the rest of the parishioners that had been forced to wait outside, in the muggy heat, but they didn't pass it back or down and there we were, stuck outside.

Oh well.

I'm 98% certain that nothing will have changed by Friday, and that we'll be yet again stuck outside in the heat.



People talk a lot about how writing is cathartic.  It is, but not in the way that other people find it, I don't think.  Certainly, it is an outlet, but for what I'm not exactly sure.  Words that are easy to type are often not easy to say, or even would be or could be said, even if I wanted them to.

There are many things that I want to talk about, but most of all I think that typing is just a way of getting exercise for my fingers.  At times I wonder if this is the sole reason that I do alright as a software programmer -- it's because at the end of the day I so love the small, minute movements that are required to produces, to execute, to make and get paid.  I'm admittedly not very accurate but that's not nearly so important as the need to type to move to put fingers to keys and to feel my thoughts become physical in the depressive act of keystrokes.

Perhaps I would make a great piano player. Perhaps this is why I was good at the bassoon.

But what are perhaps? Perhaps it's time to stop asking.  There is such a thing as being scattered about, but I'm not sure what the answer is to not being so scattered.

The dog is sleeping.  It is also time for me to sleep, poor thing. She waits so long for me to move, to do, to go.

I will be tired again tomorrow, but there is no relief from the ever pounding need to know, to do to execute.

If there is no pride in doing, why do?  If there is no utter joy in the extension of the will into reality, into the physical being, why produce?  If the perhaps have been investigated and fully found out, then why continue asking?  What new novelties await a thing already known?

What questions are these?

There is an excellent profile of Martha Nussbaum in this week's edition of the New Yorker.  It's what started off the thoughts of conspiracy (a deep curiosity to understand more about what her world view might have encompassed), and a deep sense of kinship.

I found it marvelous that one could go into a field that is so welcoming to autobiography as the field of philosophy.  The whole field feels appears to be a large group of people, sitting around pondering how other's autobiographies reflect, guide and shape their own.

How lovely, don't you think?


[1] The best thing to do, in the face of impending doom and destruction is to really dig into what ever it is that you find interesting and delightful and zany about the world.

The Jams

The only limit on yourself is joy.

I did a lot of things today.
- another blog post.
- PR for a new interview prep question.
- Debugged and merged a tricky PR.
- Talked to some new people, about APIs and chess and application architecture.
- Talked to other people about dogs and music recommendations.
- Went on a run.

- Listened to some Jams.
- Worked on some Yams.

Joy is out there, some where, waiting for us.

Hi Joy. 👋